Quite obviously, only those who have the most right to speak, to choose, to control and to change topics and turn-taking are endowed with power in courtroom conversation.
Based on the basic viewpoint of Norman Fairclough, this thesis studies power relations and discourse in courtroom conversation and strategies to realize power, by means of conversational analysis to analyze the corpus.
For the participants of the courtroom conversation in the highly insitutional social setting, power is distribued disproportionately with the judge topping the highest position,then the lawyer controlling the conversation while the witness placed the lowest as the person to be questioned. A conversational analysis of the lawyer -witness verbal exchange shows that the former exerts absolute control over the latter by meams of issuing closed questions,repeated questioning,etc. Meanwhil...