The Textual Structure of the Jessica-Mirna Judicial Text: An Forensic Linguistic Approach

Abstract

This current study, in which the forensic linguistic approach and the theory of textual
generic structure were applied, focuses on the judicial text in which Jessica was the defendant
and Mirna was the victim. The judicial text, in which Jessica was the defendant and Mirna was
the victim, is a dialogical conversation containing the textual procedure referring to structure.
The textual structure of the judicial text, in which Jessica was the defendant and Mirna was the
victim, is made up of three main phases; they are the textual structure of the opening, the textual
structure of the content and the textual structure of the closing. Each phase is made up of sub-
phases. The qualitative descriptive method was employed in the study. The data were collected
through observation and recording, and were obtained from 17 audio-visual recordings, which
were then transcribed into Indonesian. The findings of the study show that (1) the opening phase
was made up of the criminal trial phase, the interrogation phase of the defendant’s identity, the
indictment reading phase by the general prosecutor ; (2) the content phase was made up of the
question phase as to objection from the defendant (exception), the interrogation phase of the
witnesses and expert, namely their (a) identities, (b) oath taking, and (c) the testimony of the
witnesses and expert and the interrogation phase of the defendant; (3) the textual structure of the
closing was made up of the indictment reading phase by the prosecutor, the verdict reading
phase, and the trial closing phase. The finding of the study shows the representation of the
textual structure as the textual procedural standard based on the judicial text used in the current
study.