Modality in court hearing transcripts: An SFL approach

The present paper aims to investigate the use of Modality in Court Hearing Transcripts by the different participants and its relation with their different power status from a systemic functional approach (SFL). Danet (1980, 495) maintains that “words are a means to an end”. That is, “people play with words for their own sake.” Thus, this paper hypothesizes that the variable of participant has an effect on the distribution of Modality type (Modalization vs Modulation), Modality realization (congruent vs metaphorical) and Modality orientation (subjective vs objective) to serve a participant’s personal purposes. It also argues that such choices reflect the participants’ social power. The investigated corpus comprises two court hearings counting 1500095 words. On the quantitative pattern, the UAM CorpusTool is used to annotate all the instances of Modality according to their type, realization, orientation and sources. The qualitative analysis is also carried out by interpreting the various instances of Modality using the SFL approach, with a focus on the theory of Context. The study has shown that the distribution of Modality instances among the participants reflects their intentions as well as their various social degrees. This paper can add to the literature of SFL along with Legal Studies and raise awareness of people dealing with Modality in Court Hearings.