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01-10-2007 | Original Article

Langauge and Violence: Analysis of Four Discursive Operations

Authors: Linda Coates, Allan Wade

Published in: Journal of Family Violence | Issue 7/2007

Abstract

The Interactional and Discursive View of Violence and Resistance is a framework for critical analysis and research, prevention and intervention that takes into account the conditions that enable personalized violence, the actions of perpetrators and victims, and the language used in representing those actions. Using this analytic framework, we analyzed five accounts of personalized violence, one each from a perpetrator, a psychiatrist, a judge, a government minister, and a therapist. Our results demonstrate the scope and the ubiquity with which diverse accounts locally accomplish four-discursive-operations; namely, the concealing of violence, obfuscating of perpetrators’ responsibility, concealing of victims’ resistance, and blaming and pathologizing of victims. We examine the specific linguistic devices that combine to accomplish the four-discursive-operations in each case. These data suggest that the problem of violence is inextricably linked to the problem of representation.

The term sexualized assault is used here instead of the legal term sexual assault because the later term implies that these assaults are sexual acts. The authors do not accept this assumption.

Our use of the term responsibility has at least three logically connected meanings: When an individual commits or “causes” a violent act, he is responsible. If he is responsible, it follows that he should be held up as responsible, through careful presentation of clear accounts and social sanctions that fit the nature of the crime. Furthermore, it follows that he should take responsibility, for example, by acknowledging that his actions were his own and not the result of provocation by the victim. Indeed, this is a priority in many treatment and other rehabilitation programs.

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Title: Langauge and Violence: Analysis of Four Discursive Operations
Authors: Linda Coates
Allan Wade
Publication date: 01-10-2007
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Journal of Family Violence / Issue 7/2007
Print ISSN: 0885-7482
Electronic ISSN: 1573-2851
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-007-9082-2

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Langauge and Violence: Analysis of Four Discursive Operations

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