Linda A. Wood

Formulating Rape: The Discursive Construction of Victims and Villains

Previous psychological research involving women who have been raped is criticized for its focus on psychopathology, its use of traditional methodologies, its limited conception of the person, and its reliance on dichotomous categories. A social constructionist, discourse analytic approach is offered as an alternative. Eight women who had been raped by dates or acquaintances volunteered for open-ended, unstructured interviews. Their accounts had two major features: the difficulty of naming the experience rape and the importance of the mens accounts in the womens efforts to make sense of their experience. Our analyses identify the complex discourse strategies that are actively used to formulate experience and to negotiate victim/non-victim identities for the women themselves and villain/non-villain identities for the men who raped them. We discuss the importance of formulating rape and the connections among the discourse used by women who are raped, by rapists and by researchers.

Politeness and Forms of Address

The present paper considers the politeness of forms of address in terms of Brown & Levinsons (1987) theory of politeness. We present a conceptual analysis of the elements of politeness for six kinds of nominal address exchange and of the politeness expected for different categories of social relationship. These theoretical values are then compared to the politeness of address exchanges collected in a series of previous studies. The results of both the conceptual and empirical analyses are compatible with Brown & Levinsons assumption that negative politeness outweighs positive politeness. However, it appears that the formula for deriving the weightiness of face-threatening acts and hence politeness requires revisions that would give greater weight to status than to solidarity and incorporate the interaction of status and solidarity. We discuss the plausibility of the claim that negative politeness is more polite than positive politeness and consider the implications of our results for understanding the expression of solidarity and the relationship of affect to politeness.

The Analysis of Face Work in Discourse Review and Proposal

The Brown-Levinson (1987) theory of politeness has attracted a great deal of attention from a variety of disciplines. However, the lack of systematic methods for assessing discourse in terms of politeness has hampered the evaluation and development of the theory and the comparison of findings from different studies. The authors present a proposal that attempts to address some of the limitations of previous approaches and to extend their application to facework. The authors describe a theme for conceptualizing facework in discourse based on an ethogenic hierarchical analysis of action sequences in social episodes. From that scheme a procedure is derived for coding discourse in terms of its functions with respect to the face of speakers and hearers. The procedure is illustrated with examples from a research project on the use of facework in letters of appeal in an academic context.

Sexual Motives and Sentencing Judicial Discourse in Cases of Child Sexual Abuse

The motives ascribed to offenders in the sentencing of sexual abuse crimes can be highly contentious. Some critics claim that sexual assaults are acts of power and violence and that reference to sexual motives minimizes violence and the seriousness of the offense. The present study examines 74 Canadian judicial sentencing decisions (1993-1997) involving offenders who had sexually abused children and adolescents. Using discursive social psychology, the authors analyze judicial explanations for the offenses, and their implications for mitigation and aggravation. Violent attributions were rare. Sex-based explanations predominated, variously invoking the selfish gratification of offenders’ sexual desires, sexual impulses, pedophilia, and offenders’ attraction to victims. However, in contrast to critics’ claims, these explanations are used by judges to emphasize the seriousness of these crimes. The findings highlight the importance of analyzing discourse in relation to action sequences rather than in isolation. The authors discuss the implications for the study of sexual assault and legal discourse.

Forms of address, discourse and aging

Abstract The present article examines how forms of address figure in the lives of older people. From the perspective of discursive psychology (e.g., Edwards and Potter 1992; Potter and Wetherell 1987), we consider a number of samples of address exchange and show how forms of address may be used to enhance and diminish status and solidarity and to construct social identities for the older person. We examine the relationship of address forms to features of institutions and of institutional practices, to divergent interests of participants, to constructions of the nature of aging and to problems of politeness. The notion of symbiotic power is proposed as a way of reconceptualizing the powerlessness and dependence associated with aging. We consider how the realization of that power through the strategic deployment of forms of address by older people can help to maintain status and the integrity of self.

