Dealing with civility as a communicative praxis that has some principles is inspired by Troester and Mester’s (2007: 85) view that practicing civility requires “using language that empowers rather than disparages, builds trust rather than deceives, and helps others rather than hurts them”. In legal context, civility can be pragmatically manifested by various principles. Among them are the principle of facts ascertainments and the principle of respect for authority.
As for, the principle of facts ascertainments, it means finding facts out for certain. Civility helps interlocutors to respect differences without sacrificing the truth of facts. Due to the fact that courtroom interaction demands careful examination of facts, ascertainments of true facts surrounding the cases in the court trials are needed. Substantially, this principle reads that “to be civil, you have to be truthful when representing facts ascertainments“. To pragmatically realize this principle, there is a need for some pragmatic strategies that show the speaker’s thoughts on the truthfulness of what they utter to communicate existing state of affairs. Whenever possible, this could be accomplished by means of representative speech acts because these acts truly express the speaker’s beliefs, comments, and observations. Searle (1976: 3) states that the speaker’s intention in performing representative speech acts is to commit himself to the belief that the propositional content of the utterance is true. To follow this principle, interlocutors have to use a sequence of representative speech acts. Normally, courtroom interaction requires an exchange of ideas and claims between the judge and the defendants to present explanations and justifications. As Lanius (2019: 76) elaborates, ascertainment of facts, in courtroom contexts, requires representative claims which are issued by means of representative speech acts to support the argument over the truth of a particular claim. In legal discourse, civility is dominant and, thus, such ascertainment of facts can be considered as one of the civility principles.
Put conspicuously, the principle of facts ascertainments can manifest itself in the performance of representative speech acts in legal discourse. Basically, these acts include, for example, stating, asserting, assuring, reporting, boasting, complaining, lamenting, confessing, and denying.
Concerning the principle of respect for authority, in legal discourse, respect for legitimate authority entails appreciation and due regard for others due to their authority, status, ability, quality, or achievement. Civility calls for respectful behaviors among interlocutors even when they disagree with each other. This principle can be stated as “to be civil, you have to respect legitimate authority“. Pragmatically speaking, directive speech acts can be used as indications of such principle in the courtroom interaction because both the judge and the traffic lawbreakers must reflect such respect. Thus, directive speech acts can be the output of this principle for the reason that when directive speech acts are used by powerful authoritative speakers like a judge, they indicate his respect for his position and powerful role. However, they can be used by defendants in courtroom interaction but with some restrictions because sometimes they need to perform a request to get permission and this also shows the defendants’ respect for the legitimate authority. Directives include acts like commanding, asking, requesting, permitting, suggesting, advising, and recommending.
