(Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 248) Hanna Pishwa (Ed.), Rainer Schulze (Ed.) - The Expression of Inequality in Interaction - Power, Dominance, and Status (2014, John Benjamins) - Libgen - Li

The Expression of Inequality in Interaction
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Volume 248
The Expression of Inequality in Interaction. Power, dominance, and status
Edited by Hanna Pishwa and Rainer Schulze
The Expression of Inequality
in Interaction
Power, dominance, and status
Edited by
Hanna Pishwa
Technical University of Berlin
Rainer Schulze
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz University of Hanover
John Benjamins Publishing Company

Amsterdam / Philadelphia
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Expression of Inequality in Interaction : Power, dominance, and status / Edited by

Hanna Pishwa and Rainer Schulze.
p. cm. (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, issn 0922-842X ; v. 248)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Discourse analysis--Social aspects. 2. Identity (Psychology) 3. Sociolinguistics.
I. Pishwa, Hanna. II. Schulze, Rainer, 1952-.
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Table of contents
The expression of inequality in interaction.

Power, dominance, and status: An introduction 1
Rainer Schulze and Hanna Pishwa
Part I. Focus on third persons
Representing inequality in language:

Words as social categorizers of experience 17
Rainer Schulze
Sexual network partners in Tanzania: Labels, power,

and the systemic muting of women’s health and identity 49
Jennifer J. Harman, Michelle R. Kaufman, Eric Aoki,
and Carlie D. Trott
A “rape victim” by any other name: The effects of labels

on individuals’ rape-related perceptions 81
Jericho M. Hockett, Lora K. McGraw, and Donald A. Saucier
Unveiling the phantom of the “Islamic takeover”:

A critical, cognitive-linguistic analysis of the discursive
perpetuation of an Orientalist schema 105
Andreas Langlotz and Danièle Klapproth Muazzin
Power eliciting elements at the semantic-pragmatic interface:

Data from cyberbullying and virtual character-assassination attempts 143
Konstanze Marx
vi The Expression of Inequality in Interaction
Part II. Focus on speaker/author
Powerless language: Hedges as cues for interpersonal functions 165

Hanna Pishwa
A true authoritarian type: How fonts can facilitate positive opinions

for powerful groups 193
John Donahue
We and I, and you and them: People, power and solidarity 213
Anita Fetzer
Language, normativity and power: The discursive construction

of objectophilia 239
Heiko Motschenbacher
Subject index 265

The expression of inequality in interaction
Power, dominance, and status: An introduction
Rainer Schulze and Hanna Pishwa
With “how can we know so little, given that we have so much information”,
Renkema (2003, quoted in Langlotz and Klapproth Muazzin in this volume) re-
signs himself to the fact that the glaring discrepancy between the individual’s ac-
tual knowledge of inequality, power, dominance, and status (hence “inequality”)
and the commonly accessible information on these constructs has not yet been
satisfactorily portrayed and resolved. In order to address this imbalance, our col-
lection of papers attempts to make this discrepancy less glaring, seeking to pres-
ent and promote research on aspects of these constructs in order to make the less
well-represented facts of asymmetrical encounters in everyday life more visible.
In order to provide those with an interest in the cognitive, social and dis-
cursive dimension of language and behavior with new ideas, material and rec-
ommendations for further studies, we felt that it was pertinent to consider how
the different disciplines and fields dealing with aspects of inequality have devel-
oped, particularly in the last two decades. This general plan opens up possibilities
and limits the endeavor at the same time; taking into account constructs such as
inequality, power, dominance, and status sounds presumptuous. Who on earth
would dream of editing a single volume based on the broad variety of studies that
has left its impact on this collection (e.g. Wilson 2002; Grillo 2005; Turner 2005;
Simpson and Mayr 2010; Mooney et al. 2011a; Mooney et al. 2011b; Cole and
Graham 2012; Bartlett 2014; Thimm and Kruse 1991)? Why do we nevertheless
choose such an endeavor on aspects of inequality, power, dominance, and status?
There are two major reasons for us to undertake the venture despite these
concerns and challenges. First of all, we value the inherent opportunities of our
multidisciplinary approach to inequality and wish to survey the great range of re-
search and cultural practices performed in language. Our project thus is targeted
at scholars working in different disciplines, including anthropology, sociology,
social psychology, queer studies or linguistics as well as at advanced universi-
ty students enrolled in different humanities programs. Moreover, this volume
2 Rainer Schulze and Hanna Pishwa
features articles that are dedicated to different linguistic genres, including spoken
and written language, and foregrounding new and mediated forms of orality. In
order to challenge the standard approaches to inequality as portrayed in most so-
ciological studies (e.g. Turner 2005) and in order to enable a dialogue about these
constructs across different disciplines, we solicited contributions from different
academic domains such as gender studies, anthropology, linguistic pragmatics or
functional linguistics. The articles provide both surveys and in-depth studies of
phenomena that are directly linked to our object of investigation.
Secondly, following all the different contributions will allow the readers to
engage directly with cognitive and discursive conceptions of inequality and to be-
come aware of the implicit and concomitant stereotypes surrounding them. This,
in turn, will help to contend the widespread – and largely negative – assumptions
about pre-established and predetermined notions of inequality that level out con-
ceptual and cultural differences. These notions, as all the contributions show, are
never absolute, but always socially constrained, constructed, conferred, negotiat-
ed and re-negotiated; they and their interpretation must be put into the context of
societal relationships from which they emerge.
In sum, inequality as an umbrella term acts as a conceptual signpost offering
scholars and readers a way to narrow their focus towards salient phenomena in
their representation that they perhaps would not have otherwise considered to be
important.
The nature of inequality interactants encounter in their relations to one an-
other is reflected in the way they use language. Or to put it differently: Speaking
and writing are social acts (Fairclough 2001), generated by general expectations
and by the roles and positions in which interactants find themselves. In contem-
plating various ideas surrounding the construct of inequality, we would like to
take stock of the various approaches in different fields that view inequality as
the construction of a very special relationship between interactants. As will be
demonstrated later on, “inequality”, “power”, “dominance” and “status” as con-
structs relate either to individuals or social groups that engage in unequal en-
counters, i.e. unequal with regard to occupation, social class, race or gender or to
the mass media as they strive to influence attitudes and opinions of the general
audience or readership. This observation can be translated into a number of re-
search questions that will be answered in the volume:
– How can we classify different types of inequality, power, dominance or status

(Thomas and Wareing 1999; Fairclough 2001)?
– How do these different types impact on linguistic choices and behaviors?
– In which way are written or transcribed texts representative of unequal en-
counters?
The expression of inequality in interaction: An introduction 3
– How do powerful speakers exert power and authority over less powerful
ones?
– How are interactants’ assessments of societal, economic or political inequality
encoded in language?
One of the more recent models dealing with aspects of inequality and possibly
the most useful to analyze and describe asymmetrical or unequal relationships in
society, is Turner’s Three-Process Theory (2005). Turner argues that psychologi-
cal group formation produces influence, that influence is assumed to be the basis
of power and that power leads to the control of resources (2005, 9). This “evolu-
tionary” process consists of three developmental phases that try to reverse the
causal sequence of the “standard” theory in which the control of resources leads
to power which in turn leads to power in action (i.e. influence) and consequently
to psychological group formation through cohesive interpersonal relations and
consensual social structure (2005, 2ff.). Although we are not in a position to ei-
ther confirm or disprove the validity of this assumption, we are keen to harness
his postulated triad of “valued resources” – “those in power”/“with the capacity
to influence others”/“the lucky few”/“the haves” – “those feeling deprived of suf-
ficient access to the valued sources”/“those trying to gain access to the valued
resources”/“the have-nots” (Turner 2005). We do not want to explore any possible
cause-effect relationships between these components of the triad as shown in Fig-
ure 1, but we assume these components to be essential for any proper description
of asymmetrical relationships in society, thus functioning as a schematic template
or blueprint for the studies in our collection of articles.
A very similar approach to asymmetry has been suggested by Talmy who
claims that physical force interaction, as described in physics or object me-
chanics, can be related to social interaction, as amply portrayed in psychology
(1988, 75ff.). His model of force-dynamics can be seen as a way of construing the
“valued (non-) material resources”
“those feeling deprived

“those in power” of sufficient access to
“with the capacity the valued sources”
to influence others” “those trying to gain
”the lucky few” access to the valued
“the haves” sources”
“the have-nots”
Figure 1. Components of the inequality triad

world in terms of entities or components with respect to literal and non-literal

force. Although the scholarly interests of Turner are by no means congruent with
those of Talmy, the similarities in the portrayal of asymmetrical or unequal en-
counters between the “haves” and the “have-nots” or between “the gatekeepers”
and “those feeling deprived of sufficient access to the valued sources” in Turner is
similar to the construal of an “agonist” and an “antagonist” (Talmy 1988, 54), the
construal itself being characterized by factors such as “exertion of force”, “resis-
tance to such force”, “removal of blockage”, etc. These factors simultaneously point
to parallelisms and correspondences between the physical, the psychosocial and
the verbal in that acts of letting or hindering can linguistically be represented by
lemmas such as BROOK or COUNTENANCE, for example (Schulze in this volume).
We have to admit, however, that force-dynamics is not fully explanatory in that
inequalities or opposed forces in a community cannot solely be explained by dif-
ferent relative strengths they exhibit; rather, we have to take into account some
stimulus, or “valued resources” in the terminology of Turner, in order to seriously
assess the interacting forces of Turner’s triad.
We are well aware of the fact that specifying or even defining “inequality” has
been a murky business. In common parlance, the construct is linked to meanings
such as “an unfair situation, in which some groups in society have more mon-
ey, opportunities, power, etc. than others” (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary
English 2009. 5th ed., 899) or “a situation in which there is no equality or fair
treatment in the sharing of wealth or opportunities between different groups in
society” (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 2008. 3rd ed., 737). These
dictionary definitions can indeed lead to the discovery of important facts about
those issues we would like to tackle in this volume. On closer inspection, however,
we realize that we do not get the full story from dictionary entries of what should
concern us here. The dictionary definitions make only implicit use of two kinds
of information that should be given special and more explicit treatment in our
context: One concerns the syntactic contexts in which “inequality” and all the
related constructs occur, and the semantic properties of the constructs’ syntac-
tic companions. The other kind of information concerns the membership of the
construct “inequality” in classes of semantically similar words, such as “power”,
“dominance” or “status”. This is to say that the relation between “inequality” and
its complementation properties will lead to observations that serve as additional
clues that in turn will assist us in making non-intuitive judgments about pertinent
differences in meaning.
The meaning of a construct or lexical item correlates closely with its behav-
ioral profile or distributional pattern (Hanks 1996), and as will become obvious
in some of the papers of this volume, the use of distributional patterns in lexical
analysis originated with a theory advanced by Firth (“the complete meaning of
a word is always contextual” (1957, 7)) and his followers Halliday and Sinclair
who have emphasized the significance of the collocational environment of indi-
vidual and multi-word units (Halliday 1966, 156). In our sample analysis of the
item “inequality”, the contexts reveal fine-grained semantic differences that can
be found within the larger context (i.e. a span of four words to the left and to the
right). One of the corpora being consulted here is the famous British National
Corpus (BNC), created by Mark Davies at Brigham Young University that can be
accessed for free via an online interface (http://corpus.byu.edu/): That inequality
as an abstract noun should co-occur quite frequently with pre- and postmodifiers
is hardly surprising. A “quick and dirty search” in the BNC reveals that of all the
instances found (773 occurrences), inequality is typically postmodified by either
of (86; 11,1%), in (86; 11,1%) or between (18; 2,3%); premodification typically
constitutes some “kind of inequality”, including income inequality (18), gender
inequality (22), social inequality (47), class inequality (15), economic inequality
(27), political inequality (4), sexual (5) / sex (3) inequality or racial inequality (7).
A large amount of instances sees inequality in combination with the conjunction
and and nominal “companions” such as poverty (18), discrimination (3), unem-
ployment (3), exploitation (2), human rights abuses and environmental degradation
(2), crime (2), disadvantage (2), corruption (2), but also prejudice, racism, waste,
absence of fair play, lack of control, violence, mounting costs, gender division, social
differentiation, regional disparities, class divisions, degradation, oppression, insecu-
rity, harsh conditions, restraint, conflict, deprivation, inadequacy or hatred. What
this huge variety of collocation partners shows is the distinctly negative evalua-
tive load most constructions involving inequality carry. Inequality followed by a
preposition (i.e. of, in, between) typically attracts “companions” such as education
(28), society (38), income (48), distribution (24), opportunity (14), men and/versus
women (18), male vs. female (2), thus signifying a number of different semantic
domains activated by inequality. The verbal “companion” of inequality is frequent-
ly represented by reduce, implying that the situation or event depicted needs rem-
edying. Or concealing?
In a study on the constructional meaning of reasonably well, Wierzbicka
points out that aspects of interpersonal interaction in Anglo-English discourse
and related Western societies are dealt with in particular ways:
In any society, one of the key problems is getting other people to do what one
wants them to do. In many societies, this problem tends to be solved on the
basis of power differentiation. Hierarchical structures and accepted patterns of
inequality often make it clear who can tell whom what to do… In democrat-
ic societies like Britain, America or Australia, other patterns have come to the
fore, patterns based on assumptions and values of equality, individual autonomy,
voluntary co-operation, mutual concessions and so on. In this cultural climate,
the scope for orders and commands is limited, and at the same time there is less
room for patronage, for begging, imploring, pleading, appealing to mercy … val-
ue is placed on independence and self-reliance. But if one can neither give orders
and commands, nor beg, implore, plead, or appeal for mercy, help, or patronage,
how does one get others to do what one wants them to do? (2007, 61–62)
This longer quotation is meant to set the scene for different detailed and in-depth
studies of asymmetrical interpersonal interactions in which different aspects of
inequality will be highlighted and explored from a broad range of disciplinary
methods and approaches. The general observations made in this volume can pos-
sibly be predicted to hold across a range of languages, although English will be in
the focus of most of the contributions.
While the notion of inequality, used as an umbrella term in this volume, can
be represented as a triad consisting of three indispensable components, it is noto-
riously difficult to specify terms such as “power”, “dominance” or “status” that in
turn seem indispensable in analyzing asymmetrical relationships. Like so many
fundamental notions in linguistics and the social sciences, these terms so far have
resisted definition, and a universal definition of the notions, in anything but the
broadest terms, is apparently beyond the abilities of the current linguistic com-
pilers. These terms have varying usages in different theoretical frameworks, turn-
ing them into multiply polysemous lexemes that are likely to lead to unnecessary
confusion. We therefore propose to follow Thimm and Kruse (1991, 8) who view
“power” as latent resource or potentiality or as “statusful power” (Scotton 1988)
and “dominance” as being concerned with manifest action properties in everyday
discourse or as “interactional power” (Scotton 1988). The former is obviously re-
lated to Max Weber’s famous dictum that
By power is meant that opportunity existing within a social [relationship] which
permits one to carry out one‘s own will even against resistance and regardless of
the basis on which this opportunity rests, (1962, 117)
the latter being an exemplification of more recent discourse pragmatic perspec-

tives that view some sort of resources put to actual use. The notion “status” is
another example of a multiply polysemous lexeme, activating either the “position
reading”, the “prestige reading” or the “class” or “caste reading”. There is obviously
a great deal more to be said about these distinctions; what the contributions in
the following will, however, show is that we do not want to take a restrictive view
of what involves status in particular. Each contributor will specify his or her own
conception(s) of status, if necessary.
The chapters
It is the goal of the nine collected contributions to discover more about the choice
of linguistic elements to signal inequality in communication. Because of the high
complexity of the topic formulated in the questions above, this volume can give
us just a faint idea of the expression of inequality in spoken and/or written com-
munication. The chapters indicate that almost anything may serve this purpose.
Before starting, it is important to note that discourse on “inequality” implies a
relation between at least two persons or groups as well as its author or speaker.
Among the linguistic devices we find single – frequently negative – words used as
labels or other linguistic elements about a third party (Hockett, Harman, Marx,
Schulze); labels are a powerful tool when used by a more powerful social group
than the person referred to. Or some multifunctional words or phrases may allow
an implicit relational function, the discovery of which requires the employment
of implicatures. An example of the latter would be words without an inherent ref-
erence to a power relation, such as pronouns (Fetzer), hedges (Pishwa), or single
verbs such as BROOK and COUNTENANCE (Schulze), or even typefaces (Donahue).
Power relations may also be expressed explicitly in discourse (Motschenbacher)
or implicitly without any direct clue (Marx), whereby the recipient has to activate
world knowledge and combine it with social schemas. They may also be hidden
by means of metaphors, which are far more efficient due to their tendency to
activate more information than labels, thus attributing a whole range of traits
to the object (Marx, Langlotz and Klapproth Muazzin). In the present volume,
implicit and multiple meanings are of particular relevance due to their pragmatic
orientation.
The chapters are organized according to the parties involved in the power re-
lation, that is, their explicit mention and implicit activation. As mentioned above,
a simple account of power relations presented in the chapters embraces three par-
ties: speaker and/or author, source and goal. While the speaker and/or author is
not part of the message in reports, it is a participant in self-reports at the sentence
level. In power relations, source is the entity the comparison is based on, while
goal is the topic relating to source, whereby one party – either source or goal – ex-
cels the other in power. The chapters offer a whole gamut of constellations between
these three parties. The default case is an explicit mention of the goal, whereby
the two others remain in the background, which means that the speaker and/or
author refers to a third person and is possibly recoverable from the background
(Schulze, Harman, Hockett, Langlotz and Klapproth Muazzin, and Marx). The
narrator (speaker and/or author) may be positioned at other levels as well in that
she may be the source or the goal of the comparison. As a source she acts as the
individual or group being compared to; however, this case is irrelevant in the sub-
sequent chapters. If the speaker and/or author is verbalized as a goal without the
other elements, the relation to the source is implicit, for instance, social norms as
an implicit source in reports on objectophilia (Motschenbacher) by the narrator
herself or politicians using pronouns such as the powerful “I” (Fetzer); Fetzer
demonstrates further how the use of “we” may create closeness as well as distance
by referring to varying groups of people. In an extreme case, a statement may be
lacking an explicit mention of all the parties making the recipient start search-
ing for relevant information, which may be hidden in discourse or behind single
words without any relational functions as in the case of hedges, which may indi-
cate the speaker’s and/or author’s powerlessness (Pishwa). Another example of
this can be found in the chapter by Donahue on the influence of typefaces, which
represent neither source nor goal, and even less the author, leaving everything to
be inferred. The more information is missing, the more implicatures are required,
and the higher the cognitive burden or workload for the recipient.
The organization of the volume is based on these considerations, starting with
the default case in part one: An explicitly verbalized goal by the author, who re-
mains in the background. While the two verbs analyzed by Schulze imply an un-
equal relation between source and goal with the author remaining as an external
conceptualizer, they acquire their full relational functions from their collocations
implicitly. The other chapters in this part (Harman, Hockett, Marx, and Langlotz
and Klapproth Muazzin) deal with a verbalized goal without an explicit refer-
ence to the source, which is determined by the author, who by the same token
evaluates a person or a group by different means and remains offstage. While
Harman, Hockett, and Marx present labels about a third person or group, Marx
also demonstrates that inconspicuous discourse on a person can harm more than
mere labels. In the data analyzed by Langlotz and Klapproth Muazzin, the goal
(Moslems) is alluded to explicitly, but the message has to be assembled by the
recipient by means of world knowledge and metaphors.
The four chapters in the second part present the speaker and/or author and
the goal as a unified unit, so that the speaker and/or author is marked explicitly as
the goal, that is, the speaker refers to herself. However, in the chapters by Pishwa
and Donahue, the speaker and/or author remains offstage and implicit, which
means that none of the three elements are verbalized. Pishwa’s analysis of hedges
yields a picture of powerlessness of the speaker, which has to be inferred entirely
by the recipient. The three elements are missing in Donahue’s chapter as well, but
the meaningful data consist of typefaces, out of which some lend more power to
the author than some others. This means that the power of the author is hidden
behind the typefaces. The first person pronouns analyzed by Fetzer also refer to
the speaker, a politician, with the intention to create proximity or distance to the
audience. In contrast, the use of third person pronouns in her paper separates
groups from each other. Despite the fact that these pronouns stand for the goal
instead of the speaker as with the first person, the speaker is strongly present in
this deictic usage of third person pronouns. Finally, in Motschenbacher’s chapter
on objectophilia, the speaker is the goal, and the implicit source is the norm (hu-
man sexuality).
Part I: Focus on third persons
The chapter by Schulze demonstrates the ability of written language to represent

implicit social information. The goal of the paper is to identify dominance, in-
equality, power, and status, explainable in terms of power and solidarity by means
of the analysis of two semantically similar verbs BROOK and COUNTENANCE with
their collocations and frequencies. The concept of power in language is framed
within Critical Discourse Analysis with Foucauldian roots as well as Labeling
Theory. The author assumes that social relations, not being predetermined, are
(re-)negotiated and distributed in discourse. The authentic linguistic material
derived from various spoken and written American and British English corpus
data is analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The analyses reveal that the verbs
express evaluative social information from the perspective of a critical conceptu-
alizer. The finding that both verbs serve as clues for asymmetrical relationships
implies that their meanings have to be sought in encyclopedic knowledge, that
is, in semantic memory, and that a purely semantic definition would render use-
less. The results also show slight differences between the two verbs, out of which
BROOK is more fixed in terms of collocationability with companions as found in
the sentential environment than COUNTENANCE.
The contribution by Harman et al. views stigmatizing labeling of women with
“multiple and concurrent partnerships” in Tanzania, a society with a strong male
dominance. In a qualitative study on data collected from both males and females,
the authors illustrate its enormous power in terms of Labeling Theory, which as-
sumes four developmental stages starting with mere labels and finally leading to
a complete loss of status and discrimination through reinforcement. This process
causes the affected persons to change their behavior according to the expectations
the labels create. The explicit and implicit meaning of the labels is decided upon
by the powerful part of society, i.e., men. The second framework, Muted Group
Theory, explains the creation of groups of individuals labeled by the powerful in
society, the dispossession of their voice, and their muting. This leads to a biased
representation of the discriminated women as a group.
Hockett et al. examine the language of rape as used in psychological litera-

ture, in particular the connotations evoked by the labels “rape victim” and “rape
survivor”. Although the two terms imply oppression, they differ in the judgment
of effort made by the raped woman: “Victim” has additional readings of help-
lessness, weakness and immobility, while “survivor” rather involves agency. In
addition to a test on the self-perception of women, three qualitative-quantitative
studies are conducted in order to find out more about the influence of these labels
on people (students). The first study reveals in general that “victim” attributes
more blame to the woman than does “survivor”; both were attached a negative
connotation, however, the term “survivor” emphasized the process rather than
“victim.” The goal of the second study was to find out how other people would
label raped women. The result showed a preference for “victim” as a label. The
third study confirmed the researchers’ assumptions that “rape victim” and “the
woman who has been raped” attribute the blame to the woman rather than does
“rape survivor”. The subsequent discussion criticizes both labels and encourages
more studies on the topic.
Langlotz and Klapproth Muazzin illustrate power exercise over immigrants
in the right-wing media in Switzerland, specifically those in which the immi-
grants’ religion, Islam, is depicted as a threat. The authors analyze the pictorial
and textual representation of the campaign for a minaret ban in Swiss media by
employing cognitive linguistic tools such as metaphors, which help to merge the
single pieces into an idealized cognitive model “Islamic Takeover” by drawing on
accessible cognitive structures and their influence on the processing of informa-
tion and opinions. In line with Critical Discourse Analysis, the authors argue for
the role of metaphors in this process as constituting power through their ability to
bind the floating discourse to the goals of the media due to their ability to struc-
ture and restructure unstructured cognitive material. The power of metaphors
is also illustrated in the description of an unsuccessful counter-campaign by the
opponents of the minaret ban, which did not replace the ruling metaphor with a
new one.
The chapter by Marx investigates labeling in the web, in particular, an ag-
gressive kind of cyberbullying, so called “virtual character assassination”. Such
messages are not directed at the person concerned, but to third persons, readers.
This language does not only consist of defaming words, but also of longer strings
of words, i.e., discourse. Marx finds that while the lexical items used to insult
someone raise disgust in the readers and remain ineffective, abusing discourse
does not deviate from the norm but still hurts its victims. This is called “a new
standard of manipulation” by the author and Van Dijk (2006), and is not even
recognized as opinion formation by readers and is therefore particularly damag-
ing to the victim.
Part II: Focus on speaker/author
Pishwa views work done on powerless language, in particular, hedges. She com-
pares results achieved and research methods employed in social psychology and
linguistics with the goal of discovering more about the nature of these elements
and their effects on communication. The goals set in the two disciplines differ
along the speech act continuum: While linguistics emphasizes the illocution of
messages in real language data, preferably corpora, social psychologists arrange
experiments in order to assess the perlocutionary effects of language. Social psy-
chologists treat hedges as one single category as indicators of powerlessness, and
linguists show that hedges do not only differ from each other, but also that the
individual hedges are multifunctional and do not always indicate powerlessness.
The linguistic analysis of fuzziness caused by this property can explain a number
of contradictory findings in social psychology. In linguistics, hedges are consid-
ered – just like all fuzzy elements – highly context-dependent and therefore con-
ventionalized in their usage because of the numerous minutely varying functions.
Pishwa proposes a Gricean account of implicatures in order to resolve the dis-
crepancies concerning both the findings and the functions discovered in the two
disciplines.
Donahue illustrates a differing power potential of typefaces by means of two
studies with the goal of assessing the influence of three psychological factors. The
priming process, the first factor, takes place due to stimuli causing spreading acti-
vation of neighboring information, for example, typefaces being connected to na-
tional identity. The second factor is repeated exposure to a particular typeface (i.e.
salience), such as Helvetica, utilized by companies and governments to emphasize
their identity. The third factor studied is the ease of cognitive processing, the ef-
fect of which enhances the memorizing of the material printed in hard-to-process
typefaces. The three experiments provide evidence for the influence of priming,
repeated exposure, and cognitive fluency on the evaluation of power.
The chapter by Fetzer addresses the indexical use of personal pronouns (I, we,
you, and they) in political discourse as strategic devices. Of particular interest is
the flexible reference of the selected pronouns, which can be employed to fore-
ground and background “individuality” and “collectivity” as well as “dominance”
and “solidarity”. The analyses yield that the pronouns dealt with can be used more
or less successfully, for instance, to create collectivity and solidarity by using the
first and second person pronouns. The author shows that political discourse is
strongly affiliated with the media due to being institutional and professional at
the same time. It can also change its genre, for instance, into a dialogue in inter-
view situations despite of its basically monological character. For all that, political
discourse appears to be highly conventionalized, yet allowing the individual

speaker to make the choice of the linguistic tools.
Motschenbacher addresses normativity in society as a controlling factor in
discourse on unusual sexuality practices, such as objectophilia, in terms of theo
retical issues of norms and a linguistic analysis of data derived from a German
phone-in radio station. According to the author, norms, which share an interface
between society and individuals, are regularities with a high degree of power and
may develop into prescriptive rules to be followed by the members of a society.
Hence, they are conventionalized agreements on behavior whose breaches are ac-
companied by an exclusion from the more powerful central group. As discourse
on behavior is adapted to normative conventions, deviating sexual behavior, that
is, objectophilia, aspires towards the settled norms, for instance, by humanizing
objects. While normal sexuality is viewed as an identity in discourse, objecto-
philes describe only their desires; according to the author, discourse of identity is
more powerful than that of desires.
Acknowledgments
As editors, we would like to thank the contributors for their interest in this in-
terdisciplinary venture and the work they have put into their respective papers.
Moreover, we extend our thanks to the series editors, Anita Fetzer and Andreas
H. Jucker, who entirely trusted our choice of topic, scholars and focus. Last but
not least, we thank Marie Adler for her work that went far beyond technical edit-
ing which she performed with absolute reliability, patience and carefulness.
References
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http://cogweb.ucla.edu/CogSci/Talmy.html
http://corpus.byu.edu/
Part I
Focus on third persons

Representing inequality in language
Words as social categorizers of experience
Rainer Schulze
Using large, computerized corpora, this study aims to provide lexico-grammat-

ical evidence for patterns or constructions in language pertaining to domains
such as “power”, “dominance”, “inequality” or “status”. The study will specifically
focus on the verbal uses of brook and countenance, lemmas that are piv-
otal to the domains in question and whose semantic and pragmatic meanings
will be associated with discourses of inequality and supremacy, subordination
and authorization. The verbal lemmas will turn out less as markers of energy
transfer (as might be expected from the prototypical constructional meaning of
transitive clauses in which they ordinarily occur) than as markers of perceived
social implications, with a clear focus on the constructing and representational
nature of their uses. In addition to offering a contribution to language-depen-
dent “dominance”, “inequality”, “power”, “status” research, this paper will also
demonstrate the indispensable use of corpus-linguistic methods within a pre-
dominantly functional framework (drawing its main inspirations from current
research in neo-Firthian linguistics, Frame Semantics and Cognitive Linguistics
in particular).
1. Introduction: Aim of the inquiry and key research questions
Since dominance, inequality, power or status in society are not given phenomena,
but concepts continuously and (sub-) consciously construed through language, it
is a truism that these phenomena or concepts reveal and manifest themselves in
language. In an attempt to understand dominance, inequality, power or status in
society, some well-established approaches in linguistics have successfully tried to
explore the lexis and lexical patterns or constructions of their “languages” with
their multiple functions of reflecting and also defining these socio-cultural phe-
nomena within a society, of intentionally co-operating with co-interactants or of
(sub-) consciously manipulating others (Fiedler and Freytag 2009, 349f.). All these
functions of language seem to be crucial in the establishment (i.e. formation) and,
18 Rainer Schulze
through continuous adjustment (i.e. alteration, redefinition, modification, or re-

inforcement) and alignment, strengthening of the system of beliefs, customs, mo-
res and values which constitute any society’s socio-cognitive, and hence, cultural
make-up.
In the discourse of practices and institutions of a society, “inequality”, for ex-
ample, is a key expression. Key expressions or key words, as Stubbs maintains, are
“nodes around which ideological battles are fought” (2001, 188), and in a well-re-
ceived book (“not a dictionary but a vocabulary”, 23) originally published in the
mid-seventies, Williams discusses various of these, among them “alienation”,
“bourgeois”, “civilization”, “elite” or “radical”. A point of view that is of particular
interest here is the explication of “equality”, defined as and equated with
both a fundamental condition – ‘all men are created equal’ - and a set of specific
demands, as in equality before the law – that is to say, reform of previous statuto-
ry inequalities, in feudal and post-feudal ranks and privileges.
(Williams 1976, 101)
As with most keywords in the book, a common thread running through the
various definitions and explications is the idea that all the concepts exhibit both
a literal and/or various more recent non-literal sense(s): as far as “equality” is
concerned, he distinguishes between “being equal” in a physical sense, as a term
of measurement, and “being equal” in a social sense. All these findings turn
Williams’ explications into an excursion into domains such as cultural history,
historical semantics, history of ideas, social criticism, literary history and sociol-
ogy, domains to which all his concepts and their explications can be affiliated.
Consequently, all concepts that shape and are shaped by the discourse of practices
and institutions of a society can be viewed as an outcome of “… complex ideolog-
ical formation[s] – [a] structured, historically formed set of myths or discourses”
(Coupland 2001, 197, especially on another culturally loaded concept: “ageism”).
With this evidence in mind, and supplemented by current research into “domi-
nance”, “inequality”, “power” and “status”, evidence from two large corpora (BNC
and COCA) will be provided in order to answer the following questions:
– How are concepts such as “dominance”, “inequality”, “power” and “status”, so-
cially and culturally constructed, “translated” into and encoded in language?
– How does a language reflect the status of superiors and inferiors?
– How does the use of language mark asymmetrical relationships in a sentence
(and in a society)?
– How and in what ways does language use affect and construct aspects of
“dominance”, “inequality”, “power” and “status”?
– What are the most frequent grammatical patterns that mirror aspects of
“dominance”, “inequality”, “power” and “status” in the discourse?
Representing inequality in language 19
– What is so special about these patterns or constructions from a semantic and

pragmatic point of view?
– What attributes are typically associated with the animate and non-animate
“companions” (noun phrases, prepositional phrases, clauses, etc.) evoked by
brook and countenance?
The aim of this contribution will be twofold. On the level of lexical grammar,
it aims to contribute to the growing body of research on the explicit and hid-
den nature of lexical items and/or larger multi-word units, i.e. the semantic and
pragmatic meaning of patterns or constructions. More to the point, this paper’s
contribution consists in drawing up a collocational profile of brook and coun-
tenance as reflections and discursive representations of “dominance”, “inequal-
ity”, “power” and “status” as key concepts in modern societies. On the level of
corpus linguistics, the paper aims to demonstrate that large reference corpora are
rich repositories or “cultural mines” (Facchinetti 2012) of social information (i.e.
ethnographic data) and thus offer considerable potential for research in particular
areas of linguistics, e.g. frame semantics, cognitive linguistics, cognitive grammar
or cognitive sociolinguistics. In a well-documented interview between Juana I.
Marín-Arrese and Dirk Geeraerts, one of the founding members of a number of
cognitive enterprises, the latter emphasizes the strong association between con-
text and cognition. According to him, evidence bears out the idea
… that cognition is a social phenomenon: the embodiment of language is not just
a physiological embodiment, it is also a form of social situatedness. People are
part of a culture, and so are their ideas; we get our concepts not just through our
bodies but also (and perhaps even primarily) through our cultural environment.
(Marín-Arrese and Geeraerts 2007, 291)
2. Language and “dominance”, “inequality”, “power” and “status”
Concepts such as “dominance”, “inequality”, “power” and “status” constitute a field

of research spanning many disciplines, reflecting the fact that these exhibit socio-
logical, psychological and linguistic implications. Quite simply, relations in a so-
ciety can be conceptualized along two dimensions: power and solidarity. Whereas
power or inequality or dominance may be exerted through force, institutional
authority, expertise or status, solidarity can be linked to concepts such as “close-
ness” and “affection” which in turn reflect the degree of contact, either frequent,
intermittent or extending over a longer period of time (Poynton 1989). While it
is true that “non-hyphenated” linguistics in the past has been paying compar-
atively less attention to these concepts than to other concepts (i.e. competence,
20 Rainer Schulze
innateness, structure, etc.), it might be apt to talk about these concepts as lin-
guistics’ under-researched social dimension. There is no denying the fact that the
social perspective in language study should be accorded some proper place in
the history of linguistics, starting from “classical” sociolinguistics in the sense of
Labov (1966) and his collaborators (“How do social factors in a society correlate
with variation in language use?”) down to interactional sociolinguistics in the
sense of Gumperz (1986) and like-minded scholars who look into variation in
production at discourse level, not at aggregate level (not “What is the average
behavior of the group”, but “What is the specific behavior within one conversa-
tion or within one stretch of discourse?” or “How do interactants adapt to one
another, not just on average, but in specific circumstances, in the unfolding of
a certain stretch of speech?”). There is now a sizeable body of research dealing
with the interactional aspect of social and linguistic variation, most notably repre-
sented in (collective) volumes such as Wilson (2002) on the significance of inter-
personal influence episodes in shaping discursive practices; or Grillo (2005) and
colleagues, who explore the discursive dimension of “dominance”, “inequality”,
“power” and “status” and who reject the reductive conception of discourse and
power (“the agonistic model”) in Critical Discourse Analysis in favor of a parti
cipatory model of empowerment (hence Power without Domination); or Simpson
and Mayr (2010) who present a survey of the ways in which language intersects
and connects with the social, cultural and political aspects of power, with a clear
focus on concepts such as race, gender and institutional power, also against the
background of forensic discourse analysis, the discourse of new capitalism and
the study of humor; or Cole and Graham (2012) who explore the “powerful” lan-
guage of teachers as used in contemporary education; or by Bartlett (2012) who
explores the relationship between the goals of discourse, the social positions of the
speakers, the contexts in which they are produced, the audience for which they
are intended and the language features chosen. Another common thread running
through current research on “dominance”, “inequality”, “power” and “status” is the
idea that language is the primary mechanism by which people act out the power
and solidarity relations in our society (Conley and O’Barr 1998); and it is not only
about acting out, but also about discursive constructing, contesting and re-ne-
gotiating as becomes most obvious in different approaches of Critical Discourse
Analysis where the uncovering of relationships between language and the social
are of prime importance. This contention is expanded through the marking of
discourse as a very special form of practice:
CDA [Critical Discourse Analysis, R.S.] sees discourse – language use in speech
and writing – as a form of “social practice”. Describing discourse as social prac-
tice implies a dialectal relationship between a particular discursive event and the
situation(s), institution(s) and social structure(s) which frame it. A dialectal re-
lationship is a two-way relationship: the discursive event is shaped by situations,
institutions and social structures, but it also shapes them.
(Fairclough and Wodak 1997, 258)
The dialectal relationship advocated here implies that societal conditions con-
stitute and shape discourses, and discourses in turn become “constituting”
themselves. In this way, (social) identities, relationships, knowledge systems
and “realities” are both constituted and represented through language, and lan-
guage makes them both explicit and generally available. In a similar vein, Wodak
(2005, 139) points out that linguistic acts both produce and reproduce values, and
all this happens through language and is sustained, negotiated, or challenged in
discourse.
Social labeling (= labeling theory), as an influential theory in sociology, is
used to denote an approach to the study of human communication focusing
on (verbal) categorizations and interpretations of entities (including people) in
the world. Labeling theory shows strong links with social interactionism (John
Dewey, George Herbert Mead, William Isaac Thomas); at its simplest, this ap-
proach does not take predetermined roles (= what the interactant should do) or
statuses (= what the interactant should be) in a situation for granted, but social
labeling is rather viewed as a discursive act, typically performed by human beings,
of verbally ascribing behaviors, beliefs, norms, rights or obligations, as conceptu-
alized by the speech community to co-interactants (Becker 1964; Goffman 1961;
Mead 1934). To put it differently, “inequality”, “power”, “dominance” or “status”
are not given attributes of individuals or organizations, but are attributes of the
verbal categorizations made by some participant observer or the language user.
We create meaning through social interaction with others. In socially construct-
ing people, we create categories and ideas about what people in those categories
are like. Hence social constructions can be powerful, but they can also be con-
tested and re-negotiated. This approach in sociology comes close to research pro-
grams in empirical semantics that deal with aspects of framing and the framing of
the actual communication situation in particular:
When we understand a piece of language, we bring to the task both our ability to
assign schematizations of the phases or components of the “world” that the text
somehow characterizes, and our ability to schematize the situation in which this
piece of language is being produced. We have both “cognitive frames” and “inter-
actional frames”, the latter having to do with how we conceptualize what is going
on between the speaker and the hearer, or between the author and the reader.
(Fillmore 1982, 117)
22 Rainer Schulze
All these theoretical and, in parts, practical approaches to meaning creation and
meaning (re-) negotiation can be linked to or are based on a Foucauldian un-
derstanding of discourse (see e.g. Foucault 1966; Foucault 1971; Jaworski and
Coupland 2006). Discourses, in the broadest sense of the word, are defined as
“practices which systematically form the objects of which they speak” (Foucault
1969, translation in Cameron 2001, 15). Social reality, including ways of knowing,
acting, speaking and being in the world, is constructed in and through discourse.
Thus, social categories such as “inequality”, “power”, “dominance” or “status” are
not a priori givens but effects of discourses, whose existence is dialectically related
to differently articulated social practices.
Current research in “dominance”, “inequality”, “power” and “status”, especially
studies launched in the context of Critical Discourse Analysis, owes much of its
theoretical and methodological requisite knowledge to the linguistic profile set
up by John Rupert Firth, Michael A. K. Halliday (i.e. exploring conceptual mean-
ings in clauses through a transitivity choice among different process types), John
Sinclair, Susan Hunston, Michael Stubbs or Michael Hoey. Neo-Firthian linguis-
tics, as this branch of British linguistics was called later on, pursues an agenda that
Firth once called “sociological linguistics” (1957, 27) and that fosters “research
into the detailed contextual distribution of sociologically important words, what
one might call focal or pivotal words” (Firth 1957, 10; original italics). What unites
all these studies is the firm belief that the distinction (if reasonable and possible
at all) between denotational and non-denotational meanings is an arbitrary one
and hence largely unfounded (cf. furthermore the claim that words are contain-
ers for meanings (Reddy 1979) and the claim that words are devoid of meaning
(Sinclair 1996a)) and that particular readings of individual items or strings of
words found in a large corpus, such as the British National Corpus or the Con-
temporary Corpus of American English, are not simply subjective associations that
focal or pivotal words trigger in the individual language user, but that, similar
to denotational meanings, “connotations are also widely shared within a speech
community” (Stubbs 2001, 35). This essentially social rather than cognitive orien-
tation of Neo-Firthian linguistics (Teubert 2005, 8) can be reconciled with a more
psychologically or cognitive orientation: “cognition is a social phenomenon”
(Marín-Arrese and Geeraerts 2007, 291). Perhaps not unexpectedly, concepts in
this cognitive framework are assumed to be acquired in a speech community,
hence being social per se, since established and firmly entrenched form-meaning
pairings in a language never emerge from a societal vacuum.
3. Corpus and method: Combining quantitative

and qualitative approaches
If we wish to substantiate intuitions and ad hoc evidence about the huge function-
al potential of language, we need to turn to representative textual data, and this
claim leads us to the corpus-driven investigation reported on in this contribution.
Our investigation will focus on the immediate phraseological and distributional
environment of brook and countenance both in British English and US Amer-
ican English, taking as our point of departure a study begun by Sinclair (1996b,
90ff. on brook). Although similar from a methodological point of view, the find-
ings will be discussed from a perspective that is not Sinclairian per se. Corpora
currently available with their wide range of sources and genres and the metho
dology in corpus linguistics enable us to gain access to particular entrenched pat-
terns, thereby (i) making our approach empirical with a focus on authentic data,
and (ii) emphasizing the contextual and functional (social and cognitive) signifi-
cance of meaning (Tognini-Bonelli 2001, 2).
The primary sources of data for this study were the British National Corpus
(BNC) and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The BNC is
a 100-million-word corpus aiming at being a balanced representation of British
English in the 1990s (including 10% spoken language, and among the written
texts, 25% are taken from fiction, 75% from non-fiction); the COCA is currently
a 450-million-word corpus (accessed 15 October 2012). Major sources include
American TV, radio, books, magazines, newspapers and journals, divided into
five registers of equal size: spoken (transcribed conversation from television and
radio), fiction, popular magazines, newspapers and academic journals from dif-
ferent fields (Lindquist 2009, 17).
Keyword-in-context (KWIC) concordances calculate absolute and joint fre-
quencies and compute measures of relative statistical significance for each col-
locate whereas MI scores highlight lexical items that are relatively infrequent by
themselves but have a higher-than-random probability of co-occurring with the
node word (Clear 1993, 281). On the basis of quantitative indicators, the ensuing
qualitative approach will scrutinize the elicited concordance lines with a focus on
the concepts of semantic preference and semantic prosody. On the one hand and
following Stubbs, “semantic preference” is understood as the co-occurrence with
“a class of words which share some semantic feature” (2001, 88). This concept
was invoked, for example, to capture the association of brook or countenance
with lexis referring to clause-initial NPs expressing people or sets of people in
authority and clause-final NPs encoding more abstract concepts; “semantic pros-
ody”, on the other hand, refers to “the consistent aura of meaning with which a
form is imbued by its collocates” (Louw 1993, 175). This is particularly related
24 Rainer Schulze
to what Stewart calls “its evaluative and its hidden features” (2010, 20). Through
semantic preferences and prosodies, respectively, it will be possible to identify
and specify both the social domains that lexical items are associated with (Orpin
2005, 49) and the societal value judgments they carry. With the concepts “seman-
tic preference” and “semantic prosody”, the qualitative dimension of the study will
be enhanced. In sum, the study will both focus on discursive constructs and on
language in performance.
4. Findings: Quantitative and qualitative evidence
The investigation of verbal brook and countenance (Table 1) began by examin-

ing collocation lists for brook and countenance, ordered by the Mutual Infor-
mation score. Among the items with the highest joint frequency (i.e. co-occurring
within a span of five words on either side of brook and countenance), there
were five lexical and grammatical items in the vicinity of brook in the BNC (such
as argument, tone, delay, no and would, see Table 2) and nine lexical items in the
vicinity of brook in the COCA (such as dissent, interference, nonsense, argument,
tone, opposition, compromise, criticism and voice, see Table 3); countenance in
the BNC typically co-occurs with refusal, refused, willing, prepared, possibility,
never, would or order (see Table 4) and with destruction, refused, possibility, will-
ing, behavior, longer, won’t, would, not or idea in the COCA (see Table 5). All these
items had high MI scores, i.e. of 3 and above and slightly below, thus disregarding
items with very low joint frequencies.
Table 1. Distribution of brook and countenance in the BNC and COCA
Query syntax BNC instances COCA instances
[brook].[v*] 70 190
[countenance].[v*] 185 304
Table 2. Lexical and grammatical collocates of brook with the highest
Mutual Information scores among the top collocates (BNC)
Collocate Joint frequency MI score
argument 14 7.69
tone 7 7.65
delay 5 6.13
no 46 4.68
would 13 2.69
Table 3. Lexical collocates of brook with the highest Mutual Information scores
among the top collocates (COCA)
dissent 10 9.01
interference 10 8.60
nonsense 7 7.88
argument 20 6.77
tone 12 6.57
opposition 12 6.23
compromise 5 6.10
criticism 5 5.38
no 126 4.31
voice 6 3.19
Table 4. Lexical and grammatical collocates of countenance with the highest
Mutual Information scores among the top collocates (BNC)
refusal 9 7.95
refused 20 7.37
willing 7 6.49
prepared 16 6.30
possibility 5 5.17
never 8 2.92
would 36 2.89
order 5 2.89
Table 5. Lexical and grammatical collocates of countenance with the highest
Mutual Information scores among the top collocates (COCA)
destruction 5 5.72
refused 6 5.49
possibility 5 4.75
willing 6 4.65
behavior 8 4.32
longer 6 3.51
won’t 5 3.22
would 60 3.02
not 100 2.92
idea 5 2.81
26 Rainer Schulze
That the lemmas brook and countenance and all the possible verbal real-
izations, including brook, brooks, brooked, brooking, countenance, countenances,
countenanced and countenancing function as monotransitive verbs with nomi-
nals with an almost exclusively [+human] orientation in subject position should
co-occur quite frequently with abstract nominals in direct-object position is hard-
ly surprising. Among the additional companions of brook and countenance,
and corroborated by the collocation list ordered by MI score (i.e. measuring the
difference between expected and observed frequencies and hence the strength
of the collocational bond), the top collocates represent both lexical and gram-
matical items and among these, modal auxiliaries and the negative particle no or
not figure quite prominently. In addition to the [+human] nominals in subject
position which cannot really be identified by the joint frequency list (due to the
lexical and semantic variation found in subject position: pronouns, proper nouns,
countable nouns), nominals in direct-object position adjacent to brook typically
reflect semantic preferences clustering around discourses of (verbal) opposition,
disagreement or interference (see below); nominals in direct-object position ad-
jacent to countenance, however, provide a richly varied picture of the “objects”
that may be approved or disapproved of (see below). The list of statistically signifi-
cant modal and “negative” collocates is remarkable and deserves proper treatment
against a more textual environment. The picture that emerges, then, is of brook
and countenance being strongly associated with lexical items in direct-object
position related to (deverbal) nominals; this association is particularly noticeable
with brook and adjacent nominals related to unwanted acts of communication.
Nominals in subject-position, however, typically denote human beings or sets of
human beings (represented by collective nouns, for example) in putative posi-
tions of authority. With this partially quantitative and partially qualitative evi-
dence as a guide, we can now move on to examine concordances that show brook
and countenance in their immediate textual environment.
5. Findings: Refining the collocational profile
The statistics reported in the preceding subsection has shown that lexical and
grammatical items from particular semantic domains have a higher-than-ran-
dom probability of occurring in the vicinity of brook and countenance. The
following concordances will reveal what the nature of this strong association
is. Additionally, they will allow us to spot collocates in the form of patterns or
constructions that contribute to the semantic preference and prosody of verbal
brook and countenance, since they can be derived from the same or relat-
ed domains and share the same evaluative load as the lexical and grammatical
items identified by the quantitative discovery procedures, but may not be frequent
enough individually to pass the threshold of statistical significance. In what fol-
lows, we will be quoting from different concordances made available by the BNC
and COCA, without specifically looking into and exploring particular American
English or British English uses. By way of illustration, we will also perform a pro-
visional Hallidayan transitivity analysis to the data in order to identify the most
prominent “companions” as constructed by the texts; these “companions” are as-
sumed to exemplify the concept of inequality.
Focusing first of all on the collocates of brook in direct-object position,
we can see from the concordances that dissent, argument, complaint, criticism,
discussion, disobedience, interference, defiance, opposition, dispute, disagreement,
comment, contradiction, intercourse, comparison, interruption, negotiation or dis-
traction occur in the immediate vicinity:
HY7 W_ac_humanities_arts ǁ was less determined to send his troops abroad
than to make clear that he would brook no dissent at home. Education, in the
(BNC)
FNT W_fict_prose ǁ I’m not having any nastiness in my house.’ Sylvie’s tone
would brook no questions. The girls had looked at each other curiously
(BNC)
AT4 W_fict_prose ǁ to him,’ I’m your friend. Count me in,’ which brooked no
argument. The game was good. Hoomey enjoyed it, his spirits only (BNC)
JYF W_fict_prose ǁ particular explanation. Not that, standing square in front
of her, his expression brooking no refusal, he was giving her much choice. She
took a deep breath (BNC)
All these nominals in direct-object position represent a limited range of deverbal

