Agency, Responsibility, and Actor Positioning In Courtroom Narratives

Krisda Chaemsaithong

doi:10.1163/26659077-24020002

Agency, Responsibility, and Actor Positioning In Courtroom Narratives

MANUSYA ◽

10.1163/26659077-24020002 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 24 (2) ◽

pp. 204-226

Author(s):

Krisda Chaemsaithong

Keyword(s):

Meaning Making ◽

Social Actors ◽

Legal Narratives ◽

Opening Address

Abstract Viewing language as a system consisting of grammatical resources for meaning making, this study explores how agency and responsibility are attributed in legal narratives through the lens of transitivity. Drawing upon the opening address of three American trials, the quantitative and qualitative findings indicate that agency and blameworthiness of the individuals on trial are discursively negotiated through starkly different grammatical choices, so that polarized positionings of the same social actors and events are accomplished for the audience. It is argued that such manipulation of grammatical resources exhibits subjective intervention on the part of the presenter and constitutes a prime mechanism of inference and attitudinal evocation for the jurors. In effect, the opening statement, which is in principle intended to be merely informative, becomes not only argumentative but also evaluative.

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Muslim Fashion: Challenging Transregional Connectivities between Malaysia and the Arabian Peninsula

TRaNS Trans -Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia ◽

10.1017/trn.2021.1 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-12

Author(s):

Viola Thimm

Keyword(s):

Arabian Peninsula ◽

Meaning Making ◽

World Order ◽

Muslim World ◽

Material Object ◽

Power Structures ◽

Social Actors ◽

The Past ◽

Muslim Majority ◽

Transformative Process

AbstractIn Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country in Southeast Asia, a dynamic market for Muslim fashion has evolved over the past decade, especially concerning theabaya, a female Muslim dress. Malay Malaysian designers, producers and consumers focus on this garment because it represents a style of female Islamic clothing that is perceived as ‘authentic’. Theabayaoriginates from the Arabian Peninsula and is generally worn by Arabic Muslim women with asyariah-compliant design that is commonly simple, loose and opaque. Embedded into the broader marketising processes of ahalalindustry in Malaysia, Malay women started to adopt this material object and transformed it into a distinct expression of Malaysian Muslim style. The originalabayathat follows Islamic rules became a colourful and decorated dress. This transformative process is not only an expression of variation in fashion and style but profoundly transcends powerful social, placial and spatial orders within the Muslim world. The Malaysian fashion market forabayas is embedded in wider dynamics of sacred landscaping in which the Arabian Peninsula is considered to be the ‘centre of Islam’ while Malaysia is positioned and positions itself at the margins. However, Malay Malaysian social actors have shifted this constellation towards a Malaysia that has pushed itself to the forefront of a commercialising Islam through the development of the related Muslim fashion market, among other things. Thus, within a Muslim world order, transregional connections lead to an entangled web of meaning-making regarding power structures, Islamic principles and social practices.

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The meanings of racist and sexist trash talk for men of color: A cultural sociological approach to studying gaming culture

New Media & Society ◽

10.1177/1461444818814252 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 21 (4) ◽

pp. 879-894 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Stephanie M Ortiz

Keyword(s):

Meaning Making ◽

Qualitative Interviews ◽

People Of Color ◽

Social Actors ◽

Color Experience ◽

Sociological Approach ◽

Socially Constructed ◽

Men Of Color ◽

Gaming Culture ◽

Boundary Making

Scholars have documented how people of color experience gaming culture as violent, yet it is unclear how this violence shapes conceptualizations of gaming culture. Undertaking a cultural sociological approach that foregrounds meaning-making, I demonstrate that trash talk is a useful site to explore how social actors construct and negotiate gaming culture. Analyzing data from 12 qualitative interviews with men of color, I argue that trash talk is a practice of boundary-making that reproduces racism and sexism. Respondent narratives about gaming culture vis-à-vis trash talk thus show how gaming culture is socially constructed in everyday interactions, and bound to cultural repertoires and structural conditions that exist outside of gaming. This study provides a potential avenue to explore the socially constructed and dynamic nature of gaming culture and gamer identity.

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When grammar clashes: Negotiation of guilt and innocence in courtroom discourse

Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics ◽

10.1515/psicl-2019-0002 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 55 (1) ◽

pp. 27-52

Author(s):

Krisda Chaemsaithong

Keyword(s):

Qualitative Analysis ◽

Meaning Making ◽

Criminal Trial ◽

Case Presentation ◽

Profound Impact ◽

Initial Stage ◽

Two Sides ◽

Opening Address

Abstract Adopting a functional view of language, this study critically explores clausal patterns in lawyers’ opening address in an American criminal trial. Underpinned by the assumption that no linguistic options are value-free, the quantitative and qualitative analysis uncovers the syntactic choices employed by the opposing sides and accounts for them in terms of the presenters’ ideological positions concerning the guilt and innocence of the defendant. The findings reveal stark differences between the two sides. Such systematic differences in clausal configurations not only constitute a prime meaning-making strategy that serves to construct polarized positioning of the same people and events, but are also likely to strike a profound impact with the jurors, potentially leading them to make tentative conclusions at this initial stage of case presentation.

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Conceptualising Transformative Praxis

Journal of Transformative Praxis ◽

10.3126/jrtp.v1i1.31756 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 1-8

Author(s):

Bal Chandra Luitel ◽

Niroj Dahal

Keyword(s):

Professional Development ◽

Social Change ◽

Meaning Making ◽

Ways Of Knowing ◽

Pedagogical Change ◽

Holistic Learning ◽

Social Actors ◽

Critical Scholarship ◽

Educational Processes ◽

Wide Range

Transformative praxis covers a wide range of scholarly pursuits for social change via reflexive research and practice. Praxis is used to raise the consciousness of researchers, participants and social actors through a constant embracing of a critical stance toward text, discourse, and the lifeworld. A host of images are used to conceptualise the notion of transformative praxis as epistemology, theory, methodology, professional development, genres and logics, and empowerment. Transformative praxis as epistemology refers to multiple ways of knowing embedded in critiquing, reconceptualizing self, and envisioning; whereas transformative praxis as theory is informed by the critical scholarship of strengths and limitations of theories, philosophies, and perspectives as a means for social change. Our ideas of transformative praxis as methodology are embedded in the commitments of researchers and practitioners to engage in the process of holistic meaning making. Reflexive engagement of researchers and practitioners in the lifeworld contributes to the conceptualisation of transformative praxis as professional development. Transformative praxis as empowerment draws upon the ongoing discourse of an emancipatory interest that emphasises autonomy, responsibility, and criticality. The articles in this issue focus on developing cosmologically responsible educational processes, deviance as pedagogical action, holistic learning, and pedagogical change through multiparadigmatic research processes.

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