Social attitudes by content, epistemic and speech-act conditional constructions in oral juridical discourse
Keywords:
Cognitive Linguistics, Conditional Constructions, Interactions, Social Frame.Abstract
This paper investigates conditional constructions in oral juridical discourses recorded in Tribunal de Justiça sessions in Niterói RJ. The analysis is based on the Cognitive Linguistics
point of view (FAUCONNIER, 1994 and 1997) and its paradigm called Contruction Grammar (GOLDBERG, 1995). The main hypothesis is that syntactic patterns of predictive, epistemic as well as pragmatic conditional constructions (SWEETSER, 1990) show pragmatic-semantic specific information according to the roles played by the speakers (judge, public prosecutor, public defender, culprit) at public hearings. The conditional constructions were relevant and
productive within the corpus, which can be explained by the persuasive aspect of the discourse in question.