NPs that relate to unwelcome acts of communication. Alternatively, as the fol-
lowing selection of concordance lines illustrates, the direct-object “companions”
of brook may also include nominals not typically found in the communication
domain, and the most conspicuous examples can be found in the COCA:
2009 FIC Triquarterly ǁ, Hitler made a lifetime vow of point-black refusal.
Among those who dared not brook him were several generals, and some
(COCA)
2008 FIC BK:HereticsDaughter ǁ this is not Billerica. It is Andover. And the
Reverend Barnard will not brook absence from prayer. You must go today in
(COCA)
2004 MAG USAToday ǁ among 100 percent of the population. The State is
a jealous God and will brook no rivals. Its sovereignty must pervade ever
(COCA)
28 Rainer Schulze
2008 FIC Bk:MostWantedMan ǁ precious wedding gift that to Melik always

sounded like a reproach. Knowing she brooked no delay at such moments,
he slunk to the kitchen, avoiding her (COCA)
And when we extend our view from nominals that are statistically significant to
the full pattern, even more such “lumping together” becomes apparent, as does
the negative polarity or prosody of the lexical and grammatical items preceding
brook (including reluctance + to brook, unwillingness + to brook, unwilling + to
brook, dare not + to brook or refusal + to brook) illustrate:
HLS W_non__ac_polit_law_edu ǁ criticism in the liberal press, which warned
that it showed an increasing reluctance to brook opposition on the part of the
Russian (BNC)
H7E W_biography ǁ her leaders. She also had strong opinions and found it
hard to brook any delay or frustration. If she’d set her mind on something
(BNC)
2007 MAG HarpersMag ǁ arrogance and egotism; its peremptory, bullying
tone and methods; its refusal to brook criticism from within or without
(COCA)
1993 MAG Newsweek ǁ into three swing states. But Perot is still Perot: dicta-
torial, unwilling to brook criticism, snarling at the press. He talks on (COCA)
A new domain naturally emerges, too: “the mood or the way the speaker thinks
about something at a particular time”. The relevance of this domain is strength-
ened by some concomitant modal auxiliaries such as will, could, can or would,
the latter, however, being more likely to express some past habit than epistemic
modality:
J54 W_fict_prose ǁ .” No, thought Sara, it was no good disapproving. Jenny
would brook no criticism of Matthew. Her rage would only be turned (BNC)
2002 NEWS NYTimes ǁ of his dazzling smiles, featuring the best dimples
imaginable. He would not brook unhappiness. The way he saw it, life often
(COCA)
In more than 55% of all the concordance lines related to brook, no as a deter-
miner specifies the deverbal communication noun (opposition, dissent, argument,
etc.) in direct-object position, whereas not as an adverb in more than 26% of all
the brook-instances teams up with following brook. This is to say that both the
BNC and the COCA hardly provide any documentary evidence around brook
without “negation markers”, adding to the negatively loaded profile we have been
able to work out thus far.
That brook predominantly contributes to acts of social labeling is also ev-

ident from its nominal collocates. In the quantitative part of the study (see the
preceding section), dissent, argument, complaint, criticism, discussion, disobedi-
ence, interference, defiance, opposition, dispute, disagreement, comment, contradic-
tion, intercourse, comparison, interruption, negotiation, rival, delay or distraction
turned out to be among the nouns co-occurring with brook, brooks, brooked
or brooking at statistically significant levels; these nominals (or verbiage in
Hallidayan (2004) terminology) are metonymically related to their [+human]
producers and constitute a fairly limited set of “communication” nouns. Nominals
in subject position, however, constitute an open set of common nouns, proper
nouns and pronouns (or sayer in Hallidayan (2004) terminology) and cannot
reliably be uncovered by statistical means or techniques. The concordances for
brook and the corresponding lexical items in subject position point not only to
[+human] referents, but brook (and the language user) also help to construct a
particular social identity of the sayer: someone with a tone of authority in his
or her voice. This is to say that some participant observer or interactant assesses
the current status of individuals or group of individuals involved in a particular
situation on the basis of information available in the current situation. Numerous
acts of social labeling become conspicuous in the data provided by the BNC and
the COCA:
A64 W_ac_polit_law_edu ǁ to let more money flow into public funds. In
contrast local military authorities would brook no delay. The commander of
the (BNC)
2002 FIC Analog ǁ scowled. “I’m sure” – she said this in a tone that would
brook no argument – “that Scholar Huld and whoever is going to (COCA)
FSP W_fict_prose ǁ ‘I can always tell when you have a cold,’ she said, brooking
no argument.’ The whites of your eyes go pink.’ Then she (BNC)
These and many more concordance lines show that the referents of the NPs in
subject position do not always and only denote human beings in institutional
authority. Rather, what some observant participant or co-interactant does in these
texts is to assign a “superior” position to someone who, by “speaking”, has a pro-
found impact on the ways others are expected to behave.
As the examination of brook has shown, this verb constitutes a surprisingly
neat transitive pattern, with a subject typically denoting human beings and a lim-
ited set of deverbal “communication” nominals in direct-object position. What
all the concordance lines above exemplify is that the NP+VP+NP pattern or con-
struction encodes a particular way of communicating the intention of a sayer;
and the process type expressed by the verb implies that someone tries to exert
30 Rainer Schulze
Table 6. The brook profile

SEMANTICS GRAMMAR CORE GRAMMAR SEMANTICS
PREFERENCE human beings refusal, “negation” BROOK “negation” act of communication
reluctance,
unwillingness
COLLIGATION NP modal verb negation marker negation marker NP
COLLOCATION Sylvie’s tone, I, we, Moscow, will, would, not no dissent, argument, complaint,
military authorities, could, can criticism, discussion,
Congress, court, the disobedience, interference,
king, fundamentalist defiance, opposition, dispute,
Presbyterians, Reverend disagreement, comment,
Barnard, the State, China’s contradiction, intercourse,
sovereignty, territorial comparison, interruption,
integrity, etc. negotiation, rival, delay,
distraction
EXAMPLES Sylvie’s tone would no questions.
I could not the confusion.
SEMANTIC PROSODY intolerance
or exercise his or her authority over someone else in order to keep control of the
events to follow (as shown in Table 6). In the following, we will address the ques-
tion whether countenance, as a partial synonym of brook, creates identical or
similar syntactic and semantic-pragmatic patterns and, if not, how these patterns
differ from one another.
The picture that emerges, then, is of countenance being preceded by nomi-
nals in subject position denoting human beings or sets of human beings assumed
to be in a position of both institutional and non-institutional authority:
AKR W_newsp_brdsht_nat_misc ǁ during the recent campaign, but the
Prime Minister was prepared to overlook that and countenance her rehabil-
itation. Her detractors, of whom there are (BNC)
2012 FIC Bk:Timeless ǁ He appeared to be reading a suspiciously embossed
novel, but Alexia could not quite countenance such an activity in Lord
Akeldama. To her certain knowledge (COCA)
What is remarkable in all these concordance lines is the diversity of nominals

in subject and direct-object position, found both in active and passive voice
clauses. Again, although they may not be frequent enough individually to pass
the threshold of statistical significance, the emerging pattern itself, triggered by
countenance, provides a multitude of different NP+V+NP-configurations.
While nominals in subject position typically denote referents that are capable of
“saying” something special (including nominals metonymically related to human
referents), nominals in direct-object position constitute an open set of different
fields such as “theories”, “acts”, “opposition”, “attitude”, “principles”, as can be illus-
trated in the following concordances:
HUH S_lect_soc_science ǁ state of mind. And that I think, is why Darwin was
prepared to countenance Lamarckism in psychology whereas he never was
when he was talking about (BNC)
HGS W_fict_prose ǁ “You may offer, sir, and I may refuse. The social contract
countenances both actions!” My action may be more mutually beneficial than
yours.
2004 MAG America ǁ realism may sometimes require the use of military
force. The pope has several times countenanced what is called “humanitarian
intervention” to put an end to (COCA)
While the sayer-verbiage configuration as a typical transitive construction re-

lates two distinct entities, a close scrutiny of the lexical and grammatical mate-
rial immediately preceding verbal countenance reveals a significant number
32 Rainer Schulze
of negatively loaded multi-word units; i.e. more than 33% of all the concordanc-
es exemplify the not + countenance string (or similar “negation” + countenance
strings) that color the meaning of the configuration in a particular way, whereas
the countenance + no string figures less prominently (i.e. three instances only in
the corpora):
2010 FIC Bk:RoyAmpLillieLove ǁ he was Canadian, and not from its wilder-
ness; her middle-class British upbringing would countenance no origins less
(COCA)
K4W W_newsp_other_report ǁ B on the horizon that these B bright, articu-
late 18-year-olds say they can not countenance: the rise of the extreme right
and the spreading of its racist, (BNC)
B20 W_fict_prose ǁ Frau Geller severely,’ an eminently proper view. Certainly
I should never have countenanced any such career for a daughter of mine.” A
little old-fashioned (BNC)
In addition, modal verbs such as would, could, can, will and should (in more than
44% of all the occurrences) and expressions exemplifying “reluctance” such as
refusal + to countenance, refuse + to countenance, willing/unwilling + to counte-
nance, (not) prepared + to countenance or reluctance + to countenance contribute
to an interpretation of the pattern that clearly confirms the results of the MI score
measurements and that adds an aspect of meaning to countenance unavailable
if analyzed in isolation:
HVJ S_pub_debate ǁ could not countenance, and I’m sure none of the author-
ities around us could countenance a new settlement that scale in Greater
(BNC)
EDL W_ac_polit_law_edu ǁ order.’ This phrase is to be given a strict con-
struction; to avoid countenancing ‘fishing expeditions’, the documents must
be either individual documents separately describing (BNC)
2012 ACAD ForeignAffairs ǁ (Brazil, India, and South Africa), are no longer
willing to countenance UN Security Council resolutions that could lead to
military interventions to overthrow (COCA)
In contrast to brook, countenance shows participle uses in its inflectional pro-

file, most frequently in passive voice clauses. As is usual in most of these clauses,
the sayer of the act can be suppressed and the verbiage being moved into sen-
tence-initial position to foreground the sayer’s target:
BPO W_fict_prose ǁ, sales of office. Terrorising and plunder, all by Mamelukes,

and all countenanced by the Sultan because he’s afraid of ‘em. They depend
for business (BNC)
C8S W_fict_prose ǁ at the foot of the staircase; in certain other Oxford col-
leges such practices were countenanced; not, Mr Bullins thought proudly, in
Magdalen, which, in his (BNC)
2010 ACAD Humanist ǁ – this is the real point – nearly all the intervening
changes have been either countenanced or confuted in an almost alternating
rhythm of consensus by the (COCA)
ACAD Humanist ǁ it is, it constantly calls itself into question, something
which would never be countenanced by religion. Only through a truly liberal
education can a person achieve (COCA)
What these lines reveal is that the collocational behavior of countenance, in-
cluding the pattern’s negative semantic prosody, is preserved, even in different
syntactic environments. Hence, countenance is strongly associated with lexical
items denoting human referents (or lexicalized aspects metonymically related to
a sayer) and lexical items representing a huge wealth of abstract concepts from
different domains (i.e. verbiage), including both “positively” (e.g. rehabilitation,
exculpation, arbitration, career, etc.) and “negatively” loaded ones (e.g. cruelty,
untruthfulness, offensive strikes, neglect, etc.). Most revealingly, countenance ac-
tivates a pattern that clearly shows a social orientation since the sayer is assumed
to be in an authoritative position to check on the outcome of some prior or future
activity (i.e. verbiage) that may be either beneficial or harmful to his or her own
plans. In other words, the sayer in all the citations is represented as being able to
shape his or her own life. These observations based on a random selection of in-
stances from the BNC and the COCA can be translated into the following Table 7.
6. On the interaction of words, context and patterns or constructions
What we are looking for primarily, so far following a systemic-functional ap-

proach (Halliday 2004), are ways to explore the significance of the relationship
between sayer and verbiage. The assignment of these labels and the presen-
tation of our corpus analysis can, of course, be criticized as inaccurate and in-
complete, but the point remains that we have here not just a group of individual,
metalinguistic terms; in a sense, these broad terms or labels belong to a domain
of vocabulary whose elements somehow presuppose a schematization of human
activity, involving notions of goal-directed acting, superiority, responsibility or
34 Rainer Schulze
Table 7. The COUNTENANCE profile

SEMANTICS GRAMMAR CORE GRAMMAR SEMANTICS
PREFERENCE human beings refusal, reluctance, “negation” COUNTENANCE abstract concepts, both “negatively” and
unwillingness “positively” loaded
COLLIGATION NP modal verb lexical verb/ negation NP
noun marker
COLLOCATION the Prime will, would, refuse, (un) not them, boredom, criticism, arbitration,
Minister, law could, can willing to, be her rehabilitation, a meeting, the
officer, Darwin, prepared to, inter-governmental conference, fishing
I, British refusal to, expeditions, any such career, terrorizing
Museum, Eliot, reluctance to and plunder, such practices, young men,
social contract, contracts, administrative arrangements,
religion, the more debate, illegal forays, single-
church, the power domination, hegemony, these
Stewarts of devious manoeuvres, concessions, the
Appin, Alexia, Copernican system, Lamarckism in
etc. psychology, a French upbringing, policies,
cumbersomeness, excess of caution, ethical
issues
EXAMPLES Management leaders repeated their refusal to arbitration over the 6.5 per cent offer
I could not the confusion.
The inter-governmental conference which British Sources
had refused to
SEMANTIC PROSODY reluctance
judgment. Meanings from this domain can only be grasped by those who under-
stand the social institutions or the structures of experience that they presuppose.
This is to say that brook and countenance will be seen as indexing semantic
or cognitive categories which are themselves assumed as elements co-occurring
and interacting in larger conceptual structures. These categories can only be un-
derstood if they are structured in accordance with some motivating context, and
brook and countenance in particular provide access to knowledge of such so-
cial institutions or structures of experience. This claim leads us to the following
research questions:
– What are the semantic or cognitive categories expressed by and complements

built around brook and countenance?
– What generalizations based on attested corpus material can be made with
regard to complementation or combinatorial properties of both brook and
countenance?
– What are the obligatory and optional types of “companions” (complements,
modifiers, adjuncts, etc.) both brook and countenance take?
Having surveyed the BNC and the COCA of attested uses of brook, the follow-
ing picture in Figure 1 emerges (adopting the presentational schemas suggested
by various authors, e.g. Goldberg 2011; Fillmore 1982 and Atkins, Fillmore and
Johnson 2003).
Figure 1 shows the different types of information that may enter one of the
patterns or constructions activated by brook. The pattern or construction itself
does not only represent the minimum number of “companions” in the immediate
vicinity of brook, but with its semi-schematic nature, it also demonstrates some
Semantic/cognitive categories
COMMUNICATOR ADVERSE ACT
She will brook no foolishness
NP NP
subject direct object
Syntactic information: phrase types and grammatical functions
Figure 1. The configuration and correlation of semantic/cognitive categories

and syntactic information
36 Rainer Schulze
“interesting” semantics and/or pragmatics, i.e. meaning and function of the pat-
tern or construction evoked by brook which are not fully compositional given
their component parts (Goldberg 2011, 322).
The pivotal function of brook in the interpretation of sentences, specify-
ing the way semantic/cognitive categories are related to one another, can also be
shown in a number of extended patterns or constructions (Figures 2–7).
The summary of the relevant semantic/cognitive categories reveals in Table 8
some of the aspects that contribute to a holistic reading of brook-induced pat-
terns or constructions.
COMMUNICATOR ADVERSE ACT ADVERSARY

but he would brook no criticism from his beloved daughter
Jenny would brook no criticism of Matthew
It showed… brook opposition on the part of the Russian
He brooks no interference from Pope, priest, pastor, preacher
She doesn’t brook tardiness from anybody–attorneys or plain
NP NP PP
subject direct object adjunct

COMMUNICATOR ADVERSE ACT SPECIFICATION ADVERSE ACT

Moscow would brook no attempt to reunify the two Germanys
Dog people… brook no dissent on a singular matter
Life President… brook no serious dissent on grounds of…
NP NP PP/non-finite
subject direct object clause adjunct

COMMUNICATOR ADVERSE ACT VALUED OBJECT

So Geoffrey le Bel… brook no dissent with the privileges he had granted
Owen… brook a rival for the position of British Cuvier
NP NP PP

COMMUNICATOR ADVERSE ACT PLACE

Reverend Barnard… brook absence from prayer
Never brook wanton outrage upon your own
He would brook no dissent feelings at home
NP NP PP

COMMUNICATOR ADVERSE ACT QUOTATION

the lyrics of which brooked no argument: ‘Love and marriage, love and
she said brooking no argument. ‘The whites of your eyes go pink.’
NP NP clause

38 Rainer Schulze
COMMUNICATOR ADVERSE ACT TIME
she brooked no delay at such moments
NP NP PP

All the verbal instances of brook identified in the BNC and the COCA can
again be described and analyzed in syntactic terms on the basis of the position of
the compulsory and more optional “companions” in the clause and the semantic
and cognitive categories activated by the verb. Although both brook and coun-
tenance specify a situation in which someone authorizes the acceptability or
outcome of some act or event instigated by someone else, the patterns or con-
structions emerging from language-in-use show a picture that is considerably
different from the one presented so far. Our next Figures 8–13 below offer an
overview of the distributional properties of countenance, both syntactic and
semantic/cognitive.
Perhaps unexpectedly, countenance can also be found in ditransitive con-
structions, and, taking the representative nature of all the concordance lines ex-
amined so far for granted, the following infrequent use of the verb can be found
in the BNC:
CB5 W_fict_prose ǁ will do, Ruth!’ Mrs Longhill said sharply. ‘I will not coun-
tenance you being rude to Dr Baxter.’ The week which followed was
Interpreting this use requires a very special focus on the morphosyntactic and
semantic characteristics of this pattern or construction:
a. the sequence of will (as futurity marker) + not + countenance is obligatory;

b. you as an indirect object must be one of the complements of countenance;
c. I in subject position is obligatory;
d. the pattern or construction itself constitutes a speech act, i.e. “commissive”;
e. concerning written language: countenance is a component of direct speech.
Table 8. Brook-induced patterns or constructions

Semantic/cognitive categor y Description Realizations and their sub-types, as attested in the
BNC/COCA
COMMUNICATOR a prominent participant in the configuration, typically human – human beings: I, she, Jenny, etc.
– expressions: tone, look, etc.
– institutions: Moscow, local military authorities,
Congress, etc.
– historical figures: Franco, the Japanese, etc.
– ideologies: capitalism, fundamentalism, etc.
ADVERSE ACT another prominent participant in the configuration, typically a – acts of communication: denial, argument, dissent, etc.
verbal act (not in the interest of the COMMUNICATOR) – opponents: rival, opposition, etc.
– acts of postponing: delay
ADVERSARY a less prominent participant in the configuration, responsible – human beings: Matthew, the Pope, priest, pastor,
for the production of the verbal act preacher, etc.
SPECIFICATION ADVERSE a less prominent participant in the configuration, the topic of – topics: to reunify the two Germanys,
ACT the adverse act
VALUED OBJECT a less prominent participant in the configuration, the topic the – topics: privileges, etc.
COMMUNICATOR prefers to the topic of the adverse act
PLACE a less prominent participant in the configuration, the location – places: at home, from prayer, etc.
where the ADVERSE ACT can be found
TIME a less prominent participant of the configuration, the temporal – point of time: at such moments, now, etc.
location of the ADVERSE ACT
QUOTATION a less prominent participant of the configuration, direct (various)
speech to confirm the COMMUNICATOR’s rejection
40 Rainer Schulze
COMMUNICATOR (NON-)ADVERSE EVENT
her late mother countenance what she had called ‘evacuation’

Could she really countenance spending a night of long dark hours
the institutions countenance such an outcome
the medical profession
countenance the kind of newspaper scandal
Whis is … countenance what Hamas does
Serbs countenance lifting the arms embargo
China countenance the Soviet plan
NP NP/wh-clause/ing-participle
subject clause direct object

COMMUNICATOR ABSTRACT SPECIFICATION

Alain … countenance any thought of her staying here
Management
leaders countenance arbitration over the 6.5 per cent offer
He countenance the possibility that the defendant
Might have been
the court countenance the contempt by admitting
the court countenance terms which are nonsensical
the Queen countenance Leo’s idea of moving to America
market order countenance too many opportunities to trick and exploit
29% of blacks countenance the idea that AIDS was created
Darwin prepared to countenance Lamarckism in psychology
NP NP PP/finite that-clause/
finite wh-clause/ non-
finite to-infinitive clause

COMMUNICATOR PEOPLE PLACE/TIME/

SPECIFICATION
she countenance her husband at the birth
Lieut-Col Blair countenance camp-following wives considering them
NP NP PP/finite that-clause/
finite wh-clause/
non-finite ing-clause

COMMUNICATOR (NON-)ADVERSE SPECIFICATION/

EVENT TIME/ PLACE
The social contract countenance both actions ‘My action may be
more mutually
beneficial
MEG countenance goldmining in this part of
NP NP clause (direct
speech), PP

This is to say that this pattern or construction can be distinguished from all the
preceding examples on the basis of particular discourse-pragmatic constraints
and makes it stand out among the remainder. The relevant semantic/cognitive
categories surrounding countenance are summarized in Table 8.
42 Rainer Schulze
(NON-)ADVERSE EVENT COMMUNICATOR SPECIFICATION

illegal forays countenanced by Makarenko just in order to live
a cumbersomeness
and excess
of caution countenanced by most of
Hitler’s captains
French upbringing
for their monarch countenanced because of the extreme
dangers created by
NP PP dependent clause
subject adjunct adjunct

ABSTRACT PLACE
Copernican system countenanced
success as the
only option countenanced
genuine trade
unions countenanced in Poland
NP PP, adverbial phrase
Subject adjunct

Table 9. Countenance-induced patterns or constructions

Semantic/cognitive categor y Description Realizations and their sub-types, as attested in the BNC/
COCA
COMMUNICATOR a prominent participant in the configuration, typically – human beings: Alain, I, etc.
human – institutions: management leaders, the Queen, the Court, etc.
– historical figures: Darwin, etc.
(NON-) ADVERSE EVENT a prominent participant in the configuration, typically – series of acts: such actions, causing genocide, offensive
involving a series of acts (either in or not in the interest attacks on infidels, eliminating those not so favored, the hefty
of the COMMUNICATOR) payouts, FRAPH’s activities, etc.
PEOPLE a less prominent participant in the configuration – human beings: her husband, camp-following wives, young
men, etc.
SPECIFICATION a less prominent participant in the configuration, – detail: just in order to live, because of the extreme dangers,
detailing ABSTRACT or (NON-) ADVERSE ACT as expedient for maintaining order, that the Revolution was
a victory for, etc.
ABSTRACT a prominent participant in the configuration, repre- – theory : Lamarckism, Copernican system, non-empiricism,
senting a thought or idea or option or theory etc.
– idea: doctrine, trade unions, possibility, opportunity, etc.
PLACE a less prominent participant in the configuration, the – places: in this part of the country, in Poland, here, inside the
location where the (NON-) ADVERSE EVENT can be family circle, etc.
found
TIME a less prominent participant of the configuration, the – point of time: at such moments, now, etc.
temporal location of the (NON-) ADVERSE EVENT
44 Rainer Schulze
7. Conclusion
In this study, we have been at pains to highlight the differences and commonal-
ities, both semantic and syntactic, between brook and countenance. There is
an obvious sense in which brook and countenance do have much in common;
both, for example, involve someone in an ostensibly authoritative position who is
checking on the outcome of an act or event that either may be beneficial or harm-
ful to himself or herself.
What the study clearly shows is that we should advocate an encyclopedic point
of view of conceptual meaning, i.e. not relying on individual meanings as building
blocks contributing to the overall meaning of the pattern or construction. The
encyclopedic view tries to reconcile corpus-linguistic research with a wider vision
of functional linguistics including findings from Neo-Firthian Linguistics, Frame
Semantics, Cognitive (Socio-) Linguistics or Social Interactionism. On the basis
of this multidisciplinary project, it seems to be possible to answer the following
and very general research question:
– What categories of experience are encoded by the members of a particular

speech community through the linguistic choices that they make when they
report on interactions as a by-stander or participant observer?
Let us return to the research questions posed in the introductory section of this
contribution and summarize the main answers and findings provided by corpus
evidence. First, the “inequality”-reading of brook and countenance can be
traced back to their collocational profile. Dominant semantic preferences typi-
cally include NPs in subject position designating human beings in supposed po-
sitions of authority; the associated semantic prosodies are preferably negative,
partially supported by the “negative particle” no or not. Whereas brook is explic-
itly negated in more than 88% of its occurrences in the corpora (including brook
no in almost 84% of its occurrences and no brook in 16% of its occurrences),
the data are different for countenance: if negated, not countenance accounts
for more than 99% of its occurrences, with 31% of the “negated” instances found
both in the BNC and the COCA. Both brook and countenance are differently
distributed in the different genres represented in the corpora: While brook pref-
erably occurs in texts of fiction (BNC: 36%; COCA: 40%) and considerably less
frequent in academic texts (BNC: 11%; COCA: 17%), countenance appears to
figure quite prominently in academic prose (BNC: 28%; COCA: 37%) and ap-
pears to be less favored in fictional writings (BNC: 13%; COCA: 15%). Relevant
“companions” in the vicinity of the lemmas are marked for their particular se-
mantic and cognitive contribution to the entire pattern or construction.
Second, although both brook and countenance share meanings that are
related to verbal acts of authorizing, different cognitive and lexical components
as found in the patterns or constructions blend into the “scenery” they evoke,
depending on different types of complements they take and their arrangement.
From a syntactic point of view, countenance is much more flexible with regard
to the distribution of its “companions”, allowing both active and passive voice
clauses and permitting a broad range of NPs in the relevant slots the lemma pro-
vides. brook, however, offers a clearer picture in that the lemma provides a less
bewildering array of cognitive and lexical components, facilitating the specifica-
tion of the relevant companions.
Third, if we extend our treatment of brook and countenance beyond the
class of verbs denoting verbal activities, the associative meaning that is bestowed
on both brook and countenance through its semantic preferences and seman-
tic prosody takes us from the mere facts of blocking, denial, non-acceptance or
intolerance (i.e. brook) and enabling, acceptance, support or approval (i.e. coun-
tenance) to the social sphere which accounts for the asymmetrical relationships
that can be found in the sentential structures. These relationships, encoded by
different semantic and cognitive categories such as communicator, adverse
act, specification or abstract create different possible chains of conceptual
entities that contribute to stereotypical (?) assumptions about individuals or sets
of individuals, their needs and their co-interactants. These chains of conceptu-
al entities are liable to be developed, tested and re-arranged by speakers and/or
writers: Who is designated or labeled as someone in authority thus depends less
on the predetermined roles and properties ascribed to people in positions of au-
thority than on whether they are perceived to fit the role intended to be filled by
the critical conceptualizer.
It may prove useful to represent interactional dynamism as portrayed so far
in terms of concepts provided by force dynamics (Talmy 1988). Force dynamics
can be viewed as a schematic system that tries to unite interacting components
from physical force interaction (naïve physics) with interacting components from
social interaction (folk psychology). Taking for granted that the linguistic concep-
tualization of pertinent components or companions of social interaction originate
in object mechanics, the conceptualization of brook and countenance in terms
of force being exerted can be represented in the way as shown in Table 10.
Fourth, this study advocates an approach to social interaction that takes ad-
vantage of findings from several theories within linguistics, including cognitive
linguistics, force dynamics, frame semantics and neo-Firthian linguistics. These
theories, which consider aspects of language from grammar to conceptual struc-
ture, can be fitted together with small adjustments in terminology and modeling.
The study therefore has attempted to demonstrate the value of tools from a range
46 Rainer Schulze
Table 10. Extension of force dynamics to psychosocial interaction

e.g. IN HIS strongest warning yet that Moscow would brook no attempt to reunify
greater
the two Germanys, President Gorbachev has pledged that the Soviet (BNC)
e.g. spoken, naturally courteous woman, but with a quiet confidence that suggests
she would brook no interference. (BNC)
force
e.g. The strategy of MEG will be more straightforward – a blunt refusal to counte-
nance goldmining in this part of the country. (BNC)
lesser
e.g. Dauntless was aghast. Was she mad? Could she really countenance spending a
night of long dark hours in this ruin, a ruin whose sole (BNC)
motion
of theoretical fields as applied to one particular pursuit: the uncovering of social

information from huge collections of authentic texts, both spoken and written.
Thus, words or strings of words (i.e. patterns or constructions) have to be
viewed as social categorizers of experience that contribute to the construction
of a particular relationship between people: each of these categories is triggered
by a motivating situation occurring against a background of knowledge and
experience.
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Sexual network partners in Tanzania
Labels, power, and the systemic muting
of women’s health and identity
Jennifer J. Harman, Michelle R. Kaufman, Eric Aoki,

and Carlie D. Trott
This qualitative analysis of transcripts from focus groups with men and women
in Tanzania explores how patriarchal power is reflected in labels used to de-
scribe individuals who engage (or not) in multiple and concurrent sexual part-
nerships. Label research and muted group theory provide theoretical frames to
assess how sexual network-related labels are used by women and men. The use
of power-embedded labels was found to show women’s identities and agency as
muted while maintaining gender inequality through language. Ramifications for
sexual health interventions developed in contexts undergoing economic devel-
opment, increasing egalitarianism, and social modernization are discussed.
1. Background
Multiple and concurrent partnerships (MCP) refer to sexual partnerships in

which a sexual act with one partner occurs in between sexual acts with another
(UNAIDS 2010). MCP can involve short term relationships, such as having casual
sex or one-night stands while having a primary partner, or they could also be long
term relationships such as in formal polygynous marriages (Epstein and Morris
2011). Engagement in MCP is common in Tanzania, as evidenced by 21% of men
and 4% of women reporting two or more sexual partners in the past 12 months
(National Bureau of Statistics, Tanzania 2011). The accuracy of sexual partner-
ship reporting across several African countries like Tanzania has frequently been
called into question, however, because of underreporting by women (Mavhu et al.
2011; Mbago and Sichona 2010; Nnko et al. 2004). MCP are not considered so-
cially acceptable for women compared to men, so the small percentage of women
reporting MCP in Tanzania is believed to be due to the stigma associated with
50 Jennifer J. Harman et al.
the practice; prevalence rates are likely much higher (Mbago and Sichona 2010;
Nnko et al. 2004).
Women and men have very different social roles in the Tanzanian culture
(Laclerc-Madlala 2009), resulting in the emergence of distinct gendered cultural
scripts about MCP. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the types of labels
contained in the cultural scripts used by Tanzanians for women and men who en-
gage and do not engage in MCP, as these labels reflect social value, gender norms,
and relative power within Tanzanian society.
1.1 Gendered norms & double standards for MCP behavior
Although cultural and societal structures tend to promote MCP in Tanzania,

there are strong double standards surrounding how women and men are expected
to behave within their sexual networks. Despite increasing social modernization
and greater reported egalitarianism in Tanzania, sexual behaviors and attitudes
remain strongly influenced by male perspectives (Dilger 2003); traditional gender
roles dictate much of how sexual communication occurs, including word choic-
es and styles of speaking. For example, when a young woman in Tanzania even
talks about sex, she is often viewed as a prostitute, while men are not (Bastien
2009). Many HIV prevention efforts in Africa have adopted as their slogans “just
say no to sex,” which aligns with more traditional female gender norms about
sex, making the burden of prevention behavior stricter for women than for men
(Dilger 2003).
Tanzanian men, in comparison to women, are perceived to have strong, sex-
ual needs that cannot be long suppressed. Women are expected to be sexually
complicit and disciplined in their choice of partners after puberty, while men are
expected to be initiators of sex and to explore with many partners (Rweyemamu
and Fuglesang 2008). Indeed, men are more likely than women to state they en-
gage in MCP due to a desire for sexual exploration, greater sexual frequency and
variety, and simply pleasure (Rweyemamu and Fuglesang 2008). Whereas sexual
exploration through MCP is encouraged for young men prior to marriage, pre-
marital MCP behavior among women in Tanzania is frowned upon and negative-
ly affects their marriageability (Rweyemamu and Fuglesang 2008). Particularly
striking, given such social sanctions, is that women are in fact more likely than
men to be motivated (socially and materially) to engage in MCP because they tend
to seek a marriage partner, social advancement or status, material items, or fulfill-
ment of basic needs such as food or shelter (Maganja et al. 2007; Rweyemamu and
Fuglesang 2008). With social modernization, women in some regions of Tanzania
are choosing to remain unmarried, however, due to economic constraints (e.g.,
Sexual network partners in Tanzania 51
60% of all women in Tanzania live in absolute poverty; Government of Tanzania

2006), they often become girlfriends to married men or form loose and transient
relationships with men to obtain resources (Haram 2004).
Large gendered financial inequalities have been cited as one of the driving
forces behind engagement in MCP and the use of transactional sex (Hunter 2002).
For women, sexuality is considered a commodity and an opportunity to gain ma-
terial wealth for the woman and her family, which makes sexual relationships
morally ambiguous in some parts of Tanzania (e.g., Dilger 2003). Such relation-
ships are not often viewed as “transactional” because money and exchanges are
interpreted as signs of commitment and investment. Some women have multiple
sexual partners in order to obtain financial support for their families from several
men (Epstein and Stanton 2010), and this form of transactional sex is normative
in Tanzania, with prevalence of engagement being as high as 80% among 14–19
year old girls (Luke and Kurtz 2002).
Understanding power relations and inequities between men and women is es-
sential to interpret the source of these gendered double standards for engagement
in MCP. Although there are many definitions of power, power basis theory de-
fines it as “the means to meet survival needs or to create deficits in needs” (Pratto
et al. 2011, 193). Taking an ecological approach, this definition of power considers
the importance of how interpersonal interactions are based in the motivation to
meet basic needs. For example, discrimination oftentimes leaves an individual
with need deficiencies, such as in the acquisition of resources (e.g., food, shelter).
Women and men have different bases of power due to patriarchy, with women
holding sexual access and social obligations as the bases of their power, which
are far more personal and less fungible than men’s bases of power (e.g., force,
legitimization strategies, and access to resources). In order to maintain power,
individuals often engage in behaviors that limit power of the competing group,
which can explain gender differences in how men and women attempt to influ-
ence each other through the use of resources (men) and sexual access (women;
Pratto et al. 2011).
The bases of power people possess also impacts stereotypes and labels about
them – for example, when a basis of power is obligation (e.g., women), then in-
dividuals who meet their social obligations are viewed as trustworthy; those who
do not are significantly less likely to be seen that way (Pratto and Lee 2005). Due
to different motives for engagement in MCP, women have been categorized, ste-
reotyped, and labeled in terms of perceived respectability for the roles they have
in their sexual networks. For example, in two rural villages of Mwanza, a northern
region of Tanzania, women were ranked into four groups in descending order in
terms of their social value, from monogamous wife (most valued), to an absti-
nent single woman living with her parents, to being an unmarried, separated or
widowed single woman, to a promiscuous woman with many sexual partners

(least valued; Wight et al. 2006).
Therefore, labels provide information about structural and conceptual in-
equalities between different men and women nested within patriarchal cultures.
Labeling and muted group theories can be used to further understand how gen-
dered labels used within MCP (by and for women and men) in Tanzania uphold
a system of patriarchal objectification and the subjugation of women’s agency to
the demands of modernization.
1.2 Labeling theory and MCP
Double standards exist not only in the expected behaviors of women and men in
sexual networks, but also in the ways they are labeled. Label use can have a pro-
found influence on the identities and worldview of women and men; it can help
reveal the complex intersections of language and power, including socio-cultur-
al outcomes of stigmatization and marginalization. For example, many cultures
have used language to control female sexuality and enforce gender norms, such as
labeling women as prostitutes to provide censure for engaging in the practice of
having many partners (Hunter 2002). Indeed, labeling women engaging in MCP
as prostitutes is a way to keep women’s sexual power “valuable” by making it dif-
ficult to obtain (Baumeister and Vohs 2004).
In their influential study, Link and Phelan (2001) detail a complex process
by which label use can lead to stigmatization of groups. Importantly, after being
stereotyped, labeled persons experience status loss and discrimination that leads
to unequal outcomes and the full execution of disapproval, rejection, exclusion,
and discrimination. In other words, the labels used to understand a person’s iden-
tity, moral worth, and agency are placed within unequal social relations that often
serve to recreate the dynamic individuals experience (rather than advancing their
own self-interest). Therefore, it is of utmost importance to draw on concrete data,
grounded in a contextual understanding, to identify what and how labels function
when used by members of a culture.
The power to define others through interaction can also be found in foun-
dational work in symbolic interactionism, which implies that language creates
the existence of an object or person; it does not merely describe something that
already exists (Blumer 1969, 1973, 2003; Mead 2003; Mead and Miller 1982). Sad-
ly, with the dynamics of power and naming in group life, there are many “label-
ing effects” that have consequences for personal identity; using a language/label
worldview, individuals start behaving according to how others define their role
in the social world (Hirschfield 2008). In a gendered context, labels explicitly and
implicitly communicate expectations and sanctions for behaviors that both align
with and deviate from women’s and men’s respective roles. Moreover, these labels
may vary with context. For example, in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa, the label
applied to men who have many sexual partners implies he is “successful” with
women, and it does not carry a negative connotation. Yet historically, the label
placed restrictions on behavior, as penetrative vaginal sex was discouraged for
men as a means to avoid pregnancy (Hunter 2002). At the time, being a successful
lover was socially valued, but men were also expected to have marital intentions.
With social and economic changes, however, such expectations for marriage with
sexual partners have been lifted. Hence, the restrictions of the label changed when
the country was colonized and became economically capitalized (Hunter 2005);
the norm implied by the label for men was both empowering as well as restrictive
for men’s sexual behaviors at one point in time. Today this label is not as behav-
iorally restrictive.
Inherent in this labeling process is the status of the group members being la-
beled. Corey (1996, 62) suggests it is the dominant group that holds the power to
“decide what labels … mean” and “further decide who is defined by such labels.”
Therefore, dominant group members determine and mark identities as deviant.
Standpoint theorists have traditionally examined the labels people use to describe
their places in a given context (Kramarae 2005), and members of different co-cul-
tures actively participate in ways that their status is negotiated and communicated
about with the dominant group (e.g., Orbe 1998; 2005). Due to their social posi-
tion, non-dominant individuals are argued to be able to see, with distinct clarity,
not only their own position within their social system, but the system as a whole
(Frankenberg 1993). From their perspective, marginalized groups can see and
describe dominant societal structures because of their ability to see it as “outsid-
ers-within” (Collins 1986).
While labels and labeling theory illuminate the symbolic force and potential
problems of power in intercultural communication, muted group theory (MGT;
Ardener 1975) provides insight into the subordination and silencing of voice, at-
tempts to reclaim that voice, and the challenges of negotiating identity and agency
within communicative systems where power over labels can contribute to mar-
ginalization.
1.3 Muted group theory
Muted group theory was developed to answer research questions about whether
each individual in society has participated equally in how ideas are generated and
encoded (Ardener 1975; 2005). In other words, do social groups have the same
or different realities? And if they are different, are some groups not represented
or recognized dominantly in society, and how are they stigmatized, marginalized,
and devalued? Kramarae (2005) has argued that subordinate group members are
challenged with regard to negotiating power because their speech is not respect-
ed by group members of higher status; as a result, their contributions to public
discourse or policy-making processes are not respected and their experiences
are often interpreted for them by others. For example, individuals in dominant
groups define others in ways that are most convenient for them, as it is easier to
categorize individuals based on prefigured social roles and positions (Nakayama
2005). To illustrate this point further, Kramarae (2005) proposes that oftentimes
women are more constrained than are men in terms of what they can say and
to what effect. Language practices deemed as most acceptable have been con-
structed primarily by men in order to express their experiences due to their more
dominant position in patriarchal systems. Therefore, women in these contexts are
constrained or muted.
MGT has been applied to understanding the use of language among a variety
of privileged and non-privileged groups in many different domains, such as di-
verse workplace settings (Meares et al. 2004), Internet channels of communication
(e.g., websites; Hoover, Hastings, and Musambira 2009) and in health communi-
cation policy and practice (Ballard-Reisch 2010). MGT is useful to examine how
patriarchal language stifles or mutes the ability of women to give full expression
to their experiences (Harris 1998). The application of MGT to women’s and men’s
discursive practices in Tanzania can provide a lens through which to interpret the
use of labels for MCP. By attending to the language/label worldview constructed
by women and men in their descriptions of monogamous and non-monogamous
partners, we hope to further understand how and in what ways language and label
use contribute to the reification of patriarchal positions of power, while continu-
ing to position and mark women’s participation as marginalized, oppressed, and
muted subjects in the lexicon of sexual health, identity, and gender inequality.
2. Method
Qualitative data collection was conducted from March to April 2011. A total of
8 focus group discussions (FGDs, total N = 73) were conducted separately for
males and females aged 25–39 in each of 4 regions of Tanzania to be targeted for
future mass media campaigns addressing MCP: Mara, Shinyanga, Iringa and Dar
es Salaam. Screening characteristics included living in urban or peri-urban areas,
being of moderate to high socioeconomic status (SES), and having had a sexual
experience within the past year. Each group was comprised of a mix of single,
cohabiting, and married participants. Group facilitators were gender matched to

the participants. Both the Johns Hopkins University and National Institute for
Medical Research (Tanzania) Institutional Review Boards approved the study
protocol prior to data collection.
2.1 Sampling technique
Entrance to the communities was gained by meeting with the community leaders
upon approval by District Medical Officers, and they gave letters of introduction
for presentation to village authorities. At the village level, team leaders introduced
the study objectives and approach to the community leaders and then announced
the study to the villagers during a community meeting. The community leaders
were asked to provide a list of village members who expressed interest in partic-
ipating. Participants were then randomly selected from the lists. Potential par-
ticipants were thereafter screened for eligibility and guided through the consent
process. There were no refusals during the screening and consent process.
2.2 Participants
Participants were 39 males and 34 females across 8 FGDs. Mean age across all
groups was 30 years for females and 29 years for males, and education levels
ranged from Standard 7 to University level. Table 1 shows the education and gen-
der breakdown for all participants. All participants were living in urban areas and
were of moderate to high SES.
2.3 Materials & analysis
A thematic analysis was conducted to classify and interpret the labels described
in the FGDs (Benner 1985; Braun and Clarke 2006; Leininger 1985; Taylor and
Bogden 1984). Themes were defined as concepts characterizing patterns of data,
Table 1. Participant education levels

