The Pragmatics of dialogic civility in the context of ethnic diversity

Abstract

This study is concerned with dialogic civility as an ethical pragmatic praxis which is pragmatically manifested by means of various pragmatic strategies and socially affected by some social variables. It basically aims to investigate differences in terms of the employment of the pragmatic strategies that manifest dialogic civility in the context of some traffic trials where defendants belong to different ethnic groups in the American society. The corpus of the study comprises twenty traffic trials as broadcasted on Caught in Providence Court Show which displays traffic violations committed by American defendants of different ethnic groups. To achieve its aim, this study develops a pragmatic model of dialogic civility which aims at analysing these trials taking into account whether the defendants are White-Americans or African-Americans. The findings reveal statistically significant differences in terms of the use of certain pragmatic strategies that manifest dialogic civility in the context of the traffic trials where defendants are ethnically different, i.e. White-American and African-American defendants. The study, thus, suggests that pragmatic strategies that reflect dialogic civility need to become fundamental components of effective legal dialogic discourse for defendants of different ethnic groups.