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  • Chapter 10 - The Pragmatics of Intensifiers

  • Claudia Claridge, University of Augsburg, Ewa Jonsson, Mid Sweden University, Merja Kytö, Uppsala University
  • Book:
    Intensifiers in Late Modern English
    Published online:
    15 March 2024
    Print publication:
    28 March 2024, pp 230-262

  • Summary

    The chapter details how the activity type of the courtroom trial and the specific speaker roles, that is, judges, lawyers, defendants, victims, and witnesses, influence the use of intensifiers. Speaker roles, and thus the persuasive aims typical of them, have been found to be more important determiners than gender and social class. Witness and victims are typically found to amplify aspects such as reliability, probability, and blamelessness. Witnesses also amplify the good character of defedants, while the latter themselves maximize their innocence. Lawyers use intensifiers, in particular amplifiers, to elicit the strongest possible answers from witnesses. Lawyers’ most persuasive uses are found in the adversarial legal speeches, where they boost both their own points and their denials of the other side’s arguments.