# Females # Males
Primary School (Standard 1–7) 9 9
Secondary School (Form 1–4) 10 13
Advanced Level Secondary School (Form 5–6) 3 4
Higher Education (College, University) 12 13
Note: N = 73.
such as conversation topics, vocabulary, and proverbs (e.g., Taylor and Bogdan
1984). These themes help bring together experiences of groups that can be “mean-
ingless when viewed alone“ (Leininger 1985, 60). This form of analysis first re-
quires collection of the data, which was accomplished using a semi-structured
discussion guide. Participants were asked to discuss terminologies describing
sexual networks, the nature and motives for these practices, and ways to avoid
engaging in MCP.
All discussions were conducted in Swahili in public meeting areas such as
school classrooms and local government offices/spaces. They were audio record-
ed, transcribed, and translated into English for coding and analysis. It is import-
ant to note that although 73 individuals participated in the FGDs, group members
contributed to the discussion to varying extents. Oftentimes, labels were men-
tioned by participants in the group and not mentioned again if the remaining
group members believed all such descriptors for partners were expressed. Par-
ticipants used labels in the discussions, and those labels were situated as nouns –
as socio-cultural names that interpellate the identities of others, and “labels, as
signifiers, acknowledge particular aspects of our social identity” (Martin and
Nakayama 2013, 245). As reflected in Table 2, while the participants used labels
as nouns to refer to other individuals, some labels, as well as our own researcher
designated categories, read as both nouns and adjectives in linguistic form due to
how the language was translated.
The second stage of thematic analysis is to identify data related to classi-
fied patterns (Aronson 1994). A coding list was created based on different types
of sexual relationship partners (e.g., monogamous couples, girlfriends or boy-
friends) that were mentioned in the FGDs. These codes were entered into Atlas.ti
qualitative analysis software, and then the labels appearing under each code were
listed from the output. The third step in the analysis involved combining and cat-
egorizing the labels into specific sub-categories (Aronson 1994). The sub-catego-
ries that emerged from this classification process were quite clear, as the authors
agreed over 95% of the time. For the few labels on which there was disagreement,
the second author consulted with native speakers of Swahili to obtain more infor-
mation on the specific meaning of the label and direct translation as it was used in
the text. Then, after discussion, the authors reached agreement as to how the label
should be classified within each sub-category. The sub-categories that emerged
from this analysis were examined all together for general themes in order to get
a better understanding of the participants’ collective experience with MCP and
the role that language and labels play on the systemic muting of women’s power
in Tanzania.
Table 2. Categories of labels by partner type and frequency count

as mentioned by gender
Research categories (# labels) Translated examples Number of times
mentioned
Women
Total
Men
Monogamous
Both partners Religious (7) Christians, The Saved 8 4 12
monogamous Loving (7) Valentine’s Day, Pigeons 1 10 11
Males only: Fool (1) Fool 0 1 1
Females only: Controllers (4) Strict Gates, Finger and a Ring 0 4 4
Monogamous male Stupidity (5) Idiot, Fool 6 9 15

with non-monoga- Not-masculine (7) Gay, Bushoke 3 12 15
mous female
Monogamous Traditional gender roles (8) First Wife, Maid 3 7 10

female with non- Controllers (5) House Padlock, Curtain 0 5 5
monogamous male Negative sexual labels (3) Slut/Bitch, Mistress 5 1 6
Non-monogamous
Non-monogamous Masculine (8) Razor Blade, Firecracker 9 10 19
husband Financial Resource (7) Sugar Daddy, Master Card 2 10 12
Uncontrollable sexuality (9) Adulterer, Lustful 14 15 29
Non-monogamous Negative sexual labels (6) Prostitute, Whore/Harlot 5 9 14

wife Silly (2) Scatterbrain 0 3 3
Older in age and masculine (7) Michelin Man 2 11 13
Hidden (3) Submarine 5 5 10
Boyfriends or On the side (10) Small House 31 37 68

girlfriends Thieves/Seducers (9) Seducer, Hut Loss 6 8 14
Younger in age (5) Child, Small Hen 2 10 12
Males only: Masculine (10) Goat, Champion 5 8 12
Geographically separated (6) Serengheti, Reserve Player 1 8 9
Lacking partner discernment (2) Iron Broom, Fishnet 0 2 2
Females only: Disposable (12) Handbag, Rake 5 9 14
Lacking partner discernment (21) Guest Mat, Public Mini Bus 17 31 48
Information Master 1 0 1
3. Results
Many labels for different partner types were elicited in the FGDs; again, par-
ticipants used labels as nouns, while researcher translations sometimes read
as descriptive adjectives of those nouns/labels. These labels were thematically
categorized, also using descriptive terminology, and are described below. Table 2
presents the complete list of categories, the number of labels appearing in each
category, as well as the frequency that labels within each category were mentioned
by male and female participants.1
In our discussion, we will employ MGT to interpret these results thematically.
We will first describe monogamous partner labels (both partners monogamous;
monogamous male partner with non-monogamous female; monogamous female
partner with non-monogamous male) followed by non-monogamous partner la-
bels (non-monogamous husband; non-monogamous wife; boyfriends/girlfriends
of married women/men).
3.1 Labels for monogamous partners
Two categories of labels emerged from the FGDs to identify individuals who are
in a monogamous relationship; however, many of the participants stated that
there are not many labels because monogamous individuals are rare. For exam-
ple, one woman stated:
They [monogamists] are few in number, and they do not have many names …
you may find there are only two or five or six couples; it is hard to give them
names. (Female, Mara)
Religion was provided as one set of reasons for monogamy, as the Christian faith
was cited by participants as discouraging polygyny and having multiple partners.
Labels from this category (e.g., Wakristo, Christians; Aliyeokoka, the saved) were
mentioned more frequently by males than females (8 versus 4 times). These labels
were described by participants as implying that seduction and giving in to temp-
tation are both sins according to the bible.
They are civilized [Christians] because they respect their marriage, and they
respect one another. They cannot seduce or be seduced. And even when they
are seduced they won’t accept. (Female, Iringa)
The second category of labels for monogamous partners depicted love struck in-
dividuals (e.g., Siku ya Wapendanao, Valentine’s Day), and these labels were ex-
pressed with much greater frequency by women than men (10 versus 1 time). A
few participants even used metaphors (a common characteristic of the Swahili
language) of animals or insects that mate with only one partner, such as Njiwa
1. A full list of all labels is available from the first author.

(‘pigeons’), or Kumbikumbi (‘flying ants during rainy season’), as sexually active

male and female ants only grow wings when they are ready to reproduce.
Women and men who were in monogamous relationships were also labeled
differently. Men in a monogamous marriage were called Fala (‘fool’) by one
woman.
This man may be called Fala. Fala because he doesn’t look at other women or
he is sick. He is sick maybe because he can’t [have an] erect[ion], and the wife
will preserve it [stay monogamous] to save the marriage. (Female, Iringa)
Similarly, Rweyemamu and Fuglesang (2008) have found that men who do not
engage in MCP are viewed by other community members as having a poor up-
bringing, while women in monogamous marriages are viewed as possessing good
habits, a clear indication of the double standard for MCP behavior. The labels for
women who were in monogamous relationships in our sample were different than
men’s labels as well. Most of the labels referred to these women as being control-
lers of sexual and financial access to the men that they were with, such as with
labels such as Geti Kali (‘strict gates’) and Chanda na Pete (‘finger and a ring’) to
indicate a legal attachment. Interestingly, only women provided labels to catego-
rize these types of women.
3.2 Male monogamous/female partner non-monogamous
Monogamy for males is not normative or socially valued in Tanzania. There were
two categories for the labels attached to men who are monogamous when their
female partners are not, both of them negative. The first set of labels implied stu-
pidity on behalf of the man, with the use of words such as Zoba (‘idiot’) and Fala
(‘fool’), as well as metaphors like Kuwekwa Ndani ya Chupa (‘inside the dustbin’).
These metaphors imply the man cannot know what is around him; his wife is
cheating and either he does not know about it, or he knows and does nothing
about it. Women (6 times) and men (9 times) alike used this category of labels to
describe such men.
The second category of labels implied the male partner was not very mascu-
line if his wife had other partners. These labels were overwhelmingly mentioned
by more women (12 times) than men (3 times). One set of labels referred to these
men as Msenge (a homosexual male). By having the threat of being supplanted,
one woman described that the non-monogamous woman tries to get her husband
to “stand up” and be a man. She states,
His wife is not faithful, and he knows she is not faithful but he does not react
like a man and show his stand like a man. Instead when she comes back, she
finds he cooked, has tended the children. Now the community fails to under-
stand this man, that is why they call him Bwenge (“a jerk”) or others call him
Msenge. (Female, Dar es Salaam)
Interestingly, Bushoke, a musician in Tanzania, had a popular song about a man

turned into a fool by his wife. In the song, the man is depicted as weak and lets his
female partner sleep with another man in their bed, while he sleeps on the floor.
As one woman describes,
[Bushoke] means his wife can even come with a man and sleep with him on
a bed and making her husband sleep on the floor, and the husband does not
say anything because at times he suffers erection failure. So, he just leaves his
wife to go and do that because he knows he can’t do anything to his wife.
(Female, Dar es Salaam)
This musician’s name has been used to label such monogamous men who have
insufficient authority in the relationship to stop their wives from cheating. Some
participants even implied the husband is controlled by his wife in such circum-
stances to the extent that he serves this new man in his own home.
Related to the category of insufficient masculinity, a few other labels were
provided by participants, such as Boya (‘raft’ or ‘buoy’) and Zuru (‘visit’ or ‘tour’).
These labels imply that the weak man has let his partner toy around with him, and
he is at the mercy of his female partner.
3.3 Female monogamous/male partner non-monogamous
In contrast to the labels provided for monogamous men, very different labels were
used for monogamous women who had a non-monogamous male partner. One
category (mentioned by 3 men and 7 women) corresponded to traditional female
gender roles, such as Bi Mkubwa (‘first wife’), Mlezi wa Watoto (‘childcare provid-
er’), and Mfanyakazi wa Ndani (‘maid’). Similar labels for such women illustrated
the positive value attributed to women who adhere to these traditional roles, such
as Mama Huruma (‘mother compassion’), who is characterized as a kind and gen-
erous woman.
That is the wife and mother of the house, and she has no fault so you cannot
disrespect her. (Male, Dar es Salaam)
Jiko, which is Swahili for ‘stove’, was a label that was also used, implying the wom-
an keeps the home warm, provides food, or incubates children; her role is pri-
marily functional. Along similar lines, Walokole was a term used to describe these
women, which means ‘born again Christian’, ‘revivalist’, or ‘fanatic’. This finding
is consistent with cultural scripts found in South Africa, where women are ex-
pected to tolerate men’s infidelity, as this shows a woman is “good”, and also that
the rules of faithfulness in marriage essentially only apply to women (Leclerc-
Madlala 2009).
Such wives are also described as being older and less sexually desirable com-
pared to other women; they are an embarrassment to husbands in public due
to their age and not being deserving of luxurious or comfortable things. As one
woman explains,
Others call her just a housewife, she is not a person to go out to luxurious
places … she is to cook ugali (‘stiff porridge’) … he has already turned her [his
wife] into his mother, she doesn’t deserve to get the basic rights and to be with
her husband, go out with [him] to comfortable places with their children.
(Female, Shinyanga)
The housewife role is restricting due to the limited activities allowed in this role,
which does not include being a sexual being. As one female respondent from Irin-
ga stated, “What do you do when you are just a housewife? I mean, you just take
care of the children.” Unfortunately, due to role constraints, a number of partici-
pants reported that men seek outside partners due to not having their needs met
at home because wives are so occupied taking care of children or, alternatively,
that wives are expected to be non-sexual.
He knows that this wife has many responsibilities. Once you have children,
you are the mother of the family … for example maybe the father returns
and wants to take a bath, and the children are disturbing [him]. This one is
crying, and you must start attending the child now … Since this woman got
children and she doesn’t care about me, so that becomes a source of looking
for Nyumba Ndogo (‘a small house’, ‘another partner’) … somewhere he can
relax. (Female, Dar es Salaam)
In other instances, women blamed themselves for a husband who strays.
At times we women are the ones causing men to have Nyumba Ndogo (‘small
house’, or ‘other partner’) because you find a man comes home from work and
finds the house not in order; it’s noisy. He thinks, “I am already tired from my
work. When I come home from rest to find there is more trouble than those
experiences at work. So, it’s better to have another woman who will console
me than coming across these disturbances at home.” (Female, Dar es Salaam)
Many respondents reported men are not sexually open with their wives, but can
be with other partners because of the pedestal on which the wife is placed as the
mother of his children. Participants described how sexual relationships changed
after marriage, such that they engage in less experimentation and sexual commu-
nication and have sex less frequently after marriage than when they were dating.
Indeed, two women from Dar es Salaam reported men seek other partners in
order to express themselves in more sexual ways than they can with their wives.
Male participants in one focus group (Shinyanga) stated there were no labels
for these women who are taking care of the home and children, other than that
they are gossiped about in the community as being foolish or stupid; much like a
male counterpart was berated for having a cheating wife. This gossiping was done
because it was assumed the wife does not know about her husband’s cheating, or
she should be doing something about it if she was aware. Despite these beliefs,
women expressed there was an expectation that if a woman complains about her
husband’s other women or even makes inquiries about them, she is viewed as
uppity or troublesome. Unfortunately, there are accompanying fears of domestic
violence from husbands if his fidelity is even questioned.
For a man it is easy to face the woman, other times beating her, but for a
woman it is not easy. Other times when you ask them, they will ask you what
proof you have, who has told you, and things like that. At the end you end
[up] being hurt without anything to do. (Female, Iringa)
Rweyemamu and Fuglesang (2008) found similar economic fears among lower
SES women, who tend to stay in the relationship after discovering a husband’s
infidelity, especially when raising young children. As one woman in our study
reported,
When you hear that you have a co-wife, you find it okay because the man has
decided when you become violent/disagree you are told to leave … maybe
already you have four children. Where will you take the children?
(Female, Dar es Salaam)
Women’s low social status and lack of opportunities for independent financial
support often gives them no choice but to tolerate a man’s engagement in MCP.
This feeling of helplessness was also reflected in how women described the emo-
tional impact of finding out about a husband’s infidelity, with one woman from
Iringa stating that women feel bad and angry, which often leads to making bad
decisions such as committing suicide.
Inanimate objects were also used to refer to monogamous wives, with labels
such as bucket. As articulated by one man from Iringa, “Women say when you
carry a bucket you must have a jug,” with jugs symbolizing another wife/girl-
friend: water spills out of buckets carried on the head while gathering water, so
having a jug nearby is necessary to gather the water that spills to “serve the sailing
ship (‘the husband’)” (Male, Dar es Salaam).
Similar to women in monogamous relationships, women with non-monoga-

mous husbands were characterized as controllers, which was the second category
mentioned only by women. Terms like Kufuli la Nyumbani (‘house padlock’) and
Pazia (‘curtain’) were used because this type of wife is always at the house while
her husband goes out; much like a curtain never leaves the door. Relatedly, some
women were even labeled as security guards, with one participant referring to this
type of woman as “Minister of Internal Affairs”, as she manages the home when
the husband is not there and takes on a leadership position.
Finally, negative sexual labels were also mentioned to describe these women,
which stand in stark contrast to the comparatively more positive terms used in
the traditional gender role category. Indeed, these labels were used more often
by men than women (5 times versus once). This theme included labels such as
Malaya (‘slut/bitch’), Bimkubwa (‘mistress’), and Kicheche (‘squirrel’), a rodent
that moves from one tree to another in search of food and/or shelter, meaning
such women are always moving around searching for sex.
3.4 Labels for non-monogamous partners
The data revealed considerable gender differences in the labels used to describe
women and men who were not monogamous.
3.4.1 Non-monogamous husband

There were three different categories of labels for men who were not faithful to
their wives. The first category described such men in very masculine ways, and
they were mentioned with fairly balanced frequency by women and men (10
versus 9 times, respectively). For example, Kiwembe (‘razor blade’) was used, as
it means someone cuts (has sex) with many people. Interestingly, sharp objects
such as razors are often referred to as being the source of HIV/AIDS in Tanzania
(Bastien 2009) due to discomfort in discussion of sexual transmission. By refer-
ring to men as razors, it is conveyed indirectly that such men are risky without
addressing the risk directly. The masculine and positive valuation of this behavior
is also reflected in the labels, Dume la Mbegu (‘seed of a bull’), Kibuzi (‘goats’),
and Vuvuzela (‘a loud, plastic horn blown at sporting events’). When the man is
older and the girlfriend is younger, the man is referred to as Fataki, or ‘firecracker/
explosion’. This term was used to describe such men in a recent public health cam-
paign aimed at decreasing the prevalence of cross-generation sexual relationships
(see Kaufman et al. 2013).
The second category of labels for non-monogamous men referred to the fi-
nancial and concrete value such men provide for the women with whom they
are involved. These labels were mentioned 10 times by women and only twice by
men, indicating the financial implications for women. For example, a number of
women referred to these men as ATM, Tembo Card (‘a debit card’), Kiungo Safi
(‘supply link’), Master Card, Kinara (‘embroidery on neck of garment or collar or
candlestick’; ‘a luxury or embellishment’) and Buzi (‘Sugar Daddy’). A few partic-
ipants even referred to such men as Hawala, a term that originated in the Middle
East and India referring to a method of transferring money without any actual
movement of assets. Hawala is considered a more polite label to use than Buzi.
Another common set of labels for non-monogamous men related to having
uncontrollable sexual energy, and this category was mentioned frequently by both
men and women (14 and 15 times, respectively). Therefore, there is a common
perception that uncontrollable sexual energy is part of the man’s “nature”, and that
men engage in MCP because it is inevitable (Rweyemamu and Fuglesang 2008).
Labels such as Muhini or Mwanaume Hajatulia (‘unsettled’ or ‘unsatisfied’), were
used and described by one woman as being like a man who has a phone but still
wants another one – essentially meaningless lust for what he does not have:
They say this man is old but unsettled, you already get the picture … today he
is with this one, tomorrow that one. He will stand with a school girl. I mean
he is so unsettled, and he is a Fataki [‘a man who has sex with much younger
girls/women’] because this man is unsettled, a useless old man/adult. It means
you don’t take care of your marriage, and you don’t settle at one place.
(Female, Shinyanga)
One woman specified that to the girlfriend, he is called Kidumu, which interest-
ingly is a popular brand of condoms in Tanzania, reflecting the sexual role that
such men have with their girlfriends versus the more utilitarian role he has with
his wife.
Despite the positive connotations of some of the labels for such men, there
are also a number of negative terms used, such as Mzinifu or Mtwae (‘adulterer’),
Mnjingi (‘player’, ‘womanizer’), Sharobaro (‘a wanna-be’) and Malaya or
Chakubamba (‘prostitute’). While the negative labels applied to men are import-
ant to note, they are comparatively less restrictive than for women. As will be
evident below, the labels for women engaged in MCP leave very little room for
negotiation; keeping them oppressed, marginalized, and muted in the larger pow-
er system.
3.4.2 Non-monogamous wife

A few participants described non-monogamous wives as Msimbe (‘divorcee’ or
‘widower’), which was mentioned not as often, or carried as much negative con-
notation as the labels applied to women who engage in MCP while married. One
category that emerged from labels was related to being silly for engaging in MCP,
such as Mapepe (‘a scatterbrain’), or as someone they could not understand. Es-
sentially, it was incomprehensible to participants for married women to engage
in such behaviors.
Due to the social pressure for women not to engage in MCP, most of the labels
used to describe non-monogamous married women were negative and implied
sexual “looseness”, such as Kahaba or Malaya (‘prostitute’), and Washia (‘whore’
or ‘harlot’). As one woman illustrates,
Maybe she found a man has low income, or maybe she wants a wealthy man.
Your husband makes you eat sardines/anchovy daily, if you get a man who
gives you ten thousand daily, in fact you may do that [go with the other man].
(Female, Shinyanga)
These findings are consistent with qualitative data from Zimbabwe, where Zim-
babwean women admit it is common and acceptable for women to have other
sexual partners when their male partner cannot satisfy them or provide for them
financially (Mavhu et al. 2011).
Like married monogamous women, the labels used to describe non-monog-
amous married women often implied them being of older age; however, they are
also characterized as being physically larger in size, as “sugar mamas,” or financial
providers to younger men, and more masculine than other women. This category
of labels was mentioned more times by women than men (11 times versus 2). For
example, one participant called such women Sanamu la Michelini, which is the
Michelin Man graphic used to sell car tires. Applying this label to women char-
acterizes them insultingly as fat and masculine. Relatedly, Vuvuzela, which was
the stadium horn label applied to married men engaging in MCP, also reflected a
masculine dimension to this role. Shangingi, which is another word for prostitute,
takes on the meaning in this context of being a large woman who bleaches her
skin to be lighter (and thus more attractive) and who spends hours in bars picking
up men and dancing to coastal (more risqué) music. She may also be labeled a
female Fataki, who tries to attract younger men.
Shangingi is a woman who puts on a lot of wrong make up, big jewelry, does

crazy hair-do, usually with a fuller body and buys off men normally younger
than her. (Female, Mara)
As non-monogamy is not as socially acceptable for women as it is for men, a few

labels were mentioned that reflect the need for discreteness, and these character-
ize the third category of labels. For example, these women were referred to by the
participants as Nyambizi, or ‘submarine’, as their behaviors need to stay hidden
underwater. Interestingly, there were significant differences in expectations for

how men and women should react to a partner’s infidelity. Women are expected
to “just keep quiet” (Female, Iringa), while men are likely to impulsively abandon
or seriously injure their unfaithful female partner.
Women forgive easily after a man seeks forgiveness. But to them, when they
realize you have cheated on him, he will either beat you up or kill you or take
you back to your parents. Some men will make efforts so that they meet with
this other man and decide from there; in short they get angrier than us. That
is why I said it feels OK for them to hurt us, but not the other way around.
(Female, Iringa)
Death is the end result in most cases, when a man hears you are cheating on
him. He gets angry, and he will either kill the man you cheat with, or you,
and sometimes he will kill both of you, and later on he kills himself as well.
They cannot stand the embarrassment within the society; therefore, he would
rather take lives or leave someone disabled. (Female, Iringa)
Therefore, the fear women have of violent retaliation and abandonment for in-
fidelity can explain why labels describing these women imply a covert nature to
the role.
3.4.3 Girlfriends and boyfriends to married women and men

In contrast to the labels applied to married individuals who have multiple part-
ners, girlfriends and boyfriends to those married were described very differently.
First, such individuals were labeled as being considerably younger in age than the
husbands and wives, with men called Mtoto (‘child’), or even using a pet name for
grandfather, Babu¸ as a way of flattering the young man brave enough to take on a
married woman. Terms like Kuku (‘hen’; ‘a small chicken that can be slaughtered
as it is not mature’) were used to describe girlfriends to reflect their innocence.
Many more women than men mentioned these labels for such partners (10 times
versus 2).
Another category of labels referred to partners being “on the side” or as a
less significant partner than the main/first marital relationship. Most commonly,
Nyumba Ndogo (‘small house’) was used to describe a concubine, mistress or a
second wife. Only once was the term applied to signify a boyfriend to a married
woman. As one man explains,
When I said that Nyumba Ndogo is a nickname, that nick-name is valid at a
certain point. This is because you can’t call your third wife Nyumba Ndogo
‘number 3’ – it becomes such a long word. People decided to call them
Nyumba Ndogo to differentiate them from the other wives a man has married.
(Male, Dar es Salaam)
Nyumba Ndogo is a common label for women used in other parts of Africa as well
(e.g., Zimbabwe and South Africa) and is based on the cultural script that men
should not have to be faithful when their partner is not present, or to not engage
in sex when he wants it (Leclerc-Madlala 2009). “Small house” generally carries
the meaning that the man has his larger investment with the first wife, and that
the second partner is in another place. Regardless of marital status, the Nyumba
Ndogo has more junior status in the sexual network.
We can talk about a small house like a person who has a first wife, and he
has a family and house but he still marries another woman, and he builds a
house for her; that we can call a small house. But, we can go further than that.
I might have two or three wives, I have one wife and a lover, I might have five
wives and still have a lover, which is more common. And when you say you
have a small house it is more clear that way. Ahhh, so he has another wife but
she is not well known, so she is a lover who is not formal, a mistress.
(Male, Shinyanga)
Finally, boyfriends and girlfriends were equally likely to be described by women

and men as Mnjingi (‘seducers’), thieves, or predators, such as with the use of the
term Papa la Mji (‘town shark’ or ‘big ocean fish’). For men, being with the wife
of a man with lower status was seen as thievery, but acquiring a woman married
to a man with higher status was interpreted as a positive conquest. In contrast,
girlfriends were perceived as taking resources away from the primary marriage,
which is thievery, regardless of the status of the man. For example, girlfriends
were labeled Kunguru wa Unguja (‘ravens of Zanzibar’), as the crows/ravens steal
things like thieves, and Kibanda Kidogo (‘little hut’) was also used, meaning it is
a place here the husband rests and visits at the end of each month, leaving all his
money before going home. Other participants emphasized that the girlfriend is
the villain in these relationships by referring to them as the Kibanda Hasara (‘hut
loss’), or the woman who draws resources away from the main home for neces-
sities and luxuries; she spends more of the man’s income than his wife. These
women are perceived as receiving expensive things and luxury items, not engag-
ing in MCP to support themselves or getting their basic needs met. Our findings
resemble those found by other researchers in Tanzania, in that women are often
perceived as being greedy for money (Dilger 2003), which results in changing
sexual partners frequently to acquire it.
You can tell him baba [my husband], I need money. He will tell you that I don’t
have money, while he has taken it to his Nyumba Ndogo.
(Female, Shinyanga)
One woman even labeled girlfriends as “poisonous fish”, in that they are beau-
tiful, attract men, but are lethal; men who are attracted to them are innocent
bystanders:
Poisonous fish is due to the body structures of us women, you see. So you
find that when we walk and the clothes that we wear attracts men so we make
ourselves cheap due to the clothes that we wear. We attract men who are weak,
and they will start following you. And if a person has a fuller figure, you will
hear him sing “fifty, hundred” [money being offered to have sex with her].
(Female, Mara)
Aside from the young, relatively gender-neutral labels given to boyfriends and
girlfriends, there were 18 labels applied specifically to boyfriends, in contrast to
44 labels specifically applied to girlfriends. This large numeric discrepancy is due
to the fact that either boyfriends are not as common, or they are kept secret and
not publicly discussed.
We can’t explain this very well because it happens rarely, this mostly happens
before marriage. Once she is married the boyfriend disappears.
(Female, Iringa)
Masculine labels were used again to describe the boyfriends of married women,
with labels like Kibuzi (‘goats’) and Mshindi (‘champion’), as he is seen as under-
mining the husband to take his wife. These men are even described as the “fin-
isher,” as he is completing the sexual job the husband could not manage. While
boyfriends were sometimes described as not being discerning in their selection of
partners, with the use of labels such as Fagio la Chuma (‘iron broom’) or Ndoano
(‘local made fishnet because he even catches the less desirable sardines’), these
labels do not carry the same negative connotations that lack of discernment does
for girlfriends (to follow), nor were such labels mentioned frequently (only twice).
The other category of labels specific for boyfriends referred to the physical
positioning of the man to the married woman. For example, the terms Serengeti
(a vast desert in the northern part of Tanzania) and Kongola la Akiba were used,
the latter of which is a reserve person in a football (soccer) match when there is
a tired player – another player gets in the game. Such labels each imply that the
boyfriends are not around much, and also reflect the hidden nature of such rela-
tionships. Indeed, these labels were mentioned more times by women than men
(6 times versus once).
The labels used to describe girlfriends of married men fell into three general
categories. Negative labels reflecting disposability was the first category, such as
Kibegi (‘handbags that are used for only a short time’), Gari la Taka (‘garbage
trucks’), Pajacha (‘a basket in which to put dead leaves’), Reki (‘rake’), and Beleshi
(‘spades or shovels’; the rake puts rubbish onto a spade that is then carried to the
garbage). One woman even described these women as “vouchers”:
You know a voucher, when you have bought it and scratched it, and then
you throw it. So it means that he uses you, and after he gets what he wants he
leaves you. So he goes and finds another voucher. (Female, Mara)
Relatedly, these women were described as consumable products like Arusha

bread, a type of sweet bread everyone likes to eat. More women reported labels in
this category than men (9 to 5).
The second set of labels specific to girlfriends of married men were related
to lack of discernment and ease in taking on sexual partners, These labels were
mentioned by more than twice as many women as men (33 versus 17 times).
Labels like Maharague ya Mbeya (beans from Mbeya region that are easy to cook
compared to other beans), Jamvi la Wageni (‘guest mats’ or ‘fees’), Waqshimbe,
Changudoa or Kahaba (‘prostitutes’), Kitcha Daladala (‘public mini busses that
anyone can sit on and ride’), Fuso (‘trucks that carry a lot of goods’), as well as wild
animals like Gendaeka (‘male baboons’), and Paka Shume (‘wild cats’) were used.
At times people see her passing in the street, and they say Paka Shume is
passing…a wild cat is that big cat which eats everything. So she doesn’t look
at people’s ages, she hangs out with old, young people. I hear that name a lot
in our streets. (Female, Dar es Salaam)
Our findings are similar to qualitative work described by Haram (2005), where he
describes these girlfriends as being dangerous, popular, beautiful, and loose. They
are typically young and dress fashionably as a means to lure men and take their
money and other resources. Many blamed these women as being the reason for so
much marital conflict and for the spread of HIV in the country.
[These women] cause problems to married people … everyday when he [hus-
band] returns from work he says I am tired. But it’s not true; he knows what
he did at Nyumba Ndogo. Nyumba Ndogo cause problems, diseases … [they
are] the source of HIV/AIDS because … when they have vaginal and anal sex
they don’t use a condom. (Female, Dar es Salam)
The ways participants described changing MCP behaviors was to stop greed and
lust; essentially to employ moderation (Haram 2005). While some participants
spoke of understanding the role of economics and women obtaining partners
for resources they have no other methods of obtaining, they were still seen as
immoral for doing so. While not common, one male mentioned these women
were called Bwana Taarifa (‘information master’), indicating a third set of labels
signifying a perception that women are controlling, regardless of being a wife or

girlfriend.
4. Discussion
Muted Group Theory (MGT) provides a theoretical framework to assess how the
inequities of power are embedded within a language system of label use for wom-
en and their sexual partnerships. Although we accounted for gender variability
and negative associations of labels used for both women and men in the eight
focus groups, the labels used to describe women’s identities, in particular, and as
used within the discursive politics of sex and gender more generally, substantiate
core concerns of MGT and women as a group with lower power (Ardener 1975;
Ardener 2005; Kramarae 2005). With the problems of inequity and patriarchy in-
tertwined into the politics of language use, five gendered implications emerged as
thematic concerns pertaining to how women are spoken about and labeled. These
themes include women as domestically-delimited, women as (functional) ob-
jects, women as promiscuous whores, women as commodities, and women as the
source of blame in the macro system of gendered identities and sexual practice.
4.1 Women as domestically-delimited
The linkage of identity to the domestic realm is not to say that domesticity it-
self is problematic, but the pressure for women to uphold and remain within the
constructed strictures of domestic roles is what delimits how women are framed
and perceived in society. There is a pronounced social value placed on men en-
gaging in MCP in Tanzania compared to women; monogamous men are often
viewed pejoratively as Fala (‘fools’), Msenge (‘gay’), or as having a poor upbring-
ing (Rwayemanmu and Fuglesang 2008). Labels used for monogamous women
may on the surface appear less pejorative, yet the power of delimitation to the
domestic realm implicates the politics of identity; women’s labels, for example, in-
clude “strict gates” of access to their men while also upholding traditional female
gender roles such as “childcare taker”, “house help”, “housewife”, “maid” or as the
mother-nature type caretaker of Mama Huruma (‘mother compassion’). Perhaps
most telling is the label Jiko (‘stove’), which domesticates women’s identity to the
kitchen through a functional metaphor for child-bearing (e.g., the U.S. English
expression of having ‘a bun in the oven’).
An over-arching concern is how and whether women desire extension be-
yond this demarcation of identity to the domestic realm. The subordination and
discounting of women’s voices (e.g., within patriarchy) grounds a language sys-

tem in which women are depreciated and/or excluded (Thorne, Kramarae, and
Henley 1983) or, as we find here, potentially delimited in identity construction to
the domestic end of the virgin-whore double-bind. As noted earlier, more women
than men in this study labeled monogamous women with these domestic and
controlling labels, indicating they clearly understand and can name the socially
valued expectations of women in that role, and that men do not need to express
the label themselves to have it enforced. As being members of the subordinate
group, women are able to see clearly and express their role within the entire sys-
tem as “outsiders-within” (Collins 1986).
4.2 Women as (functional) objects
The use of labels that bind women to domesticity also serves to objectify women,
particularly as functional objects. Perhaps most telling are the labels given to the
women that men go to for extramarital sexual relations. When women take on a
less attractive role as a wife (older, less sexual), men are not blamed for seeking
other partnerships with younger women who lack strong or primarily domestic
characterization. Girlfriends to married men, for example, are called by the labels
Nyumba Ndogo (‘small house’) and a related term, Kisebule (‘a small sitting room’)
which, interestingly, further objectifies these women through the domestic realm
of home. Connections to domestic garbage also finds use with labels like Gari
la Taka (‘garbage trucks’), Pajacha (‘basket for dead leaves’), and the domestic
garden objects Reki and Beleshi (‘rakes, spades, and shovels for rubbish’). Even
labels to describe monogamous women (despite practices of the man) such as a
Kufuli la Nyumbani (‘house padlock’) or Pazia (‘curtain’) reference objects that
remain bound to the home. Finally, the functional labels of “buckets” and “jugs”
are used, respectively, to reference the wife and other wives or women with whom
the husband is involved and ultimately speak back to fulfilling male desire, all the
while keeping men at the center and the “good-ole-boys’ ” gate-keeping in place
(Kramarae 1981; Kramarae 2005; Griffin 2012).
4.3 Women as promiscuous whores
If the domestic confines for labeling women fulfill one end of the virgin-whore
double-bind, labels of promiscuity establish the other end. The many labels to
describe women (particularly non-monogamous women) included Kahaba or
Malaya (‘prostitute’), Washia (‘whore’ or ‘harlot’), Shangingi (‘older female pros-
titute who bleaches her skin and the like to look more attractive while working
bars’), Wahuni (‘hooligan’), and Mama Haridhiki (‘woman who is not sexually or
economically satisfied with her husband’). Additionally, for girlfriends of married
men, the labels run the gamut of describing women as sexually loose through
labels like Chaote (‘it’s for everybody’), to labels of established debauchery like
Kahaba (‘prostitutes’), to labels depicting public transport like Kitcha Daladala
(‘public mini busses’) that anyone can sit on and ride, and labels implying an
animalistic nature like Fuso or Paka Shume (‘wild cats’). Although men are also
sometimes described with negative labels for sexually loose behavior (within a
system of more allowance for men), women are typically held to more rigid stan-
dards regarding sexual practice. Indeed, in systems where it is socially undesirable
for women to have many sexual partners, many more sexually promiscuous terms
and labels are applied to women than to men, and this serves the interest of men
to keep women subordinate (Griffin 2012).
In Tanzania and other sub-Saharan African countries, it is the women who
have sex with men for nothing in return who are viewed as prostitutes, which
stands in stark contrast to other dominant notions of prostitution (Wamoyi et al.
2011). Having a negotiable price for sex allows women to retain some power and
control in the relationship. In other parts of sub-Saharan Africa (e.g., South Af-
rica), transactional sex participants are labeled “girlfriends” or “boyfriends” and
not prostitutes or clients, and there are obligations tying these participants to each
other (Hunter 2002). Power basis theory (Pratto et al. 2011) contends that because
women obtain much of their interpersonal power through obligation and sexual
access, using both forms in MCP affords women more power than using sexual
access alone. Understanding how power is being used in this context to meet ba-
sic needs can explain why women who engage in transactional sex for sustenance
in impoverished regions are marginalized to a greater extent due to perceptions
that it is more like prostitution than when such transactions occur for luxuries
(Hunter, 2002). Sex has been proposed to be a female resource that women ex-
change for resources from men, particularly in local contexts in which women
lack economic avenues for advancement (Baumeister and Vohs 2004). Because
more women than men in the current study used these negative whore labels to
describe women engaged in MCP, women attempt to control the price of sex by
derogating other women for giving sex away “cheaply.”
4.4 Women as commodities
With women often dependent on men for economic survival, it is not surprising
that women become implicated as another good of consumption and expense.
The finding in the current study that girlfriends are depicted as younger, more
attractive, and more likely to be seen in social contexts with married men than
the men’s wives reflects double-standard representations in the U.S. media of the
“trophy wife”, a patriarchal phenomenon where women are the beauties to beast-
ly men (Walsh et al. 2008). Despite the seemingly desirable or envious position
such women have due to their access to the man, there were also negative labels
that reflect consumption of goods such as Kibegi (‘handbags which are used for
only a short time’) and Jamvi la Wageni (‘guest mats’ or ‘fees’) because the woman
does not let the man pass without contact or fee. The label Kunguru wa Unguja
(‘ravens of Zanzibar’) is used to describe the girlfriend as a crow/raven who steals
things like a thief, and Kibanda Kidogo (‘little hut’) is used to describe where the
husband visits the girlfriend like a luxury retreat and spends his money before
returning home.
Women articulated an understanding of the dynamics of the economic power
that lies with men. Interestingly, the labels used to describe non-monogamous
husbands include ATM, Tembo Card (‘a debit card’), Kiungo Safi (‘supply link’),
Master Card, Kinara (‘embroidery on neck of garment or collar or candlestick’;
‘a luxury or embellishment’) and Buzi (‘Sugar Daddy’). Other research in Tan-
zania (Wamoyi et al. 2011) finds that men describe women’s genitals as “meat”
from a butcher shop; most participants in that study agreed sex is a commodity
that should be traded. Finally, labels naming women as commodities perform
the necessary discursive work to perpetuate and remind women of their mut-
ed voice in negotiating power within a system of patriarchy where sex and their
bodies are the center of consumption and survival. Therefore, the continued use
of terms to label women’s identities and roles as domestically delimited, socially
devalued, promiscuous, and as consumable products further substantiates the in-
ability for women to get outside a language that continues to serve patriarchy and
keep women’s lives muted.
4.5 Women as the source of blame
Women were described as being the source of many relationship problems, and
even as the reason for high prevalence rates of HIV in Tanzania. Although men
were characterized as being lustful and having strong sexual needs, these qualities
were considered “natural”. When women engaged in MCP, however, they were
perceived as being bad, the reason for loss of family resources and illness, as well
as the loss of relationship intimacy. The reference to women being “poisonous
fish” because they attract and hurt innocent men illustrates this point.
Because women’s power in patriarchal cultures is based on obligation and
sexual access (Pratto et al. 2011), labels that characterize a woman as having
sex indiscriminately with many men decreases the sexual gatekeeping pow-
er she possesses. For example, labels implying sexual “looseness” (e.g., Jamvi la
Wageni ‘guest mat’) stigmatize women and blame them for seducing men into
MCP. Women have also internalized the blame for their partner’s infidelity – the
demands of child rearing and her domestic role make her believe she is unappeal-
ing to her husband, which causes him to engage in MCP. Blaming the woman, in
both cases, mutes her power.
Women are also blamed for restricting men (with labels like “house padlock”)
from expressing their “true nature”; women perceive that access to the power he
can provide for them (e.g., money, resources) is limited by other women. Inter-
estingly, women were more likely to use these “controlling” labels than men. For
married women, the power of her sexual gatekeeping and ability to induce feel-
ings of obligation is lowered by the presence of other women in her sexual net-
work. To “control” a man’s behavior with monogamy is stigmatizing, and mutes
the power she derives from obligation.
Therefore, this blaming of the victim unfortunately puts women in another
double-bind situation. They are damned if they utilize their power – accused of
being whores (sexual access) and controllers (obligation), blamed for diseases and
other problems, and they fear violent retaliation for even inquiring about male
infidelity or engaging in MCP themselves. Women are also damned if they do not
exercise their power – without their relationships with men, they have limited
access to resources. This double-bind mutes the power she is able to exert in her
relationships, whether married or not.
5. Conclusions
The environment for women in Tanzania (and many sub-Saharan countries) is

