Competition - game - ritual: Three aspects of communicative interactions in the courtroom

The article aims to identify and describe key aspects of agonal interactions in the courtroom and rhetorical strategies employed by prosecutors and defense attorneys in this context. Key aspects of agonal courtroom interaction -adversarial, human and ritual - were described. The study revealed that adversariality is realized through discredit, refutation and objection. The study showed that courtroom interactions are based on the conflict of intentions of the competing parties whose purpose is to win the struggle. The prosecutor aims at proving the defendant’s guilt, while the defense attorney aims to prove the defendant’s innocence. Persuasion is realized through a combination of adversary strategies. In order to prevent the opponent from violating communicative maxims, attorneys employ the strategy of objection verbalized through performative verbs, performative nominations or performative constructions. The study revealed that the features of game (participants, entertainment, rules and scenarios) are inherent in courtroom discourse, which indicates its ludic nature. The struggle between lawyers (participants) is observed by spectators in the courtroom. The jurors identify the winner, and the judge ensures the observance of rules. The ritual is an integral part of both the game and the competition and determines the nature of a sacred activity whose formal goal is to restore justice and the actual one is to choose the winner. The study demonstrated that all aspects of agonality - adversarial, human, and ritual - are interrelated: competition is a sign of the game, and ludic elements are an integral characteristic of any competition as a product of culture; both competition and game are governed by rules and involve at least two participants. The study based on the Russian- and English-language materials revealed shared patterns in the agonal interaction in the context of two different linguistic cultures and helped verify the research hypothesis, excluding the influence of systemic aspects of one language. The study proved that the choice of rhetorical strategies is not reliant on linguistic cultures, which indicates the high intercultural potential of agonality as a complex category of courtroom communication. Research into the agonal nature of courtroom interactions in non-prototypic communicative situations seems to be promising. An analysis of the correlation of various strategies of agonality in the courtroom discursive practices can also be an avenue for research. Since agonal rhetorical strategies are not limited to those revealed in the present study, further research into this issue can expand the list and lay the theoretical basis for a linguistic theory of agonality as a complex communicative category in the context of multidirectional intentions of communicants. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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