The Language of Evaluation in the Narratives by the Magdalene Laundries Survivors

The Discourse of Female Victimhood

Bibliographic Data

ID8091066
AuthorsEncarnación Hidalgo-Tenorio (0000-0002-9750-8016, Universidad de Granada, corresponding author), Miguel-Ángel Benítez-Castro (0000-0001-8514-5943, Universidad de Zaragoza)
Year2020
Volume42
Issue2
Pages315-341
Publication date2020-04-16
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueApplied Linguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0142-6001 • E-ISSN: 1477-450X
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/applin/amaa029
OpenAlexW3042495317
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited28

Drawing on Martin and White’s Appraisal Theory, we study the language of evaluation in a corpus of interviews selected from the archives of The Magdalene Oral History Project. Apart from being deprived of proper food, clothing, and their identity, many of the women who spent their lives in Ireland’s Magdalene institutions had been, or were, sexually assaulted, and physically and psychologically abused. Their criminalization led them to long-lasting incarceration for no apparent reason and, years further on, prevented them from developing any active social voice. Thus, the discursive patterns in these texts can be seen as the symptom of ‘the discourse of female victimhood’, which is mainly characterized by their difficulty to express their emotions and their opinions, and their tendency to avoid mentioning what happened to them and who the agent was. The Magdalene survivors felt both hatred and remorse, and seemed to be able to speak about their painful experience only by silencing others’ liability, while making self-reproach and sympathy go hand in hand in their construal of both their past and themselves

Aesthetics · Art · Criminalization · Criminology · Identity (music · Literature · Mutiny · Narrative · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Sympathy · White (mutation · Gender Studies · History · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Irish and British Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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