one in which sexual agency and empowerment is limited to the commoditization
of sexual access. Despite increasing modernization and greater adoption of egali-
tarian beliefs, sex remains a male domain; it is predominantly controlled by men,
such as with the use of language to reinforce gendered power differentials. These
differentials, however, are very dangerous to women’s sexual health. Engagement
in MCP has been implicated in the spread of HIV in African countries (Halperin
and Epstein 2004; Mah and Halperin 2010), more so than serial partnerships,
because concurrent partnership networks are generally larger and raise the prev-
alence of HIV is faster (Morris and Kretzschmar 1997; Epstein and Morris 2011).
Because the infectiousness of partners for HIV fluctuates over the course of the
infection, women are disproportionately affected – comprising 60% of HIV/AIDS
cases in Tanzania (Avert n.d.). Reasons for earlier infection among women often
point to structural inequalities such as patriarchy (UNAIDS 2010).
While patriarchal language oftentimes mutes women’s ability to give full
expression to their experiences (Harris 1998), we found that the women in our
sample clearly articulated the negative labels attributed to them. The labels do,
however, illustrate how women’s power itself is being muted in Tanzanian culture.
As long as women’s sexual partner choices and sexual behaviors are described in
limiting, negative, and consumable ways, women’s sexual health concerns will be
muted and brushed aside by the patriarchal system. It is important to note that
the labels expressed in the current study were solicited from a sample specifically
selected for their higher SES status. Although the women in our sample may have
comparatively greater access to resources than the 60% of women in Tanzania
living in poverty (Government of Tanzania 2006), they typically have acquired
these resources through an intimate relationship with their male partner. There-
fore, higher SES women have more to lose (money, status) if the relationship were
to end (e.g., Uunk 2004), and so they are likely quite dependent on their male
partners. This dependency decreases power (Agnew et al. 1998), and the women
then must use other forms of power to maintain resources (e.g., sexual access). It
remains a research question as to whether similar themes would emerge with a
sample of lower SES women, and whether such levels of dependency would also
be evident there.
Perhaps the key to raising the status of women’s sexual health in such cultures
is for men and women alike to adopt a lexicon that is more agentic and empow-
ering for women (Kramarae 1981). Increasing public awareness of how labels are
used and their effect on social identity is a first step. It is important to recognize
the challenges embedded in attempts to alter or resist labels or language con-
structions for enhanced identity and agency. While it is possible to change labels
and reduce stigma, such as changing mental illness to be seen as a physical illness
(Martinez et al. 2011), other social labels may not be so easy to change, especially
if they reflect larger social structures such as patriarchy.
Regardless of women’s sexual behaviors, language that serves to silence and
patronize them will only serve to perpetuate an environment in which women’s
sexual health is not of sufficient concern.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the research team members who contributed to data collection,
transcription and coding, particularly Dr. Susan Mlangwa, Najmeh Modarres,
and Alyssa Mooney. This research was made possible through generous support
from the American People through the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID). The contents of this report are the responsibility of the
authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States
Government.
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A “rape victim” by any other name
The effects of labels on individuals’
rape-related perceptions
Jericho M. Hockett, Lora K. McGraw, and Donald A. Saucier
Our purpose in this chapter was to examine the power in and behind two
labels – “rape victim” and “rape survivor” – commonly applied to women who
have been raped, especially in the psychological literature. Thus, we examined
past theory and research pertaining to power, language, and the language of
rape, including evidence regarding the self-conceptualizations of women who
have been raped. We then reported four recent studies on differences in individ-
uals’ perceptions of women who are labeled as “rape victims” versus “rape survi-
vors”. Finally, we discussed the intrapersonal, social, and political power of rape
language, and offered suggestions for application and future research.
We and you do not talk the same language. When we talk to you we use your lan-
guage: the language of your experiences and of your theories. We try to use it to
communicate our world of experience. But since your language and your theories
are inadequate in expressing our experiences, we only succeed in communicating
our experience of exclusion. We cannot talk to you in our language because you
do not understand it. So the brute facts that we understand your language and
that the place where most theorizing about women is taking place is your place
both combine to require that we either use your language and distort our expe-
rience not just in the speaking about it, but in the living of it, or that we remain
silent. (Lugones and Spelman 1983, 575)
1. Introduction
In this epigraph, Latina feminist philosopher María Lugones discussed the chal-
lenges that marginalized people may face when engaging in discourse with dom-
inant groups, highlighting the power within language (i.e., the power within the
82 Jericho M. Hockett, Lora K. McGraw, and Donald A. Saucier
words themselves) and behind language (i.e., the power of those who use the
words; e.g. Foucault 1972 or Ng and Bradac 1993). Our interest in the current
chapter was to explore the power within language by examining potential “distor-
tions of experience” that may be produced through language related to women’s
rape experiences, and to discuss the implications for the power behind language
by critiquing the dominant discourse on rape. More specifically, our interest cen-
tered on the ways in which the labels “rape victim” and “rape survivor” may, at a
psychosocial level, reproduce and/or resist oppression associated with women’s
rape experiences.
Thus, in this chapter, we first synthesized relevant social psychological, philo-
sophical, and linguistic theories to provide a new basis for empirically examining
the effects of the labels “rape victim” and “rape survivor”. We then discussed past
research on the language of rape, including how women who have been raped
perceive and refer to themselves. Then, we reported on four interdisciplinary em-
pirical studies designed to assess how women who have been labeled as “rape
victims” or as “rape survivors” may be perceived by others, and how those per-
ceptions may shape the lived experiences of women who have been raped. Finally,
we concluded by offering theoretical and practical suggestions to extend this area
of research, as well as by identifying implications this research may hold for our
understandings of labels and women’s rape experiences.
2. Synthesis of theories on social power and language
Guiding our expectations in the present research was social dominance theory
(e.g. Pratto et al. 1994; Sidanius et al. 1991). Social dominance theory has sug-
gested that the construction and maintenance of social power hierarchies may
be driven in part by individuals’ desires for positive group identity, which may be
increased by comparison of one’s group or oneself to negative reference groups
and group members. In the present research, we expected that participants would
conceptualize “rape victims” as a negative reference group, whereas they would
conceptualize “rape survivors” as a more positive (or at least, less negative) refer-
ence group.
In addition to the individual-level comparative processes potentially involved
in individuals’ understandings of the “rape victim” and “rape survivor” labels,
social dominance theory (e.g. Pratto et al. 1994) also suggests that broader so-
cial processes may be involved. For example, language may be used to perpetuate
domination through the adoption of dominant groups’ languages and meanings
by subordinate groups (e.g. Bourdieu 1993 or Phillipson 1992) and/or the ap-
propriation of subordinate groups’ languages and meanings by dominant groups
Effects of labels on rape-related perceptions 83
(e.g. Hill 2008). Conversely, reflecting Lugones’ (2003) feminist philosophical

theories of resistance, language may also be used subversively by marginalized
groups, as well as in coalition with marginalized groups by dominant group allies.
Thus, in the present context, these theories suggest the labels “rape victim” and
“rape survivor” may hold different meanings, both between and even within the
marginalized and dominant groups. Previous literature has examined the various
connotations these labels hold among women who have been raped, as we later
discussed. Thus, our research was focused on examining variations in the con-
notations and outcomes of the labels “rape victim” and “rape survivor” among a
broader sample (i.e. including individuals who have not necessarily been raped).
Indeed, the idea that language may have varying effects on reality – that
is, linguistic relativity (Bourdieu 1991; Lenneberg 1953, 1961; Sapir 1949; Spry
1995) – has been theorized across many disciplines, spanning eons from the writ-
ings of Plato (427–347 BCE) to Descartes’ (1644) proposition of “cogito ergo sum”
(“I think, therefore I am”) to contemporary ideas about the relationship between
language and cognition (e.g. Gleitman and Papafragou 2005; Sapir 1944; Whorf
1956). Recent empirical psychological evidence supports such linguistic theories.
For example, when hearing masculine pronouns used to generically reference
individuals or groups (e.g. “Love amounts to letting a person be who he really
is”), individuals are more likely to picture a male versus a female (Henley 1989;
Ng 1990). Thus, such research demonstrates that words do indeed influence how
people think (e.g. Boroditsky 2011; Lupyan and Ward 2013).
A particularly relevant area of theorizing and research on linguistic relativity
pertains to two effects of language: referential effects and nonreferential effects
(Fiedler 2008). Referential effects, including mutual understanding and cooper-
ative communication, are accomplished via the communicators’ shared under-
standings of rule-based links between symbols and knowledge – that is, shared
connotations of language. Nonreferential effects, in contrast, are concerned with
the unintended, creative, and random effects of language, including how it may
contribute to misunderstandings, unintentional priming, and unauthorized in-
ferences. To illustrate nonreferential effects, Fiedler provided the example of the
word “hostile,” noting that this word “does not merely activate referential mean-
ing (viz., a state or trait related to aggression, suggesting internal attribution), it
also primes impulsive aggression tendencies, social stereotypes associated with
stigmatized groups, or negative emotional states such as fear or anger, even when
extremely short exposure times preclude any awareness of the prime” (Fiedler
2008, 42). In the present context, we examined the referential and nonreferential
effects of the labels “rape victim” and “rape survivor” to better understand the
power such labels may have in shaping women’s rape-related experiences. That is,
we wanted to examine what aspects of these labels’ connotations might be shared
by comparing past research conducted with women who have been raped to our
present research with a broader sample, as well as to examine what new meanings
might emerge within our broader sample alone.
With these potential referential and nonreferential effects in mind, it is per-
haps even more important to consider that other linguistic theorists have further
proposed that one aspect of language’s power is its propensity to motivate and to
shape both individual and collective action, immediately and in the long-term
(e.g. Barrett et al. 1995; Barry and Elmes 1997; Boden 1994). In the present con-
text, this body of theory and research thus suggested that terms such as “rape
victim” and “rape survivor” may carry meanings and consequences not initially
apparent in the banal connotations of the labels. Thus, our expectation that differ-
ences in perceptions of “rape victims” versus “rape survivors” would emerge holds
an important implication (to which we will return in the discussion). Specifically,
the implication is that these differences in perception contribute to a social power
hierarchy in which negative outcomes and experiences are implicit in being a
“rape victim”, while more positive (or at least, again, less negative) outcomes and
experiences are implicit in being a “rape survivor”.
3. Past research on the denotations, connotations, and self-

conceptualizations as “rape victims” versus as “rape survivors”
Though limited, research on the language of rape has reflected these theories,
suggesting that the way we talk about sexual assault (especially the linguistic
strategies we use) shapes how we understand and treat sexual assault (Parker and
Mahlstedt 2010). Notably, in discussing the relationships between the labels “vic-
tim” and “survivor”, Parker and Mahlstedt suggested that such terms have the same
denotation but different connotations – that is, “victim” and “survivor” denote the
same referent (in this case, a woman who has been raped), but convey differ-
ent meanings about that referent (e.g. Barry 1979; Best 1997; Holstein and Miller
1990; Parker and Mahlstedt 2010; Thompson 2000). These differences in connota-
tion have been apparent in research on the self-conceptualizations of women who
have been raped (e.g. Barry 1979; Best 1997; Holstein and Miller 1990; Parker and
Mahlstedt 2010; Thompson 2000). For example, through qualitative research with
women who had been raped, Thompson (2000, 328–329) found that the “sur-
vivor” label carried connotations of “strength, recovery, and someone who was
‘over’ the rape”, whereas the “victim” label carried connotations of “being weak,
powerless, vulnerable, and still affected by the rape”. McCaffrey (1998) also found
that women who have been raped associated negative connotations with the “vic-
tim” label explicitly because of its negative connotations. However, the “survivor”
label held different meanings among the women in McCaffrey’s study: some per-
ceived it as a de facto status, applicable to any woman who has experienced sexual
violence and lived, while others perceived it as an earned status, applicable to
women who exchanged maladaptive for adaptive coping strategies.
Despite the general dichotomization of each label’s connotations, research
(e.g. Fahs 2011; Guerette and Caron 2007; Skjelsbæk 2006; Thompson 2000) has
demonstrated that women’s actual self-conceptualizations in relation to the labels
“rape victim” and “rape survivor” are often more complex. For example, most of
Thompson’s (2000) participants used both labels to discursively navigate others’
reactions. By self-labeling as both, neither, or either depending on the context
(e.g. as a “victim” in court, but a “survivor” among friends), women who have
been raped may discursively formulate their experiences with rape in their own
ways, “to claim and reject various identities for themselves and others and to con-
struct multiple versions of control, blame, and responsibility” (Wood and Rennie
1994, 144), to direct focus to different aspects of their identities (Skjelsbæk 2006),
to reflect “their own complex emotional narratives” (Fahs 2011, 574), or to re-em-
power themselves after rape (Guerette and Caron 2007). In such discursive con-
struction, women who have been raped may use language to help shape their own
and others’ identities and social realities (Lugones 2003; Marshall and Wetherell
1989; Thompson 2000).
A few questions emerged from our reading of this body of theory and re-
search: first, what are the referential and nonreferential effects of the labels “rape
victim” and “rape survivor”? Second, how do others, who are not theorists or nec-
essarily women who have been raped, label women who have been raped? Third,
are there demonstrable effects of labels on individuals’ responses to women who
have been raped? Finally, what implications do these answers hold regarding the
use of labels to describe women who have been raped?
4. New research on perceptions of “rape victims” versus “rape survivors”
To begin answering these questions, we designed four empirical studies. Because

of the apparent connotations associated in the qualitative literature with the la-
bels “victim” and “survivor”, we expected that individuals would, overall, have
more negative perceptions of women labeled as “rape victims” and more positive
perceptions of women labeled as “rape survivors”; that they would tend to label
women as “rape victims” more than as “rape survivors”; and that more negative
outcomes (e.g., greater attributions of blame) would be associated with “rape vic-
tims” than with “rape survivors”. However, due to the possibility of nonreferential
effects of the “victim” and “survivor” label, we expected that greater complexities,
associated with particular contexts, would also emerge in individuals’ reactions

to these two terms. In sum, we expected that, like the self-conceptualizations of
women who have been raped, individuals’ perceptions of such women would be
complex and would inform us further about the power in and behind the lan-
guage of rape.
4.1 Study 1: Three dimensions of rape-related perceptions emerging

from the “rape victim” and “rape survivor” labels
The purpose of our first study was to identify global themes that emerged from
the participants’ descriptions of “rape victims” and “rape survivors”. In particular,
48 primarily white undergraduate participants each listed five characteristics of
“rape victims” and five characteristics of “rape survivors”. Examination of the data
by two independent judges revealed that three dimensions emerged consistently
through the participants’ listed characteristics.
The first dimension was the origin of each characteristic – that is, whether
each characteristic was personological, an essential attribute of the target existing
prior to the rape (e.g. descriptions of the target as “outgoing”); a process, origi-
nating as an adaptive or maladaptive coping strategy to deal with the rape (e.g.
descriptions of the target as “defensive”); or an outcome, originating as a result of
the rape (e.g. descriptions of the target as “afraid”). The emergence of the origin
dimension was especially notable given the implications the labels “rape victim”
and “rape survivor” may hold for the identities of women who have been raped. In
particular, identification of a personological element within the origin dimension
supported literature demonstrating that individuals tend to make characterologi-
cal rather than situational attributions for others in general (i.e. the fundamental
attribution error; e.g. Jones and Harris 1967; Ross 1977) and, more specifical-
ly, for women who have been raped (e.g. Levett and Kuhn 1991; Wakelin 2003).
Identification of a process-related element within the origin dimension reflected
one of the fundamental differences in the connotations of the terms “rape victim”
and “rape survivor” – that is, the absence (in the former case) or presence (in the
latter case) of the ability to adjust, cope with, and adapt to the experience of rape
(e.g. Figley 1985). Finally, identification of an outcome element within the origin
dimension suggested that participants may believe some effects of rape are per-
manent in length and severity, and are thus not effects that may be diminished or
eliminated through personological strengths or adaptive coping processes.
The second dimension that emerged from the data was each characteristic’s
inherent attribution of blame and responsibility to the perpetrator (e.g. descrip-
tions of the target as “scared”), the woman who was raped (e.g. descriptions of the
target as “timid”), or some other group or entity, such as society in general or fate
(e.g. descriptions of the target as “unlucky”; e.g. Glenn and Byers 2009).
Finally, the third dimension that emerged from the data was each characteris-
tic’s valence – whether it was negative (e.g. descriptions of the target as “gullible”),
neutral (e.g. descriptions of the target as “female”), or positive (e.g. descriptions
of the target as “caring”) toward the woman who was raped.
In conclusion, our first study showed that the participants’ conceptualizations
of “rape victims” and “rape survivors” revolved around three consistent themes.
These themes included the origin of each characteristic, the inherent attributions
of blame and responsibility reflected by each characteristic, and the valence of
each characteristic toward the woman who was raped. The results of this study
provided the framework for our second study, in which we began to examine dif-
ferences and similarities in how the three themes were related to the labels “rape
victim” and “rape survivor”.
4.2 Study 2: Oppressive and resistant conceptualizations the labels

“rape victim” and “rape survivor”
The purpose of our second study was to examine oppressive and resistant con-
ceptualizations of the labels “rape victim” and “rape survivor” in relation to the
themes identified in our first study. In particular, 178 primarily white undergrad-
uate participants were again asked to list five characteristics of a woman who was
raped, but were first randomly assigned to be in either a “rape victim” condition
or a “rape survivor” condition. The characteristics provided by participants for
the “rape victim” and the “rape survivor” are presented in Figures 1 and 2, re-
spectively, in which “larger” words represent more frequently reported character-
istics. The same two independent judges from the first study coded participants’
Figure 1. Word cloud of characteristics ascribed to “rape victims”

Figure 2. Word cloud of characteristics ascribed to “rape survivors”
300
250
200
Rape victim
150
Rape survivor
100
50
0
Personological Process Outcome
Figure 3. Number of personological, process, and outcome characteristics ascribed

to “rape victims” versus “rape survivors”
responses on the three dimensions revealed in the first study (i.e., origin, blame/
responsibility, and valence; interrater reliabilities = .91, .72, and .94, respectively).
As expected, the labels “rape victim” and “rape survivor” were associated
with overall significant differences in characteristics that participants ascribed. As
shown in Figure 3, there was a significant medium-to-large effect of label on the
origin of the characteristics, such that a greater proportion of participants who
thought about a “rape victim” ascribed personological characteristics (44.8%)
than did participants who thought about a “rape survivor” (10.7%), while greater
proportions of participants who thought about a “rape survivor” ascribed process
characteristics (58.4%) and outcome characteristics (30.9%) than did participants
who thought about a “rape victim” (31.4% and 23.8%, respectively).
80
70
60
50
Rape Victim
40
Rape Survivor
30
20
10
0
Negative Neutral Positive
Figure 4. Number of negative, neutral, and positive characteristics ascribed

to “rape victims” versus “rape survivor”
These outcomes supported previous theories (e.g. Gilmartin-Zena 1988) that

individuals may blame women who have been raped for the crime committed
against them as a function of their desire to believe that the world is a just place
in which bad things (e.g. rape) happen only to people who deserve them (e.g.
promiscuous women). Because those who blame women who have been raped
perceive themselves as fundamentally different from the women who have been
raped, they thus perceive themselves as safe. In contrast, it appears that “rape
survivors” were conceived of less in terms of their personal characteristics and
more in terms of their responses to rape (i.e. processes) and how they are affected
by rape (i.e. outcomes). These conceptualizations appear to reflect the referential
effects of the labels – that is, emphasis on recovery processes associated with the
“rape survivor” label appears to be shared by both women who have been raped
(e.g. Thompson 2000) and our broader sample.
Our results also showed that the valence of the personological, process, and
outcome characteristics was also significantly dependent on whether participants
thought about a “rape victim” or a “rape survivor”, though to a smaller degree.
As shown in Figure 4, approximately equivalent proportions of participants who
thought about a “rape victim” and who thought about a “rape survivor” ascribed
negative characteristics (75.7% and 70.7%, respectively). A greater proportion of
participants who thought about a “rape victim” (14.7%) ascribed neutral charac-
teristics compared to participants who thought about a “rape survivor” (4.6%).
Finally, a smaller proportion of participants who thought about a “rape victim”
(9.6%) ascribed positive characteristics compared to participants who thought
about a “rape survivor” (24.7%).
180
160
140
Number of participants
120
100 Rape victim
Rape survivor
80
60
40
20
0
Woman Perpetrator Other Woman Perpetrator Other
Male participants Female participants
Figure 5. Number of characteristics ascribed to “rape victims” versus “rape survivors”
inherently blaming the woman who was raped, the perpetrator, or some other group
(e.g. society)
These results suggest that, although individuals tended to ascribe negative

characteristics to women who have been raped regardless of how they are labeled,
the label “rape survivor” is related to individuals’ perceptions of more positive
characteristics than the label “rape victim”.
Finally, a partial association emerged between the label and inherent attri-
butions of blame/responsibility for male participants, but not for female partic-
ipants. As shown in Figure 5, although both men and women tended to make
inherent attributions of blame/responsibility to the woman who was raped, men
also tended to attribute more blame/responsibility to perpetrators for “rape sur-
vivors” than for “rape victims”.
Together, the outcomes of our first and second studies suggest that the neg-
ative connotations associated with the “rape victim” label (i.e. perpetual disem-
powerment, objectification) and the positive connotations associated with the
“rape survivor” label (i.e. empowerment, ability, agency) – that is, the referential
effects – do appear to be generalizable beyond the researchers and samples in the
qualitative literature. However, our results also suggest some differences in the
perceptions of the labels between our broader sample and theorists or women
who have been raped – that is, the labels also have nonreferential effects. For ex-
ample, in contrast to perceiving the label “survivor” as either a de facto or earned
status (McCaffrey 1998), our participants seemed to perceive “victim” as a de fac-
to status that one is on the basis of preexisting personological characteristics, and
“survivor” as an earned status that one becomes by engaging in adaptive coping
strategies. In other words, they perceived that a woman is a victim, but she be-
comes a survivor.
To summarize thus far, qualitative and quantitative analyses in our first two
studies showed that participants differentiated among positive and negative per-
sonological, coping, and outcome characteristics that attributed blame and re-
sponsibility to a woman who was raped or her perpetrator based on whether they
thought about “rape victims” versus “rape survivors”. These outcomes indicated
that individuals’ conceptualizations of women who have been raped are both
oppressive and resistant, and are based on both referential and nonreferential
effects. However, our findings also indicate that individuals tend to hold more
oppressive than resistant conceptualizations of “rape victims” versus “rape survi-
vors”, suggesting that the negative nonreferential effects of the “rape victim” label
in particular outweigh any shared connotations about being innocent and violat-
ed the label may have.
4.3 Study 3: The tendency to label women who have been raped
as “rape victims”
The purpose of our third study was to address the question of how others, who are
not researchers or necessarily women who have been raped, tend to label wom-
en who have been raped. Popular media have often framed women who have
been raped in terms of virgin/whore and victim/vamp dichotomies (e.g. Benedict
1992; Madriz 1997). Such dichotomies reflect either helplessness and innocence
or blame, but not any of the more positive connotations associated with the “sur-
vivor” label. Further, as thoroughly demonstrated by the “rape victim” literature,
individuals tend to hold varying degrees of blaming attitudes toward women who
have been raped. Thus, we expected that although some participants would label
a woman who has been raped as a “rape survivor”, the majority would reflect
common social conceptualizations of women who have been raped by ascribing
a “rape victim” label.
In this study, 219 primarily white undergraduates read a brief rape vignette
in which no categorical descriptors for the woman who was raped were provided,
and in which all other elements related to the rape, the woman who has been
raped, and the perpetrator were held constant. Then, participants reported wheth-
er they perceived the woman as a “rape victim” or as a “rape survivor”. As shown
in Figure 6, analyses showed that there was a significant difference between the
number of participants who labeled the woman as a “rape victim” (f = 179) and
the number of participants who labeled her as a “rape survivor” (f = 40). More
practically, approximately four and a half times more participants described the
woman as a “rape victim” than as a “rape survivor”.
Labeled
the woman a
“rape survivor”,
40, 18%
Labeled the woman

a “rape survivor”
Labeled the woman
a “rape victim”
Labeled
the woman a
“rape victim”,
179, 82%
Figure 6. Frequency of participants labeling a woman who has been raped
as a “rape victim” versus as a “rape survivor”
This outcome supported our expectations, demonstrating the individuals’ re-

liance on and reinforcement of common social conceptualizations about women
who have been raped (e.g. that they are perpetually victims; Thompson 2000).
That is, when individuals are exposed to a story about a woman who has been
raped, it seems that they automatically consider her to be a “victim” who is pow-
erless and vulnerable rather than a “survivor” with potential to recover from the
rape. In light of our first two studies, this automatic “victim”-labeling tendency
may hold implications regarding individuals’ perceptions of the origin and va-
lence of characteristics that they might associate with the woman. That is, if indi-
viduals perceive a woman who has been raped as a “victim”, they may also expect
her to have primarily negative characteristics that are personologically intrinsic.
However, it was still unclear how the labels “rape victim” and “rape survivor” may
influence individuals’ responses to women who have been raped.
4.4 Study 4: Consequences of the labels “rape victims” versus

“rape survivors” versus “women who have been raped”
Thus, the purpose of our fourth study was to address the question of whether there
are demonstrable effects of labels on how individuals may respond to women who
have been raped. In this study, 139 primarily white undergraduates read brief rape
vignettes in which a woman who was raped was labeled as a “rape victim”, “rape
survivor”, or “woman who has been raped.” Then, participants reported their per-
ceptions of the woman they read about on a new set of measures1 designed on the
basis of the characteristics attributed to “rape victims” and “rape survivors” in Stud-
ies 1 and 2, as well as on the basis of theory (e.g. Lugones 2003) and previous em-
pirical work (e.g. Burt 1980; Deitz et al. 1982; Field 1978; Langhinrichsen-Rohling
and Monson 1998; Ward 1988). After reporting their perceptions, including their
attributions of blame and responsibility to the woman for precipitating the rape,
participants completed a number of measures assessing their related attitudes.
These measures included assessment of their attitudes toward women who have
been raped in general, attitudes toward women in general, and their general ten-
dencies to have prejudices.
To analyze the data, we examined how much variation in the individuals’
perceptions of the woman they read about was uniquely accounted for by scores
representing each of these general factors, as well as by the participants’ sex and
scores representing their desires to present themselves in socially favorable ways.
Analyses of a hierarchical regression showed that the participants’ attributions of
blame to the woman they read about were first uniquely accounted for by their
sex, with men attributing more blame than did women (β = –.275, p = .004). This
result supported previous studies, including meta-analytic findings regarding
gender differences in perceptions of women who have been raped (Hockett et
al. in press). Analyses also showed that participants’ attributions of blame were
uniquely accounted for, beyond participants’ sex, by their attitudes toward women
who have been raped in general, with more negative attitudes predicting greater
attributions of blame to the specific woman they read about (β = –.388, p < .001).
However, and most interestingly, the label used to describe the woman who had
been raped was marginally significant (p = .053) in accounting for variation in the
individuals’ attributions of blame to the woman above and beyond these other fac-
tors. Supporting our expectations, we found the individuals’ attributions of blame
to a “rape victim” were significantly different from their attributions of blame to
a “woman who has been raped” (β = .224, p = .033) and marginally significantly
1. Additional information on the construction of these scales may be found in Hockett (2013),
or may be obtained upon request from the first author.
different from their attributions of blame to a “rape survivor” (β = .193, p = .050),

with greater blame being attributed to the woman labeled as a “rape victim” in
both cases.
These results demonstrated that labels are associated with different outcomes
for women who have been raped. Specifically, the “rape victim” label was associ-
ated with individuals’ greater attributions of blame than are the “rape survivor”
and “woman who has been raped” labels. The power of the “rape victim” label was
also demonstrated in our finding that differences in blame attributions cannot be
fully explained by the individuals’ sex or by their specific rape-related prejudices,
but are further explained by the label used to describe the woman who was raped.
That is, regardless of the individuals’ underlying feelings about women who have
been raped, they were more likely to blame a woman who has been raped when
she was labeled as a “rape victim” than when she was labeled as a “rape survivor”
or as a “woman who has been raped.”
5. Discussion
In sum, the work we reviewed and conducted suggested that there is power in the
language used to label women who have been raped as “rape victims” and “rape
survivors”. Our first two studies demonstrated that individuals perceived primar-
ily negative connotations to be associated with the label “rape victim”, and both
negative and positive connotations to be associated with the label “rape survivor”.
Further, our third study showed that individuals tended to use the “rape victim”
label with greater frequency than the “rape survivor” label. Moreover, our results
also suggested that some of the connotations associated with the labels “rape vic-
tim” (e.g. disempowerment) and “rape survivor” (e.g. empowerment) in past re-
search with women who have been raped (e.g. Thompson 2000) are shared by a
broader sample – that is, our results showed the labels’ referential effects. How-
ever, our results also showed the labels’ nonreferential effects, suggesting that the
labels “rape victim” and “rape survivor” may also have different meanings between
dominant and marginalized groups (e.g. differences in perceptions of the de facto
or earned status of the labels). Finally, our studies also demonstrated the potential
effects of the “rape victim” and “rape survivor” labels in shaping the individuals’
perceptions of rape in the real world. For example, our fourth study showed that
the “rape victim” label was associated with greater blame than alternative labels,
regardless of individuals’ underlying attitudes about rape. Together, our results
hold important practical implications for the lived experiences of women who
have been raped, particularly when considered with previous research. In par-
ticular, past research has shown that blaming attitudes toward women who have
been raped are an important factor associated with the poorer provision of ser-
vices by family, friends, communities, and services providers (e.g. Calhoun et al.
1976; Cameron and Stritzke 2003; Donnerstein and Berkowitz 1981; Koss 2000;
Muehlenhard 1988; Muehlenhard and Rodgers 1993). Indeed, other research we
have conducted showed that individuals are less likely to contribute resources to
an organization that supports “rape victims” versus organizations that support
“rape survivors” or “women who have been raped” (Hockett 2013; Hockett and
Saucier, in preparation). In turn, poorer provision of services and social mal-
treatment is associated with anxiety, alienation, and self-blame (Madigan and
Gamble 1991; Mazelan 1980) experienced by the women who have been raped.
Thus, blame associated with a “rape victim” label may have the power to initiate
a series of events that may actually contribute to women’s inability to escape vic-
timhood. Reflecting the primarily negative connotations and outcomes associat-
ed with the “victim” label, Koss (2000) critiqued the justice system’s traditional
adversarial or retributive approach to addressing crimes against women, includ-
ing rape. Specifically, Koss argued that statutes ostensibly intended to empower
women who have experienced sexualized violence may in fact extenuate their
victimization (for example, the assignment of a special advocate may imply that
the woman cannot advocate for herself). That is, such statutes essentially require
individuals seeking justice to adopt the “victim” label, which Koss argued neces-
sitates their adherence to limited, stereotypic roles in order to be perceived by in-
stitutions as deserving of help, thus detracting from their own agency (Frohmann
1998; Konradi 1997, 1999; Koss 2000).
Thus, it initially appears that describing women who have been raped as “rape
survivors” rather than as “rape victims” would have the opposite effect, in that
“rape survivors” would be empowered through being seen as women possessing
the ability and agency to recover from the traumatic experience of rape. Reflecting
the primarily positive connotations and outcomes associated with the “survivor”
label, therapist Rose Harrison (2001) reflected on her experiences with numerous
clients to suggest that therapists should encourage women who had experienced
sexual violence to self-identify as survivors. In particular, Harrison said that the
“survivor” identification would be especially useful for clients who indicate that
they perceive themselves as victims in order “to be excused from life, or to be
viewed as ‘special’” (98). As this specification indicates, Harrison proposed that
women’s use of the “survivor” label may help them transcend the negative psycho-
logical aftereffects of sexual violence.
However, we assert that neither label is preferable. This assertion is based,
in part, on the nonreferential effects of the labels that emerged in the studies we
reported. Specifically, we reject the “victim” label because individuals may blame
and hold a “victim” responsible for her rape, as demonstrated in our fourth study.
Further, we also reject the “victim” label based on our second study, which showed
that individuals distinguished between a “rape victim’s” being and a “rape survi-
vor’s” becoming. If individuals perceive a woman to be a “rape victim”, they may
not offer her social support (Hockett 2013; Hockett and Saucier, in preparation) –
a key factor in women’s abilities to make the transition into becoming a survivor
(Campbell et al. 2001) – because they perceive her weakness and powerlessness as
intrinsic qualities that are unchangeable even with support. However, we also re-
ject the “survivor” label on the basis of individuals’ perceived distinction between
a “rape victim’s” being and a “rape survivor’s” becoming. If individuals perceive
a woman as a “rape survivor”, they may not accept that she has been criminal-
ly victimized due to their perceptions that she is “over” the rape and perhaps
even stronger because of it. Such perceptions may in turn negatively influence
the degree to which individuals hold a rape perpetrator criminally accountable.
Additional research is certainly necessary to further validate these speculations.
However, we believe there is sufficient evidence in our current research of the
nonreferential effects of the labels, such that individuals perceive “rape victims”
being and “rape survivors” becoming as mutually exclusive and static modes –
perceptions that are limiting regardless of any potentially positive referential or
nonreferential effects of the “victim” and “survivor” labels.
This being/becoming distinction is especially problematic for the interpre-
tation of existing rape-related psychological research. In particular, a recent
review of the psychological literature pertaining to rape (Hockett and Saucier,
under review; see also Hockett 2013) indicated that the literature itself has been
dichotomized in relation to the “victim” and “survivor” labels. This rift in framing
has resulted in two separate literatures – a larger body of “rape victim” literature,
which focuses on negative outcomes and experiences of rape, and a smaller body
of “rape survivor” literature, which presents a more multidimensional perspective
on rape outcomes and experiences (Hockett 2013; Hockett and Saucier, in prepa-
ration). Notably, although this divide exists within the psychological literature, its
problematic consequences may not be confined to that realm alone. Institution-
alized modes of inquiry have historically shaped how people think and behave in
society (e.g. Peters 1996). Indeed, as linguistic theorist Bourdieu (1991, 70) stated,
“What creates the power of words and slogans, a power capable of maintaining
or subverting the social order, is the belief in the legitimacy of words and of those
who utter them. And words alone cannot create this belief ”. Thus, the assess-
ment of primarily “rape victims” and negative perceptions by the psychological
literature may be related to individuals’ tendencies to rely on the institutionally
legitimized “rape victim” label.
Moreover, reflecting social dominance theory (e.g. Pratto et al. 1994), these
institutional and individual patterns of behavior may contribute together to the
negative experiences women who have been raped may have as they navigate
their post-rape relations with others (e.g., the justice and medical systems, oth-
er women who have been raped, friends and family). In particular, a “rape vic-
tim”-focused perspective may contribute to a social power hierarchy in which
exist barriers to women’s abilities to construct empowering self-conceptualiza-
tions. Additionally, perspectives focused solely on studying oppression could also
contribute to barriers to women’s abilities to obtain the support they may need to
successfully transition from being “rape victims”, whose lives are dominated by
their rapes, to being “rape survivors”, who are able to cope with their traumatic
experiences in healthy ways, and to being able to express multidimensional con-
ceptualizations of their identities.
Finally, failure to acknowledge the limitations and potential consequences of
either label – “rape victim” or “rape survivor” – may result in the misapplication
of research outcomes, such that researchers may imply differences in the women’s
personalities and abilities that may not exist. Although there are benefits to using
the labels “rape victim” and “rape survivor”, such as greater acceptance for using
standardized terminology, reliance upon one term or the other may result in re-
searchers, practitioners, and educators becoming “homogeneous in their abili-
ty to comprehend and communicate” (Lugones 2003, 130). That is, whether we
emphasize being by using the label “rape victim” or becoming by using the label
“rape survivor”, our conceptualizations may fail to reflect the complexity of the
actual identities of women who have been raped. Thus, using either label may re-
inforce the status quo view of women who have been raped as perpetual “victims”
rather than strategically resisting it, despite good intentions.
Our assertion that neither the “victim” nor the “survivor” label is preferable is
also based on critiques of survivor discourse – that is, the language used by those
talking about sexual assault (whether or not they have been sexually assaulted
themselves), as well as the relations among those who are talking and the context
in which they speak (Parker and Mahlstedt 2010). We focused on two critiques in
particular – one by Alcoff and Gray (1993) and one by Naples (2003). Two factors
seemed to take precedence in both Alcoff and Gray’s and Naples’ critiques. The
first of these factors was concern that dominant discourse may subsume survivor
discourse “in such a way that it is disempowered and no longer disruptive” (Alcoff
and Gray 1993, 268). Two ways Alcoff and Gray suggested this co-optation may
occur is by characterizing survivor discourse as hysterical and by essentializing
women’s victimhood in evidence of their need for patriarchal protection. The sec-
ond, related factor in these critiques was a challenge to the reductive potential
in a survivor discourse that fails to acknowledge the social power asymmetries
involved in the construction and enactment of a “survivor” status. For exam-
ple, Naples pointed out how some survivor discourse has avoided this pitfall by
emphasizing the ways that “race and class inequalities limit the opportunities
for some women to come to voice … and to be heard when they do speak out”
(Naples 2003, 1156).
In consideration of these factors, Alcoff and Gray (1993, 268–269) offered
a Foucauldian analysis of survivor discourse, suggesting that “when resistance
takes the form of a simple negation, it remains within the same economy of mean-
ing and signification and in fact can reinforce the dominant status of the negated
term”. Likewise, we suggest that the labels “rape victim” and “rape survivor” may
be simple negations of each other, thus both contributing to the systematic op-
pression of women who have been raped. This statement at first seems at odds
with the positive connotations that individuals have reported in association with
the “survivor” label throughout the literature, as well as with our fourth study
showing that individuals explicitly blamed “rape victims” more than “rape survi-
vors”. However, the possibility that these dichotomous labels represent “the same
economy of meaning” was supported by the findings in our second study that
there were no differences in the negative valence and attributions of blame and re-
sponsibility that were implicitly reflected in the characteristics ascribed to either a
“rape victim” or to a “rape survivor”.
6. Moving beyond the “victim” and “survivor” labels
Concluding with a rejection of both the “victim” and “survivor” labels, however,
does not satisfy the theoretical intent of our studies presented in this chapter,
which was, in part, to seek out opportunities for resistance (Lugones 2003). Be-
cause the label “rape survivor” does carry with it connotations of empowerment,
ability, and agency to recover from the traumatic experience of rape, the question,
then, is how to convey those positive connotations while avoiding the victim/
survivor dichotomy. Despite the dominant discourse’s potential to co-opt survi-
vor discourse’s meaning, Alcoff and Gray (1993, 269) also suggested that the ex-
pression of survivor discourse still has the potential to be resistant to oppression
when it “requires not a simple negation but a transformation of the dominant
formulation”. That is, the resistant potential in the language of rape may be real-
ized through nonreferential effects when such language gives voice to those who
have previously been restricted or silenced, and names as sexual violence acts that
have previously been unnamed (as exemplified by research in the 1970s that first
coined terms associated with acquaintance rape, a form of rape that was not pre-
viously legally recognized; Warshaw 1988). For example, as reviewed by Parker
and Mahlstedt (2010), using an active voice (e.g. “In the U.S. a man rapes a wom-
an every six minutes”) versus a passive voice (e.g., “In the U.S. a woman is raped
by a man every six minutes”) in rape-related syntax has been associated with
less acceptance of violence against women and fewer misconceptions about rape
(Henley et al. 1995). “Dominant formulations” are transformed by emphasizing
the perpetrators’ responsibility rather than the woman’s essential characteristics
(i.e. her being a woman). Furthermore, as shown in our own work (Hockett et al.
in press), emphasizing the perpetrator’s use of coercive tactics, versus emphasiz-
ing the woman’s behavior, in describing rape scenarios was associated with more
positive perceptions of women who have been raped. Such research may provide
a basis for additional research and reflection that aims to identify how we can, in
the minds of observers, separate a woman’s identity – her being – from her expe-
rience with rape, and instead empower her to become a “survivor”, and possibly
even to move beyond a “survivor” status.
Alcoff and Gray (1993, 282) also offered a suggestion for transforming the
dominant formulation of women who have been raped: allowing women who
have experienced sexual violence “to be both witnesses and experts, both report-
ers of experience and theorists”. Although this suggestion may pertain more di-
rectly to women’s (and men’s) actual discussion of sexual violence, it may still be
relevant to psychological research and other practices related to studying and un-
derstanding the experiences of women who have been raped. For example, it may
be valuable for future research on perceptions of women who have been raped to
incorporate videos, rather than vignettes, in which a woman recounts her own
experience of sexual violence after being framed as an authority by someone the
research participants would automatically recognize as an authority figure.
In her critique of survivor discourse, Naples (2003) suggested that another
way to transform dominant formulations of women who have been raped is to
“highlight sites of resistance and contradictions” (168) by “target[ing] the pro-
cesses by which such experiences [of sexual violence] are organized” (167). That
is, we must analyze the ways in which hegemonic, gendered, racialized, classed,
and sexually oriented assumptions are embedded in survivor discourse and lan-
guage. Reflecting Kimberly Crenshaw’s (1993) intersectionality theories, one pos-
sible way Naples’ suggestion could be incorporated into research and applied in
educational contexts is to rely on sexual violence narratives of women of color,
lesbians, and other marginalized groups whose experiences with and after sex-
ual violence are shaped by their non-dominant identities, and to examine how
those identities are associated with the referential and nonreferential effects of
the language they use to describe their experiences. Moreover, Naples’ suggestion
implies that there should be more research conducted on the ways that women of
color and lesbians’ experiences with sexual violence are shaped by their margin-
alized identities in the first place.
7. Conclusion
Our research demonstrates that the connotations found in the qualitative liter-
ature to be associated with the labels “rape victim” and “rape survivor” are gen-
eralizable beyond the self-perceptions of women who have been raped and the
expectations of researchers and theorists. Our research also shows that individ-
uals tend to think of women who have been raped as “rape victims”, suggesting
reliance on and reinforcement of oppressive conceptualizations and language,
and that this label is associated with greater explicit blame than the “rape survi-
vor” label. However, the implications of these results for the language of rape are
tempered by our other findings that there were no differences in the attributions
of blame/responsibility and negative valence implied by the characteristics asso-
ciated with the labels “rape victim” versus “rape survivor”. In light of these find-
ings, we conclude that true commitment to engaging in research, practices, and
education that resist rape-related oppression must consider both the presence of
oppression and opportunities for resistance (Lugones 2003) in the language used
to describe women who have been raped.
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Unveiling the phantom
of the “Islamic takeover”
A critical, cognitive-linguistic analysis
of the discursive perpetuation
of an Orientalist schema
Andreas Langlotz and Danièle Klapproth Muazzin
This paper examines the linguistic and pictorial representation of Muslims and
Islam in a Swiss right-wing populist party’s campaign for a federal minaret ban.
Using a methodology that combines Conceptual Metaphor Theory with Critical
Discourse Analysis we explore two interacting levels of the discourse under
examination. Firstly, we show that the discourse is centrally informed by the
metaphorical Idealized Cognitive Model of an islamic takeover, with its two
metaphorical subframes of conquest and organic growth. Secondly, we
describe the discursive strategies – such as categorization, indexing, semantic
reframing, the exploitation of intertextual links – used to (re)activate and per-
petuate this cognitive model.
1. Introduction
The 9/11 incidents are assumed to have triggered a paradigm shift in the dichot-
omous relationship between the West and the (Middle) East – or rather, the pur-
portedly enlightened, democratic, and free West and the militant Muslim world.
Indeed, the so-denominated “War on Terror” (and its counterpart, the “War on
America”) have developed into leitmotifs for recent international relations. Blunt-
ly speaking, in many quarters of the world it has become a commonsensical belief
that 9/11 has revealed the latent destructive potential of the radicalized religious
culture of Islam: the dark shadows from the East are spreading to stifle the light of
the free minds, souls, and spirits of the West.
106 Andreas Langlotz and Danièle Klapproth Muazzin
Figure 1. Political campaign by Jungi SVP, Basel-Stadt
Conservative, right-wing political campaigns in Western countries have em-

braced this image of the Muslim threat as the poster depicted in Figure 1 shows.
The poster is part of a 2011 political initiative by the Jungi SVP, Basel-Stadt (one
of the Cantonal junior branches of the Schweizerische Volkspartei, Swiss People’s
Party) which seeks to prohibit the practice of concealing one’s face in public space
(Vermummungsverbot).
The image displays a pair of menacing female eyes whose dark irises and
brows allude to an oriental woman. The eyes are towering over the slogan Ja zum
Vermummungsverbot! (‘Yes to the ban on wearing face coverings in public space!’),
which is positioned ingeniously at the height of the woman’s mouth implying that
the Muslima is speaking her own will. However, in terms of Ekman and Friesen’s
facial action coding system for the classification of emotional expressions in the
face, the eye area depicted points to the basic emotion anger:1 the eyebrows
are angled downwards and slightly drawn together and the gaze is penetrating
(Ekman and Friesen 1975, 82–83). Moreover, the (darkly made-up) eyes are sur-
rounded by a pitch-black shadow, obviously alluding to the niqab – the Muslim
facial veil. The Orientalist allusions are further strengthened by the typographic
layout of the campaigning slogan: Ja zum Vermummungsverbot! The words Ja zum
are written in larger letters and syntactically separated from the nominal head
1. In accord with the standard convention in Cognitive Linguistics, small caps are used to
denote conceptual categories.
Unveiling the phantom of the “Islamic takeover” 107
Vermummungsverbot. Ja zum thus gives the subtle impression of being an exotic,

