The Experiential Meaning in Forensic Courtroom Discourse

T. Silvana Sinar1, T. Thyrhaya Zein1, Nurlela1 and Muhammad Yusuf1

1
English Literature Department, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Medan, Indonesia

Keywords: Forensic Linguistic, Courtroom Discourse, Systemic Functional.

Abstract: As a part of forensic linguistics, courtroom discourse is crucial to be explored. This paper is an attempt to
investigate the experiential meaning focused on process types in courtroom discourse based on Halliday’s
systemic functional grammar. Descriptive qualitative method focused on content analysis was employed as
the research design. The data were the clauses taken from the conversation between jury, witness, and public
prosecutor in a courtroom discourse in Medan-Indonesia. The findings reveal that material process is the
dominant among other processes totalling to 33.07% followed successively by verbal (20.47%), mental and
relational process (16.54%). It means that the interaction in courtroom discourse explores more about what
happened in the case and what has performed by the actor or defendant. The speaker employs material process
‘to deliver’, action of corruption done implicitly, while verbal process is used to cover his worries of being
known as corruptor.

1 INTRODUCTION
Language of law is able to be utilized as evidence in clause as representation and communication. That is
forensic linguistics (FL). Fuzer and Barros (2009) why the ideational meaning is regarded the
assert that a challenge is exactly presented by legal representation of clause and its realization is through
language through its complexity and technicality to transitivity system covering process type. This can be
the people who are concern on the legal practitioner used in analyzing courtroom discourse as the
education. Rodrigues (2005) argues that rules cover following examples.
many areas in social life. Furthermore, the law
language is regarded as having specific Table 1: Jury’s statement.
characteristics (Strębska-Liszewska 2017). The Kalau proyek lanjutan sudah tau ?
utilization of language in courtroom discourse is one
peningkatan ruas jalan pasar
of the main areas of FL (Coulthard & Johnson 2007;
8 kecamatan Air Putih
Olsson 2004; Wang 2012).
About the continuity of the Have (you)
Fundamentally, systemic functional linguistics
(henceforth SFL) is beneficial to analyze and explain improvement of road at pasar known?
how meanings are made in everyday linguistic 8 district Air Putih
interactions. Almost any area of linguistics can be Phenomenon Process; mental
relevant in court (Tiersma & Solan 2002) and
language use was taken place in legal process (Sadiq Table 2: Witness’ statement.
2011). Then, SFL also iews that language possesses si abun Sebenarnya menitipkan 230
three simultaneous meanings regarded as juta
metafunctions (Sinar 2007). Metafunctions are Abun trully deposited 230 M
divided into the ideational; to represent the
Actor Process; Goal
experiences, the textual; to link or organize the
material
experiences, and the interpersonal; to exchange the
experiences. Moreover, the ideational is divided into Those utterances are taken from jury and witness’
two categories, they are experiential function and statement in courtroom discourse. Then, the
logical function; those which realize the function of representation of mental process ‘sudah tau’ or have

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Sinar, T., Zein, T., Nurlela, . and Yusuf, M.
The Experiential Meaning in Forensic Courtroom Discourse.
DOI: 10.5220/0010084915011505
In Proceedings of the International Conference of Science, Technology, Engineering, Environmental and Ramification Researches (ICOSTEERR 2018) - Research in Industry 4.0, pages
1501-1505
ISBN: 978-989-758-449-7
Copyright c 2020 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
ICOSTEERR 2018 - International Conference of Science, Technology, Engineering, Environmental and Ramification Researches

