Comparative Study on Hedges in Chinese and American Courtroom Discourse

This study mainly compares hedges in both Chinese and American courtroom discourse through two frameworks, the revised hedge model as an analytical framework and speech act theory as a theoretical framework. After data collection and analyses of the transcripts of 80,000 words in Chinese and 80,000 in American, this study shows some interesting differences, including modal verbs, rounders and epistemic evidential verbs, discusses them from their functions from the perspective of speech act theory and endeavors to explain them from different judicial culture and judicial procedures.