strange, unfamiliar (and possibly threatening) Arabic word that comes out of the
Muslima’s mouth and thus further accompanies and underscores the image of the
unfamiliar and obscure Muslim woman. In short the image conveys the message:
beware of the latent danger that is hidden under the Muslim veil – it will darken
and overshadow your life and deprive you of your freedom. The adequacy of this
interpretation is underlined by the pamphlet for the initiative, its first statement
being Die Vermummung im öffentlichen Raum stellt grundsätzlich eine Bedrohung
dar (‘the practice of concealing one’s face in public space fundamentally consti-
tutes a threat’), while the link to Islam is established, but not explicitly addressed
in the last paragraph: Zudem muss davon ausgegangen werden, dass die religiös be-
dingte Ganzkörperverschleierung der Frau aufgezwungen wird (‘It furthermore has
to be assumed that the religiously conditioned wearing of the full body veil is im-
posed on the woman’). In the pamphlet, the practice of veiling one’s face in public
space is clearly characterized as a threat to local values and culture: Verhüllte, ver-
schleierte und vermummte Personen im öffentlichen Raum lassen sich zudem nicht
mit unseren Traditionen und Wertvorstellungen vereinbaren (‘Cloaked, veiled, and
masked people in public space are incompatible with our traditions and values’).
Furthermore, the term Vermummungsverbot (‘ban on wearing face coverings in
public space’), which is conventionally used with respect to football hooligans or
violent protesters who mask their face so as to avoid prosecution, is here extended
to apply to the Muslim veil, and the act of (religious) veiling is thus associated
with a criminal action. In a nutshell, this Swiss political campaign clearly com-
municates and perpetuates the image of the “Islamic threat” that has become so
prominent after 9/11.
This paper tackles the racist stereotype of the threatening Muslim by means
of a critical cognitive-linguistic perspective, which combines cognitive-linguistic
heuristics, most importantly Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), with Critical
Discourse Analysis (CDA). The fruitfulness of linking these linguistic fields has
already been demonstrated in a great many studies from the predominantly Brit-
ish strand of Critical Metaphor Analysis (see, e.g., Charteris-Black 2004; Chilton
2004, 2005; Chilton and Lakoff 1995; Koller 2004; Musolff 2004). In line with this
research tradition we also adopt an integrated research perspective that combines
both stances. More specifically, this paper attempts to unveil the functioning of
a prominent Swiss right-wing party’s manipulative political discourse and seeks
to understand it as part of a long-standing tradition of colonialist and Orien-
talist discourses. Thereby, the cognitive-linguistic approach allows us to model
the psychological process of sense-making (for good overviews see Evans and
Green 2006; Croft and Cruse 2004). Importantly, cognitive linguists have revealed
that figurative thought patterns – conceptual metaphors – play a key role in this
process (e.g., Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1993). Since political propaganda
is forced to stimulate pre-established conceptual patterns in its audience in order
to construct its messages, the activation of conceptual metaphors is crucial for its
manipulative purposes. CDA is interested in comprehending and in deconstruct-
ing the overarching social and historical dimensions of practices of meaning con-
struction. It thus conceives sense-making in terms of “discourses”, i.e. historically
rooted and socio-culturally structured processes of meaning formation, perpetu-
ation, as well as resignification (for a good overview see Weiss and Wodak 2003).
By applying linguistic concepts and methods form CMT and CDA, we aim
at uncovering and delineating the linguistic construction and perpetuation of an
anti-Muslim schema used in the anti-minaret campaign initiated by a group of
right-wing politicians. Among these campaigners the Swiss right-wing populist
party SVP (Schweizerische Volkspartei, Swiss People’s Party) worked as a driving
force, as exemplified by three articles from the party’s official monthly newspaper
Klartext, which also includes and promotes the campaign’s pictorial ad (see Fig-
ure 2 in Section 4.1 below). The three texts under examination were published in
October and November 2009, i.e. in the time directly leading up to the popular
federal vote, which took place on 29 November 2009 and resulted in the Swiss
electorate accepting an amendment to the constitution that prohibits the building
of minarets in Switzerland.2 It might be noteworthy that at the time of the vote
there existed a total of four minarets in Switzerland.
On the basis of the visual and discursive texts analyzed, we will scrutinize the
metaphorical conceptualization of the islamification of the west as a la-
tent, stealthily advancing process of conquest and colonization that
is threatening western/swiss rights, culture and values. Following this
metaphorical model, Islam is not only portrayed as a threat but as a process (cap-
tured in the term Islamisierung, ‘Islamification’) and characterized more specifi-
cally as an islamic takeover. By applying CMT and CDA, we will thus work out
the conceptual dimensions as well as the semiotic (linguistic and pictorial) mani-
festation of this hegemonic idealized cognitive model or ICM (Lakoff 1987, 68) in
the material under investigation.
Importantly, however, the paper’s aim is not only to demonstrate the im-
plementation of the anti-Muslim stereotype on the basis of this specific case
study alone. Rather, we see the campaign as one particular discursive step in a
long-standing and widespread discursive tradition that has influenced the social
categorization and discursive positioning of Muslims by Western interpreters. Ac-
cordingly, we will discuss the Klartext articles against the ideological background
2. In Switzerland federal initiatives function as common democratic tools to change legal ele-
ments in the constitution.
of the Orientalist frames that have also characterized sense-making processes

around the 9/11 incidents and which have their historical roots in Western colo-
nialist ideologies. Along these lines, we are therefore centrally interested in how
the Klartext texts assimilate the Swiss world of experience to the pre-existing sche-
ma of the threatening Muslim and how they perpetuate a way of speaking about
Muslims that has itself adopted a lurking, stealthy, and steadily spreading status
in Western societies. Our paper can thus be read as a critical contribution to our
understanding of how power, dominance, and status are dynamically reproduced
by linguistic practices that recycle and further entrench ICMs in order to cement
long-standing patterns of biased social categorization and inequality.
The paper is divided into two theoretical (2–3) and two analytical sections
(4–5). Section 2 discusses the linguistic construction of power and inequality
through hegemonic discourses. In Section 3, this theoretical background is fur-
ther developed from the cognitive-linguistic angle of Conceptual Metaphor The-
ory (with a particular focus on idealized cognitive models). In Section 4, we will
apply these heuristics to scrutinize the metaphorical ICM of the muslim take-
over, which underlies the anti-minaret campaign. Section 5 elaborates on how
this ICM is discursively evoked by the campaigners to assimilate the Swiss world
of socio-political experience to this cognitive mold. The paper closes with our
concluding remarks.
2. Manipulating consent and the perpetuation of hegemonic ideologies
In 1986 the famous American linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky ad-
dressed what he termed Orwell’s problem – a central explanatory problem with
regard to political propaganda and its manipulative power: “How can we know so
little, given that we have so much information?” (Renkema 2003, 245). In other
words, why are we so credulous and ignorant of political manipulation although
the historical and political facts contradict the rulers’ propaganda so evidently?
Chomsky’s answer to Orwell’s problem is centered about the notion of Manufac-
turing Consent (Lippman 1922). According to Chomsky, the establishment and
perpetuation of power and inequality in democratic systems works by channeling
the values, ideas, and codes of action in such a way as to cause the majority of
the population to subordinate to the politics of the elites while at the same time
consenting to them (Herman and Chomsky 1988, Ch. 1). Various forms of public
and media discourse adopt a central role in this process contributing to the con-
struction and maintenance of patterns of power and inequality (Chomsky 1997;
Herman and Chomsky 1988). The media, however, cannot simply impose ideo-
logical agendas on their audiences.
… media influence does not reside in the power of direct ideological indoctri-
nation, but in the ability to frame the discursive context within which political
subjectivities are constituted, reinforced and reconstituted. (Hay 1996, 261)
Discursive manipulation thus amounts to a practice of creating a framework of

textual structures within which political sense-shaping practices can unfold.
CDA is centrally interested in the ideological webs of meaning that are es-
tablished through the textual webs of hegemonic discourses. According to CDA,
the manipulative task of the elites involves shaping public opinion through the
production of verbal and visual texts that construe agency and causality in pow-
erful ways and position the reader relative to central political messages. Accord-
ingly, the poster as well as the pamphlet by the Jungi SVP discussed at the outset
of this chapter attempt to achieve exactly this: they put the Muslim woman into
a threatening stance and simultaneously position the reader/viewer as a victim
with regard to her aggressive posture. The natural reaction to such a threat would
be to ban her and her behaviors from the public sphere. If the audience takes up
the Jungi SVP’s discursive construal of the world, they become subject to their
manipulation of consent.
However, the SVP poster would not be able to exert this manipulative power
if it only constituted an isolated communicative event. Rather, the visual repre-
sentation of the Muslim woman must be read as one token within a discursive
practice of representing foreigners, Others, in particular Muslims, in stereotypi-
cal, limiting and limited ways. It is thus one instance in a repeated and repetitive
pool of similar representations that establish what Stuart Hall labels a regime of
representations:
… we can see similar representational practices and figures being repeated, with
variations, from one text or site of representation to another. … We may describe
the whole repertoire of imagery and visual effects through which ‘difference’ is
represented at any one historical moment as a regime of representation.
(Hall 2001, 328)
Centrally, political dominance thus turns into a semiotic practice of representing

the “world of experience” in a way that is conducive to the political interests of the
ruling elites. As Hall writes:
Power, it seems, has to be understood here, not only in terms of economic ex-
ploitation and physical coercion, but also in broader cultural and symbolic terms,
including the power to represent someone or something in a certain way – within
a certain “regime of representation”. It includes the exercise of symbolic power
through representational practice. Stereotyping is a key element in this exercise
of symbolic violence. (Hall 2001, 338)
Discursive constructs based on forms of verbal or visual communication, as

reflected by the political poster in Figure 1, have the power to shape “realities”
through representation because social or political meanings are not fixed in
themselves: “[T]hings and events in the real world do not contain or propose
their own integral, single and intrinsic meaning, which is then merely transferred
through language. Meaning is a social production, a practice” (Hall 1982, 67). By
structuring and highlighting some representations to the disadvantage of alterna-
tive construals of experience, discourses achieve their manipulative force. They
manage to fix linguistically mediated patterns of meaning construction in favor
of the dominant discourse: “Meaning ‘floats’. It cannot be finally fixed. However,
attempting to ‘fix’ it is the work of a representational practice” (Hall 2001, 325).
Conceptual metaphors are very powerful tools to achieve exactly this.
The notion of conceptual metaphor, originally coined by Lakoff and Johnson
(1980), originates from the field of Cognitive Linguistics (CL). CL, which places a
strong focus on how patterns of linguistic organization have close correspondenc-
es in general patterns and processes of cognitive organization, offers powerful
explanatory heuristics that make it possible to model the cognitive processes that
underlie the linguistically mediated conceptualization of the world of experience.
Having its roots in the analysis of lexical semantics and grammar, CL has not been
centrally concerned with the construction of power through discourse although
Lakoff (1991, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2008) has been prominently applying his concep-
tual metaphor theory to the analysis of political discourse. Due to its focus on the
cognitive representation of knowledge structures as well as cognitive processes
of interpretation and meaning construal, CL has attracted the interest of sever-
al CDA researchers (see Hart 2010, 2011a, 2011b). CL allows CDA to theorize
the inner psychological dimension of how hegemonic discourses can affect the
thought patterns of their recipients (Hart 2011a). As Hart (2011b, 270) points out,
this interpretative dimension of the meaning-structuring and fixation processes
as reflected by hegemonic discourses has not been widely theorized or empirically
scrutinized by proponents of CDA (see also O’Halloran 2003, 14). Important ex-
ceptions can be found, however, with Hart’s systematic proposals for linking CDA
and CL (Hart and Lukeš 2007), with Chilton’s integration of Faircloughian CDA
with conceptual metaphor theory (Chilton 2004, 2005), with Charteris-Black’s
corpus-based CL analysis of political rhetoric (Charteris-Black 2004, 2006), or
van Dijk’s more specific socio-cognitive approach to racist discourse (van Dijk
1997, 2002, 2006), as well as with Kress and van Leeuwen’s multi-modal discourse
analysis (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006). Among the CL frameworks, Conceptual
Metaphor Theory has been most fully embraced by critical discourse analysts.
3. Manipulating consent through metaphorical ICMs
The manipulation of thought and the construction of power relations through

hegemonic political discourses can only be explained on the basis of a theory of
sense-making that explains how human beings organize their experiences into
meaningful structures. CL and the subfield of cognitive semantics in particu-
lar, explain language-based sense-making in the cognitive psychological terms
of conceptualization and categorization (for an overview see Evans and Green
2007, Ch. 3).
3.1 The organization of knowledge in terms of “idealized cognitive

models” (ICMs)
When interpreting their world of experience, human beings can rely on a highly
complex system of conceptual categories that they can recruit to actively construct
meaning by projecting the conceptual patterns onto their immediate sensations
in order to structure them in a coherent way (Croft and Cruse 2004, 74; Harnad
2005; Barsalou 2005). This allows humans to find orientation in their world of ex-
perience, to make predictions about it, to plan actions, and to communicate their
mental constructs of “reality”.
Derived from Fillmore’s (1975, 1985) innovative ideas on semantic structure,
frames have become the central concept to capture the organization of conceptual
categories into structured wholes (Kövecses 2006, 94). Relative to slightly differ-
ent theoretical backgrounds, script, scenario, scene, cognitive model, domain, or
gestalt have been proposed as alternative terms to capture this insight (Kövecses
2006, 64). Along these lines, Lakoff (1987, 68) assumes that our representations
of world knowledge can be described in terms of complex networks of concepts
that he calls idealized cognitive models or ICMs. By stressing the idealized nature
of cognitive representations, Lakoff (1987, 69) points to the fact that the structure
of ICMs does not reflect the objective order of a pre-given world of experience,
but that it is based on constructive cognitive effort. Working as complex con-
ceptual structures, they organize complex chunks of knowledge about the phe-
nomena that we perceive and experience in a mental format. According to Lakoff
(1987, 296), ICMs therefore create what we experience as reality: “Since we act
in accord with our conceptual systems and since our actions are real, our con-
ceptual systems have a major role in creating reality.” Following Evans and Green
(2006, 270), ICMs can therefore be described as “relatively stable mental repre-
sentations that represent theories about the world” and it is on the basis of these
theories that we take decisions and make plans to act upon the world.
However, the term “idealized” also involves the recognition that ICMs are not
universally shared by all human beings but, rather, are culture-specific. For in-
stance, the ICM of week must be regarded as a mental model that structures the
experience of temporality in a systematic but culture-specific way. This system of
knowledge cannot be regarded as natural or “objective” because weeks and week-
days do not exist as concrete objects in our worlds of experience. The week-mod-
el consists of sub-concepts for the seven weekdays, which are organized according
to a linear sequential pattern, i.e. one day follows the other, as well as a cyclical
pattern of repetition with each week ending on a Sunday and a new week starting
again on a Monday. Other cultures use different time-organization systems, e.g.
the Aztec calendar. Highlighting the culture-specific nature of cognitive models,
Ungerer and Schmid (2006, 51) thus propose the term cultural models as an alter-
native term to refer to such mental models (see also Kövecses 2006, 69).
These insights make it possible to integrate the CL perspective on meaning
construction with the CDA perspective on creating “hegemonies of knowledge”.
For ICMs can be seen to comprise particular, culture-specific, hegemonic and
ideological world-views (including views about social groups and their interrela-
tionships) that are constructed, perpetuated, and challenged through discursive
practices and superimposed on our experience in order to frame it in coherent
but politically motivated ways. As Mumby and Clair (1999, 196) have argued,
“frames are critical to disguising the deep-level power structures that sustain a
dominant ideology.” The use of conceptual metaphors is a very central constitu-
tive element of these socio-cognitive practices.
3.2 Conceptual metaphors, image-schemas and metaphorical ICMs
In their seminal book Metaphors We Live By (1980), Lakoff and Johnson have
revealed that the semantic mechanism of metaphor is not restricted to individu-
al words or expressions. Rather, metaphorical mappings are the most important
cognitive device to create complex ICMs. Conceptual metaphors are fundamental
cognitive tools that allow us to transfer concrete conceptual structures to more
abstract phenomena. They enable human beings to check and test concepts in
new and abstract areas of experience, and to adapt the conceptual system to new
issues emerging in our experience. Thus, metaphors work as a central principle
for enlarging and structuring our conceptual representations. The title of Lakoff
and Johnson’s book is motivated by this fundamental role of metaphors for shap-
ing our world-views and actions.
For example, when speaking about time, we may use expressions such as They
built the shed within a week; He is like something out of the last century; or In 2002,
many employees left the firm. The prepositions within, out of and in used in these
examples point to the inherently metaphorical nature of these temporal concepts.
In the examples given, time is conceptualized in terms of a (bounded) contain-
er (e.g. within a week). Thus, an abstract concept (time) becomes metaphori-
cally structured with reference to a concrete and perceptually accessible domain
(a container) (see Lakoff and Johnson 1980). Conceptual metaphors are thus
bilateral concepts whose structure involves “a source domain, a target domain,
and a source-to-target mapping” (Lakoff 1987, 276).
Cognitive semanticists regard metaphorical mapping processes as being mo-
tivated by force-dynamic image-schemas (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 58; Lakoff
1987, 267–269). Image-schemas are fundamental conceptual abstractions that
are derived from direct sensorimotor interaction with the world of experience in
highly recurrent activities (Johnson 1987, 28–29). Most importantly, image sche-
mas capture the inherent sensations of the force dynamics that the human being
experiences when interacting with his/her environment of people, objects, ma-
terials, etc. (Talmy 1988, 2000; see also Hart 2011b, 273–276). For example, hu-
mans engage with several forms of containment by physically interacting with
jars, boxes, rooms, houses, fences, and so on. By interacting with these objects,
humans can derive a container-schema that comprises the physical “logic” of
containment. Thus, we know that jars, boxes, rooms, houses, can be opened and
filled, that they enclose and protect some content, that the content can be taken/
poured out, that adding too much content to the container causes it to overspill,
etc. Among others, this container-schema is also relevant for structuring con-
ceptualization of time. weeks are conceived as time-units that enclose us and our
activities once we enter them. We can thus say: We didn’t manage to visit him in
that week. Or we can recruit this schema to make reference to time-management:
Try not to overload next week or My week is pretty empty. Human cognizers can
thus actively construct a metaphorical ICM for the complex and unruly phenom-
enon of temporality by mapping the image-schematic structure of the container
onto the experience of a period of time, e.g. a week.
By the metaphorical creation of conceptual similarities, an unstructured cog-
nitive realm can thus be made accessible to cognitive manipulation. People use
these processes to create metaphorical mental models according to which they
reason, live, and plan future actions. Conceptual metaphors thus constitute “real-
ities” relative to which people can orient themselves. It is important to note that
many metaphorical ICMs such as time is a container are so deeply entrenched
in our conceptual system and corresponding discursive practices that they are
hardly recognized as metaphorical constructs (Lakoff 1993).
3.3 The cognitive functionality of conceptual metaphors

for hegemonic discourses
Conceptual metaphors are powerful cognitive tools to structure hegemonic dis-

courses because they fulfill two central interpretative functions (see Indurkhya
1992, 277). First, they make possible the conceptualization of empirically distant,
abstract, or unprecedented social, cultural, or political events that are not easily
accessible to direct comprehension. The 9/11 incidents clearly constituted a total-
ly unprecedented event in political history. Thus, the images of two civil aircrafts
hitting the Twin Towers in New York completely defied a simple process of cat-
egorization because observers just could not activate any pre-established ICMs
to make immediate sense of the shocking scenario. This conceptual gap thus de-
manded an active conceptualization effort in order to assimilate it to the mentally
stored interpretative schemas. Indeed, the Bush administration did not hesitate
long in doing so. Shortly after the ineffable events, it categorized the scenario in
terms of war on america. To implement their vision of “reality” and leadership,
the Bush administration thus activated the source domain of war to structure the
target experience of the Twin Tower scenes. In doing so, they established a met-
aphorical ICM to explain this “new” and conceptually underrepresented episode
to their global audience. This allowed them to pre-configure decisions and actions
that had to be taken in reaction to the catastrophe. The metaphorical logic of the
metaphorical ICM war on america entails that the US had to defend itself and
fight back – the ensuing course of history, with war campaigns in Afghanistan,
Iraq, as well as the highly controversial Guantanamo prison, were fundamentally
shaped in agreement with this metaphorical conceptualization. By adopting the
same discursively mediated ICMs, interpreters could become subject to the men-
tal constructs entailed in the political propaganda and could thus be linguistically
manipulated in taking their “own” political stances.
Second, conceptual metaphors can serve to reconceptualize conventional
ICMs (Schön 1993). The idea of war on terror reshaped the conceptual struc-
tures for terrorism, terrorist and previous practices of engaging with them.
Before the 9/11 events, terrorism was not put on an equal standing with the idea
of war but was conceptualized, as the word terror indicates, with more punctual
attacks of militant groups that had the purpose of terrorizing the civil society of a
given state. However, after 9/11 and the proclamation of the war on terror, the
ICMs for war and terrorism became blended. Instead of fighting this phenom-
enon with the police force and the legal system, the US administration opted for
a conceptualization of the issue that turned it into a global war campaign. What
is more, terrorists became stereotypically identified with people from the Arabic/
Islamic world, while more long-standing traditions of Western terrorism (e.g.,

by the Ku-Klux clan, the IRA, or the ETA) moved to the background of global
attention. The war on terror ICMs thus reconceptualized the idea of terrorism
in predominantly “Islamic” terms and associated the Muslim world with highly
negative martial connotations.
Importantly, by establishing such interpretative frames, the metaphors war
on america and war on terror erode the mental grounds for understanding
the more specific historical as well as personal motivations of the attackers. It
prevents the audience from associating the concept of terror with alternative
political decisions and/or forms of preventive actions. By creating metaphorical
ICMs, hegemonic discourses can thus shape the mental orientation of their recip-
ients and pre-determine their engagement with the world of experience. Along
the same lines, a Swiss who is indoctrinated with the belief that niqab-wearing
women are symbols of Islamic oppression, criminality and terrorism is unlikely
to want to engage with Muslims, but may just wish to have them expulsed from
the container of Switzerland (see also Charteris-Black 2006), as will be seen in
the subsequent analysis.
4. Lifting the veil – Analysis/discussion of the findings
4.1 The central metaphorical model for islamification

and its discursive manifestations
To seek support for the federal popular initiative against the construction of min-
arets in Switzerland, the SVP campaign, as reflected in our data, follows a twisted
and highly associative “logic” of argumentation. To establish this “argumentative”
network of associations, the campaign centrally recruits a range of metaphorical
ICMs that work together to establish the overarching metaphorical conceptual-
ization the islamification of the west is a latent, stealthy and sneak-
ing process of aggressive takeover that is threatening western/swiss
rights, culture and values. Following Merriam-Webster’s dictionary we un-
derstand the concept of takeover as a generic term that involves: “the unlawful
taking or withholding of something from the rightful owner under a guise of
authority” with the related terms: invasion, conquest, encroachment, dispossession,
annexation, grab, etc. In other words, the concept of takeover implies the idea
of a menace and threat to its victims.
Claiming to have recognized and identified the problem of the islamic
takeover, the SVP politicians present themselves as forward-going alerters who
open the eyes of their naïvely blind compatriots, oppose the overly leftist other
Figure 2. The pictorial ad for the anti-minaret campaign
political powers in the country and, most importantly, take concrete measures
against the process of islamification in the form of the political initiative.
Thereby, the portrayal of Muslims and Islam follows a highly figurative “logic”
that combines different conceptual metaphors and metonymies to constitute a
complex metaphorical ICM of the Muslim menace. This associative arrangement
of alternative metaphorical models is communicated in a compressed visual form
in the pictorial advertisement.3
In terms of its general layout, the advertisement is split up into two diagonally
divided sections. The upper section is purely pictorial and presents the imaginary
and constructed scenario of the threats of islam to switzerland.
The lower section is primarily verbal and displays the initiative’s goal of pre-
venting the construction of minarets by means of voting YES for the anti-minaret
initiative. The verbal slogans are presented in a highly striking way. The word Stopp
in bold black letters is written right across the ad and thus draws a dividing line
to set a clear limit to the depicted “world of Islamification” illustrated in the upper
section. The word is placed in an upward direction. It thus pushes the world of
Islam out-of-the picture when reading from left to right. Moreover, in terms of the
conceptual metaphor better is up, stopping the development of “Islamification”
is alluded to be a progress. The word Ja is written in bold red letters mirroring the
3. Note that some Swiss cities and cantons prohibited this advertisement to be displayed in
public space for its racist content.
color of the Swiss flag in the upper section. This word is centrally aligned and at the
very bottom of the ad. It thus alludes to the down-to-earth nature of the political
initiative and its centrality for Swiss interests. The strong, upright, and down-to-
earth Yes initiates the slogan Ja zum Minarett-Verbot (‘Yes to the ban on minarets’).
The postmodifying PP zum Minarett-Verbot is written in smaller letters than the
red Ja. The Ja thus visually protects the claim Minarett-Verbot.
The upper section of the advertisement is of central interest for sketching the
associative figurative “logic” that is pursued in the political campaign. The picture
shows a Swiss flag that is pierced through by seven minarets. Interestingly, the
minarets are displayed in the form of visual metaphors. The minarets are depicted
black (rather than in their more customary color white), very thin and sharply
pointed. This exaggerated shape implies two martial metaphors: minarets are
missiles and minarets are spears thus implying that islam is war and islam-
ification is conquest. The minarets as weapons have to be read against the
pictorial ground of the Swiss flag. The minarets pierce through the flag whose
conventional red color thus reactivates the highly implicit heraldic meaning of
blood. The minarets thus clearly constitute a deadly threat to switzerland.
In addition, the visually engendered upward direction of the minarets in
combination with the ground of the Swiss flag establishes a further metaphor
for “Islamification”: islamification is growth. When reading the Swiss flag
as an abstract depiction for soil, then the pointed minarets can be interpreted as
mushroom-like organisms that have stealthily spread underneath the Swiss flag,
that have made use of the rich and fruitful Swiss ground, and that have profited
from its protection. Now, these Islamic mushrooms are growing and piercing the
Swiss soil that used to protect and nourish them before. Both of these metaphors
minarets as weapons and minarets as growing parasitic organisms cast a
negative force over Switzerland. This force is alluded to by the shadows that over-
cast the Swiss flag. Note that these shadows go from right to left. When assuming
that we associate the East with right and the West with left when reading a map,
we can interpret the direction of the shadows as having their origins in an Eastern
source. These Eastern shadows overcast the West, foreshadowing darker times to
come. Of course, following the logic of the ad, they are directly associated with
the erection of the minarets.
Finally, we must also point to the dominant position of the chador-wear-
ing Muslim woman on the very left of the picture. The woman incorporates the
threat of islam in highly similar terms as already discussed with respect to
Figure 1 in the introduction. Her dominant and menacing nature pushes the
Swiss flag into the background. Moreover, her stature and the black coloring of
her image are clearly aligned with the minarets as if the Muslima stood in a direct
cause-effect relationship with the “growth” of the minarets.
ISLAMIFICATION IS ...
CONQUEST: A FAST-GROWING
WAR/ HIDDEN ORGANISM:
COLONIZATION/ LATENT AND SNEAKING
DISPOSSESSION DEVELOPMENT
RESIST AND DEFEND
WARN AND REVEAL
WESTERN VALUES, LAW
THE HIDDEN DANGER
AND ORDER
TO OPPOSE ISLAMIFICATION MEANS TO...
Figure 3. The associative metaphorical “logic” underlying the anti-minaret initiative
In a nutshell, the pictorial ad paints a very dark, martial, and apocalyptic sce-
nario of the Islamic threat, with only the SVP campaign standing up against it.
The picture thus alludes to narratives of conquest, tyranny, and colonization, and
being subjected to unknown mastery that has to be countered with courageous
and heroic resistance.
The interwoven metaphorical patterns can be illustrated as follows (Figure 3).
In the figure the metaphorical ICMs for islamification are represented by
round and overlapping spheres. This is to point to the fact that the metaphors are
textually interwoven rather than being kept argumentatively distinct. A shaded
rectangle is added to each of the spheres. The rectangles capture the consequential
counter-actions against islamification that are proposed or implied by the SVP
rhetoric.
In what follows, the concrete verbalization and intertwined nature of these
metaphorical models are scrutinized in detail by analyzing the three selected ar-
ticles from the SVP party newspaper Klartext4 (Schweizerische Volkspartei SVP
2009).
4. The following system will be employed for referring to the texts:

Die Bedeutung des Minaretts im Islam by Prof. Dr. Heinz Gstrein, 2009 = Klartext_Oct1
Ja zur Minarett-Initiative by Walter Wobmann, 2009 = Klartext_Oct2
Islam und Minarette aus Sicht einer Frau by Andrea Geissbühler, 2009 = Klartext_Nov
4.2 Metaphor 1: islamification is conquest
The metaphorical cognitive model islamification is conquest can be seen as

a scenario that comprises three interlinked and mutually related facets, namely
war, colonization, and dispossession. As discussed above, in the pictorial ad
for the SVP initiative – which is reprinted in the lower right-hand corner of Klar-
text_Oct2 and Klartext_Nov – minarets are visually represented as spears and/
or missiles, thus triggering the source-domain war by triggering weapon-con-
cepts. The association of islam with war is also discursively established in the
Klartext-articles. The metaphor is linguistically scaffolded by the following words
related to the semantic fields of war and ensuing colonization:
Conceptual metaphor: islamification is war
Image-schemas: suppression (containment), aggression (explosion)
Stahl- und Giftgasgewitter
Golfkriege
in ägyptischer und türkischer Haft
Moscheen sind unsere Kasernen
ihre Kuppeln die Helme
die Minarette unsere Bajonette
Conceptual metaphor: islamification is aggressive expansion/coloni-

zation
Image schemas: superiority (up-down), expansion
Siegeszeichen islamischer Macht und Herrschaft
hohe Minarette … eigene Grösse zeigen
Islamische Triumphsäulen
Stalindenkmäler
Mittel zur Signalisierung und Visibilisierung
Signalturm
Wachturm
Zeichen der Eroberung
politischer Machtanspruch
militant-politische Seite des Islams
gezielte Ausbreitung
Alleinvertretungsanspruch
The discursive implementation of the source domains war and aggressive take-
over reveals the rhetorical positioning of Islam. When introducing his “exper-
tise” in a plea against the construction of minarets, the author of Klartext_Oct1,
Prof. Dr. Heinz Gstrein from the University of Vienna, positions himself as an
eye-witness who has experienced the aggressive potential of Islam and even suf-
fered from it (we provide English translations to supplement the German quotes):
Als Schweizer Korrespondent habe ich mehr als 30 Jahre vor Ort erlebt, was der
Islam und seine mit ihm untrennbar verbundene politische Ideologie in der Pra-
xis bedeuten. Erlebt und erlitten habe ich das auf den Bergen Afghanistans und
des Libanon, im Stahl- und Giftgasgewitter der Golfkriege, in ägyptischer und
türkischer Haft, im Zelt Gaddafis und bei den iranischen Ayatollahs.
(Klartext_Oct1)
‘As a Swiss correspondent I have for more than 30 years experienced in situ how
Islam and the political ideology to which it is inseparably tied are played out in
practice. I have experienced and suffered under these realities in the mountains
of Afghanistan and Lebanon, in the Gulf Wars’ thunderstorms of ammunition
and poison gas, in Egyptian and Turkish prisons, in Gaddafi’s tent and with the
Iranian Ayatollahs.’
Note that by using the premodifying phrase untrennbar verbundene (‘inseparably

tied to’) with the NP politische Ideologie (‘political ideology’), the author construes
the aggressive potential reflected by the ideologies and political actions of various
warmongering dictators as being fundamentally linked with the religion of Islam.
Importantly, Gstrein does not position himself as an ideologist himself but merely
adopts the stance of presenting the highly negative martial scenarios as a list of
facts that he has observed. This perspective of witnessing rather than simply al-
leging the evil nature of Islam is further developed by letting experts from Turkey
add proof from their supposed insider perspectives:
Ich will hier nur die neuste Aussage meines Kollegen von der Universität Ankara,
Mustafa Isen, zitieren: „Hohe Minarette … (sind) gang und gäbe, um den ande-
ren Religionsgemeinschaften die eigene Grösse zu zeigen.“ Der türkische Dichter
Ziya Gökalp wird noch deutlicher: „Moscheen sind unsere Kasernen, ihre Kup-
peln die Helme, die Minarette unsere Bajonette!“ (Klartext_Oct1)
‘I simply want to quote here the most recent pronouncements made by my col-
league Mustafa Isen from the University of Ankara: “High minarets … (are) com-
mon practice to demonstrate one’s own magnitude to other religious groups.”
The Turkish poet Ziya Gökalp makes this even clearer: “Mosques are our army
barracks, their domes are our helmets, the minarets are our bayonets!”’
In this way, the metaphors islam as war and islam as colonization are estab-
lished as literal truths. Most importantly, the metaphorical conceptualization of
minarets as symbols of war and weapons represents an explicit verbal manifesta-
tion of this metaphorical ICM here. mosques become army barracks, domes
are helmets and minarets are bayonets. Moreover, by comparing minarets

with Stalindenkmäler (‘Stalin monuments’) elsewhere in the text a further link to
warfare and dictatorship is discursively established.
Following the logic of the metaphor of aggressive expansion, the central
objects of contention – the minarets – are thus interpreted as tokens of the in-
creasing Islamic colonization of the West, and of Switzerland in particular. This
same metaphor of islam as conquest, and of minarets as the visual manifesta-
tion of such aggressive expansion, is also taken up by Andrea Geissbühler in the
context of her seemingly progressive, feminist discussion of Islam and women’s
rights:
Minarette sind für die Ausübung des islamischen Glaubens unwichtig. Sie bilden
vielmehr ein zentrales Symbol für die militant-politische Seite des Islams, die
Andersgläubige verachtet. (Klartext_Nov)
‘Minarets are not important for the actual practice of the Islamic faith. Much
rather they constitute a central symbol for the militant-political side of Islam,
which despises people of other faiths.’
Her text culminates in a quasi revelatory passage in which she claims to unmask
the hidden purpose of minarets – the demonstration of the victorious conquest
and dominance over Christian lands – when she writes:
Warum insistieren eigentlich so viele Muslime so sehr auf dem Minarett, obwohl
es nicht eine Notwendigkeit ist? Sie können diese Frage selber beantworten! Der
Muezzin (Ausrufer) ruft vom Minarett herunter den Alleinvertretungsanspruch
des Islams in die Welt. (Klartext_Nov)
‘Why in actual fact do so many Muslims insist so vehemently on the minaret,
despite the fact that it is not of actual necessity? You may answer this question
yourself! From the top of the minaret the muezzin (caller) proclaims to the world
Islam’s claim to exclusive representativeness.’
The final stage of a victorious conquest is the dispossession of the con-

quered. Thus, as the final consequence of the islamic expansion the Klartext
texts picture a scenario in which the Swiss population (and the Christian world
more generally) will be deprived not only of space and security, but also of their
(religious and political) rights, freedoms and cultural values. The metaphor is-
lamification is dispossession is verbalized in the texts as follows:
Conceptual metaphor: islamification is dispossession
Image schemas: full-empty; superimposition; expulsion of swiss val-
ues and practices from the swiss container
Zusammenleben auf immer enger werdendem Raum

Schulbehörden verbieten den Kindern das Tragen von Schweizerkreuz-T-Shirts
Schulvorsteher wollen die Weihnachtsfeier in der Schule abschaffen
Linke Politiker verpulvern Millionen für Integrationsprogramme
Islamisches Recht, für dessen gezielte Ausbreitung die Minarette stehen
Anspruch, der Toleranz grundsätzlich nicht kennt
mehr Sanktionen kann es für Christen unter der Herrschaft des Islams gar nicht
mehr geben
die vom Islam beherrschten Christen – unter ihnen zahlreiche Schweizer
Bürger – diskriminiert oder gar rechtlos und vogelfrei
The metaphor islamification is conquest incorporates two force-dynamic

image schemas that are also reflected in the pictorial ad of the advertising cam-
paign. The first image-schema follows up-down orientation and represents Islam
as following an inherent ideology of superiority that is physically symbolized
by the erection of high towering minarets. The warmongering muezzins are con-
ceived as preaching this message down from the top of the minarets. Following
the up-down schema of superiority and inferiority the colonized countries
are displayed as the suppressed inferiors. In the visual ad, the Swiss flag as-
sumes this role metonymically.
The second relevant image-schema underlying the martial ICM is expansion
(see also Hart 2011b, 276–277). The expansion of Islam is directly connected with
the war-campaign scenarios discussed above. In line with this idea, the expan-
sion of Islam through the construction of minarets is metaphorized in terms of
transgressing a physical boundary:
Mit dem Bau von Minaretten ist in den Augen vieler Schweizerinnen und Schwei-
zer eine Grenze überschritten worden. (Klartext_Oct2)
‘In the eyes of many Swiss, a borderline has been transgressed with the construc-
tion of minarets.’
In the pictorial ad the idea of aggressive expansion and intrusion are alluded to by
the shadows that are cast over Switzerland from the towering minarets as bay-
onets/missiles that also penetrate the physical boundary of Switzerland (met-
onymically represented by the Swiss flag).
The embodied logic of the metaphorical ICMs of war and colonial ex-
pansion entails and provokes the consequential counter-model of resistance
through the image of blocking and stopping the expansion (see also Hart
2011b, 278–279). Such acts of resistance are taken by the members of the SVP
as a measure for their concrete political action. Following their line of argumen-
tation, voting yes on the ban of the construction of minarets is the only way to
prevent the hostile Islamic intrusion into the physical domain of Switzerland and
to break the forceful momentum of the Islamic expansion. This is alluded to by
the notion of ungebremste Entwicklung, (‘unbridled/unchecked development’) in
the following passage, which communicates the central appeal to voting yes on
the minaret ban:
Am 29. November kann das Schweizervolk mit dem JA zum Minarettverbot eine
gesellschaftliche Entwicklung stoppen, die unser Land ungebremst und nachhal-
tig verändern dürfte. (Klartext_Oct2)
‘With a YES on the ban on minarets, on the 29th of November the Swiss people
may put a halt to a societal development that would alter our country uninhibit-
edly and in lasting ways.’
In contrast, and in line with this metaphorical logic of resistance, Swiss politi-
cians who dissent from this stance are positioned in Klartext_Oct1 as stupid and
submissive in the face of the suppressive nature of Islam.
4.3 Metaphor 2: islamification is a stealthily advancing

organic process
The supposedly visible reflection of Islam in terms of war contrasts with a further
metaphor that contradicts the war-metaphor but functions to convey alterna-
tively disquieting messages. Following this second metaphorical ICM, islamifi-
cation is conceived as a hidden, stealthy, sneaking, organically growing
process. This conceptual metaphor is verbalized, for instance, in the following
terms:
Conceptual metaphor: islamification is a hidden, stealthy, and sneak-
ing process
Image-schemas: surface (above vs. below, outside vs. inside)
gefährliche Islamisierung
schleichende Unterwanderung unserer Gesellschaft
schleichende Einführung der Scharia
schleichende Islamisierung der Schweiz
rapider Zuwachs aufgrund einer bekanntermassen hohen Geburtenrate
(Bildung) von Parallelgesellschaften
neue Religiosität, mit der wir noch nicht umgehen können
Zusammenleben auf immer enger werdendem Raum
zunehmend multikulturelle Gesellschaft
This metaphorical ICM is most explicitly addressed in the article by SVP MP

Walter Wobmann. He uses the notion of Parallelgesellschaften to paint an image of
Muslims who live in the West in terms of a segregated parallel society:
Parallelgesellschaften sind Menschengruppen, die jeweils für sich leben, ihre
Heimatsprache und ihre kulturellen Besonderheiten pflegen, sich gegen ihre
Nachbarschaft abgrenzen, anderen Gewohnheiten skeptisch gegenüberstehen
und sich weigern, sich zu integrieren. (Klartext_Oct2)
‘Parallel societies are groups of people that live segregated lives, use their own
home languages and engage in their own cultural practices, isolate themselves
from their neighbors, harbor skeptical attitudes towards other customs, and re-
fuse to integrate socially.’
The metaphorical concept of the parallel society is based on a different force

dynamic image-schema than the islamification is war model. Instead of
forceful expansion and suppression, this metaphorical ICM is based on a sur-
face-pattern with an above vs. underneath, outside vs. inside orientation.
The image-schema suggests a division between the visible mainstream part of
society (the norm) and an invisible, voluntarily segregated parallel society,
which remains hidden and underneath/behind the visible surface of the cultural
norm. The central phrase used in the Klartext texts to support this image schema
is die schleichende Unterwanderung unserer Gesellschaft (‘the sneaking/stealthy in-
filtration of our society’). Interestingly, the notion of a parallel cultural identity is
also evoked via the stereotype of the chador-wearing Muslima. The chador hides
from view a mysterious and menacing culture whose undemocratic, threatening
values often remain invisible to the innocent members of Westerns societies.
In accord with the imagery activated here, Islam becomes comparable to a
parasitic organism that nourishes itself from the fertile soil in which it grows. This
metaphor is visually supported in the SVP ad by the minarets breaking through
the Swiss soil like mushrooms or asparagus. In other words, islamification is
conceived as a growing organism that is spreading in(to) and through(out) Switz
erland and threatens its foundations. This organic view of Islamic expansion is
underlined by the literal claims that the Muslim community is multiplying fast
through immigration from Islamic countries (Zuwanderung aus islamischen Län-
dern) as well as its ‘notoriously’ high birth rate (rapider Zuwachs aufgrund einer
bekanntermassen hohen Geburtenrate). Parallel societies are represented to be the
product and (hidden) result of these developments.
One of the most striking aspects of the metaphor of islamification as or-
ganic growth is the fact that the spread of Islam – if unchecked – will lead to the
complete takeover of the foreign soil. This is expressed explicitly in Wobmann‘s
formulation:
die schleichende Unterwanderung unserer Gesellschaft, die solange fortgesetzt

wird, bis ihr jemand Grenzen setzt. (Klartext_Oct2)
‘The sneaking/stealthy infiltration of our society, which will continue until some-
one puts a halt to it.’
In its final consequence, the metaphor of stealthy growth thus entails the ulti-
mate annihilation of Swiss culture and its total replacement by an Islamic society.
It becomes evident that the metaphor islamification is a hidden and
sneaking process therefore calls for decisive political action. But unlike the
resistance-model entailed by the islamification is war-metaphor, this ICM
calls for acts of revelation and warning. The task of SVP politicians is to open
the eyes of the unaware citizens and unveil the lurking danger of Islamic growth.
4.4 The merging of the metaphors into the overarching ICM

of the muslim takeover
In their overall effect, the two central and guiding metaphors of the SVP an-
ti-minaret campaign – i.e. islamification is conquest and islamification
is a stealthily advancing organic process – merge to form the complex
ICM, or cultural model, of the muslim takeover. In Klartext_Oct2 this model
is spelled out explicitly in the form of a 5-phase evolutionary scenario, or master
narrative, which, as it is claimed, invariably unfolds along the following steps:
1. Starke Vermehrung durch Familiennachzug und hohe Geburtenraten
2. Einrichtung von Vereinslokalen, aus denen dann Moscheen werden
3. Bau von Minaretten (Türmen) auf den Moscheen
4. Gebetsrufe des Muezzins von den Minaretten
5. Schleichende Einführung der Scharia (islamisches Recht)
(Klartext_Oct2)
‘1. High population increase through family reunification and high birth rates
2. The establishing of Muslim community centers (associations, clubs) later to
be turned into mosques
3. Construction of minarets (spires/towers) on these mosques
4. The muezzin’s calls to prayer from the minarets
5. Stealthy, progressive introduction of Sharia (Islamic law).’
As Wobmann argues, Switzerland is presently at phase 3 of this progressive sce-

nario. Interestingly, it is at phase 3 that the two underlying metaphors merge.
For one thing, phase 3 coincides with the actual breakthrough of the organ-
ic parasite in the form of minarets. Thus, the mushroom-like minarets become
the clear tokens of the rapidly spreading undergrowth that undermines the solid
foundations of the Swiss territory, and are thus a definite sign of islamification
being on the “uprise”. At the same time, the minarets have been identified as the
conquerors’ visual (as well as acoustic) demonstration of victory and may thus
be read as clear proof of the ongoing aggressive project of the Islamic conquest.
Following this logic, nipping the construction of minarets in the bud is the only
way to control the Islamic undermining and dispossession of the home territory.
The initiators of the anti-minaret campaign thus also portray themselves as the
political force that – by halting the construction of minarets – has so far been able
to offer successful resistance to the planned Muslim takeover:
Seit Menschen aus verschiedenen Parteien eine Volksinitiative „Gegen den Bau
von Minaretten“ lanciert haben, ist kein einziges Baugesuch mehr für ein Mi-
narett eingereicht worden. Die Islamisierung der Schweiz konnte alleine schon
dadurch gebremst werden. (Klartext_Oct2)
‘Since people from various parties have launched the popular initiative “Against
the Construction of Minarets”, not one single building application for a minaret
has been submitted. Thus, even by this step alone, it has been possible to slow
down the Islamification of Switzerland.’
5. Assimilating the world to the model: Constructing the desired facts
The number of Muslims living in Switzerland is approximately 400’000 (or about

five percent of the population). A governmental report issued in 2005 has shown
that the vast majority of these Muslims are socially well integrated and that there
exist no parallel societies in Switzerland (Eidgenössische Ausländerkommission
2005). Yet, this is not the picture of Swiss reality that the proponents of the an-
ti-minaret initiative want to depict. In what follows we want to show what strat-
egies are used in the Klartext articles to assimilate the social world the authors
want to depict to the metaphorical models that inform their texts.
5.1 Activating the “ideological square”
All three texts under examination dedicate ample space to constructing an image
of Swiss reality that is in keeping with the postulated ICM of the muslim take-
over. The first step in the construction of this image consists in dividing soci-
ety into socially relevant groups (in particular “us” vs. “them”) and in activating
what van Dijk (1997, 33) has called the ideological square, i.e. using negative oth-
er-presentation and positive self-presentation as a core strategy to enact ethnic/
racial polarization and conflict. In the three articles under examination, Muslims
are discursively marked as the “Other”, systematically stereotyped and negative-

