Through a combination of corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis, this paper looks at the hidden ideological discourses surrounding sex offenders in the British media. Corpus linguistics provides an excellent framework to discover such discourse patterns and the critical discourse analysis framework helps contextualise the findings. The specific aim of the paper is to discover and compare the discourse patterns surrounding the specific nominals rapist* and paedophile* in order to see how the representations differ. The analysis uncovered that the representation of both offenders was sensationalised and full of negative and emotionally loaded words. Furthermore, it was discovered that two differing discourses were prominent for each nominal: An animalistic and bodily discourse for rapist* and a discourse of deviance and the mind for peadophile*. Lastly, it is argued that these misrepresentations are problematic as they misinform both the public and the regulation of offenders.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:mau-21832 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Blauenfeldt, Anne |
| Publisher | Malmö högskola, Fakulteten för kultur och samhälle (KS), Malmö högskola/Kultur och samhälle |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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