"It is amply clear that there is no convincing evidence to infer that": Evidentiality in Indian Arbitral Awards

Aikhenvald (2004: 1) defines evidentiality as a conceptual category which “states the existence of a source of evidence for some information; that includes stating that there is some evidence, and also specifying what type of evidence there is”. In her perspective, (2003: 19), evidentiality is rather concerned with marking the source of information than the expressions of “uncertainty, probability, and one's attitude to the information”; nevertheless, Aikhenvald concedes that evidentials are often manipulated “for highlighting important aspects of a narrative” (2003: 18). Furthermore, Fox (2001: 170) highlights the fact that in any language not only does evidentiality exist, but also it is dependant on the socio-interactional work the speaker operates to construct authority, responsibility, and entitlement in a particular context and with a particular recipient. In other words, social conventions and practices impinge on the choice of what type of evidential to use, in order to indicate both the source of information and whether the person using the evidential has the authority to do so, is responsible and/or entitled for doing so (Fox, 2001: 173).
This study is an attempt to explore the degree of evidential use in arbitral award practice, in which law and language intersect. Drawing from Chafe (1986), this investigation will be focused on those linguistic forms regarded as evidential markers which show degrees of knowing and degrees of reliability. In particular, this study will (a) investigate on how degrees of knowledge are expressed in terms of belief, induction, heresay and deduction and (b) describe if and to what extent knowledge matching or not with previously acquired experience is expressed in terms of expectations or hedges. The Corpus Linguistic analysis, based on a corpus of 59 arbitral awards issued between 2012-2014 by various Indian Regional Arbitration entres and published online by the National Stock Exchange of India (at http://www.nseindia.com/invest/dynaContent/arbitration_awards.jsp?requestPage=main&qryFlag=yes), will be followed by a qualitative analysis (Coffey/Atkinson, 1996) allowing the interpretation of the findings. This will inform specialists of the linguistic use of evidential markers in Indian arbitration.