ly evaluated. Both Klartext_Oct2 and Klartext_Nov start off, right after the lead,
with a lengthy characterization of Muslims as inherently violent, dangerous, and
prone to criminal behavior, with violence against women being particularly high-
lighted (as will be further developed below). These negative characterizations are
“supported” by statistical claims that are either distorted (e.g. by being de-contex-
tualized), unaccounted for, or simply false. The following quotes exemplify this
strategy of negative other-presentation:
Ideological Square, Part I: negative other-presentation
Muslims characterized as violent, dangerous and criminal
Delinquenz der Täter aus islamischen Ländern überproportional hoch
[Betrug] in der Invalidenversicherung (IV): Rentenbezüger aus islamischen
Ländern auffällig stark vertreten
Fälle von Zwangsehen, Beschneidungen, Massenvergewaltigungen und
Ehrenmorden in der Schweiz
islamische Mörder oder Vergewaltiger
Ausländerpaare oder binationale Paare eher von Beziehungsgewalt betroffen als
Schweizer Paare
Opfer [häuslicher Gewalt] aus muslimischen Staaten
Zwangsehe, die Zwangsbeschneidung von Mädchen oder der Ehrenmord
Frauen in verschiedenen Lebensbereichen massiv unterdrückt
viele Muslime sehen die Frau als minderwertiges Geschöpf
Placing Muslims in the negative light of violence and crime is contrasted in

the Klartext texts with a portrayal of Swiss citizens in a highly positive light, thus
activating part II of the “ideological square” (positive self-presentation), for
instance, by presenting the Swiss as intrinsically hospitable and generous:
Die Schweizer Gastfreundschaft und Grosszügigkeit muss auch weiterhin unser
Markenzeichen bleiben. (Klartext_Nov)
‘Swiss hospitality and generosity must remain our trademark.’
Even when it comes to matters of criminality, the Swiss are portrayed as being
relatively harmless; thus Muslim rapists and murderers are juxtaposed with Swiss
drivers who have violated the speed limit. What is more, according to Wobmann,
these Swiss drivers are penalized more severely than the Muslims who have com-
mitted atrocious crimes. By alleging such practices of drastic injustice, the discur-
sively created contrast between the two groups is thus further heightened.
Gerichtsurteile gegen islamische Mörder oder Vergewaltiger fallen milder aus als
gegen schweizerische Schnellfahrer. (Klartext_Oct2).
‘Islamic murderers or rapist are given milder sentences than Swiss speeders.’
The contrast between the law-abiding Swiss citizens (wir/‘us’) and the unlawful
Muslims is also brought out in Klartext_Nov, in a statement in which the author
merges a disclaimer of racism with apparent tolerance and sympathy, yet at the
same time implies (through the contrast introduced in the aber/‘but’-clause) that
the condition under which the Swiss will be willing “to have nothing against Mus-
lims” – namely, their unconditional acceptance of Western law and order – is still
a desideratum:
Wir haben nichts gegen Muslime, sie können frei ihrem Glauben nachgehen,
müssen unsere westliche Rechtsordnung aber bedingungslos akzeptieren.
(Klartext_Nov)
‘We have nothing against Muslims, they may practice their faith freely, but they
must accept our Western legal order unconditionally.’
As mentioned above, in these negative portrayals of Muslims as violent and

criminal, there is a particular focus on gender and gender-relations. Thus, con-
tempt of and endemic hostility towards women, as well as their widespread mis-
treatment by Muslim men are repeatedly highlighted. In Klartext_Nov, entitled
Islam und Minarette aus Sicht einer Frau (‘Islam and minarets from a woman’s
perspective’), the author, SVP MP Andrea Geissbühler, presents herself as a kind
of expert on these matters by virtue of her sex. The text centers on a lengthy de-
scription of Muslim men (and Islam in general) as misogynist and violent, and
includes a quotation of what the author calls the ‘wife-bashing verse’ (Frauen-
Prügel-Vers) from the Qur’an, a verse that she sees exemplified by the realities of
life both in Muslim countries and in Muslim immigrant families in Switzerland.
She goes on to list full body veiling, forced marriages, female genital mutilation
and honor killings as practices that epitomize her characterization of Islam as
misogynist and oppressive (a list that features in almost identical fashion in Klar-
text_Oct2), and embracing the 5-step scenario that was also already presented in
Klartext_Oct2, she warns of the ultimate goal of the erection of minarets, namely
the all-encompassing introduction of Sharia. She describes herself as a woman
who has had the good fortune of growing up in an environment characterized by
freedom and openness, and expresses her wish that all women should enjoy such
freedoms. She ends her text on a call for support for the anti-minaret initiative ‘for
the benefit of women’ (zum Wohl der Frauen).
However, a strange kind of ambivalence is created on the page in that her plea
for support of the initiative as a means to fight against the oppression of women is
positioned right above the pictorial ad that shows the menacing looking Muslima,
surrounded by her minarets-cum-missiles, and appearing more oppressor than
oppressed. There is an interesting slippage here between the icon of the Muslim
woman that needs to be saved from violent Muslim men by the enlightened West,
and the image of the Muslim woman as a menacing presence herself, a slippage
that might betray something of the duplicity in the instrumentalization of the
cultural icon of the Muslim woman and the employment of purportedly feminist
positions by members of a party that in actual fact propagates a very conser-
vative and limiting image of women’s role in society and for years has actively
opposed political initiatives aiming at greater gender-equality in Switzerland (see
also Strahm 2010, 3).
5.2 Maximizing the contrast: Islam versus Christianity
Not only are Muslims in the three texts under examination portrayed as misog-
ynist, violent, dangerous and criminal, they are also characterized as intrinsical-
ly “other” and alien by a strategy that heightens the contrasts between Muslims
and Christians as members of two incompatible and fundamentally opposed
religio-cultural groups. These characterizations rely on monolithic portrayals of
both Islam and Christianity and thus ignore the diverse and heterogeneous nature
of both religions. They also contrast the positive aspects of one religion (Chris-
tianity) with the most problematic and radicalized forms of the other (Islam),
thus again using the strategy of positive self-presentation versus negative oth-
er-presentation discussed above, and they make use of misrepresentations based
on textual distortions, as will be shown below.
When describing the contrasts between the two religious groups, all three
Klartext authors adopt the stance of “experts” who inform their readership about
the true nature of Islam, either by reporting on their first-hand experience of
life in Muslim countries (Gstrein) and/or by referring to and quoting passages
from the Qur’an (Wobmann and Geissbühler). The use of Qur’anic passages, and
the translation of the Islamic call to prayer, are of particular interest here. When
Geissbühler alerts her readers to the true meaning of the muezzin’s call (in her
portrayal a warmongering proclamation of Islam’s victorious conquest over
Christianity), she underlines this by translating the call to prayer in the following
words:
Der Ruf verkündet fünfmal täglich: „Allah ist der Grösste. Ich bezeuge, dass es
keinen Gott ausser Allah gibt. Ich bezeuge, dass Mohammed der Bote Allahs
ist. Kommt zum Gebet. Kommt zur Glückseligkeit. Allah ist der Grösste. Es gibt
keinen wahren Gott ausser Allah.“ (Klartext_Nov)
‘The call proclaims five times a day: “Allah is the Greatest. I bear witness that
there is no God but Allah. I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of
Allah. Come to prayer. Come to happiness. Allah is the Greatest. There is no true
God but Allah.” ’
By choosing two different words to translate the Arabic word for God (Allah) in
the muezzin’s call, i.e. Allah vs. Gott, Geissbühler creates the impression that what
the muezzin is proclaiming from the top of the minaret is the distinction between
the Muslims’ and the Christians’ God (rather than expressing his monotheistic
belief in God per se). There is no textual basis for this distinction in the original,
and the meaning created in the translation is in actual fact in clear contradiction
to how the Qur’an speaks of the Christian (and Judaic) God, as may be illustrated
by Verse 29 : 46, in which Prophet Muhammad – addressing the Christians and the
Jews (i.e. the “People of the Book”) – says: “We believe in what has been sent down
to us, and what has been sent down to you; our God and your God is One, and to
Him we have surrendered” (Arberry 1996 [1955]). Wobmann in Klartext_Oct2
uses a strategy similar to Geissbühler’s to create an impression of maximum con-
trast between Christians and Muslims when he writes:
Das Minarett steht somit im Dienst eines Anspruchs, der Toleranz grundsätzlich
nicht kennt, der die Welt in Gläubige (die Muslime) und Ungläubige (alle ande-
ren) trennt. (Klartext_Oct2)
‘The minaret thus serves to assert a claim which, as a matter of principle, knows
no tolerance, and which divides the world into believers (Muslims) and unbe-
lievers (all others).’
Again, the categorization evoked here as representing the Islamic view of the
world – i.e. a world separated into Muslims (Believers) and Unbelievers (all oth-
ers) – is not in keeping with the way the Qur’an speaks of Christians (and other
followers of the Abrahamic traditions), who are equally described as believers in
God, as illustrated in the Qur’anic Verse 2 : 62:
Surely they that believe, and those of Jewry, and the Christians, and those Sabae-
ans, who so believes in God and the Last Day, and works righteousness – their
wage awaits them with their Lord, and no fear shall be on them; neither shall they
sorrow. (Arberry 1996 [1955])
Indeed, the fact that Islam understands itself as one of the Abrahamic faiths and
is highly aware of its shared heritage with Christians and Jews is, of course, some-
thing that needs to be suppressed in a text that aims to posit Muslims as the ul-
timate “Other”. Instead, Islam is portrayed in the Klartext texts as an alien and
inherently intolerant religion that stands in stark opposition to Christianity.
The depiction of Islam as a religion of “no tolerance” is linked in all three
texts to the claim that it is a religion that is intrinsically and inseparably tied to
a militant political ideology (as also illustrated in Section 4.2 above). Being thus
not only totally alien to “our own” world, but also highly dangerous, Islam is posi-
tioned as a religion that the Swiss, good-natured and overly generous as they are,
simply ‘cannot handle’, in Wobmann’s words: eine neue Religiosität […] mit der wir
noch nicht umgehen können. The maximizing of the contrasts between Muslims
and Christians thus represents a further dimension of the process of Othering
and constitutes a further step in assimilating the real world to the postulated met-
aphorical model.
5.3 Indexing the ICM through the (re-)activation of false claims
In the two previous sections we have shown how processes of discursive Othering
(“us” vs. “them”) serve the purpose of depicting a world that is in keeping with the
ICM of the islamic takeover. A further strategy used in the Klartext articles to
construct an image of (Swiss) reality that is in accordance with this cultural model
consists in re-activating and perpetuating false claims. The examples that we want
to focus on all involve a dimension of intertextuality, i.e. the property of texts and
discourses to combine with each other in various ways (Fairclough 1992), and
they exploit this intertextual dimension to depict a world in which the Swiss are in
the process of being dispossessed of their most taken-for-granted freedoms and
cultural values. Thus, in Klartext_Oct2, Wobmann recruits the striking everyday
scenario of the Swiss classroom to conjure up an image of the stealthy muslim
takeover:
Schulbehörden verbieten den Kindern das Tragen von Schweizerkreuz-T-Shirts,
weil damit ausländische Kinder „provoziert“ würden. Oder noch krasser: Schul-
vorsteher wollen die Weihnachtsfeier in der Schule abschaffen aus Rücksicht auf
muslimische Kinder, die in vielen Klassen schon die Mehrheit bilden.
(Klartext_Oct2)
‘School authorities forbid their pupils to wear T-shirts featuring the Swiss cross,
as foreign children will experience this as a “provocation”. Or even more extreme:
School principals want to abolish Christmas celebrations out of respect for Mus-
lim children, who already form the majority in many classrooms.’
Let us first of all briefly reflect on the two claims made here in the light of the vi-
sual dimension of the campaign ad. Firstly, the (alleged) ban on T-shirts depicting
the Swiss cross (Swiss flag) reactivates the image of a parasitic Islam that pushes
aside Swiss symbols and practices, and constitutes a direct verbal reflection of the
visual representation of minarets pushing through and destroying the Swiss flag.
Secondly, the Christmas celebration is evoked as another cultural institution that
is under threat of being eliminated from the Swiss classroom due to the growing
presence of Islam. Here, the metaphor of islamification as aggressive expan-
sion is combined with the image of organic spread and growth as caused by
the increasing number of Muslim children.
What seems most interesting though with respect to the claims being made
in the above quote is the fact that the writer makes use of a number of false claims
that had previously appeared in the Swiss media and had at the time drawn quite
a lot of public attention (with uptakes in blogs, chat rooms, letters to the editors,
etc.). The first claim, i.e. that T-shirts showing the Swiss cross are banned from
Swiss classrooms, goes back to a misrepresentation of facts in an article published
in the Berner Zeitung on Oct. 19, 2006. On the same day of the publication of
this article, the municipality of the school in question issued a statement clarify-
ing that the newspaper had wrongly portrayed the case (which revolved around
a debate amongst teachers and pupils about “provocative clothing”, sparked by
cases of racism at the school concerned), and that in actual fact no such general
ban existed. On the following day (Oct. 20, 2006) the Berner Zeitung featured an
interview with the principal of the school, in which he again asserted that their
school had issued no such ban. On Oct. 21, the Berner Zeitung ran a whole page
of letters to the editor under the heading “Schweizerkreuz-Verbot” (“Swiss cross
ban”), followed by a second whole page of letters on the same topic a few days
later on Oct. 24, 2006. People were evidently very upset about this news. In the
follow-up to the case, the municipality filed a complaint against the newspaper
with the Swiss Press Council, accusing the Berner Zeitung of false reporting. The
Press Council’s final report (Schweizer Presserat 2007) shows that the facts of the
matter had indeed been misrepresented by the newspaper. However, considering
the time lag between the original false report and the conclusion of the case more
than a year later, it is doubtful that many people took notice of this. What will
remain in many people’s memory, however, is the media hype that was sparked at
the time. Thus, re-evoking this false claim some three years later (and generaliz-
ing it to schools in the plural), Wobmann may count on this accusation ringing
true with many of his readers.
The second claim made in the above quote by Wobmann maintains that out
of respect for Muslim pupils, Swiss school principals want to abolish Christmas
celebrations at Swiss schools. This claim originates in another country-wide
media hype that was sparked by the reported statement of one individual, name-
ly in this case the head of the Swiss Teachers’ Association, who in an interview
published in the tabloid newspaper Blick on Dec. 11, 2006 (allegedly) spoke out
against Christmas trees in classrooms (he subsequently claimed that he had been
misquoted). The statement was met with a public storm of outrage, with the ma-
jority of Swiss newspapers engaging with the topic over several days, vehemently
defending the right to celebrate Christmas at Swiss schools.
Like in the first case discussed above, in this case, too, the incident on which
the Klartext claim is based had happened some three years before, and had raised
a lot of media attention as well as general public outrage and protest, which in the
end obscured the fact that there was no real substance to the claim itself.
The two cases discussed here illustrate in a vivid manner how the exploitation
and reactivation of false media reports may serve to give sustenance to a particu-
lar cultural model (or ICM) that has been offered by the writer as an explanation
of the current state of affairs, thus leading to a spiraling dynamics that perpetu-
ates the image it has created. What is particularly noteworthy about the process
described here is that once the cultural model has gained a certain currency, and
has thus come to be relied on as shared cultural knowledge in the interpreta-
tion of new input, the model need no longer be spelled out explicitly, but may
simply be indexed. The process of indexing is here understood (in keeping with
Kiesling 2006) as a case of contextualization, a process in which a specific datum
is contextualized and thus interpreted within a particular frame (in this case, the
cultural model). In this process of contextualization, the model in its entirety is
evoked in the reader’s mind, even if only a small fragment of the overall scenar-
io is actually discursively presented. Thus, in the examples discussed above, the
(alleged) banning from the classroom of the Christmas tree (or of the symbol
of the Swiss cross) indexes the cognitive model of the muslim takeover and
will be read as an instance of cultural dispossession, thus ultimately conjuring up
the much larger threat of cultural suppression and loss of freedoms and rights.
Without positing the existence of such socially shared cultural models that guide
readers in “making sense” of a particular story or incident, it would be difficult to
account for the fact that the two cases discussed above occasioned such vehement
and wide-spread public reactions. It is only through the contextualization (and
interpretation) of the reported incidents within the frame of a particular model
that these incidents gain their specific and highly charged meanings.
The last example that we want to discuss here to illustrate how the ICM of the
muslim takeover may be indexed discursively is found in Klartext_Oct1. Like
the other examples it relies on an element of intertextuality, yet it is of additional
interest here for its clever use of a re-framing strategy. In Klartext_Oct1, Heinz
Gstrein manages to use a quote by an outspoken opponent of the anti-minaret
campaign (the Swiss lawyer Erich Tanner) to (apparently) add further support to
his own claims. He does so by positioning his opponent’s quote after he has first
explained to his readers what the central function and true meaning of minarets
are, which, as he claims, serve to demonstrate to the world the victorious expan-
sion of Islam and its claim to power over other religions. In other words, he has
posited, and through his illustrations from the vantage point of a “first-hand”
witness, vividly conjured up the ICM of the Muslim takeover. Once this has been
established, he quotes the following statement by Erich Tanner:
Ein Minarett als Artefakt ist nicht Bestandteil angeborener oder erworbener Ei-
genschaften von Muslimen und Musliminnen, sondern ein Mittel zur Signalisie-
rung und Visibilisierung der fortschreitenden Etablierung des Islams bzw. der
Muslime und Musliminnen mit ihrer kulturell-religiösen Identität in der hiesi-
gen Gesellschaft. (Klartext_Oct1)
‘A minaret, as an artifact, is not part of any innate or acquired characteristics of
Muslims, but rather a means to signal and make visible the ongoing process of
Islam, and Muslims, respectively, becoming established in our society, with their
own cultural-religious identity.’
Read within the frame constituted by the ICM of the Muslim takeover, and in
particular within the metaphorical frame of islamification as conquest,
Tanner’s words indeed seem to offer support for Gstrein’s claim. Note, however,
that if Tanner’s statement were to be read within a different frame, a frame that
does not equate the presence of Muslims in Switzerland as an inherently negative
phenomenon, then increasing the visibility of the Muslims’ presence is not in itself
a problematic thing. Indeed, it may be evaluated positively, both with respect to
avoiding the development of a hidden, invisible parallel society, and with respect
to increasing Muslims’ sense of well-being and social integration in Switzerland.
Embedded within Gstrein’s argument, however, the reframing of the quote is per-
fect, and having used his opponent’s words to support his own argument, Gstrein
then triumphantly thanks Tanner for his “integrity and honesty” as a lawyer.
Let us briefly resume what discursive strategies we have identified in the texts
under discussion. Fundamental to the discursive constructions employed in the
three Klartext articles is a differentiation of “self ” and “other” that is based on a
categorization of participants that uses misrepresentations and negative stereo-
typing to create what Abu-Lughod (2002, 748) has called “an imaginative geogra-
phy of West versus East, us versus Muslims”. These processes of Othering employ
a dichotomous and polarized categorization of social actors that is further em-
bedded within the discursive construction of an “ideological square” (positive
self-presentation vs. negative other-presentation) and heightened by maximum
rhetorical contrast. They are combined in the texts under examination with facts
distortion and facts construction, and with the intertextual use, exploitation and
re-activation of false claims, i.e. various strategies that serve the purpose of in-
dexing the cultural model of the islamic threat and the danger of cultural dis-
possession. As we have seen, such strategies of indexing are at times combined
with strategies of discursive reframing that distort and reshape previously creat-
ed meanings to serve the campaigners’ own ends. All these discursive strategies
(employed at various levels of linguistic structure and organization) combine to
construct an image of (Swiss) reality that is in keeping with the postulated ICM of
the muslim takeover which the proponents of the anti-minaret initiative use as
their explanatory framework, and may hence be seen as effective ways by which
the actual world is assimilated to the model.
6. Conclusion
In this paper we have embraced an understanding of power that (following Stuart

Hall 2001) sees power (and power abuse) not only as exercised in physical and/or
economic terms, but also in symbolic terms through discursive representational
practices that stand in the service of the construction and maintenance of pat-
terns of inequality, exploitation, and/or exclusion. In our analysis of the linguistic
and pictorial representation of Muslims and Islam in the 2009 Swiss anti-minaret
campaign we have delineated the construction of an anti-Muslim schema that
perpetuates a long-standing tradition of Orientalist discourses and, in its uses
of stereotypes and manipulative textual distortions, must be understood as an
exercise of symbolic violence. The methodology that we have employed, a fruitful
combination of Conceptual Metaphor Theory with Critical Discourse Analysis, has
allowed us to explore two interacting levels of the discourse under examination.
Firstly, it has allowed us to identify the conceptual metaphor that centrally in-
forms the anti-minaret discourse: the ICM of the islamic takeover, with its two
major metaphorical subframes (conquest and organic growth) that feed into
it to create an acute sense of menace and threat. And secondly, it has allowed us
to discover and describe the discursive processes by which this cognitive mod-
el, once it has been established in the public mind, may be reactivated through
such discursive strategies as indexing, semantic reframing, and the activation and
exploitation of intertextual links, processes that in themselves further help to en-
trench the conceptual metaphor as an explanatory framework by which the social
world is to be made sense of. We see the methodology that we have embraced here
as an empowering tool whose application may help us to overcome the sense of
powerlessness and frustration often experienced when confronted with racist and
defamatory discourse of the kind we have analyzed, in that it enables us to clearly
identify the linguistic-cognitive processes of framing and the (stereotyping) cat-

egorization that have been applied, and to disentangle the discursive strategies
that have been employed in the service of facts construction, falsification and
distortion.
The forms of power and power abuse that we have analyzed in this paper
do not rely on fixed or inherent associations between specific linguistic elements
and power. However, they rely on very powerful cognitive processes situated at
the interface of language and cognition: categorization, the use of conceptual
metaphors, and the activation and perpetuation of ICMs. These three processes
are fundamental to human discursive thinking, hence impacting human beings’
mental worlds on these levels has very powerful effects, not least because catego-
rization, and metaphorical categorization in particular, draws directly on human
beings’ sensory and emotional experiences (e.g. by relying on image schemas with
their associated force dynamics). The anti-minaret campaigners’ successful acti-
vation of the model of the islamic takeover, paired with a categorization of the
social world into “us” (the Swiss) and “them” (the Muslims) and the accompany-
ing consistent and repetitious negative stereotyping, thus resulted in large parts
of the population being swayed to approve of the minaret-ban in the 2009 vote.
As Lakoff and Rockridge Institute (2006, 7–10) have argued convincingly, the
discoveries made in cognitive science demand that we re-evaluate our understand-
ing of how people reason and how they make sense of the facts with which they
are presented. Proponents of rationalism hold that human reason is completely
conscious, literal (i.e. applies directly to the objective world), logical, universal,
and unemotional. However, as cognitive science has shown, these assumptions
are not supported by the realities of human cognitive processes. Human beings
reason on the basis of mental models that draw heavily on metaphorical and met-
onymical conceptualizations, and it is these deep-seated cognitive models that
provide the frames within which they make sense of the facts that they encounter.
The belief that in order to convince someone of a particular view all it takes is
to present them with the hard facts, independent of any framing, and that they
will then reason their way to the right conclusion (or in other words, that “facts
will speak for themselves”), is therefore based on false premises. As Lakoff and
Rockridge Institute (2006, 10) write: “We know … that if the facts don’t fit the
frames people have, they will keep the frames (which are, after all, physically in
their brains) and ignore, forget, or explain away the facts.” Facts need a context,
that is, they can be assimilated into the brain only if there is a frame to make sense
out of them. Facts need to be framed within cognitive models. Since it is impos-
sible for human beings to think or communicate without activating frames, the
question as to which frames will be activated is of crucial importance.
In the Swiss anti-minaret debate, the opponents of the minaret-ban did not
take these matters into account seriously enough. To argue against the minaret
ban the opponents of the initiative drew attention to the xenophobic and Islam-
ophobic character of much of the anti-minaret propaganda, and they appealed to
voters’ tolerance for the construction of minarets based on a respect of freedom of
religion (see also Ettinger and Imhof 2009, 3–4). However, they did not explicitly
reject the metaphorical framing of the construction of minarets as an integral part
of an Islamic takeover (indeed some of their argumentation actually maintained
that frame), nor did they provide an alternative cognitive model that could have
served the Swiss public as a powerful frame within which to make sense of the
matters at stake. What would have been (and still is) needed is the proposal of
new and alternative ways of thinking about the presence of Muslims and Islam in
Switzerland in terms of new cultural models (or ICMs), ways, that is, that provide
people with alternative metaphorical frames within which to conceptualize the
new realities and experiences of living in the more diverse and religiously and
culturally heterogeneous Switzerland of today. However, since the menacing and
deeply disturbing metaphorical model of the islamic takeover has not been
actively and constructively addressed by its opponents, and no such alternative
models have been provided, many people feel that their fears have not been taken
seriously, and they will continue to use the model of the hostile islamic take-
over as the frame within which to contextualize and make sense of the facts,
rumors, news items and experiences that they encounter.
When cognitive linguists argue for a more active engagement with, and con-
structive use of, metaphorical conceptual models in our dealings with the social
and political realities of the day, they do so not with a view to further encour-
age processes of obfuscation and/or manipulation of the public through discur-
sive constructions, but out of the recognition that human thinking is inherently
metaphorical. As we have argued in Section 3, people will inevitably use meta-
phorical models to make sense of the complex (and often abstract) phenomena
with which they are faced, and it is therefore a must for anyone who enters into
political public debates to actively, critically and creatively engage with these di-
mensions of conceptual metaphorical thinking. As Lakoff (1991, 26) has argued,
“[i]t is in the service of reality that we must pay more attention to the mecha-
nisms of metaphorical thought”. Conceptual metaphors are powerful cognitive
tools to structure hegemonic discourses, and they must also form the basis for the
construction of counter-discourses that aim to project and activate a more equal,
peaceful, open and socially inclusive world.
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Power eliciting elements
at the semantic-pragmatic interface
Data from cyberbullying and virtual
character-assassination attempts
Konstanze Marx
Power, in this article, is to be understood as an instrument of force that is im-

posed purposely in order to influence, affect or persuade others. The question
here is whether such power is due to aggressive expressions (lexical level) or
to context-dependent aspects (discourse level) that become relevant when in-
sulting persons via new media. I will distinguish between “cyberbullying” as an
attempt to hurt a person’s feelings directly via personal SMS or email and “vir-
tual character assassination attempts” that include third parties as an audience.
Potential readers not directly involved are considered a constitutive eliciting
element of power. It is assumed that their existence is even more important and
effective (in terms of strengthening the perpetrator’s power) than aggressive
language.
1. Introduction
“Cyberbullying” (hereinafter referred to as CB) is a complex phenomenon with

enormous societal relevance.1 CB can be described as an act of aggression with-
in the context of new media.2 Anger, revenge, jealousy, boredom, malicious joy,
social pressure within a peer group or simply a continuation of offline conflicts
are possible motivations for CB (Aftab 2008; Cross et al. 2009; Fawzi 2009a).
1. I thank Evyatar Friesel and Frank Zopp for critical and helpful comments on an earlier
version of this article.
2. The terms “web” and “Internet” are used here as synonyms, because in ordinary parlance,
all services that are available through the Internet (email, www, etc.) are incorporated into the
concept “Internet” (cf. Runkehl, Siever and Schlobinski 1998, 3).
144 Konstanze Marx
About one third of younger people (aged 8 to 20) have had experiences with CB.
Data from Ybarra and Mitchell (2004), Smith et al. (2006), Beran and Li (2007),
Kowalski and Limber (2007), Ybarra, Diener-West and Leaf (2007) (cf. JIM-
Studien 2009–2011) deviate only slightly from each other. Findings whether girls
or boys are more often victims or perpetrators are mixed (Kowalski and Limber
2007; Willard 2007; Hinduja and Patchin 2008, 2009). For the victims, CB can
result in emotional confusion, desperation, fear, decline in performance, acute
school apathy, depression or even suicidal thoughts3 (cf. Ybarra and Mitchell
2004; Beran and Li 2007; Smith et al. 2006, 2008; Cross et al. 2009; Fawzi 2009b).
All these negative effects show that there is a certain kind of power wielded over
the victims of these attacks. Power is to be understood here as an instrument of
force that is imposed purposely in order to emotionally affect, influence and even
persuade others in a way that is unpleasant or slightly painful to them.4 Such
power may arise from rude language and manifest itself in pejorative expressions
(cf. example (2) and (3)). Consequently, an accurate semantic analysis is both
necessary and justified. Power also arises from the specific characteristics of the
communication spheres in which these linguistic acts take place. It depends on
the particular channel used to spread certain negative messages and on the au-
dience that has access to or is addressed with cruel and vicious slander. It also
depends on the text itself, as far as one finds indicators that literal expression and
intended meaning do diverge. Thus, power is not only dependent on powerful
(rude) expressions, but can also be created subtly using the wide range of pos-
sibilities offered by electronic communication. In that matter, my attempt goes
beyond previous research on linguistically created power.
In the existing research literature, there are various definitions of CB, accord-
ing to heterogeneous parameters. Without further reflection, linguistic acts are
equated to modalities of CB. For instance, threats and acts of saying bad or untrue
3. Three cases were frequently discussed in the media: Tyler C., Joel and Megan, teenagers
who committed suicide after being attacked via the Internet. The roommate of Tyler C. had
taped him secretly during a sexual encounter with another man and broadcast it over the Web.
On his Facebook profile, Joel had found a link to a homepage operated by gays. A photomon-
tage there showed him as gay. 13-year-old Megan fell in love with Josh, a fictitious online profile
of a young man who flirted with her. The profile was created by her former best friend and
her mother using background knowledge. After a while, Josh started to denounce Megan at
MySpace.
4. Already illustrated by Plato’s Gorgias (452) quoted in Kopperschmidt (1998, 16); cf. also
Kiener (1983); Luginbühl (1999); Corbineau-Hoffmann (2000); Herrmann, Krämer and Kuch
(2007). Thus, “power” is not to be understood as the power to communicate with each other
aligned to understandig as Arendt (1970) or Habermas (1987) have put it (cf. Kopperschmidt
1998, 25f.).
Power eliciting elements at the semantic-pragmatic interface 145
things about someone or something are mentioned independent of the spreading

of pictures and video materials (see the definition of the Aktion Kinder und Ju-
gendschutz Schleswig-Holstein 2009, 16). “Mean” electronic messages (Gradinger,
Strohmeier and Spiel 2009), the beginning of a dispute (Katzer, Fetchenhauer
and Belschak 2009), insults and humiliations (Katzer, Fetchenhauer and Belschak
2009), the spreading of pictures or rumors, password theft as well as the creation
of an online profile on the basis of identity theft – the unauthorized use of a per-
son’s identity as a mask – are all subsumed under the category “CB”. CB forms
are partly blended with (linguistic) means that serve to realize communicative
purposes. Stalking, flaming, social exclusion and/or harassment can be realized
via insults (or denigrations), while denigration is considered a category of its own.
Password theft, for instance, may be used to damage the password owner, but
the theft itself cannot be categorized as CB. In many studies, speech-act verbs
such as to threat, to berate or to insult are used intuitively and in the sense of eve
ryday language. Within the framework of linguistic pragmatics, these verbs can
describe the speaker’s intentions as well as actual effects. At that point, aspects of
power that can be explained linguistically become relevant. For example, how can
we exactly distinguish between the meanings of to berate and to insult? (cf. the
definition given by Jäger, Riebel and Fluck (2009), where no difference is made
between hurting and insulting speech acts, between threatening or the spreading
of rumors; cf. Marx (2013) for further discussion).
Although there is a broad range of definitions in the research of CB, it will
be proposed to use the concept “virtual character assassination” [VCA] for the
description of verbal defamatory acts within the context of new media. How-
ever, I restrict it to acts involving third parties as potential readers (functioning
as audience, also called bystanders). As I will show, these defamatory acts may
have an aggression potential. More than that, in many cases VCA cannot even be
identified as such because it lacks any lexical indicator. As a sufficient condition,
I presume that the victim can be clearly identified by others. Thus, VCA excludes
rude and aggressive personal messages sent via telephone or mailing services ad-
dressed to the victim only. For such attacks, I will prefer the term “cyberbullying”,5
5. In this article, I will concentrate on communication situations that involve an audience.

This does not mean that the fear a hatemail can provoke (Delgado and Stefancic 2004, 125) is
to be considered as incidental, and it is not to be trivialized. Studies, however, reveal that the
intensity of CB depends on the degree of public accessibility to the channels used (cf Fawzi
2009a, 36 and Aftab 2008 for an overview). Hence, CB by means of private communication
channels such as SMS or email shows less effects than CB by means of public channels such as
websites (cf. Smith et al. 2006, 2008) and social network sites (Specht 2010). Although Face-
book is considered to be a closed website, privacy here seems to be a rather dynamic concept,
146 Konstanze Marx
while mean messages that are spread via mailing lists will be subsumed under the
category of VCA.
The present article is structured as follows: First, considerations about the
existing concept of power in the context of CB will be presented. Subsequently,
descriptions of the relevant specific characteristics of the communication spheres
will follow. The following chapter will elaborate on power-eliciting elements. Ex-
amples from CB and virtual character assassination attempts will be discussed in
the following questions: How can linguistics describe the concept of power? Do
we only find evidence within the language that is used (and therefore its seman-
tic content) or do we also have to consider the discourse level? Which strategies
might perpetrators use in order to strengthen their power? To what extent is the
persuasion potential of VCA influenced by the degree of the emotional potential
of a text? What are the reasons for considering VCA a personal threat?
My study is based on a corpus consisting of 8521 postings at www.Isharegos-
sip.com. The data were collected from March to May 2011, before the site was shut
down. Additionally, data collections with private postings at social network sites
such as Facebook, MySpace, Google+, Jappy, Spickmich, Schuelercc, SchülerVZ,
StudiVZ, etc. and two extensively documented smear campaigns were used. Blog-
and forum postings from CB victims will be presented as a sub-corpus.6
2. Power in the context of CB and VCA
The intention now is to deal with the concept “power” within the context of CB
and VCA. This term has been used in research to define the phenomenon of CB
characteristics by simply transferring facets of the offline phenomenon (for “bul-
lying”, which mainly takes place in schoolyards, cf. Olweus 1993) to the channel
of the World Wide Web (e. g. Smith et al. 2008). Salient features are:
– (cyber)bullying is a conscious action;

– (cyber)bullying occurs repeatedly;
– (cyber)bullying is characterized by the unequal power relationship between
perpetrator and victim.
since it depends on the amount of friends and friends’ friends that have access to the respective
profiles.
6. All quoted examples are anonymized. XXX indicates that the whole name of the victim is
part of the original text.
Inequality in power in the context of the online world cannot simply be presup-
posed: The concept of power within a virtual environment needs to be examined
in detail. In the research literature, there is broad consensus that power inequality
between perpetrator and victim is not a result of differences in physical appear-
ance, as it is assumed in an offline context. There are many examples of offline-bul-
lying situations that are not characterized by the bullies being physically stronger
than their victims. Thus, it might be difficult to assume that power inequality is
primarily due to differences in physical appearance. As Willard describes it: “It
appears that sometimes less powerful people or a group of people are using the
internet to attack more powerful people or a group of people” (Willard 2007, 28).
One question remains unanswered: how can we define the power potential of
a virtual identity?7
In the considerations of the concept of power, reference to inequality in pow-
er has been connected to differences in internet competencies8 (cf. Hinduja and
Patchin 2007, 91), such as the anonymity of the perpetrator, the impossibility for
the victim to evade the given situation (discussed in 3) or a higher social status
within the online community (Gradinger 2010, 13). There is, however, no need
for outstanding competencies to write emails and to send them to a lot of ad-
dresses, to become a member of a chat-room, of a social network site or of some
kind of blog. New technological opportunities are available to perpetrators and
victims alike and can be used for different purposes, e.g. attack and defense.9 Peo-
ple need a computer and basic knowledge in order to participate in the WWW
(thus Web 2.0).
A crucial factor regarding the connection between CB and power can be, as
Gradinger (2010, 13) suggested, the anonymity of the perpetrator. Additional to
the verbal attacks, the victim is confronted with his or her inability to defend him
or herself, because there is no concrete opponent. This unfortunate situation adds
fear. Nonetheless, not all CB or VCA acts are anonymous, which does not mean
that they are less powerful.
It is difficult to identify the virtual social status of either victim or perpetrator
because, when trying to find out about it, we cannot simply transfer offline indica-
tors to the online world. I will assume that social status is rather flexible within the
7. For sophisticated descriptions of the concept of virtual identity, cf. Döring (2000) or
Gallery (2000).
8. Consequently, all these features do not refer neither to the virtual nor the real identity. For
instance, technical competence is a feature of an offline identity, while anonymity and social
status have to be referred to an online identity.
9. For example, see how corporate communication management departments deal with so-
called “shit-storms”.
148 Konstanze Marx
context of the internet (cf. also Döring 2000). It may change with a modification
of virtual identity. It can be undermined even when the status of a virtual identity
seems to be established. As example (1) shows, even the authorship of a blog or
forum (which apparently could be considered as being of superior social status)
does not have to be a powerful instrument within virtual communities.
(1) Ich bin ja schon vor über einem Jahr aus dem Forum von denen raus und
hab ja mein eiges aufgemacht, aber selbst da haben sie sich angemeldet um es
kaputt zu machen und seit gestern abend ist es nun auch offline. Sie haben es
also geschafft.
‘It is more than a year ago that I left their forum and opened up my own one.
But they registered even there in order to destroy it and since last night it is
indeed offline. They succeeded.’ (http://forum.mobbing.net, 17.10.2010)
In this respect, the status quo is summarized best by Kowalski, Limber and Ag-
atston (22012, 62) who concede that power in the virtual world is different from
power in the real world. I assume that power cannot be explained by technical
competencies or physical characteristics of the involved parties only, but that
power mainly derives from linguistic acts in an uncontrollable sphere and from
their effects. These verbal acts can be analyzed on different linguistic levels. This
article focuses on the power potential of some lexical elements and discourse.
In the following section, I will try to spell out relevant characteristics of the un-
controllable communication sphere and outline the context in which VCA takes
place.
3. Convergence processes between real and virtual reality

in an uncontrollable communication sphere
The glory of the internet is its lack of regulation.

(ACLU, quoted in Delgado and Stefancic 2004, 126)
Such a glory, as I will show below, is not unrestricted. The lack of regulation surely
opens a sphere of freedom that can enrich communicative processes. However, a
lack of regulation also invites certain persons to behave in ways morally objec-
tionable. Thus, the Web (2.0) can function as a “virtual stage” for VCA.
VCA-data can only be created, spread and received via new technologies (in-
ternet services such as email, WWW, etc.). The more recent development of the
Web 2.0 means not only that contents of the internet are available to everyone,
but also the general possibility for everyone to add contents to the WWW. Ex-
ceptions are restricted forums, in which the members determine and specify the
criteria for participation. Thus, each user can spread compromising contents and
materials about another person via the WWW. On the other hand, each person
who is affected by defamatory acts can publish counter-statements – presuppos-
ing that both the perpetrator and the victim have equal access to the Internet. At
the same time, everyone may participate in the Web 2.0 – a somewhat control-re-
sistant virtual space (cf. Schwarz-Friesel 2013, 233); typically, these opportunities
are used for communication purposes (see JIM-Studie 2011). Approximately half
of the time (44%), users are active in communities, using messenger-, chat- or
email-services.
Among other things, from these different communication patterns, two dif-
ferent and possible situations emerge. For example, people regard social network
sites as an extension of their peer group. On the Web 2.0 interface of their social
network platform, the boundaries between the public and private sphere are dif-
fuse. Frequently, persons transmit parts of their private sphere into the (semi-pub-
lic)10 virtual reality with their participation in social network sites. Therefore, their
offline- and their online-identity can hardly be kept apart, as social relationships
are partly transferred to the virtual sphere. Especially young people feel the need
to be easily accessible within the WWW. Otherwise, they believe, a part of social
life would remain hidden to them, which might harm their social offline world.
Thus, instead of calling their friends after school or simply passing by and ringing
their bell (as earlier generations used to), youngsters “meet” today at “wer-kennt-
wen” or Facebook. Yet, whilst information exchanged between two persons in a
phone call or face-to-face interaction may become public only in case of a breach
of trust, the network exchanges may become known to a large number of poten-
tial participants in the communication and apparently, private conversations may
be witnessed via social network sites.
Persons who frequently use the social network site Facebook may disagree
in this point. They may claim that there are options that allow a full control over
the potential audience of communication via Facebook. Nevertheless, mak-
ing use of these options presupposes that persons consider the communication
platform critically and make decisions that are not always easy. According to the
JIM-Studie 2009, only 46% of people of younger age used the privacy options
of the social network sites. In the meantime, this number has increased to 87%
(JIM-Studie 2012). However, privacy is a relative notion when on average, there
are 290 friends added to social network sites (JIM-Studie 2013).
Despite many dangers, a lot of users lack the necessary awareness and ignore
these perils, which may be attributed to the apparently safe production process
10. Data are not “published” in the real sense, but are accessible and can potentially be used,
therefore I use the term “semi-public”.
150 Konstanze Marx
(alone, “locked away” in their own rooms, using their own computers), as de-
scribed by Schwarz-Friesel (2013, 253). Only when (young) people become vic-
tims of verbal attacks, do they realize that privacy is not guaranteed within the
virtual sphere. The effect of humiliation is significantly increased and reaches a
social dimension when people become aware that an unmanageable number of
persons witness the attack (for instance, when an attacker posts mean messages
and does not limit himself or herself to his or her own group of recipients).
In such a case, a person becomes the object of a special form of public re-
porting and defaming. Moreover, this public reporting is mostly not the work of
professional writers and typically lacks objectivity. Accordingly, VCA victims are
not only confronted with the verbal insult but also with the effect achieved by
the medium, in which a “report” about them is published to a restricted or un-
restricted audience. In their “perceived” public role, VCA victims are exposed to
so-called “reciprocal effects”, i.e. effects well known to politicians. Media-literate
as well as media-illiterate persons react helplessly, angrily and with fear, when
the media comment negatively on them (cf. Kepplinger 2007; Fawzi 2009a, 14).
Individuals who choose their public role by themselves, do have the option to
“hatch” (but not easily). Within the context of VCA, publicity rises uncontrollably
from privacy (cf. Belsey 2006; Kowalski and Limber 2007; Hinduja and Patchin
2009). Victims do not have the opportunity to change between real and virtual
identity, because both roles are closely interrelated within the sphere of Web 2.0.
Thus, Virtual Character Assassination of a virtual identity always affects a real ex-
isting individual. Such a person cannot easily “hatch” from privacy. Additionally,
a virtual identity can be manipulated in a way that relates not only to perceived
but also to objectively determinable effects on the offline-identity, for instance, in
cases of published so-called faked profiles of real existing persons (example (8)).
Within the frame of this profile, perpetrators use the possibility to act in the name
of their victim and modify his or her profile. In this manner, perpetrators let their
victims literally compromise themselves (see example (2)). Because it is in the
interest of the victims to uncover any fraud, there are many field reports in the
WWW. When using these data for linguistic analysis, we should consider their
reliability with caution. There is always the possibility that a person presents him
or herself as victim because he or she craves for recognition.
(2) Wie gesagt, hat sie ja mein komplettes Profil gefaket auf einem anderen
Forum reingestellt. Auch gepostet damit, stellt euch das Schlimmste vor. Als
ich das gesehen hatte, jemand hatte mir das gezeigt und gefragt ‘aber das bist
du doch nicht wirklich, oder?’ […] Nicht zu vergesen, auch noch mit mei-
nem Foto und meiner msn-messenger nr … etc. Einen Monat hatte sie sich
als mich ausgegeben! Wenn ich google, finde ich immer noch die Beiträge
(analverkehr ist fast noch mit das harmloseste der Postsinhalts) … sie hat
mich einfach als asozialen Dreck da hingestellt.
‘As said, she faked my complete profile and placed it in another forum. She
also posted it, imagine the worst. When I saw it – someone had shown it to
me and asked ‘this isn’t you, is it?’ […]. Not to forget, she also used my pho-
tograph and my msn-messenger number … etc. All this lasted one month!
In a google search, I still find the article (anal intercourse is almost the most
harmless of the contents) … she portrayed me as trash.’
(http://forum.mobbing.net, 02.03.2011)
In cases like that, strategies are intertwined on several linguistic levels. In Sec-
tion 3, I will comment on these in detail.
4. Semantic aspects of power
One often finds verbal attacks showing a high aggression potential similar to the
verbal attacks that are documented for offline bullying. Olweus (1993) character-
izes acts of bullying imprecisely as “negative“. In these cases, aggression is mainly
transported lexically (cf. Kiener 1983). It is not to be questioned that “high ag-
gression potential” means that these utterances are marked by a high emotional
potential (Schwarz-Friesel 2007). They evoke emotional reactions such as fear,
disgust, anger, embarrassment or shame. In (3), the victim is offended by pejora-
tive language and defamatory remarks. We also find insults used to deny people’s
human nature by describing them as animals (for instance, the de-humanizing
metaphor Schwein/pig in (4)).
(3) Frau XXX sie sind einfach eine Schlampe.
Sie sind eine Crack Hure die immer in Discos durch gevoegelt wird.
ALTER SIE SIND SO EINE SCHLAMPE!
Ich bin soooo froh sie nicht zu haben.
PS: Ficken SIE sich! (www.Isharegossip.com, 27.03.2011)
‘Mrs. XXX you are a tramp. You are a crack whore who gets bonked in discos.
Dude, you are such a tramp. I am sooo glad not to be taught by you. PS: Fuck
youself.’
(4) jaeh … XXX das miese fette schwein ist tot … der hurensohn hat meine
Mutter beleidigt … er soll in der hölle schmoren … fette mistsau
(www.Isharegossip.com, 31.03.2011)
‘Yeah … XXX the rotten fat pig is dead … this son of a bitch insulted my
mother … he shall rot in hell … fat sod’
152 Konstanze Marx
Example (4) shows how the perpetrator tries to de-legitimize the school principal
by using an argumentative strategy (to explain the effect by defining the cause):
for allegedly insulting the writer’s mother, he shall “rot in hell“. Can this con-
clusion be considered as reasonable? Obviously, the penalty for an alleged insult
- here expressed as a logical consequence – is disproportionate. The series of sus-
pension dots, the explicit initial “jaeh” as well as the sentence structure of the text
(which is comparable to an emotional outburst in oral communication) indicate
that the writer must have been in an intense emotional state when writing these
lines. How trustworthy is someone who “argues” in such a fury (cf. Marx 2013)?
Without doubt, such utterances do hurt the feelings of the addressees. In this
sense, they reveal a kind of power potential. But it is not very likely that this type
of utterance will persuade third parties. One can find defense strategies which
show that third parties11 are neither willing to believe nor to accept such verbal
attacks (5), (6).
(5) 09.04.2011 21:44:58 XXX aus der 10D du bist so eine miese Schlampe
‘XXX from the 10th grade you are such a crappy hussy’
11.04.2011 14:35:33 was redest du, wo ist sie ne schlampe – du lappen
‘What are you talking about, why is she a hussy – you sissy.’
11.04.2011 14:35:33: …und der Schreiber dieser Nachricht ein Versager
‘… and the writer of this message is a loser’
(6) 17.04.2011 07:59:29 Hat jemand die adresse von XXX aus XXX? Ich muss ihn
unbedingt wiedersehen. Er hat mir gestern so geil einen geblasen.
‘Does anyone have the address of XXX from XXX? I have to meet him again.
He gave me such a great blow-job yesterday.’
17.04.2011 20:28:57: ja habe ich, gehst gerade aus und dann dreimal rechts
und schon steckst Du in einem Berg Kuhmist, wo Deine Äusserungen im
übrigen hingehören.
‘Yes, I have it, you walk straight up and then turn to the right three times.
There you will be stucked in cow dung, where – by the way – your statements
belong too.’
As the following example (7) shows, even addressees can get accustomed to ag-
gressive attacks and categorize them as annoying.
(7) 11.04.2011 15:53:20: deine mudda is ne fette hure
‘Your motha is a fat whore’
11. We cannot be sure whether the writer is an addressee/victim or a bystander. We have only
indicators that lead to the one or the other assumption.
11.04.2011 16:04:31: ach du schon wieder, allmählich mach ich mir ja so