known in Jury’s statement is used to explore the 2.3 Transitivity System

involvement and the knowledge of the witness about
the case. Then, material process is used by witness Transitivity system elucidates the process as the
through the word ‘menitipkan’ or deposit to express realization of experience (Halliday 1994). Then, it is
that he did something. The system of transitivity has also related to the process type choice and the
a purpose to explain how an action is done through participants’ role realized into reality experiences
various kinds of processes. (Eggins 2004). Halliday and Matthiessen (2004)
There are many studies conducted in the area of divide process types as illustrated in table 3.
forensic linguistic and courtroom discourse. Stroud
(2012) sees activity in courtroom discourse Table 3: Types of process in transitivity system.
specifically on the participants’ changing role, N Types of Meaning Participants
Susanto (2016) in his study provides the examples of o Process I II
some language aspects applied in the courtroom, and 1. Material: “doing” Actor Goal
then, Matin and Rahimi (2014) highlight the use of - Action “doing”
forensic discourse analysis to interpret and analyze - Event “happening
legal context. Those previous research has some ”
differences from this paper. Therefore, this paper is 2. Mental “sensing” Sensor Phenomen
intended to investigate experiential meanings in - Perception “seeing” on
courtroom discourse. To do this, the theory of - Affection “feeling”
- Cognition
transitivity analysis described by Halliday and “thinking”
Matthiessen (2014) was employed. 3. Relational “being” Token Value
- Attribution “attributing Carrier Attribute
- Identificati ” Identifie Identifier
on “identifyin d Possessed
2 LITERATURE REVIEW - Possession
g” Possess
“having” or
2.1 Forensic Linguistics (FL) and 4. Behavioural “behaving” Behaver -
Courtroom Discourse 5. Verbal “saying” Sayer Target
6. Existential “Existing” Existent -
Jordan (2002) states that FL is defined as one of
applied linguistics branches or forensic sciences. It is
also supported by Pádua (2012) claiming that FL 3 METHOD
deals with the concern on the use of language inside
legal contexts and the legal phenomena. Another This study applied descriptive qualitative method
expert also argues that the research in the area of focused on FL analysis on courtroom discourse. The
discourse in courtroom may cover many aspects such analysis was based on SFL including metafunctions
as testimony, opening and closing statements, etc constructed ideationally through the transitivity
(Dong 2013). choices of the process types of jury, witness, and
public prosecutor in a trial stage in Medan. To carry
2.2 Systemic Functional Linguistics out the research, some transcribed text of interaction
(SFL) among jury, witness, and public prosecutor in a trial
stage was selected as the source of data. There are 127
This theory has a close relation to the texts and clauses were analyzed. Firstly, each clause was
context (Sinar 2018) and it is utilized for construing analyzed, then the process was categorized, next the
human experiences and looking into the working of transitivity was analyzed based on type of process.
language within social context (Naz, Alvi & Baseer After that, the types of processes were ranked based
2012). Another expert also argues that it also provides on the result of the analysis. Finally, the conclusion
a study the interrelationship between language, text was drawn based on the analysis.
and the contexts (Lirola 2012). Three different levels
of meaning are covered in metafunctions namely
ideational function, interpersonal function, and
textual function.

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 The Experiential Meaning in Forensic Courtroom Discourse

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ‘dipergunakan’ or ‘used’. The jury emphasised by

