Defendants’ final words in Chinese courts reveal five distinct patterns of remorse and protest

A corpus-assisted study of 336 defendants’ final statements in Chinese criminal courts has mapped how people use their last courtroom word before sentencing, identifying five recurring attitudinal patterns that vary with gender, education and plea stance. The research, published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, applies Appraisal Theory to a specialised corpus of these statements. The analysis found that attitudinal resources cluster in a pyramid-shaped distribution, with Judgment, Affect and Appreciation forming its layers.

Within this structure, the researchers identified five recurrent patterns: Cathartic Remorse, Penitential Narration, Mitigating Attribution, Structured Advocacy and Minimal Articulation. These range from emotionally charged expressions of regret to carefully organised arguments for leniency, and to statements that barely engage in evaluation at all. Socio-demographic differences emerged clearly across the corpus.

Female defendants showed a distinct profile characterised by distress and negative self-positioning, while defendants grouped by education level differed in how often they deployed several attitudinal resources and in their overall evaluative orientations. Plea stance corresponded to three distinct evaluative configurations: one oriented toward contesting the charges, one toward selective negotiation, and one toward compliance with the court’s framing of events. Methodologically, the study extends the Appraisal Framework in two ways.

The researchers incorporated legality within the Judgment category, reflecting the legal setting in which moral and legal evaluation intertwine, and added orientation as an additional analytical parameter, enhancing the framework’s applicability to power-asymmetrical institutional discourse. The findings point to uneven patterns of evaluative participation in courtroom interaction. Because defendants differ systematically in how they construct evaluative stances, depending on who they are and how they plead, the study suggests that some defendants may engage more substantively than others in their final statement.

The authors highlight the need for institutional safeguards that can support more substantive participation in defendants’ final statements, so that this last word before the bench is not shaped primarily by a speaker’s demographic position or procedural posture.

Subject of Research: Attitudinal language in defendants' final statements in Chinese criminal courts

Article Title: The last word before the bench of power: a corpus-assisted attitudinal analysis of defendants’ final statements in Chinese criminal courts

Article References: He, J., Wang, Z., & Su, R. (2026). The last word before the bench of power: a corpus-assisted attitudinal analysis of defendants’ final statements in Chinese criminal courts. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-09418-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1057/s41599-026-09418-8

Keywords: defendants' final statements, Appraisal Theory, corpus linguistics, Chinese criminal courts, courtroom discourse, attitudinal language, plea stance, legal linguistics, institutional discourse, evaluative stance, last, word