richtig sorgen um dich! Wie heißt und wo wohnst du, vielleicht kann ich dir
ja helfen.
‘Oh, it’s you again, I am starting to get really concerned about you. What’s
your name, where do you live, maybe I can help you.’
Each of these examples documents aggressive verbal attacks and shows a clear
infringement of communicative and social standards. One is not supposed to be
impolite, to insult, to defame or to spread rumors and lies about other persons (cf.
Grice 1989; Brown and Levinson 1987; Wilson and Sperber 2004). When doing
so, persons act against someone’s expectations which – in the least – can cause
emotional irritation; in a worst-case scenario, it can trigger anger, fear, depression
and loss of self-esteem. All of these effects have one thing in common: They relate
to an individual. The individual suffers because he or she feels offended and his
or her feelings are hurt. Furthermore, he or she is aware of the fact that there is a
possibility that third parties (bystanders) do have access to the published content.
The examples (5)–(7), however, lead to the tentative conclusion that it is not
likely that third parties do believe in contents that are expressed in an aggressive
rule-breaking manner. I would like to focus on this idea in the following section.
5. Discourse level: Context as a power-eliciting item
When trying to list the conditions for trustworthy, reliable (and thus, persuasive)
communicative behavior, it is worthwhile to refer back to Aristotle who distin-
guished between three devices of persuasion:
a. the character of the speaker himself, his or her trustworthiness and credibili-
ty;
b. the effects he or she is able to elicit among the audience;
c. real or just apparent evidence.
It is quite obvious that the notion “aggression potential” is not very helpful with
regard to these devices. Power potential depends much more on the ability to in-
fluence both the victim and third parties, and both strategies emerge from differ-
ent contents, which I call the “challenge of perlocutive divergence”. With respect
to VCA, it means that the victim ought to be put in a situation where he or she
believes that he or she feels hurt and even useless and worthless on the one hand.
On the other hand, bystanders have to be kept from thinking that the perpetrator
might be unreliable, and they should be put in a situation where they understand
and accept what is said. Depending on whether the addressee is the victim or a
154 Konstanze Marx
so-called bystander, the perpetrator has to pay attention to differing initial situ-
ations. Although Web 2.0 seems to be a fertile environment for (verbal) attacks,
the perpetrator faces quite difficult conditions when trying to damage a person’s
reputation within the online sphere. His or her claims need to be very convincing
because of the possible mixed reviews concerning the credibility of the Internet.
One can observe significant changes over the last ten years. While studies con-
ducted by Flanagin and Metzger (2000) and Johnson and Kaye (2002) have con-
firmed that the credibility of the Internet is not different from traditional media
such as television and radio, today’s studies reveal that users carefully differentiate
between diverse web pages (see Feufel, Stahl and Lee 2013). Thus, perpetrators
prioritize particular strategies in order to reach their communicative goals. One
of these strategies is illustrated in the following.
5.1 Avoiding non-compliance of standards as a power eliciting strategy
Provided that perpetrators stay within a certain range of tolerance, there will
hardly be a reason to become suspicious about them. This range of tolerance is
constituted by several parameters, such as the possible truth-value of the con-
tent, the possible authenticity of the pictures, but also the form and purpose of
linguistic utterances. Exaggerations on the level of propositions and serious devi-
ations from standards regarding the linguistic style might indicate possible fakes.
In case of being excessively outrageous, such as the contents presented using rude
vernacular, this may cause doubts among the bystanders. However, these assess-
ments are difficult to prove, since a sharp tongue is quite common within the
context of the WWW (cf. Kleinke 2007). It is likely that fakes remain undetected
in cases in which there are no such indicators, such as in the following case of a
profile fake (8).
(8) a. Danke ich werde gleich runterladen dieses schöne Strecke
‘Thanks I will immediately download this beautiful route.’
b. Jetzt bei rail-sim.de meine neue Kreation für Railworks zum Download.
Ich wurde in Türingen inspiriert. Wer Fragen hat kann mir gerne E-Mail
schreiben.
‘Now at rail-sim my new creation for railworks available for download.
I was inspired in Türingen. Anyone having questions can just send an
email to me’
Profile fakes can be implemented in different ways:

a. in order to spread compromising contents, third parties create the profile of

a person, who did not have so far a profile in a particular online environment
(blog, forum or social network site);
b. third parties copy and modify a profile that already exists;
c. third parties create a profile in order to use a false identity to draw informa-
tion from the victim and subsequently use this knowledge against the victim
itself;
d. third parties shift a profile that already exists from a trusted virtual environ-
ment to an unreliable virtual environment.
Example (8a, b) shows that VCA does not necessarily need rude linguistic expres-
sions, which compromise the victim directly. In order to strengthen his or her
power (by staying trustworthy), the perpetrator in (8a, b) uses three different lev-
els for his or her actions: the technical level (i) the propositional level (ii) and the
linguistic level (iii). Acting in the name of a person who is registered and active
only in a legal forum requires some technical steps (level i). In the case of example
(8a, b), a profile of the victim within an illegal forum was created by an unknown
person. The victim’s profile properties (among others the picture) were copied
from the victim’s Facebook profile and integrated in the new profile. Username
and real name were inserted unchanged. Plausibility (level ii) is obtained by using
exclusive knowledge about the victim. For instance, the perpetrator refers to the
victim’s place of inspiration (Thüringen, 8b). Indeed, according to his own state-
ment, the victim stayed in Thuringia for a few months. At that time, the victim
may have mentioned (electronically) his or her current whereabouts. Essentially,
it is relevant to the analysis that there are no peculiarities on the propositional
level. Neither suggestive nor direct defamatory remarks are encoded. Regarding
the stylistic level, the utterances in (8a, b) are just as inconspicuous. For example,
no pejorative language occurs (level iii). From a linguistic point of view, it is now
interesting to see in what linguistic manner the perpetrator tries to keep the im-
pression of authenticity and to create power at the same time. He or she tries to
imitate the victim’s way of speaking. Using the grammatically incorrect phrase
dieses schöne Strecke (8a) (the demonstrative pronoun dieser/diese/dieses does not
match Strecke; the properly inflected phrase would be diese schöne Strecke), he
or she tries to take the fact into account that the victim is not a native speaker of
German. I assume that also the spelling error in Türingen (instead of Thüringen/
Thuringia) (8b) was integrated with the same intention. However, it is highly im-
probable that the victim – whose German is above average – would have made
mistakes of this kind. The victim’s friends might “stumble across” these mistakes
and find them awkward. Linguistic experts would need a basis for a comparison
such as a text produced by the victim in order to determine whether the text is a
156 Konstanze Marx
fake or not. In order to have a chance to find out who the real author of (8a, b) is,
forensic linguistic methods are necessary (cf. Fobbe 2011 for an overview). The
problem is that a person who does not know the victim personally cannot assess
whether these mistakes are to be expected. This person does not even get to the
point where he or she is motivated to think about it. Users might just take the text
for granted because they are not even given a cause to question the authenticity
of (8a, b).
What do we know about the perpetrator? Linguistic data in (8a, b) reveal
that he or she is not able to draw well-founded conclusions about the kind and
frequency of mistakes the victim makes. At the time of publishing (8a, b) in an il-
legal forum, the victim’s stay in Thuringia and also the publishing of texts relating
to this stay were a matter of the past. It can thus be assumed that the perpetrator
has already been following the victim’s online activity in the legal forum for a few
months and refers to them inter-textually. There are no indications of the possible
motive of the perpetrator. The blog postings in (8a) and (8b) look authentic and
it is extremely difficult to identify them as a result of an act of malice by an un-
known person. Paradoxically and alarmingly at the same time, a strategy without
any obvious manipulation and persuasion has a very high persuasion potential
and is therefore very helpful in strengthening the power of a perpetrator. As soon
as non-compliance to standards cannot be provided in full, the power of the per-
petrator starts to minimize, as shown in the following example.
(9) Hallo Herr XXX, um Sie nicht länger im Unklaren über einen der wesent-
lichsten Gründe meiner Kündigung zu lassen, schreibe ich Ihnen jetzt, was
ich Ihnen schon immer sagen wollte. Um es auf den Punkt zu bringen: Sie
sind ein unangenehmer Mensch, mit dem ich nicht mehr zusammenarbeiten
will. [Es folgt ein Vergleich des Adressaten mit der literarischen Figur des
Barons von Ottringel aus Elisabeth von Arnim: Die Reisegesellschaft.] Sie
sind genauso ignorant, Herr XXX. Auch Sie verfügen über keinerlei sozi-
ale Kompetenz und Gerechtigkeitsgefühl. Kollegiales Verhalten und faires
Handeln sind Ihnen völlig fremd. Kritische Selbstreflexion kennen Sie nicht.
[…] (elektronischer Brief an den Adressaten und in Kopie an das Kollegium
eines Betriebs, anonymisiert durch Verf.)
‘Hello Mr. XXX, since I do not want to leave you any longer in the dark about
one of the most important reasons for me quitting the job, I am writing to
you now to say what I always wanted to tell you. To put it concisely: You are
an unpleasant person with whom I do not wish to work any longer. [Follows
a comparison between the addressee and the literary figure of Baron von
Ottringel (Die Reisegesellschaft, Elisabeth von Arnim)] You are as ignorant
as he, Mr. XXX. You do have neither social competence nor a sense of justice.
You know nothing about proper behavior as a colleague or about fairness.
Critical self-reflection is unknown to you. […].” (Email to the addressee and

in copy to the company’s staff, anonymized by K.M.).’
The author of this letter expresses fierce criticism but does not use rude language.
Neither are there offenses on the stylistic level. However, the credibility of the
author (and hence his power potential) is weakened, since he or she claims that
the addressee is responsible for the author’s resignation from his or her job. This
issue could have been discussed in the frame of so-called “restricted exchange”,
as defined by (Sohn and Leckenby 2007, 437): “’Restricted exchange’ is a basic
form of social exchange, characterized by reciprocity. The other basic form of
social exchange is called “generalized exchange” (Ekeh 1974; Takahashi 2000). It
describes a rather indirect exchange, which means that persons do not expect to
get an immediate reaction to their (communicative) act.
Instead, the author uses an internet service (email) to transmit his or her mes-
sage not only to the addressee but also to the staff of the company and in this way
creates a semi-public situation, an audience. In doing so, he or she aims to address
colleagues who feel similarly and perhaps to motivate them to communicate with
the addressee as directly as he does. From the possible responses, the author will
know if there are many colleagues who share his or her opinion about the col-
league addressed by him. Possibly, the author uses that unique opportunity to
say aloud what others think in private. If he or she had communicated his views
(in 9) to the addressee in confidence, the author would have released himself or
herself from emotional pressure and at the same time, the addressee would have
had the chance to comment on the reproaches. However, it can be assumed that
at the documented point of conflict, no solution is aimed at. The “electronic stage”
is chosen as venue for a “last battle”, but the instruments of power are unequal-
ly distributed: the potential size of the audience involved seems to influence the
outcome.
In the end, what actually occurred was quite different. Although the address-
ee had the opportunity to defend himself or herself via the same way, he or she did
not make use of it so far. He or she probably did not have to do it because the way
the author expressed himself or herself had an effect on the persuasive power of
the message. What happened was that the author achieved precisely the opposite
effect: his or her colleagues reacted with restraint to his or her message.12 The
message lost its persuasive potential due to the modality of spreading. The author
might have formulated the message with the perlocution to motivate like-minded
persons to deal frankly with the situation. The (involuntarily) secondary readers
(the audience) probably evaluate the modality of spreading the message as the
12. I found out about these reactions through informal information.

158 Konstanze Marx
crossing of communicative borders. There was neither irregularity on the seman-

tic level nor breach of etiquette involved, but a particular inconsistency due to the
communicative situation and thus on the pragmatic level. In consequence, the
audience’s attention is shifted from the “what” to the “how” of the message, from
its content to its form. The evaluation of the text recedes into the background, the
communication modality and the disapproval of it displaces the probably justifi-
able criticism.
6. Conclusion
Within the context of VCA and CB, the elicitation of power through the use of
language is not as closely related to aggressive linguistic behavior as one might
expect. Taking into account the results of the research on power and language,
aggressive verbal behavior is to be categorized as a rule-breaking linguistic step.
Acting against common expectations may cause irritation, but it does not seem
the right device when the aim is to persuade.
Aggressive and mean messages can potentially hurt the victim’s feelings.
However, it is unlikely that third parties not directly involved in the discourse can
be convinced by the content of these mean messages. Rather, they feel disgust or
react adversely when involved in so-called “shitstorms” that sometimes can even
be creative and undermine the supposed primary intention of insult.
As the given examples have shown, a certain kind of impartiality and explicit
conformity with communicative rules seem to strengthen the persuasive poten-
tial, and thus the power involved. May we consequently assume that in the end
rationality triumphs over emotion? In the context of real VCA as described above
(profile fakes), rationality is not used in order to create an argumentative pattern.
Recipients (third parties) are not provided with data of a discussion that might
produce new arguments. Within the context of VCA, one is confronted with a
new standard of manipulation, but due to the lack of indicators, it is almost im-
possible to recognize the manipulative attempt. Consequently, the need to come
up with an individual conclusion on a particular subject (or person) is just not
deemed necessary. Third parties simply do not notice anything unusual, since
the perpetrator avoids breaking common communicative rules. Not the content
of utterances is to be considered as predominantly relevant for the assassination
attempt but the context, which is not referred to linguistically. The victim may get
into a defense position in a situation where third parties are not even aware of an
offense.
All this leads to the conclusion that computer-mediated communication
opens new means for damaging a person’s reputation while at the same time
protecting the perpetrator. Within the frame of VCA, power is not constituted
lexically, but linked to specific communication modalities. In further consider-
ations, the additional factor of anonymity needs to be taken into account.
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Part II
Focus on speaker/author
Powerless language
Hedges as cues for interpersonal functions
Hanna Pishwa
This paper brings together two different approaches to the analysis of hedges.
They are viewed in linguistics as procedural cues relating to the propositional or
phrasal contents and their cognitive counterparts. In social psychology, they are
interpreted at an interpersonal level as powerlessness markers attributing lack of
control and power to the speaker. A comparison of these approaches resulted in
the finding that some usages of hedges can be interpreted as unintended inter-
personal implicatures weakening speaker traits and persuasive force. A further
function is intentional and strategic as in political speech. A third usage is ap-
propriate fuzziness caused by hedges, whereby the hedged expression exhibits
accuracy higher than an explicit statement.
1. Introduction
The investigation of the fuzziness of hedges was initiated by George Lakoff (1972)
in the early seventies and introduced into sociolinguistics in the first hand by
Robin Lakoff (1973), where it was widened to embrace further so-called pow-
erless expressions. They are characterized by additional markers, for instance,
hedges or other elements, which are reported to be found more frequently in the
language used by women than by men, that is, their distribution is gender-based;
men’s language was – and still partly is – assumed to be the powerful and over-
all ruling style, i.e., an unmarked, phenomenon. In definitions of powerful and
powerless language, powerful language is explained in terms of powerlessness, in
particular, lack of it, because of its salient form.
Subsequent studies on language usage have, however, yielded a less clear
picture concerning the powerlessness of hedges on the one hand, and gender
language on the other. They have been found to carry several functions beside
powerlessness. For instance, Ng and Bradac (1993) show that one and the same
structure such as a hedge (I think, kind of) may vary in its power potential in
166 Hanna Pishwa
combination with other structures and in dependence on the speaker and the
recipient. In line with this, Holmes (2005, 33) holds that “The linguistic forms
which express power are often identical to those which reflect solidarity or in-
timacy.” Accordingly, the fact that it is possible to find a number of non-power-
less usages of hedges (Fraser 2010) makes clear conclusions extremely difficult,
in particular, because the individual hedges are not alike. These difficulties have
been the reason for continuous studies on powerless language both in linguistics
and in social psychology in recent years.
These two disciplines have chosen entirely different approaches. Social psy-
chologists focus on the effects of various powerful and powerless styles on the
recipient (perlocution) rather than on the functions of linguistic markers of
these styles. The central interest among linguists is directed to revealing linguis-
tic structures connected to their production, usage and systematicity. Hence, this
approach can be classified as descriptive and explanatory allowing the detection
of the power potential of language in quantitative-qualitative studies such as cor-
pus-linguistic investigations by contextual means (see Fetzer, Schulze, this vol-
ume). A further, frequently employed linguistic method is discourse analysis, for
instance, critical discourse analysis, as well as ethnomethodology, both of which
are based on qualitative analyses, whereby the researcher makes judgments on the
degree of power.
The goal and methodology applied in this chapter will differ from those em-
ployed both in linguistics and social psychology; the social psychologists’ variable
results on the usage and effects of powerless language, specifically hedges, will be
matched with linguistic findings and theory as far as possible. The primary goal
of this comparative enterprise is to find out more about the nature of so-called
powerlessness devices concerning their functions at different linguistic levels.
This issue is closely connected to their processing: conventionalized structures
are processed in the periphery and hence do not tax consciousness, while their
fuzzy usage demands decisions concerning the activation of an adequate func-
tion. Therefore, the goal of the paper also implies a discussion of how communi-
cators attach a function to the variable usage of hedges. Assuming that the human
brain is able to cope with inaccuracy, we can take for granted that there must be
principles available to language users.
With this purpose in mind, the present paper will first present a rudimentary
account of power and its linguistic realization and then try to tackle the hetero-
geneous research results on language and power-/lessness from selected studies
in linguistics and social psychology. Finally, the linguistic status of hedges will be
discussed from cognitive and pragmatic points of view.
Powerless language 167
2. Power
The crucial issues concerning power in interaction are its location and stability
on the one hand, and its perception and reaction by the recipient on the other. A
frequent definition of power reads as Raven et al. (1998, 307) put it: ”Social power
can be conceived as the resources one person has available so that he or she can
influence another person to do what that person would not have done otherwise.”
Thornborrow (2001, 8) also holds that power lies in the speaker or her purposes.
The implication of this view is that power resides with a person or her actions. In
this sense, Raven et al. (1998; see also Wilson 2002) present a number of power
“bases” or compliance gaining strategies, for example, coercion, reward, informa-
tion, or legitimate power. This is a static, speaker-/actor-oriented approach taking
for granted that power is unchallengeable because the speaker is endowed with
it or exercises it in a certain situation. Locher (2004, 37), instead, emphasizes the
contextualization of power regarding it as something “relational, dynamic and
contestable”, which “cannot be possessed like a commodity: it is constantly nego-
tiated in and around relationships.” This expanded position is also supported by
Thimm and Kruse (1991, 7, 10); Ng and Bradac (1993, 14) locate power rather
with the recipient, who makes inferences and evaluations from utterances and
thus decisions about power.
The location and stability of power are predetermined in institutional com-
munication, which usually differs from non-institutional interaction with regard
to inequality between the speaker/writer and the addressee; institutional power
is legitimate, but can also be “’diluted’ through linguistic strategies of resistance
on the part of the institutionally weaker person” (Simpson and Mayr 2010, 11).
In non-institutional communication, power is considered a “latent resource” and
a potential factor realized as dominance in interaction (Thimm and Kruse 1991,
8, 10). This implies that every person theoretically possesses a power resource and
can utilize it in an appropriate situation. Ng and Reid (2001, 358) hold a similar
view stating that “power becomes influence when force exceeds resistance […]
power is the potential to influence, and influence is power realized”.
As illustrated in this volume, power can be manifested in different constel-
lations with differing consequences for the participants in that it can be, for in-
stance, relational or attributive (Thimm and Kruse 1991, 6). Relational power is
interactional and inherent in face-to-face interaction, but also part of political
speech, simply, wherever someone is trying to make an impression on another
person or to persuade her in some ways. In this constellation, a more or less im-
mediate reaction by the recipient may be expected. Attributive power is expressed
in discourse situations where the other party is not the direct recipient or unable
168 Hanna Pishwa
to react immediately (see Marx, this volume). Since this paper investigates hedg-
es, relational power will be the main focus here.
3. Power/-lessness and language
3.1 Introduction
The so-called “powerless language” is said to be recognized by additional linguis-

tic material attached to the powerful, formally simpler style. However, according
to most definitions, the language of the powerful style is defined in relation to
the powerless style, that is, lacking its features. In addition to linguistic criteria,
powerlessness may be recognized barely according to the speaker’s social status
such as gender, expert status, or ethnic group. For instance, powerless language is
generally ascribed to women, who are considered to represent the less powerful
part of the population. Therefore, gender language has frequently served as object
of study on powerless language in linguistics (Ayaß 2008; Diamond 1996; Eckert
et al. 2003; Gräßel 1991; Klann-Delius 2005) with a constant search for an answer
to the question whether women’s style is less powerful than that of men.
Manifestation of power is not reflected or conveyed solely by means of lan-
guage; there is rich research on other expressions of power/-lessness, for instance,
body language or various discourse or conversation phenomena. The present pa-
per will, however, only address language, especially the use of hedges. This section
deals with the distribution of the various speech styles, the linguistic realization of
which will be the topic of the next section.
Social psychology and linguistics hold somewhat differing views on the pow-
er potential of language. While many social psychologists and some early re-
searchers in linguistics contend that there are linguistic structures endowed with
an inherent notion of power or powerlessness, more recent research in linguistics
has brought forth a more multifaceted view of the topic with the finding that the
very same elements can serve both goals in dependence on the context (Caffi
2007, 2010), as already indicated in the introduction. The assumption that certain
linguistic elements and structures, such as hedges, serve as cues for powerlessness
in the default case has been supported with ample evidence by social psycholo-
gists as well as early researchers of sociolinguistics, in particular gender language.
This is, however, confuted by most linguists, for example, by Holmes (2005) and
Talbot (2010), who argue that these forms in women’s language do not indicate
powerlessness but rapport. Yet we can find evidence for the fact that certain so-
cial groups can be distinguished from others in terms of their language use, for
instance, sociolinguistic studies have provided multiple evidence for different
linguistic behavior among genders, for example, that lower-class women tend to
use more prestigious forms than men (Chambers 2003).
Capturing the different power styles is not an easy task as Ng and Bradac ar-
gue (1993, 14): “… an impression of high or low speaker power is a judgment or
evaluation more than it is a perception of some state of affairs. It is an inference
reflecting values”. Such inferences can be made due to linguistic cues as repeat-
edly demonstrated in numerous social-psychological studies, namely that certain
linguistic structures affect the recipient’s perception of speaker traits as well as
judgments of their persuasive power. The evaluation may even be so unstable that
powerless forms turn into powerful ones due to certain changes, for instance, in
the psychological state (Ng and Bradac 1993, 14). Furthermore, recent research
in linguistics has convincingly shown that linguistic elements can only serve as
hints or cues, whose flexible functions are disambiguated by the multifactorial
context (Thornborrow 2001, 8). In line with this is the assumption that situational
factors exert a stronger influence on the power relation than do linguistic ele-
ments (Ng and Bradac 1993, 48). The question is, then, how power/-lessness can
be assessed and its variable expressions caught and regularities therein explained.
Some clarity can be achieved by considering the interaction situation in terms of
its elements. Viewing them separately enables us to shed light on contradicting
results. We also have to keep in mind that there are two sides of speech style: cer-
tain factors raise expectations concerning speech style, and certain speech styles
serve as indicators of particular traits and properties.
3.2 Interaction situation
The overarching context, i.e. the constellation of the situation, is the primary fac-
tor concerning the relation between the interactants and the choice and interpre-
tation of their speech style. Type of interaction, for example, rapport or report,
regulates the communication style. Also group consistency and the participants’
communicative goals steer the way they think and communicate. That an ingroup
constellation is more favorable toward the ingroup members than toward out-
group members as assumed in Communication Accommodation Theory (Giles
et al. 1991; Shepart et al. 2001) has been illustrated particularly clearly for pure
women’s and men’s groups, whose verbal behavior changes in mixed groups
(Gräßel 1991). Ng and Reid (2001, 364) emphasize the relevance of group mem-
bership in that prototypical utterances adjusted to group norms are considered
more powerful than non-prototypical speech, which is interpreted as outgroup
style and hence, threatening. In this sense, the use of powerless speech by women
is more acceptable than that of powerful style because they belong to an outgroup
170 Hanna Pishwa
as compared to men (2001, 365). Ng and Bradac (1993) state that their powerless
style was found more influential on men than a powerful one, while the powerful
style impressed other women more. That this cliché is prevalent in Germany was
illustrated in an experiment by my students, which yielded that young people
in Germany still have expectations concerning gender-based speech style. The
participants had to recognize the speaker gender in TV talk shows on the basis of
their messages with distorted voice. They were able to classify all samples success-
fully except a young woman singer because of her harsh speech style.
3.3 Status and expertise
Among further factors determining power impact are the status and expertise of
the participants. Status may be either an objective, static resource due to social
hierarchy or a subjectively evaluated, situational asset brought about by inequality
in communication (Thimm and Kruse 1991, 9). The latter kind of status is called
“rank” by Diamond (1996, 10–11) because of its volatility. Status – of whatever
origin – is a social value and has been found to influence both language use and
its perception by the recipient. Speaker gender is connected to status in that men
have a higher status, and women, a lower one in most societies. Hence, a female
speaker is expected to automatically activate a mental model of lower power con-
cerning her status in the recipient. Many studies have, though, shown that this is
not necessarily the case and that style does not only depend on gender. Gräßel’s
(1991) analysis of women’s language shows that those with a higher expert status
do not deviate from men experts linguistically, that is, they did not use hedges or
other mitigation devices on TV shows (see also Raven et al. 1998). There are also
psychological studies to support the view that “a putative women’s linguistic style
is neither characteristic of all women nor limited only to women” (Blankenship
and Holtgraves 2005, 4).
The relevance of speech style becomes evident in the employment of polite-
ness strategies: a high-status person is not expected to be as polite as those in
lower status (Brown and Levinson 1994). She also has the liberty to choose other
styles, as Ng and Bradac (1993, 109) argue “… only speakers who are powerful can
in fact allow their power to speak for them, as it were, by using indirectness and
thus avoid the pitfalls of explicitness.” Gräßel’s analyses of gender language (1991)
also demonstrate that familiarity with a topic influences the communication style
so that the person speaks with a higher degree of certainty. However, we should
keep in mind that a certain status does not guarantee a powerful position in in-
teraction as it could be challenged by other participants and result in a conflict
(Locher 2004; Diamond 1996).
3.4 Recipient role
Recipient role is not less important than speaker role or the message itself as it
involves the processing and appraisal of utterances and behavior. It is particularly
critical in unequal power relations, whereby role schemas are accessed. This im-
plies the activation of role patterns and expectations in different situations, even
in terms of power relations. A further aspect to be observed is the relevance of
the topic to the addressee as it influences the processing depth of the message
(see below) as well as the perception of the argument strength and finally also its
persuasive power.
3.5 Social expectations of linguistic behavior: Conventionalization
As mentioned above, we rely on role schemas in interaction and pick out the per-
tinent verbalization. Experiments in social psychology have provided evidence
for the influence of social expectations on speech style and its interpretation. For
instance, an experiment on politeness conducted by Holtgraves (2006) shows that
subjects (students) attributed a particular style such as im-/politeness to speakers
according to their status and expected style. Thus, a polite professor was attribut-
ed an impolite style, and a rude fellow student, a polite style, according to the
subjects’ expectations. Thimm and Kruse (1991, 18) also address an experiment
with a physicist and a student in two different interaction situations: (1) the phys-
icist evaluating the student’s presentation and (2) the same interactants in a nor-
mal communication situation. The variables were verb classes (statives, factives,
declaratives) and face-work, that is, the experimenters wanted to find out which
verb classes would be preferred in the two situations. In the first constellation, the
students employed even more factive verbs than the physicist, that is, according
to the experimenters, more powerful language, while everyday face-to-face in-
teraction with the professor showed the use of hedges and face-saving strategies,
but no varying selection of verbs. This indicates that the students had situation
models with conventions concerning linguistic behavior. Social theories assume
that such expectations develop due to social orders: “… every community […] has
a culture of locally constructed values and relations of power, in other words, it
forms a community made up of practices.” (Thornborrow 2001, 7). Social orders
are therefore part of stored knowledge matched with conventionalized linguis-
tic forms, also called “routinized” linguistic behavior (Ng and Bradac 1993, 8–9)
and “entrenched” language in cognitive linguistics. Hence, we can conclude that
there are expectations with regard to language use in various situations, and this
is particularly pronounced in institutional and/or asymmetric interaction with
172 Hanna Pishwa
fixed roles compared to everyday interpersonal interaction. Indeed, the assump-

tion that parts of our language are strongly entrenched, that is, conventionalized,
has been corroborated in cognitive grammar as well as in construction grammar.
3.6 Summary
This section has presented various factors for the interpretation of messages. We
have seen that social psychology and linguistics have differing assumptions of
and approaches to the investigation of the power potential of particular linguistic
elements. It has also become evident that their functions fluctuate to a high de-
gree being dependent on the interaction situation and the status and expertise of
speaker and recipient. Furthermore, we have stated that our linguistic behavior
is partly conventionalized and stored in memory in situation models with infor-
mation on roles and that some other usages must be implicated as shown below.
4. Linguistic cues for powerlessness
4.1 Powerless language
As argued above, a linguistic style with additional markers such as hedges has
been labeled “powerless”, partly due to the user group, that is, metonymically.
Powerless style, the less expected speech style in society, has been the target of
most studies on the power potential of language, simply because it is easy to rec-
ognize by the additional markers such as hedges, tag questions or hesitations, and
constitutes the “marked” variety. The powerful style, defined as “lack of power-
lessness markers”, is expected among those with status or rank, such as men, the
dominating gender in the world, and the powerless style is claimed to be charac-
teristic of women’s speech (Lakoff 1973), the “weaker” gender.
While George Lakoff was the first linguist in modern times to analyze hedg-
es, which for him consisted of a couple of expressions such as strictly speaking
and were concerned with category memberships of objects, Robin Lakoff was
the first linguist to publish her impressions of powerlessness features including
hedges (see below), tag questions (isn’t it?), hesitations (eh, hm), “empty” adjec-
tives (charming), and highly polite forms, which were claimed as characteristics
of women’s linguistic repertoire, while their use among men was not registered.
The validity of this statement has been tested and contested in numerous subse-
quent studies, some of which have confirmed the results. Most of them, however,
criticize Lakoff ’s assumption concerning the frequencies of these devices among
women and men on the one hand, and the functions of the so-called “powerless”
markers on the other.
The list of the “powerless” linguistic features has been exposed to more crit-
ical views in later studies. As already mentioned, more recent research indicates
that they are neither restricted to women’s speech nor do they appear in all wom-
en’s speech, but also occur in men’s powerless style, and that they do not necessar-
ily cue powerlessness but rapport and some other relational functions. A further
development has been the expansion of the category of powerless features onto
all linguistic and non-linguistic levels such as multiple aspects of discourse and
conversation, and even story telling (Talbot 2010).
4.2 Hedges in linguistics
The analysis of hedges initiated by George Lakoff (1972), which dealt with catego-
ry memberships, ignored their procedural and interactive functions (for further
information, see Markkanen and Schröder 1997, 4). However, the expansion of
the category of hedges in subsequent studies has led to the dilemma with the term
“hedge” in that it varies concerning its width among linguists: its scope ranges
from narrow to broad (Kaltenböck et al. 2010). Since Lakoff, the numerous, mul-
tifarious symbols for mitigation in general, and hedges in particular, have un-
dergone varying classifications (see Caffi 2007; Schneider 2010; Fraser 2010) in
linguistic research. While some studies restrict hedges to a small number of items,
e.g., Caffi (2007), for some others, “hedge” serves as a superordinate term covering
several classes of mitigators (Fraser 2010). In terms of their functions, they can be
distinguished on the basis of their impact on the two participants: speaker-cen-
teredness vs. interlocutor-centeredness (Caffi 2007). The first category I think plus
a proposition enables the speaker to protect herself against mistakes in statements
as shields due to lack of knowledge or for the sake of politeness, for instance. The
latter is a negative politeness strategy and helps the speaker to avoid imposition
on the interlocutor by mitigating requests (Brown and Levinson 1994).
Another important classification is based on the scope of hedges, which may
include the whole propositional content or parts of it and the speaker’s commit-
ment to the truth of the whole proposition (see further discussion below). Some
hedges relate to an exemplar, for example, something like, while others such as
sort of activate features (Fetzer 2010 and in this volume; Pishwa 2003). They also
vary in the processing depth as shown below. Hence, we should keep in mind, that
hedges are multifarious in their functions. The term “powerless language” is not
accurate, either, since the account comprises various elements, the use of which
indicates powerlessness only in certain cases, as shown in Section 6.
174 Hanna Pishwa
4.2.1 Linguistic findings: “I think”, “sort of/kind of ”, “something like”

The following linguistic findings illustrate multifariousness of hedges in gener-
al and multifunctionality of single hedges. An example of epistemic hedges is I
think (Kaltenböck 2010; Kärkkäinen 2003), which is, however, only rarely used
in its epistemic function in face-to-face interaction. It is bleached in its meaning
and converges in some usages with discourse particles (Kaltenböck 2010, 237)
and a range of other functions between these two extremes. The criteria for the
classification of the different functions of I think are based on “prosody, position
and co-occurrence facts.” (Kaltenböck 2010, 241). In the shield function, it may
appear in the initial, mid and final position and signals low commitment to the
content of the proposition. When referring to a phrase, it serves as an approx-
imator with lack of precision similar to kind of, approximately or like, however,
without coinciding entirely with them. The next function is called “structural”
with a linking task for the adjacent text (examples (1), (4)), where it functions
“as a textual device for linking purposes and the structuring of information flow”
(Kaltenböck 2010, 251). It may signal the end of a conversational turn in final
position, as in example (2).
(1) Uh that I think is uh uh certainly a new factor (Kaltenböck 2010, 251)
(2) a. When Louis was staying I stayed a week I think.
b. Yes you stayed there. It was really marvelous. (ICE-GB:028#039)
(3) I think somebody’s been leading you up the garden path (ICE-GBA:008#244)
(4) We’ve done it to three people I think so far (ICE-GBA:027#087B)
In the initial position, it grants the speaker additional time for planning the mes-
sage (example (3)). In the mid position, it has varying, clause-structuring func-
tions (Kaltenböck 2010, 253), such as highlighting certain parts (examples (1),
(4)). The fourth, final usage is that of a booster, which differs from the epistemic
function in terms of its “prosodic prominence” (Kaltenböck 2010, 255) with a
high speaker commitment. According to the author, the different functions share
the basic feature of “speaker cogitation” (2010, 262).
Another fine-grained analysis to be illustrated here is the use of sort of and
kind of in political discourse by Fetzer (2010, 52). According to the author, hedges
… signify an instruction-of-interpretation about how the nature of the connect-
edness between extra-linguistic object, cognitive prototype and linguistic expres-
sion is speaker-intended and how the speaker intends the hearer to interpret that
connectedness.
This statement makes it clear, on the one hand, that hedges function as process-
ing instructions to the recipient, and on the other, that they relate the object
referred to to its cognitive representation. The use of these hedges indicates that
the speaker either lacks accurate information or judges less accurate information
to be more appropriate (Pishwa 2003). Their analysis yields varying degrees of
fuzziness with differing functions ranging from certainty to tentativeness. The
“more fuzzy” function may precede verb phrases or noun phrases, whereby the
hedge refers to the type and is considered “indeterminate” (Fetzer 2010, 67).
Fuzziness increases with the addition of very, which also appears in the material.
Fetzer notes that sort of/kind of tend to occur together with other fuzziness en-
hancing vague expressions. An example of the less fuzzy, identifying function is
provided by the sort of spending you are planning (2010, 67). The author remarks
that the literal (less fuzzy) and non-literal (more fuzzy) usages should be kept
apart. In political discourse, the more fuzzy function “allows the communica-
tors to keep their communicative intentions diplomatically vague and at the same
time signify solidarity and responsiveness” (2010, 69).
Pishwa (2003) investigates the coverage of something like and sort of among
others in a corpus (ICECUP) in terms of their reference stored in memory and
the degree of cognitive processing required for the activation of the right interpre-
tation. While something like makes a poor reference to an instance or a number,
sort of does not require the activation of an accurate exemplar; it only serves to
highlight particular features as illustrated in the following examples:
(5) Ju July or August or something like that I think (ICE-GB:S1A-034 #151:1:B)
(6) I mean one of the principles we work on is <,> your career is going to occupy
something like sixty thousand hours (ICE-GB:S1A-035 #186:1:A)
(7) It looks as if I ‘m waiting for someone to give me something like a cup of tea
or something (ICE-GB:S1A-052 #76:1:B)
(8) So he said <,> basically you will see all the something like thirty-seven statues
that should fit in those niches <,> have all been torn out he said <,> at the time
of the Reformation <,> (ICE-GB:S1A-094 #313:1:A)
(9) And so I ended up uhm just eating sort of lumps of chicken and things
(ICE-GB:S1A-011 #249:2:B)
(10) We don’t know <,> what will happen but <,> we can only sort of work and see
what happens (ICE-GB:S1A-002 #109:1:B)
(11) Uh I c I mean uhm I can sort of read it to see because I I knew his life the per-
sonal uh signification significance of the pictures (ICE-GB:S1A-015 #100:1:A)
(12) I feel sort of heavier (ICE-GB:S1A-011#253:2:B)
(13) But <,,> after all these years it’s sort of slowly taking its course
(ICE-GB:S1A-050 #24:1:B)
176 Hanna Pishwa
The examples of something like make it clear that it is vague to a high degree in
that the recipient activates an exemplar or a number as a guiding cue. The most
frequently following item is that (52 out of 110) (example (5)), which corroborates
the notion of holistic processing, that is, of an instance. Further evidence is pro-
vided by the fact that this hedge can even be used to highlight a number (6), (8).
The fact that sort of can be attached to nouns (9), verbs (10), (11), adjectives
(12) and adverbs (13) supports the finding that it only refers to relevant features
carried by the following word and is processed analytically. That is, it instructs
the recipient to pick the adequate features. Therefore, it is a relatively accurate but
economical device in that it causes the activation of mere features of a referent,
challenging the hearer to select the pertinent ones. In comparison with this, some-
thing like is less accurate and less demanding because the recipient activates an ex-
emplar and may decide about keeping or dropping part of the information on her
own due to contextual effects. In addition, it tends to appear in vague contexts.
Thus, we can conclude that the processing of most hedges implies a certain degree
of creativity and is assumed to tax the hearer. Pishwa (2003, 328), however, argues
for effortless processing of hedges due to the “semantic distance effect”, which pre-
dicts that closeness promotes the activation of neighboring information (Siakaluk
et al. 2003). In addition, search for similarity is the primary and natural “instinct”
in cognitive processing and hence relatively effortless. In the case of something
like, the effect would be a holistic activation of a particular category member as a
comparison, however, without the necessity to choose particular features. For sort
of, the process would mean an instant retrieval of certain features of an exemplar,
activity or property (Pishwa 2003).
While the above analyses have dealt with objects or statements and their cog-
nitive counterparts that hedges refer to, we will discuss findings going beyond this
level, namely, their interpersonal aspects starting with findings in social psychol-
ogy and trying to explain them in the Gricean framework in Section 6.
4.3 Hedges in social psychology
We have seen that the goal of analysis among social psychologists differs from that
of linguists in that it deals with interpersonal aspects, in particular, perception of
speaker properties by the addressee and also the influence of the hedge on the
persuasiveness of the message. This was already the issue for Robin Lakoff, who
addressed weak speaker properties. The initial analyses in social psychology im-
plied the recipient’s impression of the speaker/writer; later, the persuasive impact
of messages was added to the actual research topics. In the early studies, power-
less language included “hedges, intensifiers, formal grammar and polite forms”
(Blankenship and Holtgraves 2005, 4) and “meaningless particles”, such as oh, well
(Hosman 1989, 386) with a close affinity to the list published by Lakoff.
In social psychology, powerless and powerful styles are taken for granted. So-
cial psychologists offer detailed studies on various aspects of powerlessness mark-
ers, in particular their impact on the perception of the speaker and the message
by the addressee, as well as their persuasive power in dependence on multiple
contextual constraints. One of the most comprehensive investigations of various
dimensions of power potential of language is the account provided by Ng and
Bradac (1993; see also Fraser 2010), who present “signs of power” – including
powerlessness – in several chapters without restricting themselves only to mit-
igators. Their inventory includes the use of dialect, lexical diversity, speech rate
and language intensity, as well as broader topics such as aspects of conversation,
misleading and masking devices; these factors have been employed in linguistic
studies as well, the last two devices particularly within critical discourse analysis.
The hedges integrated in experiments by psychologists are hardly document-
ed in their publications except for some such as kinda as in I kinda think and sorta
(Holgraves and Lasky 1999), sometimes and maybe (Hosman 1989). Blankenship
and Holtgraves (2005), who used six hedges in a single message of 315 words,
added probably to this list. Durik et al. (2008) discovered that the use of hedges
is dependent on the discourse type, such as colloquial (sort of, kind of, somewhat,
possibly) and academic (may, probably, seem to, likely), and that their interpreta-
tion by the recipient is adapted to these conventions. The following statements
defined as “powerless” are extracted from the studies:
(14) “So it appears that awareness of impending comprehensive exams can sort of
challenge students…” (Gibbons et al. 1991, 122)
(15) Oh well … I’m not sure, you know, what all needs to be done to my car, but …
er … it sure needs a lot of work. As for my own injuries … uh … they’re kind
of hard to assess right now. I still have some kind of problem … ah … with bad
pain in my neck. (Hosman 1989, 388)
(16) Oh yes, I certainly do. Let’s see, I don’t think the ambulance’s light was ah …
on, and um it didn’t have a siren. (Hosman 1989, 394)
These examples exhibit epistemic expressions it appears, I’m not sure, I don’t think
and kind of hard to assess as well as can sort of, which relate directly to the speak-
er’s competence or knowledge. We will comment on these in more detail in the
linguistic part below.
178 Hanna Pishwa
4.4 Summary
The modern study of powerless language started with the beginning of studies on
hedges by George Lakoff and, of course, with Robin Lakoff ’s publication on wom-
en’s language. Her work addressed their influence on the perception of speaker
properties, however, rather collectively from a sociolinguistic than from a func-
tional perspective. Her categories, which have been adopted, modified and com-
plemented by linguists and social psychologists, have been studied in more detail
on their effects on recipients, in particular concerning speaker traits and her/his
ability to control herself and others. Linguistic studies mainly focus on semantic,
pragmatic and cognitive aspects of hedges and other expressions of powerless-
ness. They offer accurate investigations of their multiple functions, as the analyses
of I think, kind of/sort of and something like illustrate.
5. Influence of powerless style
5.1 Linguistics
Research shows that hedges do not only appear in spoken everyday communica-
tion but also in academic publications (Markkanen and Schröder 1997) as well as
in mathematics classrooms (Rowland 2007) and that they are essential elements
of communication (Channell 1994; Pishwa 2003; Jucker et al. 2003). Hence, we
can assume that they belong to adequate language use and are worth studying.
In linguistics, hedges have been examined thoroughly with regard to their
mitigating functions, however, mostly without considering their impact on the
recipient, i.e. perlocutionary effect, directly. In other words, what has been exam-
ined is their illocution with the objective of assessing their functions, in particular
concerning “connectedness between extralinguistic object, cognitive prototype
and linguistic expression” (Fetzer 2010, 52) by studying the context they appear
in. Research results indicate that hedges are used in an appropriate manner with
regard to the message and can be more efficient than an accurate utterance due to
cognitive economy by providing the right amount of information in most cases
(Pishwa 2003; Channell 1994):
[They] often convey meaning that is different from, and more relevant than a
precise expression would be. That is, they help guide the hearer towards the best
interpretation of the speaker’s intention. (Jucker et al. 2003, 1766)
This means that hedges invite the recipient not only to activate information from
memory but also to do additional processing (see also Fetzer 2010).
In addition to relating to the message itself, hedges have been found to pos-
sess interpersonal, relational power in that they can be used strategically to create
“power and politeness” and promote “persuasion” according to Channell (1994,
194; Brown and Levinson 1994). As already mentioned, research on gender lan-
guage suggests that hedges serve as indicators of speakers’ properties such as
subordinate status, for instance, in “women’s language”, a conception that is in-
creasingly challenged. There is growing support for the interpretation that vague
language mainly stands for informality and rapport, that is, relational usage,
among women (Holmes 2005). This means that linguistic studies have revealed
strategic, interpersonal functions of hedges. They have, however, not disclosed
how communicators arrive at this analysis and when this is the case.
Due to the numerous functions of hedges dealt with in linguistics, we can
conclude that it is inacceptable to treat all of them as one category possessing one
function, powerlessness of the speaker. The following section will be devoted to
psychologists’ findings and focus on the influence of hedges on the recipient.
5.2 Social psychology
We have already seen that the primary objective of social psychologists is to dis-
cover the influence of powerful and powerless styles on the perception of the
source of message and the message itself by the recipient, that is, its perlocutive
effect in a wider sense in that the speaker is evaluated in terms of her traits and
power, which subsequently influences the recipient’s reaction to the message. Ba-
sically, almost all studies known to me argue for the positive valence of powerful
language, and for the negative impact of the powerless style concerning the per-
ception of speaker properties and persuasive force of a message.
The studies conducted by psychologists are well-controlled experiments with
constant, invariable factors such as power of speech style, argument strength, and
relevance of the message to the participants. The variables in contrast, are aspects
influenced by the presence of invariables in messages, for instance, the effect of
powerful/powerless language on the evaluation of the degree of speaker’s ability
to control herself or someone else. Some other variables investigated are speaker
credibility and speaker power. For the determination of the persuasive effect, the
cognitive processing as well as the valence (positive or negative) and number of
thoughts generated about speaker and material are of high relevance for the judg-
ment of power.
While the low-power style may have negative consequences at an interperson-
al level, that is, concerning the perception of speaker traits or message strength by
the recipient, the powerful style “has the potential to later give the communicator
180 Hanna Pishwa
power over a message recipient as well as real power to do things …” (Ng and
Bradac 1993, 13, 16; see also Austin 1962). The perception of speaker traits such
as lack of control of self and others as well as poor argument quality has conse-
quences for the persuasive power of the message (Holtgraves and Lasky 1999,
202). The two styles also differ in their influence on the quality of interaction, as
Ng and Bradac (1993, 109) argue: ambiguities in the speech of a powerful person
are easier to dissolve than in the speech of a powerless person, which indicates
that the overall perception of a person influences the reception of a message.
An important source of understanding the influence of powerlessness mark-
ers on the persuasiveness of a message has been identified in the type of cog-
nitive processing, central or peripheral (Petty and Cacioppo 1986). Because of
the impact of strong arguments, most researchers argue that they are processed
via the central route, that is, consciously. Some researchers share this view on
arguments with hedges, while other findings show that they are processed sub-
consciously (see the list below). The processing channel can also be recognized
by the generation of thought units in that a high number reflects conscious pro-
cessing. In general, hedges and, in particular, tag questions are found to promote
thinking in a low-message condition. But also the valence (positive or negative)
of the generated thoughts is meaningful concerning the influence of powerless-
ness markers and dependent on message relevance and argument strength. In the
study by Hosman et al. (2002), hedges produced more negative responses with
strong arguments than did the high-power style. The valence is also influenced
by argumentation: strong arguments produce more positive thoughts, while weak
arguments tend to generate negative thoughts. A further factor for the processing
is the mode of the message, auditive or oral: powerless style has been found to
be distracting for high-relevance audio messages and to promote processing in
low-relevance messages (see below).
In the following, I will consider some authentic results achieved by social psy-
chologists and then try to explain them in linguistic terms, in particular, in order
to clarify how it is possible that hedges can be interpreted at an interactional level
referring to particular speaker properties. The listing of findings in some selected
studies shows that hedges quite obviously cause a negative perception of speaker
control and message with the recipient in certain contexts (1–4), for instance, that
hedging can distract the processing in high-relevance messages, while no effect
was found in the processing of low-relevant messages. Hedges do not seem to ex-
ert any negative influence on the persuasive power of a message, though. The re-
sults diverge concerning the influence of hedges on the perception of the message
to a certain degree as in 1–4 vs. 5 below as well as the processing channel in 8 and
9. Experiments on the persuasive effect also yielded contradictory results (6 vs. 7).
Speaker properties:
1. Hedges had a significantly negative influence on all variables, i.e. intellectual
competence and control of self and others (Hosman and Siltanen 2006)
2. Low-power style (hedges, tag questions, hesitations) affected the perception
of the speaker’s ability to control others and self negatively (Hosman et al.
2002)
3. “One who communicates with powerless style is more likely to be considered
less organized, less credible, and less adept at public speaking.” (Hosman et al.
2002, 376)
4. Hedges “lessen the overall impact of strong arguments” and were disturbing
in high-relevance messages, but had hardly any impact when the message
relevance was low. (Blankenship and Holtgraves 2005, 19)
5. Hedges had no negative effect on speaker credibility. (Hosman and Siltanen
2011)
Persuasion:
6. Hedges contributed to a higher persuasive effect. (Blankenship and Holtgraves
2005)
7. Persuasiveness was influenced only by argument strength, not by speech style,
although it had an impact on the topic itself. (Hosman et al. 2002)
Cognitive processing:
8. Hedges operate via the central route and are hence cognitively demanding.
(Blankenship and Holtgraves 2005)
9. Powerless speech style acts as a peripheral cue. (Hosman et al. 2002)
10. Low-power style produced more negative thoughts about various aspects of
the message. (Hosman et al. 2002)
11. Hedges generated more negative thoughts both in cases of low and high rele-
vance. (Blankenship and Holtgraves 2005)
12. Hedges showed a memorability level higher than did powerful style, intensi-
fiers or tag questions. (Hosman and Siltanen 2006)
According to Hosman (to appear), discrepancies tend to arise in more accurate

