A Structural, Semantic, and Pragmatic Study of Swearing in Court Discourse in Durood City

Within the context of courtroom discourse, participants, ranging from legal professionals to lay individuals, strive to present their own narratives of events and establish the veracity of these narratives in their own minds. Consequently, courtroom discourse can be described as a "War of Narratives". In this struggle for narrative dominance, participants employ a range of discursive and interactive strategies, some of which are non-linguistic in nature and warrant investigation. One such strategy is the utilization of oaths, which serve as a persuasive tool aimed at influencing the audience. This study aimed to analyze the structural, semantic, and pragmatic dimensions of oaths in court discourse, employing both quantitative and qualitative approaches to examine the data. In the qualitative dimension, we explored the functions of different types of oaths within the framework of "cultural linguistics" (Sharifian, 2017), utilizing "cultural schemas". In the quantitative dimension, we employed statistical calculations to investigate the structure and frequency of various types of oaths. Examination of the data revealed that the most frequently used types of oaths were associated with the semantic domains of God (Allah) and the Quran (Word of God). Additionally, the presence of semantic diversity in the types of oaths employed could be attributed to the socio-cultural backgrounds of the participants. Furthermore, the analysis of various cultural schemas of swearing in court discourse confirmed identification of at least five discursive functions, namely self-defense, claim substantiation, slander, threat or warning, and request.
Introduction
Within the context of courtroom discourse, participants, ranging from legal professionals to lay individuals, strive to present their own narratives of events and establish the veracity of these narratives in their own minds. Consequently, the courtroom discourse can be characterized as a "War of Narratives". In this struggle for narrative dominance, participants employ a range of discursive and interactive strategies, some of which are non-linguistic in nature and warrant further investigation. One such strategy is the use of oaths, which serve as a persuasive tool aimed at influencing the audience. This study aimed to analyze the structural, semantic, and pragmatic dimensions of oaths in court discourse, employing both quantitative and qualitative approaches to examine the data. In the qualitative dimension, we explored the functions of different types of oaths within the framework of "cultural linguistics" (Sharifian, 2017), employin "cultural schemas". In the quantitative dimension, we employed statistical analyses to investigate the structure and frequency of various types of oaths. When examining the linguistic phenomenon of swearing, particularly as it pertained to our research topic, two major approaches could be identified in the existing research projects. The first approach prevalent in studies conducted within Western societies and languages examined the use of sacred words, such as the names of God and Christ, within the context of offensive language. The second approach rooted in studies conducted within religious societies, primarily Islamic countries, viewed the use of holy names as an act of commitment, whereby speakers incorporated religious phrases or words with sacred significance to pledge their adherence to or avoidance of a specific action, whether verbal or non-verbal. In this study, we adopted the second approach.
Although the use of swearing in court discourse could be examined from the perspectives of both lay and professional participants, the primary focus of this research was to analyze the utilization of oaths by lay individuals. References to its usage by legal professionals were also considered. Based on this premise, the present study aimed to address the following questions:

What cultural pragmatic schemas are expressed through the use of oaths in court discourse?
What structures and themes are prevalent in oaths used in court discourse? Additionally, what is the frequency of their usage by participants in different court settings (civil, criminal, and family courts)?

Methods
The data corpus comprised a total of 96,373 words collected from various criminal (investigation and judicial), civil, and family courts, as well as the prosecutor's office of Dorud City in Lorestan Province. The data collection period spanned from January 2^nd, 2023 to June 10^th, 2023. Subsequently, the data were tagged using Python software (version 3.10.11) based on predetermined criteria. An excerpt of the tagging process is illustrated in Example 1:
(1) <utterance uid="33" cid="3">
<sent sid="1" qc="2">مبلغ چقدر بوده؟</sent>
</utterance>
<utterance uid="34" cid="2">
<sent sid="1">دویست تومن بوده.</sent>
In Example 1, each speaking turn of the participants is treated as an utterance, which may consist of varying numbers of sentences. Additional indicators included file numbers, question types, participant types, and their genders. After annotating the corpus data, all types of oaths were extracted from the corpus separately for each part. General information of corpus can also be seen in table (1):
Table 1. The ratio of utterances in corpus




Types of courts


Total number of cases


Total number of utterances




civil


34


3042




family


26


2455




criminal


50


3134




total


110


8631




The subjects of the cases in the corpus, within the legal context, often included fraud, forgery, and similar offenses. In the criminal context, the cases typically involved assault, insult, obscenity, robbery, and theft. In the family context, the primary subject was divorce. It is important to note that, in order to protect the privacy of individuals, all personal information-such as names, surnames, the names of specific places, and any other details that could identify individuals-have been changed and are presented in an abbreviated form.
Results
Analysis of the collected data revealed that the participants employed swearing as a communication strategy to express various verbal actions. Oaths can be regarded as persuasive tools with distinct pragmatic effects. The structure of oaths encompassed diverse themes and topics with the most frequent occurrence being oaths made in the name of God (Allah) and the Qur'an (the word of God). This observation could be attributed to the court discourse, as the legal system in Iranian courts was founded on Islamic laws derived from the Qur'an. Consequently, it was plausible to infer that the individuals, while having this presupposition in mind, endeavored to substantiate and validate their statements. From a pragmatic standpoint, while swearing served multiple purposes in legal discourse, this study identified 5 culturally applicable schemas: self-defending, asserting claims, slandering, threatening/warning, and requesting. Statistical analysis confirmed that women employed swear words with an average frequency of 0.002 (usage rate of 43%), while men used them with an average frequency of 0.003 (usage rate of 57%) in their speech. This finding contradicted the apparent result reported by Sarabi (2014), which posited that women use swearing more frequently than men. Of course, it is worth noting that such contradictions could be observed in various research studies. It is possible to speculate that women, who are often less present in judicial environments and therefore less familiar with such discourses, perceive themselves to be in a comparatively weaker position than men, leading to their reduced use of oaths. Nonetheless, verifying this claim necessitates examining the usage of swearing in diverse contexts.
Another noteworthy finding from the data analysis was the identification of certain themes or sub-themes utilized in the structure of oaths by the participants, which were unfamiliar to the researchers as native speakers. This observation underscored the importance of adopting a socio-cultural approach in research. More specifically, the findings indicated that even within the same culture- namely, Lorestan Region- the themes employed in oath constructions could vary among individuals. These variations not only reflected religious beliefs, but also signified distinctive cultural and ethnic characteristics. Therefore, it is recommended to conduct studies employing both intra-cultural and inter-cultural approaches to explore the conceptualization of different types of oath constructions. Furthermore, there is a need for separate investigations into the content of swearing in the speech of women and men, as the usage of oaths can reflect diverse communication strategies and abilities.
Conclusion
Examination of the data revealed that the most frequently used types of oaths were associated with the semantic domains of God (Allah) and the Quran (Word of God). Additionally, the presence of semantic diversity in the types of oaths employed could be attributed to the socio-cultural backgrounds of the participants. Furthermore, the analysis of various cultural schemas of swearing in court discourse confirmed identification of at least 5 discursive functions: self-defense, claim substantiation, slander, threat or warning, and request.
Ethical Considerations
Not applicable
Funding
Not applicable
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.