Thesis (MA (General Linguistics))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / This study investigates the ways in which former South African Police (SAP) perpetrators of
human rights violations justify their criminal actions in testifying before the Amnesty
Committee (AC) of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). In
particular, attention goes to the testimonies of former Commissioner of Police Johan van der
Merwe, and former member of the Security Branch section of the SAP, Jeffrey Benzien. A key
assumption in the study is that the justification of human rights violations is a discursive
practice that is largely language dependent (Reisigl & Wodak 200: xi).
The research draws on the theoretical aims and methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA).
It refers largely to Benke and Wodak’s (2003) discourse–historical study on the justificatory
discourse of ex-Wehrmacht officers of the Austrian army. This study therefore takes a
discourse-historical approach to discourse and the data, an approach which takes into
consideration the surrounding political and historical context of the selected texts, which are, in
this case, the testimonies of perpetrators at the AC hearings. Besides an analysis of the
justificatory discourses produced by two former police officers, the study reflects on how the
discursive strategies of the apartheid perpetrators compare with one another and with the ex-
Wehrmacht officers.
CDA and the discourse-historical approach provide interdisciplinary angles on linguistic
analysis of a text. For this reason, a review is given of literature which relates the study to
political, historical and philosophical insights. The analysis particularly makes use of Foster et
al.’s (2005) socio-political study of apartheid perpetrator narratives.
The study reveals that perpetrators used a fixed set of justificatory discursive strategies to talk
about human rights violations, and their role in such violations. These linguistic strategies are
used for a number of different reasons, including reducing personal responsibility, avoiding
talking about past atrocities, saving face where personal malicious and degenerate behaviour is
made public and diverting feelings of personal guilt. On a discourse theoretical level the study
eventually convinces that there are generic strategies typically used in justificatory discourse,
whether it be in response to Wehrmacht atrocities of the Second World War or to security force
excesses in repressing aspirations of disenfranchised citizens during the last thirty years of the
Nationalist government in South Africa.
Some stories don’t want to be told.
They walk away, carrying their suitcases
held together with grey string.
Look at their disappearing curved spines.
Hunch-backs. Harmed ones. Hold alls.
Some stories refuse to be danced or mimed,
drop their scuffed canes
and clattering tap-shoes,
erase their traces in nursery rhymes
or ancient games like blind man’s bluff.
Excerpt from “Parts of Speech”
by Ingrid de Kok
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:sun/oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/1571 |
| Date | 03 1900 |
| Creators | Bernard, Taryn |
| Contributors | Anthonissen, C., University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of General Linguistics. |
| Publisher | Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | University of Stellenbosch |
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