한국일본학회

Impoliteness, the opposite of politeness is considered as a peripheral phenomenon. The conversation of Japanese native speakers is quite diverse and complex, and there are often cases of confrontation or conflict in which seemingly aggressive impoliteness can be noticed. In this respect, the present study focused on court scenes which have a higher possibility of insolence. In court, various tactics are used to win trials, and an insolent communication style is often used to achieve this goal. In this study, ungracious speech was categorized into facelosing threat types, such as behavioral arrest, negative evaluation, dissenting opinion or attitude, emotional outburst. Each type of locutionary act was further subcategorized according to the speaker’s intent regarding the facelosing threat. Additionally, we also explored the power relations of facelosing insolent communication during court disputes. Results show that in overall court communications, negative evaluations are the most common, followed by dissenting opinions or attitudes, emotional outbursts, and behavioral arrest. In terms of power relations for lawyers, we found crossexamination(問い詰め) and repetition of oath(念押し), while, for the witnesses, we found persistence(言い張り) and expression of anger(怒鳴り) are the most common. The prosecutors employed opposing statements while the chief judge gave strategic orders.