This is the first longitudinal study of the language used by the British press to talk about rape. Through a diachronic analysis informed by corpus linguistics and feminist theory, Tranchese examines how rape discourse has (or has not) changed over the past decade. With its detailed investigation of media representations, the book explores how age-old myths about sexual violence re-emerge in different forms within news narratives. Against the backdrop of twelve years of newspaper coverage of rape, including many high-profile cases, this study also traces the rise of “celebrity culture”, the emergence of #metoo, and the development of the backlash against it. The author places these historical events and recent trends within broader debates on feminism and the role played by (social) media in shaping contemporary rape discourse. This book provides a much-needed linguistic analysis which will be of particular interest to scholars and students of feminist studies, language and gender, corpus-assisted discourse studies, and gendered crime.
Author(s): Alessia Tranchese
Series: Palgrave Studies in Language, Gender and Sexuality
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 441
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
Praise for From Fritzl to #metoo
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 Not Another Book About Male Violence Against Women!
Sexual Violence as a Gendered Crime
Structure of the Book
Notes
References
Part I Setting the Scene
2 Defining the Field
Defining Sexual Violence: Beyond the Myth
The “Cry-Rape Girl”
Stranger Danger
Sexual Violence and the News
The News Value of Sexual Violence
Discourse, Media, and Ideology
Note
References
3 Method, Context, and Data
Methodological Considerations
Critical Discourse Analysis: An Overview
Corpus Linguistics
Combining Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus Linguistics
Contextualising the Data
The Media Landscape in the UK
Male Violence Against Women in the UK—Legal Definitions
Prevalence of Male Violence Against Women in the UK
Dataset and Trends
Selection and Distribution of Newspapers Over Time
Selection and Distribution of Search Terms Over Time
Rape
Assault
Abuse
Harassment
Summary of trends
Notes
References
Part II At the Surface
4 The Different Names of Sexual Violence
Behind the Scenes
Keywords
Frequency and Dispersion of Keywords
What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Rape and Sexual Assault?
Homogeneous Keywords Across Themes
Notes
References
5 Sexual Violence Across Time
Behind the Scenes
Diachronic Keywords and Diachronic Collocates
Terminating, Initiating, Consistent, and Transient Keywords
How Did the Discourse of Rape and Sexual Assault Evolve Over Time?
Diachronic Semantic Fields in the R Corpus
Consistent Semantic Fields in the R Corpus
Terminating Semantic Fields in the R Corpus
Initiating Semantic Fields in the R Corpus
Diachronic Semantic Fields in the A Corpus
Consistent Semantic Fields in the A Corpus
Terminating Semantic Fields in the A Corpus
Initiating Semantic Fields in the A Corpus
Notes
References
Part III Delving Deeper
6 It’s Not just Semantics
Behind the Scenes
Collocations and Collocation Analysis
Statistical Measures for Collocation Analysis
Semantic Preference and Discourse Prosody
WordSketches and SketchEngine Thesaurus
Concordances and Concordance Analysis
Who Rapes and Who Is Raped?
Who Assaults, Abuses, and Harasses?
When Rape Is not Enough
When Rape Is No Longer an Action
A Vehement Denial
What’s in a Name?
Notes
References
7 Emerging Patterns
Behind the Scenes
Seasonal and Diachronic Collocates
Lexical Priming
N-grams
Concordance Keywords and Sub-Corpora Keywords
WordSketch Difference
What’s New About Rape?
Alleged
Alleged Victim
Alleged Rape
Allegedly
Guilty
Not Guilty or Innocent?
Notes
References
8 Disappearing Patterns
Jail
The “Other” (and the “Ideal Victim”)
The “Golden Boy” (and the “Cry-Rape Girl”)
Attempted
Notes
References
Part IV Before and After
9 Does Rape Attract Murder?
Behind the Scenes
GraphColl and Collocation Networks
Does Rape Attract Murder?
Femicide and “Sexual Murders” in the UK
“Sexual Murders” in 2009
Identikit of a “Sexual Murderer”
What Was Missing?
“Sexual Murders” in 2018
Identikit of a “Sexual Murder(er)”
What Was (Still) Missing?
A Note on Some Recent Cases
Notes
References
10 #metoo: The Good, the Bad, and the Backlash
A Brief Excursus of the Key Debates and Main Events Surrounding #metoo
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The Good
Changing What Counts as Sexual Violence
No More Labels
#IBelieveHer
A Global Movement
Numbers Matter
The Bad
Nothing New on the Horizon
Not All Women Are Equal
It Is Still Just “Rotten Apples”
Visibility Does Not Equal Social Change
The Ugly (the Backlash)
The Personification of #metoo
Note
References
11 From Fritzl to #metoo: What Has Changed?
Timeline of Perpetrators
Types of Violence
Believing Victims
Speak
Tell
Say
Notes
References
12 CONCLUSION Joining the Dots
Three Age-Old Issues
Women’s Credibility Is the New Short Skirt
“It’s 1994 and the Shit Is Hitting the Fan. Women Are Pissed”
In a Post-Feminist World, Women Are the Oppressors
Bringing the Attention Back to the Structure
References
Index
