Diomkina O. Pragmalinguistic Speech Peculiarities of the U.S. Supreme Court Justices

The research is devoted to the complex analysis of judicial discourse. The investigation is conducted on the material of transcripts of the oral arguments in the Supreme Court - the only court of the United States where justice is administered by judges, not by the jury. The most important linguistic peculiarity of the communication is that all the participants of the interaction are highly qualified lawyers, so the language intercourse during the trial is professional communication. Etiquette plays an important role during the arguments. The classification of the strategies and tactics of the Supreme Court judges' speech behavior has been developed. Three main strategies have been identified and described: topical and formal control strategy, strategy of information inquiry and strategy of information correction. The author considers the factors which influence the choice of specific verbal means in the frames of each strategy in the context of the participants' social role, status and personality differences on the arguments. The study also examines language personalities of the Supreme Court justices in professional communication. On the basis of the comparison of three speech portraits of the Supreme Court justices the authoritarian character of judicial discourse is proved. The rights and duties of the Supreme Court justices during the argument are fulfilled via authoritarian dominance.