AMERICAN DEFENSIVE SPEECHES: STYLISTIC MEANS OF SPEECH IMPACT ON THE JURY

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the investigation of the role of stylistic figures in exerting an effective speech impact on the jury. A defensive speech on a trial combines features of all functional styles, but mostly it demonstrates features of both the style of official documents and oratory, characterized by the formation of complex stylistic relationships between its evaluative-and-emotional components and logical reasoning. Therefore, this type of speech as a special kind of oratory is an instrument of emotional and rhetorical impact on the consciousness of the judicial audience. The analysis has found that, in general, the barrister uses stylistic figures of the syntactic level in his speech. This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that the defense attorney makes a mental suggestion on the part of both the emotional impact, and logical reasoning. The latter is carried out mainly by syntactic means since, beginning with Ancient Greece, syntax has been considered to be part of logic. The author makes a conclusion about the barrister’s exerting an effective speech impact on the audience mainly due to the use of rhetorical questions, repetition, direct speech, ellipsis and aposiopesis in his speech.