Negotiating Authority and Power: An Analysis of Modalities in the Divorce Trial in the Indonesian Religious Court

Abstract

Purpose

This study examines the negotiation and interaction of diverse powers and authorities through the uses of modalities of the Indonesian language by taking the divorce trial in a religious court as a case study. It also seeks to investigate linguistic meanings through prosodic features to provide an alternative perspective of the selected processes of the divorce trials.

Methods

This study uses a qualitative method utilising conversational analysis (CA) as an approach guided by Gail Jefferson’s transcription system symbols.

Results/findings

This study found that certain uses of modalities can function as medium to negotiate power and authority. This also shows how hierarchies, power, and authority in a religious court interplay through particular linguistic code selection of the existing interlocutors.

Conclusion

The modality expressions used in the divorce trial exhibit speakers’ negotiating power and authority. In a religious court, it is evident that the judges exercised their religious authority by advising the plaintiff and the defendant using the Islamic teachings. The various modalities used in the trial illustrate the negotiation of power and authority by the participants. Various emotions is expressed in the entire process of the trials. Prosodic features such as pauses, stresses, and slow and rapid paces of speech are used for specific reasons and goals.