delivering material process that the actor performed
or did something about the project case and the actor
4.1 Results
is involved. The witness then replied with a minor
clause ‘yes’ to confirm the statement. This is also
It is discovered that five kinds of process appeared in
the courtroom discourse containing the interaction relevant to research conducted by Bartley (2017)
between jury, witness, and public prosecutor. The proving that material (action) process is dominantly
utilized in the courtroom discourse.
detail of the distribution is illustrated in table 4.
Table 5: Clause containing material process.
Table 4: Process distribution.
kemudian cv dipergunakan oleh dalam
No. Process Occurrences % jodi Sucipta proyek
1 Material 42 33.07 Abun peningkatan
2 Mental 21 16.54 ruas jalan
3 Relational 21 16.54 komplek 126
kompi c
4 Behavioural 0 0.00 tanjung kaso
5 Verbal 26 20.47 kecamatan
6 Existential 17 13.39 sei suka..
Total 127 100 Then CV was used by a project of
Jodi Sucipta road
Abun improvement
The table elucidates that the material process is of area 126
the dominant one among the processes whereas the block c
verbal, material, relational, and existential, Tanjung
respectively follow the material process; although, as Kaso
districts Sei
far as frequency is concerned. In contrast, behavioural Suka
process did not occur in the data. Goal Process: Actor Circ; place
Material
4.2 Discussion
Clause 29
The interaction in the courtroom discourse reveals Jury: Ini saudara menyebutkan uang tersebut
that material process is most frequently used among jumlahnya 240 juta, ya (You mentioned that the
other processes and the interaction describes that money is totalling to 240 millions, right.
material process dominantly occurs and it is followed
by three other processes, mental, relational, verbal Table 7: Clauses containing verbal process.
and existential. This analysis implies that corruption ini saudara menyebutkan uang tersebut
act is closely related to the actor (who), place (where), jumlahnya 240 juta,
and the goal (what), as represented in the following. ya?
Clause 10 this You mentioned mentioned that the
money is totalling to
Jury: Kemudian CV Jodi dipergunakan oleh 240 millions, right?
Sucipta Abun dalam proyek peningkatan ruas jalan Sayer Process: Verbiage
komplek 126 Kompi C Tanjung Kaso Kecamatan Sei verbal
Suka (Then, CV Jodi was used by Sucipta Abun in a
project of road improvement of area 126 block c
Tanjung Kaso districts Sei Suka). Table 8: Clauses containing relational process.
Clause 11
harusnya, tapi 240 iya tapi
Witness: iya (yes) juta,

Table 6: Witness’ response. (it) should but 240 yes but

be M
iya
yes Process; - Value - -
- relational

The clauses 10 and 11 illustrated the interaction of

the jury and the witness. It contains material process

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ICOSTEERR 2018 - International Conference of Science, Technology, Engineering, Environmental and Ramification Researches

Clause 30 and goal, the place is realized by circumstance, and

Witness: harusnya, tapi 240 juta, iya tapi…(It the use of process is utilized in order to deceive the
should be, but,… 240 M, yes, but…….) meaning. Then, text and context should be
Clauses 29 and 30 show the interaction between harmonious since the function of language is to
the jury and witness. The clause explained in the table convey meaning. Language is regarded as semiotic
7 shows the use of verbal process. This process system which has form, meaning, and realization as
respectively followed material process as the asserted by Halliday and Matthiessen (2014).
frequently used process. Verbal process is used to
signal the process of saying. The jury used verbal
process to clarify witness’ statement about the 5 CONCLUSION AND
amount of the money totalling to 240 millions. Then,
the jury tried to explore the details and the witness’ SUGGESTION
honesty and remind the witness based on what has
been stated in police investigation report. This makes The experiential meaning analysis through
sense since Waskita (2014) argues that FL entails transitivity presents that material process becomes
gaining truth and honesty, and who was speaking and frequently used that characterizes the courtroom
its purpose can be guessed. In the trial stage, the jury discourse totalling to 33.07% followed successively
and the witness were involved in the interaction. They by verbal (20.47%), mental and relational process
also used relational process (clause 30) to signal the (16.54%). It means that the interaction between jury,
process of ‘being’ and to identify token and value. witness, and public prosecutor discussed more about
Then, mental process (clause 14 and 15) was also what happened in the case and what has performed by
represented in the utterances. The mental process the actor or defendant and the speaker employs
explains what actually occurs in the internal world of material process ‘to deliver’, action of corruption
the mind (Suhadi 2012). done implicitly, while verbal process is used to
Clause 14 accomplish his worries of being known as corruptor.
Jury: tau saudara, yang dipakai abun yang ini? It is also suggested for further research to explore the
(Do you know it is used by Abun?) courtroom discourse based on other sub-field of
linguistic such as syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.
Table 9: Mental process used by jury.
tau saudara yang dipakai abun
yang ini ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Do (…..) know (you) it is used By
Abun The writers would like to express appreciation to The
Process: mental vocative Phenomenon senser Ministries of Research, Technology and Higher
Education of Indonesia for funding the research grant
The jury tried to explore the memory of the no 121/UN5.2.3.1/PPM/KP-DRPM/2018.
witness by expressing the word ‘know’. This then was
replied by the witness through the expression ‘saya
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