Analysis of discourses as forms of social interaction (A case-study of court shows)

The paper describes discourse as a tool of social interaction. The purpose of the research is to study the forms of social interaction in legal discourse practices. The paper is a case study of court shows aired on Russian and American TV channels. Three forms of social interactions in legal settings are analysed: Discourse of Differences, Discourse of Concord, and Discourse of Expert Community. The choice of the form of social interaction depends on communicative intentions, purposes and characteristics of discourse opponents (degree of expert knowledge). The paper is based on the theory of semiotic entities evolution suggested by A.M. Kaplunenko. The author assumes that every action is an interaction as it is made for certain intentions and purposes. The subjects of social interaction are guided by mutual expectations based on the social roles of each other and existing institutional standards of behaviour. The paper says that social interaction is not possible beyond discourse practices. Any type of interaction suggests communication through discourse. Discourse as a socially arranged, regulated set of communicative acts manifesting itself in texts is a tool of social interaction. By generating discourses in different social situations, communicators construe specific social roles and identities. The examples analysed show that communicators produce their institutional discourses around different semiotic entities depending on communicative purposes and degree of their own expertise and their opponents' expertise. Only taking into account the characteristics of the discourse opponent, one can achieve a specific perlocutionary effect. For example, while communicating with each other experts usually use special terminology, in communication with non-experts they abandon their professional language requiring a code to decipher it, which their opponents lack, and use notions which are based on natural rational knowledge. The paper concludes that the speaking subject performing one and the same social role can choose different forms of social interaction to achieve a specific communicative effect. Being in a specific communicative situation, the subject evaluates it and chooses a relevant communicative action following the rules and norms developed by the discourse community. The paper is of practical value as it can help lawyers produce their discourse with clients based on those semiotic entities which enable the perlocutionary effect.

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