Linguistic representation of violence in judicial opinions in Malaysia

Violent behaviour is understood as being a social and unilateral action initiated by one party. It is social in nature as it occurs within an interpersonal context and unilateral per se because it involves action taken by one individual against the well-being of another. Judges use strategic disc...

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Main Authors:	Norzanita Othman, Nor Fariza Mohd Nor, Noraini Ibrahim
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2019
Online Access:	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14082/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14082/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14082/1/32352-102495-2-PB.pdf

id	ukm-14082
recordtype	eprints
spelling	ukm-140822020-01-31T22:40:16Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14082/ Linguistic representation of violence in judicial opinions in Malaysia Norzanita Othman, Nor Fariza Mohd Nor, Noraini Ibrahim, Violent behaviour is understood as being a social and unilateral action initiated by one party. It is social in nature as it occurs within an interpersonal context and unilateral per se because it involves action taken by one individual against the well-being of another. Judges use strategic discursive strategies to describe the accounts of the crime in their judicial decisions. This research aims to investigate the language used by judges to describe the accounts of rape in selected appellate judgments of sexual violence cases in Malaysia. Specifically, it aims to investigate the discursive strategies adopted by judges to reformulate the description of the crime. The findings revealed that violent, disapproving, sexual, and ambiguous terms were adopted. It was also revealed that the crime is often characterized as a non-coerced and mutually-consented behaviour rather than a criminal act. This results in minimizing the level of violence, the mitigation of offender’s responsibility, and the relegation of victim’s experience to the background. Another significant finding from this study is the issue of judges’ ‘interpretative repertoires’ in describing cases of sexual violence. We recommend for future studies to include a bigger sample size, as well as to study whether different rape categories namely acquaintance rape, incestuous rape, and stranger rape would reveal distinctive terms used for the respective rape types. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2019-05 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14082/1/32352-102495-2-PB.pdf Norzanita Othman, and Nor Fariza Mohd Nor, and Noraini Ibrahim, (2019) Linguistic representation of violence in judicial opinions in Malaysia. GEMA: Online Journal of Language Studies, 19 (2). pp. 82-98. ISSN 1675-8021 http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1188
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia
building	UKM Institutional Repository
collection	Online Access
language	English
description	Violent behaviour is understood as being a social and unilateral action initiated by one party. It is social in nature as it occurs within an interpersonal context and unilateral per se because it involves action taken by one individual against the well-being of another. Judges use strategic discursive strategies to describe the accounts of the crime in their judicial decisions. This research aims to investigate the language used by judges to describe the accounts of rape in selected appellate judgments of sexual violence cases in Malaysia. Specifically, it aims to investigate the discursive strategies adopted by judges to reformulate the description of the crime. The findings revealed that violent, disapproving, sexual, and ambiguous terms were adopted. It was also revealed that the crime is often characterized as a non-coerced and mutually-consented behaviour rather than a criminal act. This results in minimizing the level of violence, the mitigation of offender’s responsibility, and the relegation of victim’s experience to the background. Another significant finding from this study is the issue of judges’ ‘interpretative repertoires’ in describing cases of sexual violence. We recommend for future studies to include a bigger sample size, as well as to study whether different rape categories namely acquaintance rape, incestuous rape, and stranger rape would reveal distinctive terms used for the respective rape types.
format	Article
author	Norzanita Othman, Nor Fariza Mohd Nor, Noraini Ibrahim,
spellingShingle	Norzanita Othman, Nor Fariza Mohd Nor, Noraini Ibrahim, Linguistic representation of violence in judicial opinions in Malaysia
author_facet	Norzanita Othman, Nor Fariza Mohd Nor, Noraini Ibrahim,
author_sort	Norzanita Othman,
title	Linguistic representation of violence in judicial opinions in Malaysia
title_short	Linguistic representation of violence in judicial opinions in Malaysia
title_full	Linguistic representation of violence in judicial opinions in Malaysia
title_fullStr	Linguistic representation of violence in judicial opinions in Malaysia
title_full_unstemmed	Linguistic representation of violence in judicial opinions in Malaysia
title_sort	linguistic representation of violence in judicial opinions in malaysia
publisher	Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
publishDate	2019
url	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14082/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14082/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14082/1/32352-102495-2-PB.pdf
first_indexed	2023-09-18T20:06:18Z
last_indexed	2023-09-18T20:06:18Z
_version_	1777407180944703488

Linguistic representation of violence in judicial opinions in Malaysia

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