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...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2019
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14082/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14082/1/32352-102495-2-PB.pdf |
| _version_ | 1848813456700997632 |
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| author | Norzanita Othman, Nor Fariza Mohd Nor, Noraini Ibrahim, |
| author_facet | Norzanita Othman, Nor Fariza Mohd Nor, Noraini Ibrahim, |
| author_sort | Norzanita Othman, |
| building | UKM Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| 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. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-15T00:18:29Z |
| format | Article |
| id | oai:generic.eprints.org:14082 |
| institution | Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-15T00:18:29Z |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| publisher | Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | oai:generic.eprints.org: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 |
| spellingShingle | Norzanita Othman, Nor Fariza Mohd Nor, Noraini Ibrahim, Linguistic representation of violence in judicial opinions in Malaysia |
| title | 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_short | Linguistic representation of violence in judicial opinions in Malaysia |
| title_sort | linguistic representation of violence in judicial opinions in malaysia |
| url | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14082/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14082/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14082/1/32352-102495-2-PB.pdf |