PHD PRESNTATION

Storytelling in Moroccan Lawyers’ Written Pleadings:

Rhetorical Devices and Fiction Elements as

Tools for Argumentation and Persuasion

MLILESS MOHAMED

Theoritical Framework

Richard and Schmidt (2010) admit that forensic linguistics, which draws on recourses from semantics, acoustic phonetics, discourse analysis, pragmatics, sociolinguistics and other fields, is a branch of applied linguistics that investigate issues of language in relation to the law:

- Forensic identification,

- Discourse of the police and courts,

- Semantic of legal terminology,

- Accent discrimination, and the problem faced by non-

native speakers and minorities when dealing

with the judicial system.

Statement of the Problem

Purpose of the Study

Moroccan Judicial System

Pleadings

Language and Law

Narration / Storytelling in Pleadings

Fiction (persuasion)

Rhetoric (argumentation)

Audience

Research Questions

1. What are the most used rhetorical structures that Moroccan

lawyers use to consolidate clients’ very short stories in written

pleadings?

2. What literary techniques do Moroccan lawyers adopt to achieve

empathic aims through written pleadings?

3. Do the rhetorical and the literary patterns persuasively and

argumentatively support lawyers' legal purpose in ?

Hypotheses

1. Moroccan lawyers adopt a set of rhetorical devices in clients’ very

short stories to consolidate persuasive aims of the pleading.

2. Moroccan lawyers borrow techniques of fiction in reported stories of

clients to produce persuasive pleadings.

3. The types of rhetorical and literary patterns embedded in clients’

stories assure persuasive and argumentative legal aims.

Corpus Description

24 clients’ short stories extracted from Wahabi (2003)

Category Theme

Homicide

MURDER Atrocious murder

Murder of parents

Murder of a new born

Burglary

Theft under menace

THEFT Attempted theft

Concealed stolen objects

Attempted minor rape

MORALS Woman’s violence and rape

Adulatory

Lewd conduct

Corpus Description

Category Words

Murder 85231

Theft 83655

Morals 83089

Total 251975

Distribution of words per texts

Min Max Mean

Corpus (N=24) 153 924 482

Procedure

1- Rhetorical devices: The MIP modal (PG, 2007).

The unit of study: Sentence, utterance.

2- Literary techniques: identification of literary tools. (Hamdaoui, 2017)

The unit of study: Very short story (paragraph).

Rhetorical Figures

Metaphor

Simile

Metonymy

Allegory

Literary Elements

Theme.

Characters.

Conflict.

Setting.

Theme

Statement which summarizes the story and holds other literary elements.

In a legal narrative, the theme is the central idea of the case that the lawyer brings to the court.

A legal narrative has one theme that binds characters' actions, interactions, and motivations.

Characters

individuals who bring legal issues to the court.

Lawyer does not create characters, actions, and reactions.

They reports what causes legal issues.

Events are built around two major actors who constitute the story.

Conflict

Reflects the how individuals illegally harm others.

Lawyers are appointed to bring social frictions to courts:

WHO

WHEN

HOW

WHERE

Setting

Time and place in which the story happens.

Describes the context of the story.

Rheorical Devices

Clients’ narratives reported by Moroccan lawyers’ in written pleadings reveal the occurrence of metaphor, simile, metonymy, and allegory.

Rhethorical Devices : Results

Category Metaphor Simile Metonymy Allegory Total

Murder 32 24 16 8 80

41.8% 48.7% 40% 44.4% 40.6%

Theft 18 21 14 4 57

23.2% 33.8% 35% 22.3 % 29%

Morals 27 17 10 6 60

35% 17.5% 25% 33.3% 30.4%

Total 77 62 40 18 197

39.5% 31.2% 20.1% 9.2% 100%

Rhetorical Devices in Texts and Single Stories

Metaphor Simile Metonymy Allegory Total

Pleadings 77 62 40 18 197

Single story 3 2 1 1 7

Fiction Techniques

Based on Hamdaoui (2017), it is admitted that the four fiction techniques occur in all narratives.

Recomendations

Theory

1- More investigations are needed to explain the nature of oral communication.

2- More research on the paralinguistic features, the body language, and instant

feedback in legal settings.

3- In addition to linguistic and rhetorical constructions, consequent court

decisions need further investigation, refinement, and elaboration, in terms of

argumentation as a discourse representation.

Practice

1- Law schools engage serious reforms:

- Teach linguistic and rhetorical skills.

- New teaching methods:

more skilled in the writing skills,

- Take advantage of applied linguistics’ to improve writing competences of language as applied to

the practice of law.

2- lawyering BARS : Training of Moroccan lawyers should be addressed in terms of what capabilities need to be taught and improved through a reflective and continual monitoring of law and the linguistic and rhetorical knowledge.

Limitations

1- The analysis of oral pleadings was not possible.

2- Writing characteristics, including impersonal style, tense, passive and active

voice, modality, extensive use of sentences pronouncing rights and

obligations, were not accounted for.

3- Semiotics, cultural studies, sociolinguistics, syntax, semantics, etc., were without

concern.

4- Linguistic, social, and cultural post-traumatic representations of victims in criminal

investigation stages.

References

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