Are the Rules of Address Universal? III: Comparison of Chinese, Greek, and Korean Usage

Our basic questions were: Does the alleged universality of Browns invariant norm of address (1965) extend to Korean usage, and is the structure of address exchange cross-culturally similar for Korean, Greek, and Chinese speakers? To answer the first question, 73 Korean speakers from both Korea and Canada reported actual address usage received from and sent to 34 categories of interactants. Their answers were coded in terms of three quantitative indices that assess the degrees of reciprocity, solidarity, and inequality in dyadic address exchanges. The results supported Browns description of address exchange such that we may add Korean to the languages that support the claim for the universality of the rules of address. There were no significant differences in address usage between Korean speakers living in Korea and those living in Canada. To answer the second question, we compared Korean and previously reported Greek and Chinese usage to reveal substantial cross-cultural consistency. Some exceptions are noted, and the results are discussed in terms of some principles drawn from the alternative social-psychological strategy of ethogeny.

Are the Rules of Address Universal? II: Greek Usage

Our basic question was: Does the alleged universality of Browns Invariant Norm of Address (1965) extend to Greek usage? 56 Greek speakers forming a diverse sample reported actual address usage received from and sent to 28 categories of interactants. Their answers were coded in terms of three quantitative indices which measure the degree of reciprocity, solidarity, and inequality in dyadic address exchanges. The indices permit the precise comparison of empirical results with theoretical expectations. The results provided strong support for Browns description of the structure of address exchange such that we may add Greek to the languages that jointly support the claim for the university of the rules of address.

Discourse Analysis in Research on Aging

This article explores the potential of discourse analysis for understanding issues in aging and in the lives of older people. We describe discourse analysis from the perspective of discursive psychology and identify the basic features of discourse analysis: (1) talk and written texts are viewed as action; (2) talk itself is the topic of interest (not an index of internal states); (3) variability is viewed positively. Stages of discourse analysis are briefly discussed. We then consider examples of discourse-analytic research (on identity construction, phatic communion, frame stereotyping and humour). We conclude by suggesting possible uses and applications of discourse analysis in research on aging.

Social Competence and the Rules of Address

Are people able to recognise violations of the rules of address, thus revealing their knowledge of the rules underlying address exchanges? A sample of 128 male and female undergraduates judged 64 scenarios containing systematic violations of four rules drawn from Ervin-Tripps (1969) model of the American Address System. Strong positive relationships were found between the degree of rule violation and the ability of the respondents to recognise the violations and to detect their emotional consequences. Perceived violations were also affected by the type of setting (academic vs. business) and the sex of the recipient. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for modifying Ervin-Tripps model and their relevance to some issues in the study of communicative competence, such as distinctions between individually-and collectively-held knowledge and between knowledge and performance. It is suggested that future research assessing the rules of specific address systems also include the exploration of the higher order strategic rules that underlie such systems.

Sentencing Sexual Abuse Offenders: Sex Crimes and Social Justice

A major challenge in adjudicating criminal cases of sexual assault concerns the typical characteristics of sexual offences (for example, the frequent lack of physical harm to victims and the usual absence of obvious antisocial conduct by offenders). It has been claimed that these features are often used to discount the seriousness of sexual offences. Moreover, the sexualised aspects of these crimes are viewed as undermining recognition of their inherent violence, such that references to the sexual motives of offenders or to the sexual details of the offences guarantee that they will not be taken seriously. Some feminist theorists and legal critics have argued that sexual assaults, including child sexual abuse, must be seen as acts of power and violence; both offences and offenders’ motives must therefore be described in terms of violence. Such claims are frequently offered in the context of social justice considerations related to judicial decision-making. However, there are a number of problems with both the arguments and the analyses on which they are based. We first consider Canadian law, review some relevant Canadian literature and discuss some of these problems. We then further explore these concerns in relation to our previous analyses of Canadian judicial sentencing decisions in cases of child and adolescent sexual assault. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications for the sex-versus-violence debate in theorising about sexual crimes and for social justice issues in sentencing.