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Langauge and Violence: Analysis of Four Discursive Operations

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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.

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Notes

  1. 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.

  2. 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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Acknowledgement

This research was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We are grateful to Blair Lischeron, Nick Todd, and Krista West for their insightful comments on this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Okanagan College, 583 Duncan Ave. W, Penticton, BC, Canada, V2A 8E1

    Linda Coates

  2. 216-80 Station St., Duncan, BC, V9L 1M4, Canada

    Allan Wade

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  1. Linda Coates
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  2. Allan Wade
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Correspondence to Linda Coates.

Additional information

Parts of this study were presented at the Coming to Terms, Anti-Violence Summer Intensive, held in Duncan, BC, Canada, 2004.

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Coates, L., Wade, A. Langauge and Violence: Analysis of Four Discursive Operations. J Fam Viol 22, 511–522 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-007-9082-2

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