experiments where the various markers for powerlessness are kept apart. Anoth-
er cause for varying results in different studies was discovered by Durik et al.
(2008), who argue that the use of hedges is dependent on the discourse type, such
as colloquial (sort of, kind of, somewhat, possibly) and academic (may, probably,
seem to, likely). The use of these hedges in the “wrong” kind of discourse exerted
a negative influence about the message and the source on the recipient in the
experiment, while the “right” hedges did not. In particular, colloquial hedges in
182 Hanna Pishwa
academic discourse produced “lower evaluations of the argument than profes-

sional; professional hedges did not differ from the control” (2008, 209). A further
finding was that the placement of the hedges in the texts was relevant such that
they weaken strong arguments if they are placed in result statements, but not
when they appear in their interpretation (2008, 230), where they are expected by
experts. The authors also discovered that the acceptance of the right kind of hedg-
es was lower by less trained participants than by advanced students familiar with
scientific reasoning; absence of hedges in the material was evaluated by advanced
students more negatively than by less advanced students. Furthermore, placement
of hedges (in data or interpretations) was hardly a factor for less trained students;
for trained students, it was an important factor. These findings provide evidence
for the assumption that our linguistic behavior is routinized to the smallest detail.
It remains to be shown how recipients proceed to arrive at the interperson-
al interpretation of hedges. In the following, the facts brought forth so far will
be discussed in terms of self-disclosure and persuasion and then viewed from a
pragmatic perspective.
6. Discussion
6.1 Self-disclosure
The above analyses of the use of hedges and other symbols for powerlessness shows
that they can be interpreted as expressions of self-disclosure as Holtgraves (2002,
191) puts it: “To a certain extent, how we speak can define who we are”. The ex-
periments referred to demonstrate that recipients “read” weak speakers’ person-
al traits in messages in terms of particular linguistic features such as hedges or
tag questions. To the features presented above belong control of self and others,
which are linked to other characteristics. Hosman et al. (2002, 368–369) describe
a speaker with “control of self ” as “appropriate, planned, confident, self-controlled,
composed, and certain”, while “control of others” refers to “an effective leader,
influential, domineering, and powerful.” Closely connected to these features are
“dynamism” with adjectives “strong” and “aggressive” as well as “competence” as
an attribute implying “intelligence, competence, authoritativeness and credibili-
ty” (Blankenship and Holtgraves 2005; Hosman and Siltanen 2006). The power-
less style inhibits the activation of these traits and, in addition, causes a negative
impression of speakers’ ability to organize things and their credibility, and “their
style directs the attention of listeners away from the substance of the message and
toward the speaker and his or her delivery and personal characteristics” (Hosman
et al. 2002, 376). In their study of 2006, Hosman and Siltanen discovered a negative
impact of hedges on the perception of control of self and others, in particular, that
speakers reveal more about their own control in-/ability than that of others. The
same authors (2011) achieved a neutral result, i.e. no influence, of hedges, at least
in the presence of other powerlessness markers. In this study, tag questions caused
a negative perception of speaker credibility and message quality.
In linguistics, it is also assumed that the speaker reveals something about
herself. Already Bühler’s Organon Model takes for granted that the “sender” can
express information about herself. Schulz von Thun (2006) claims in his commu-
nication model of the four ears that the speaker always sends information about
herself. However, it is still an open question why speakers index their weak traits
in interaction by means of hedges and tag questions. Social cognition could de-
liver an explanation. Researchers have known for a long time that humans store
knowledge schemas of all encounters and form taxonomies of persons (Fiske
2004, 150) and that their information processing is not always accurate. This has
led to the labels “cognitive miser” and “motivated tactician”, which refer to heu-
ristic cognitive processing due to the fact that “[t]he world is too complicated and
people are too easily overloaded to be completely careful all the time, especial-
ly when forming impressions from interactions” (Fiske 2004, 124). Some traits
and attributions are more relevant than others in a hierarchical relation between
interactants, for example, possession of control and power, both of which are at-
tractive in all societies (Turner 2005). It is, however, remarkable that lack of these
properties should be expressed by means of powerless language by the weaker
participant herself. An explanation could be negativity bias: Jing-Schmidt (2007)
illustrates this tendency among humans, who focus on the negative instead of
the positive (Pollyanna principle). In addition, social identities and hierarchies
are established and manifested in communication according to sociolinguistic
studies (Holtgraves 2002, 65–72). This kind of self-disclosure could prevent the
activation of the wrong stereotype due to the activation of a non-adequate single
trait. In comparison to interpersonal issues, private phenomena such as affects are
only rarely verbalized explicitly or directly by means of language (Planalp 1999).
6.2 Persuasion
Those possessing control over self and others tend to be more persuasive than
those without it. In order to find out how persuasive power is decreased through
powerless language, we have to find out how it is defined and how successful per-
suasion can be achieved. Virtanen and Halmari (2005, 3) propose the following:
“…we limit the definition of persuasion to all linguistic behavior that attempts to
either change the thinking or behavior of an audience, or to strengthen its beliefs,
184 Hanna Pishwa
should the audience already agree.” Wilson (2002, 15) calls persuasive message
production “a goal-oriented activity”; production of persuasion-reducing mes-
sages could then be assumed to be an unintended activity. Persuasion, one of
the dependent variables, is difficult to evaluate with regard to the different power
styles and numerous factors influencing it even indirectly.
Basically, most studies agree on a negative effect of the powerless style on
persuasion. However, the above studies examine the interaction of two import-
ant invariables, argument strength and relevance of the message (to the recipi-
ent), and argue that they are more influential than speech style. In fact, argument
strength is described as more relevant for persuasive force than speech style. The
finding that argument strength is more relevant than speech style is interesting
when compared to the result achieved in the volume of Halmari and Virtanen
(2005), namely that “persuasion is inherently implicit” (Virtanen and Halmari
2005, 13); implicitness would mean peripheral processing, an outcome only
found in the study by Hosman et al. (2002). The researchers (2002) found no
influence of speech style on the persuasive force of the message when argument
strength was high. The general pattern was that powerlessness had a distracting
impact on strong argumentation when message relevance was high, and that tag
questions increased persuasiveness in low relevance. Blankenship and Holtgraves
attest a negative effect of powerless markers, in particular hedges, on persuasion
in written messages, which allow more processing time than spoken language
and are disrupted more readily by the additional linguistic material. These results
are not surprising considering the conclusion by Virtanen and Halmari (2005)
namely that persuasion is dynamic, an assumption confirmed by the extensive
handbook of persuasive tactics by Mulholland (1994). By the same token, the
authors show that persuasive methods are determined by the genre, that is, they
are also conventionalized to a high degree.
6.3 Hedges as interpersonal cues: A pragmatic account
The above account suggests that powerless language does not go unnoticed. It
is not surprising since the elements addressed in this paper add linguistic ma-
terial to utterances, which according to the principle of iconicity implies more
meaning. Considering Grice’s cooperative principle, we can conclude that mean-
inglessness cannot be expected, either, despite the fact that powerless language
seems to be meaningless. Hesitations may be less meaningful than hedges or tag
questions, though they may also reveal something about the speaker, for instance,
uncertainty about how to continue. The assumption that they can be interpreted
as interruptions in the flow of thought is confirmed by the finding that they are
the most negative powerlessness markers. Hedges are different in that they steer
our cognitive processing and, hence, social cognition resulting in evaluations of
speaker traits; this may be true even if they relate to single concepts as in kind of
joke. Therefore, they can be considered procedural conveying instructions for the
recipient to follow. This is the reason for the disruptions they cause in the context
of strong argumentation, while they produce more thought units in a low-argu-
mentation condition. The individual hedges express entirely different orders; even
one and the same hedge may have a whole range of – yet not endless – functions
in dependence on the context, as linguistic research shows. They may also convey
a positive picture of the speaker as in politeness or rapport. In this part, I will
make an attempt to fit the results into Gricean theory. We will consider the follow-
ing examples (repeated from Section 4) from psychological experiments:
(17) a. “So it appears that awareness of impending comprehensive exams can sort
of challenge students…” (Gibbons et al. 1991, 122)
b. Examinations motivate students to work more efficiently which results in
higher Grade Point Averages. (powerful variant of a.)
(18) Oh well … I’m not sure, you know, what all needs to be done to my car, but …
er … it sure needs a lot of work. As for my own injuries… uh…they’re kind
of hard to assess right now. I still have some kind of problem… ah … with bad
pain in my neck. (Hosman 1989, 388)
(19) Oh yes, I certainly do. Let’s see, I don’t think the ambulance’s light was ah …
on, and um it didn’t have a siren. (Hosman 1989, 394)
How does a recipient process messages like these? The above examples contain
epistemic expressions such as it appears, I’m not sure, kind of hard to assess, I don’t
think, and follow the maxim of quality. However, this information does not lead
us anywhere. They could be assumed to weaken not only the message but also the
speaker position, in particular, her ability to control herself and other people, in
that the message is not clear and the speaker is doubtful about the proposition.
This applies to I still have some kind of problem … ah as well, which also indicates
weakness in the statement, and finally the perception of the speaker by the recip-
ient. The question is how?
In the above example (17), the epistemic hedge reduces the speaker’s certainty
of the actual proposition in (17a): “awareness of impending comprehensive exams
challenges students”, which is comparable to the strong message (17b) Examina-
tions motivate students to work more efficiently which results in higher Grade Point
Averages. The situation created by the researchers in this particular experiment
consisted of argumentation for more comprehensive exams for students, some of
whom were participants in the study. The outcome was that the “high-power style
186 Hanna Pishwa
produced judgments of higher communicator competence Competence/Control

than did the low-power style” (Gibbons et al. 1991, 128). The researchers conclud-
ed that the processing of the messages was ratio-based (central channel) because
of the high relevance of the topic to them. This means that they paid attention
to all the details of the messages and therefore also to the hedges in low-power
messages causing the reaction, which “… directs the attention of listeners away
from the substance of the message and toward the speaker and his or her delivery
and personal characteristics” as described by Hosman et al. (2002, 376). Thus,
the work conducted by psychologists indicates that addressees do not only get
instructed by hedges to process the content of the message, but also to include
speaker evaluations in their interpretations: While hedges are usually interpreted
as references to messages, they clearly instruct the recipient to read more, namely
speaker traits, in certain cases. This is to be expected particularly in high-rele-
vance messages, whereby the recipient does not see any reason for attaching them
to the content of the message. In case no hedges (or other markers for powerless-
ness) are used, the message and its source are evaluated positively, which is the
default, unmarked case.
How about the acceptable and expected hedges in academic language referred
to by Durik et al.: do they also mislead the addressee from the interpretation of
the message content to the evaluation of speaker/writer? According to the study,
the hearer/reader makes positive inferences on a speaker/writer using the right
kind of hedges implying that the source of message has control and competence.
In this study, the placement of hedges in the interpretation of the findings was
critical as they prevent the imposition of the interpretation on the recipient. In
contrast, hedges caused a negative impression of the source of message in the
study when added to the report of results. This proves the high complexity of the
usage of hedges implying that the topic and the content of the message have to be
accounted for. Hence, we can conclude that expectations in a situation are highly
relevant for the interpretation of the function of hedges. This can be demonstrat-
ed particularly clearly in politeness and speaker status, which are largely conven-
tionalized and evaluated according to expectations; when these are not met, the
recipient has to find a reason for it.
The claim that the interpretation of hedges can be explained in terms of im-
plicature is also supported by Hosman (to appear). This explains why hedges do
not cause negative evaluations of the source of message when it is of low relevance
to the recipients. An implicature caused by hedges does not imply an intention
despite the fact that it is an expression of the speaker’s state compared to that
of the addressee. In order to understand this kind of implicature, I would like
to present e-implicatures (expressive implicatures), which are based on speak-
ers’ emotions to be inferred by the addressee (Schwarz-Friesel 2010). This can be
illustrated by the example “In meiner Suppe ist eine Fliege” (‘There is a fly in my
soup’), a statement raising two implicatures: an emotional one with disgust, and
one with a request to replace the soup. The expressive implicature is caused by
the unexpectedness of the event in a restaurant based on the speaker’s emotional
reaction to an event. Compared to this, we may assume that hedges provide un-
intended negative information about the source of message, not caused by any
external event, although they actually relate to the content or parts of the mes-
sage itself as shown in the linguistic analyses of hedges. If the recipient does not
recognize any reason to mitigate the content of the message, she starts searching
for an additional function and implicates that the speaker does not have enough
competence for the production of the message. This leads to a negative evaluation
of the speaker/writer and has consequences for the effect of the message on the
recipient, namely low credibility and low persuasiveness. Due to the involvement
of both parties, they could be called interpersonal implicatures, which are pro-
duced subconsciously unless they are intended to create politeness or rapport.
Thus, the use of hedges may be due to different motivations causing the recipient
to make a decision concerning the type of hedge: (1) unintended expressions of
oneself with effects on the interpretation of the message and (2) intended, strate-
gic goals (see Fetzer 2010), which may even be relational as in politeness. Hedges
can also be employed (3) to create appropriate vagueness, for example, when ac-
curate information would not be meaningful as described by Channell (1994) or
Pishwa (2003). In such a case, the recipient applies the hedge to the proposition
or a phrase within it without making inferences about the speaker. The different
usages of hedges should be investigated in more detail in future work.
7. Conclusions
This paper has dealt with complex findings on the powerlessness potential of lan-
guage. Although social psychology and linguistics appear to be far apart from
each other considering research methods and objectives, the present paper has
shown not only that these disciplines complement one another, but also that so-
cial-cognitive findings can well be explained in terms of linguistic theory despite
the differing research methods and goals, namely the perlocutive effect on the
recipient in social psychology and communication science, and the illocution in
linguistics with focus on speaker/writer and her intentions. However, as we have
seen, cognitive and pragmatic analyses are able to shed light on possible effects of
utterances on the recipient and enrich psychological enterprise.
This paper has delivered findings about the multifunctionality of powerless-
ness markers by showing that they may indicate both powerlessness and power
188 Hanna Pishwa
due to their fuzzy meanings and strong contextual dependence. These aspects
have been studied by linguists in detail, and the assumption of one single inter-
pretation of a particular hedge, i.e. powerlessness, has been rejected. We have
found that hedges provide instructions for the recipient to do further processing,
which may relate to the content of the message or parts of it or the degree of
cognitive processing. Studies by social psychologists have revealed that hedges
as additional linguistic material may also refer to the evaluation of the source of
message, which can be interpreted as an implicature at an interpersonal level.
The important question whether hedges can inherently carry powerlessness
cannot be answered definitely because of their different usages. Luckily, a com-
plex search for the right meaning is mostly not necessary since we can activate
our world knowledge containing situation models with conventional information
on speech styles. The enormous complexity of the use of hedges shown in this
chapter provides evidence against the simplistic claim that hedges as indicators of
powerlessness belong to the linguistic repertoire of a certain social group such as
women. The analysis provided here can probably also explain many of the contra-
dictory findings we have encountered.
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A true authoritarian type
How fonts can facilitate positive
opinions for powerful groups
John Donahue
To convey authority in a document, people choose specific typefaces (or

fonts). Studies find that repeating a message makes it more persuasive, and
that different typefaces lead to different associations. Also, statements are more
memorable when written in harder-to-read typefaces; yet more believable for
easier-to-read ones. In each of the two present experiments, surveys measuring
authoritarianism were written in various typefaces. The first experiment sought
evaluations of groups such as the army and police. The second experiment in-
cluded subject matters like illegal wiretapping by the F.B.I. The results suggested
participants had more positive views for authoritarian groups and more likely
supported morally questionable actions when the surveys were written in an
easy-to-read typeface.
Type is the visual manifestation of language… In music the quality of an individ-

ual singer can completely change the experience of a composition. In communi-
cation, type is the equivalent of an audible voice – a tangible link between writer
and reader. (Cheng 2005, 7)
1. Introduction
Instead of the type of a written text generating the sensation of a singer’s pleasant
voice in a reader’s head, the type used in a written text might be “heard” as an or-
der to comply with the views of a powerful other. The text of a document is united
by a typeface, often referred to as a font; ones like Arial or Times New Roman are
well known because of their availability on personal computers. The choice of a
typeface for documents has long been a subject of interest. Designers use typefac-
es in an attempt to foster associations between the text and the attributes of the
194 John Donahue
idea, product, or service being advocated. Some countries use typefaces to project
influence. For instance, constructivist typefaces, which arose with the dawn of the
Bolshevik Revolution, were later banned in 1928 by Stalin and replaced with So-
cialist Realism typefaces. Drawing upon the domains of typography and authori-
tarianism, the present article is an overview of two studies that were conducted to
examine how people’s views of authoritarian groups could be manipulated by the
typeface that was present in the document they were reading at the time.
2. Psychological concepts
The three psychological concepts that seem most pertinent to typeface selection
are: (a) priming, (b) repeated exposure, and (c) cognitive fluency. To address the
first point about priming, attitudes can develop due to the basic psychological
principle that as all individuals go about experiencing the world they form sche-
mas. A schema has been described as “a cognitive structure containing the attri-
butes of a concept or type of stimulus and the relationships among the attributes”
(Fiske 2004, 143). Priming is a process by which a prime, a prior stimulus, affects
the accessibility of a schema, and accessibility shapes how we interpret new un-
related situations.
A possible example of priming concerns Papyrus, a typeface that may give the
sense that it looks like text if such text had existed in the Ancient World. Papyrus
is often used for documents like church fliers, thus allowing for people’s associa-
tion of once learning that a particular religion’s belief system is eons old. Schemas
may also account for why certain typefaces are associated with authoritarianism.
For instance, countries have long used typefaces to facilitate a sense of national
identity. One of the most famous typefaces in this regard is Fraktur, or what has
been labeled “Nazi type” (Eskilson 2007, 281). An unanswered question is wheth-
er the populations under the Third Reich were so affected by Fraktur as to become
more compliant.
A different possibility for why typeface choice could affect views of power-
ful groups stems from the well-established psychological principle called “the
repeated exposure effect”: that the more an individual is exposed to a stimulus,
the more that person ends up liking that stimulus (Zajonc 1968). Businesses and
governments usually disseminate their ideas continually, and governments have
garnered support through the repeated exposure effect when displaying icons like
the image of the revolutionary Che Guevara, an image based on the world’s most
reproduced photograph.
In the early 20th century some designers sought typefaces free of “nation-
alistic baggage” and this was pursued by the designers of Helvetica, which has
A true authoritarian type 195
been described as a “faceless, timeless, typeface” (de Jong, Purvis, and Friedl
2005, 337). Helvetica is the most widely used typeface in the world, and in the
2007 documentary “Helvetica”, one leading graphic designer claims that Helvetica
is “fascist” because of its prominent use by businesses and governments (Hustwit
2007). Similarly, the typeface Arial was designed in 1989 as a “cheap clone” of
Helvetica and is the default typeface on many computer operations. Arial is de-
scribed as “so commonplace [that each] day, tens of millions of e-mails, memos,
and PowerPoint presentations are produced with it” (Eskilson 2005, 405). In this
way, Helvetica and Arial as typefaces being used so often should create a repeated
exposure effect.
Lastly, the choice of typeface could also affect results for measures of author-
itarianism due to cognitive fluency. Cognitively fluency can be considered “the
subjective experience by which people can retrieve information from memory
or generate relevant arguments [including] … the ease or difficulty with which
external information can be processed” (Tsai and Mc Gill 2011, 808). More specif-
ically, “the degree of fluency can be determined … from perceptual variables such
as figure-ground, or from semantic variables such as the identification of stimulus
meaning” (Tsai and Mc Gill 2011, 808).
One study found that assorted typefaces employed by teachers in their work-
sheets and PowerPoint presentations led to different educational outcomes for
their students. In one of the experiments, students exposed to the hard-to-read
Haettenschweiler and Monotype Corsiva typefaces had improved scores on
memory tests compared to students that continued to be exposed to instructional
materials in the typefaces preferred by their teachers, such as Arial.
Another study involved typeface and attitudes and considered how intelligent
the alleged author of a redacted Ph.D. dissertation seemed, with some study par-
ticipants reading the partial dissertation in Times New Roman 12 point font (the
more legible text), while others read it in italicized Juice ITC 12 point font (the
less legible text) (Diemand-Yauman, Oppenheimer and Vaughan 2011). Those
participants that read the partial dissertation in the italicized Juice ITC text rated
the alleged author as less intelligent. When asked after the experiment, randomly
selected participants attributed the font selection to the experimenter rather than
to the author.
These cognitive fluency studies suggest that typefaces affect memory and at-
titudes, because cognitively disfluent typefaces lead to deeper processing. Sum-
marizing several studies’ findings, one journal article concluded that “fluently
processed material [including that from an easy-to-read print font] seems more
familiar, is more likely to be accepted as true and less likely to be scrutinized”
(Song and Schwarz 2008, 793). Since it can be assumed that “the text seems less
familiar when presented in a difficult-rather than easy-to-read font and that low
196 John Donahue
familiarity triggers more systematic processing” (Song and Schwarz 2008, 793),
the cognitive fluency of a typeface could likewise affect people’s views about au-
thority. The inclusion of both a cognitively fluent and a cognitively disfluent type-
face in the present experiments can help to ascertain whether cognitive fluency
affects measures of authoritarianism.
While some researchers have examined the effects of typefaces on cognitive
fluency, seemingly no comparable research has been done concerning whether
this influence extends to political views. For instance, people with more power
use a diverse set of typefaces in order to elicit a range of responses from their
audiences, but they are likely advised to rely upon their intuition as to which
typeface they should use in their work. The essential goal of the following studies
was to examine how the choice of a typeface can influence a factor like authori-
tarianism.
The hypothesis of the studies was that the typeface used in a document affects
peoples’ views of authority. More specifically, participants reading a document
written in the Arial typeface would display greater agreement with attitude items
consistent with authoritarianism compared to participants reading the same doc-
uments written in other typefaces.
Taking into account priming, repeated exposure, and cognitive fluency, Arial
might be associated more with authoritarianism than other typefaces. In some
surveys, Arial has primed notions of modernism; it is repeatedly used by millions
of people every day; and as mentioned above, in one study it was considered a
cognitively fluent typeface because it is easier to read. Arial is one of many sans
serif typefaces, which are generally easier to read because they are made up of
straight lines, arcs, and circles, while for example, Courier, another typeface, is
from the family of serif typefaces, which have added “little feet” at their ends.
3. Study 1
In the first of two experiments that were conducted to measure the effect of type-
face choice on measures of authoritarianism, 150 college students completed a
psychological survey (N = 60; 19 male, 37 female, 4 unidentified; M age = 26.68).
They participated in groups of 8–29 in psychology classes at a college in the
Midwest.
The hypothesis of the first study was that the typeface used in a document
would affect participants’ social views. Specifically, that participants reading a
survey measuring authoritarianism written in the Arial typeface (e.g., “The quick
brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”), would display more authoritarian atti-
tudes compared to participants reading a survey measuring authoritarianism in
other typefaces. The four other typefaces used for comparison purposes were the
“Bradley Hand” typeface, (e.g., “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”),
the “Courier” typeface, (e.g., “The quick brown fox jumps over the
lazy dog”), the “Papyrus” typeface, (e.g., “The quick brown fox jumps over
the lazy dog”), and the “Times New Roman” typeface, (e.g., “The quick brown
fox jumps over the lazy dog”). For present purposes this article will report on the
thirty American college students that read the survey in the Arial typeface and the
thirty others that read it in the Courier typeface.
3.1 Procedure
The experimenter went to psychology classes and brought copies of the surveys
along with a cardboard box. A script for the study was read to the students. They
were told the study was a measure of their social views, and they were asked not
to look at other people’s surveys. They were also told to drop their survey in the
box after they were done.
All of the survey packets had the same instructional cover sheet, all written in
the Times New Roman typeface. This made it less likely that participants would
view others filling out the survey in other typefaces and perhaps guess the hy-
pothesis. The message appeared as follows:
On the following pages you will be asked about your social views.
During this time do not look at anyone else’s survey form,
and please refrain from making any noise.
You may begin.
The last page asked for demographic information. The instructions and questions
on this page were written in the same typeface that was used for the survey (e.g.,
the surveys with the items in Courier also had the demographics page written in
Courier). The survey packets were constructed so that the backside of the final
page was blank; thus, participants returning their survey to the cardboard box
would not see that other typefaces had been employed in the study.
3.2 Source manipulations
Some participants were randomly assigned to a 12-point Arial font condition

while others were assigned to a 12-point Courier font condition. The overall page
length of the survey remained approximately equal between the typefaces.
Participants reading the documents in the two different kinds of typefaces an-
swered 32 attitude items. Each condition responded to all the attitude assessment
198 John Donahue
items in one type of typeface (e.g., Courier), and there was no mixing of typefaces
(i.e., the Courier group did not see any items written in Arial).
3.3 Measures
Participants answered the 32 items from the General Attitude toward Institu-
tional Authority Scale (Rigby 1982). The responses to the scale items were trans-
formed to a numerical range of 1 to 5 with lower numbers representing more
authoritarianism. Four types of institutional authority were represented: (1) the
army; (2) the police; (3) the law; and (4) teachers. Items included: “The Law is the
embodiment of Justice and Equality” and “The Army brutalizes people” (reverse
scored) (see Appendix A).
3.4 Results
The means of all of the attitude items were tabulated so that lower values indicated
more authoritarianism. The overall score did not differ by condition, F(1, 52) =
2.67, p = .11. The item “Teachers seldom have a ‘sense of proportion’” seemed
confusing, and once removed the score was marginally significant, F(1, 54) = 3.00,
p = .09.
On individual items the “Arial participants”, compared to the “Courier par-
ticipants”, showed greater agreement with “The Law is the embodiment of Justice
and Equality,” (F(1, 58) = 4.35, p = .04) and “Military drill helps to improve a per-
son’s character,” (F(1, 57) = 4.09, p = .05). “Arial participants” showed less agree-
ment than “Courier participants” for “Police are unnecessarily violent in handling
people they dislike,” (F(1, 58) = 5.24, p = .03); and “The Army brutalizes people,”
(F(1, 58) = 4.50, p = .04) (see Table 1 for means and standard deviations).
Perhaps the most remarkable result found in the first study was that the dif-
ferences in the measures of authoritarianism between the typefaces were signif-
icant even though the text essentially consisted of the attitude items alone. As to
Table 1. Means (and standard deviations) of significant results by condition for Study 1
Arial Courier
The Law embodies Justice and Equality 2.47 (1.07) 3.10 (1.27)
Military drill helps improve a person’s character 2.31 (.97) 2.87 (1.14)
The Police are unnecessarily violent in handling people (r) 3.07 (1.23) 3.73 (1.02)
The Army brutalizes people (r) 2.33 (1.03) 2.97 (1.27)
Note: Response scale was 1–5; scored so that lower values indicate more authoritarianism.
factors that may have played a part, whether the typeface was a sans serif typeface
or a serif typeface may have been important to the results. Arial, a sans serif type-
face, suggested agreement with authoritarian ideas, while Courier, a serif type-
face, suggested less agreement with such ideas by comparison.
4. Study 2
The next study attempted to find the relative importance of sans serif and serif
typefaces, as well as specifically address the issue of cognitive fluency. Two sans
serif typefaces were used in the follow-up study, Arial and Monospaced, to make
a comparison to the serif typeface Courier. Another new typeface, Monotype
Corsiva, was chosen because it had been considered a cognitively disfluent type-
face in another study. The two new typefaces had the following appearances: the
Monospaced typeface, (e.g., “The quick brown fox jumps over the
lazy dog”), and the “Monotype Corsiva” typeface, (e.g., “The quick brown fox
jumps over the lazy dog”). 120 students (N = 120; 39 male, 72 female, 9 unidentified;
M age = 25.28), participated in groups of 6–27 in psychology classes at a college
in the Midwest.
4.1 Procedure
The procedure in Study 2 followed the procedure outlined in Study 1. Again, the
last page of the survey asked for demographic information. The instructions and
questions on this page were written in the same typeface that was used for the
survey. The survey packets were constructed so that the backside of the final page
was blank; thus, participants returning their survey to the cardboard box would
not see that other typefaces had been employed in the study.
4.2 Source manipulations
Participants were assigned to one of four conditions: the survey and demograph-
ic information written in: (1) 11-point Arial; (2) 10-point Courier; (3) 9-point
Monospaced; or (4) 12-point Monotype Corsiva. By selecting these font sizes the
page length of the survey for the typefaces remained approximately equal for each
of the conditions. The participants reading the documents in the four different
kinds of typefaces answered authority-related attitude items and scenarios (see
Appendix B).
200 John Donahue
4.3 Measures
Participants answered a series of three scenarios and twenty attitude items. The
responses to the scale items were transformed to a numerical range of 1 to 7. For
the twenty attitude items half of the items were reversed-scored. Four types of au-
thoritarianism were represented in the twenty attitude items: the certainty of one’s
knowledge (Hathcoat and Barnes 2010); the importance of following tradition
(Altemeyer 2006); proper parenting skills, (Van Hiel, Isle, Roets, and De Clercq
2007); and supporting the suppression of anti-authoritarian groups (Van Hiel,
Isle, Roets, and De Clercq 2007). Items included: “It would be wrong to use vio-
lence against those who oppose our societal system” (reverse scored).
There were also three brief scenarios presented, accompanied with a small
amount of written text. The first scenario measured the level of seriousness a
participant attaches to a hypothetical situation where the F.B.I. engages in illegal
wiretapping. The hypothesis was that participants reading the survey written in
the Arial typeface would significantly differ from other participants in finding
that the illegal activity of the F.B.I. is not as serious as it may seem.
The next scale was a scenario about a speech from a hypothetical Congress-
person. In the speech the legislator denounces how the Bill of Rights has been
interpreted by the Supreme Court, and thus advocates that the Bill of Rights be
repealed. The hypothesis was that participants reading the survey in the Arial
typeface compared to the others would differ in thinking that the authority of the
Supreme Court and its decisions were sacrosanct.
The final scale was a scenario that imagined a future situation where the gov-
ernment has outlawed various cults and has made a call to all citizens to assist the
government in abolishing these cults. The hypothesis was that participants read-
ing the survey written in the Arial typeface would significantly differ from other
participants in stating that they would be more willing to assist the government
in abolishing these cults.
4.4 Results
In general, the results showed that participants reading text in the Arial and
Monospaced typefaces agreed to a greater extent with authoritarian ideas com-
pared to participants reading text in Courier and Monotype Corsiva. The idea
that illegal wiretapping was not an important issue had a marginally significant
result, with lower scores representing more agreement with authoritarianism,
(F(3, 107) = 2.25, p = .09), and Arial suggesting greater agreement with this idea
compared to Monotype Corsiva (p = .02), as well as Courier (p = .07) (see Table 2
for means and standard deviations).
Significant results were also found for the items about the government seek-
ing help in abolishing cults; here greater scores represented more agreement with
authoritarianism. For the item “I would tell the police about any cults I knew,”
(F(3, 104) = 2.29, p = .08), Arial suggested greater agreement to this authoritar-
ian idea than Monotype Corsiva (p = .04) and Monospaced suggested greater
agreement to this idea than Monotype Corsiva (p = .03). For the item “If asked
by the police, I would help hunt down and arrest members of cults,” (F (3, 104) =
2.40, p = .07), Arial suggested greater agreement to this authoritarian idea than
Monotype Corsiva (p = .04) and Monospaced suggested greater agreement to this
idea than Monotype Corsiva (p = .03). For the item “I would participate in attacks
on cult meeting places if organized by the proper authorities” (F(3, 104) = 2.69,
p = .05), Arial suggested greater agreement to this authoritarian idea than Mono-
type Corsiva (p = .08) and Monospaced suggested greater agreement to this idea
than Monotype Corsiva (p < .01). Lastly, for the item “I would support the use of
physical force to make cult members reveal the identity of other cult members”
(F(3, 104) = 3.24, p = .03), Arial suggested greater agreement to this authoritarian
Table 2. Means (and standard deviations) of significant and marginally significant
results for Study 2
Arial Courier Mono- Monotype
spaced Corsiva
[Endorse illegal wiretapping by the FBI against 4.48 5.38 4.85 5.64
radical political organizations] (2.05) (1.86) (1.98) (1.37)
It is wrong to use violence against those opposed 4.47 5.43 4.72 5.48
to our societal system (r) (1.50) (1.63) (1.79) (1.50)
Bill of Rights scenario, Item #1 2.72 3.17 3.88 3.62
Congressperson’s speech was sensible (1.65) (1.85) (1.66) (1.68)
Cult scenario, Item #2 3.62 2.96 3.72 2.50
Would inform police about cults one knew (2.04) (1.75) (2.21) (1.79)
Would assist in arresting cult members (1.63) (1.48) (1.94) (1.61)
Would engage in authorized attacks on cults (1.75) (1.40) (2.07) (1.03)
Would support the use of physical force to make (2.01) (1.43) (2.13) (1.24)
members reveal the identity of others
Note: Response scale was 1–7. For the first two items listed here lower values indicate more authoritar-
ianism. For the last five attitude items listed here regarding the Bill of Rights and illegal cults scenarios
greater values indicate more authoritarianism.
202 John Donahue
idea than Monotype Corsiva (p = .01), and Monospaced suggested greater agree-
ment to this idea than Monotype Corsiva (p < .01) (see Table 2 for means and
standard deviations).
As part of the twenty attitude item statements, with lower scores representing
more agreement with authoritarianism, for the item “It would be wrong to use
violence against those who oppose our societal system” (F(3, 114) = 2.96, p = .04),
Arial suggested less agreement to this anti-authoritarian idea than Monotype
Corsiva (p = .02), and Courier (p = .02); for the same item, the Monospaced
typeface suggested less agreement than Monotype Corsiva (p = . 08) and Courier
(p = .09) (see Table 2 for means and standard deviations).
5. Conclusion
How authoritarianism was conceptualized mattered in these studies. For the

twenty attitude items it was significant only once when authoritarianism was pre-
sented as the suppression of anti-authoritarian groups. For the scenarios, the fact
that the cults and F.B.I. results were at times significant or marginally significant
raises the idea that with additional text before an attitude item it may be easier to
find the effect of typeface on authoritarianism.
The results again imply that a sans serif typeface will be more associated
with authoritarianism and a serif typeface will be less associated with authori-
tarianism. Also, the cognitively fluent typeface Arial was more associated with
authoritarianism and the cognitively disfluent typeface Monotype Corsiva was
less associated with authoritarianism.
Considering the effects of priming, in ancient times serif typefaces were asso-
ciated with the Roman Empire, and sans serif typefaces were associated with the
Roman Republic. Also, historically some designers that worked with Mussolini’s
fascists used sans serif typefaces to appeal to young Italians. Calligraphy-like type-
faces, such as Monotype Corsiva, have frequently been employed in advertising
to mentally associate elegance to certain products like luxury automobiles. In the
mid-20th century many American governmental bodies like the F.B.I. used the
Courier typeface (until 2004, the United States State Department used Courier).
Courier has frequently been used as part of both reality-based and fictional Ameri-
can TV shows concerning law enforcement, such as the show “X-Files” about F.B.I.
agents. While Arial may have mixed historical associations, apparently priming
was not at work in the studies presented here, as Courier should have had par-
ticipants associating this typeface with authoritarianism, and Monotype Corsiva
probably would have brought up associations of elitism.
Perhaps if also taking into account the repeated exposure effect, Arial may
prime authority. To illustrate, many workers view PowerPoint presentations and
many students are often exposed to PowerPoint lectures that are written in Arial
or another sans serif typeface that looks similar to Arial. The fact that these pre-
sentations are typically given by people with greater authority to those with less
authority may account for any priming of Arial with the schema of authoritari-
anism. In terms of repeated exposure alone, as suggested by the graphic designer
in the documentary “Helvetica,” the fact that Helvetica and its “cheap clone” Arial
are so widely used may account for why some typefaces are associated with au-
thoritarianism.
In regards to cognitive fluency, studies suggest that with an easier-to-read
typeface a person doesn’t have to “think as hard” compared to when a person
is reading a document in a difficult-to-read typeface and this could affect peo-
ple’s attitudes towards those with more power. For the psychological principle of
compliance, obeying authority rather than disobeying authority appears to be the
default behavior for people’s interactions with authority figures (Cialdini 2001).
Thus, as the present studies suggest, people may not question as much positive
statements about individuals and groups with power when the documents are
written in a cognitively fluent typeface. Furthermore, people might be more will-
ing to follow the dictates of powerful groups’ messages if they are written in a
cognitively fluent typeface, although that was not directly addressed here.
In practical terms, people who perform communications for institutions such
as the Army and the F.B.I. might be wise to use a sans serif or cognitively flu-
ent typeface in their documents (or ideally both, as in the case of Arial). Other
institutions that might convey authority in peoples’ minds, such as the Surgeon
General’s Office or the health communications department of a university, might
likewise wish to use these kinds of typefaces.
Another practical application of this idea could occur during a political cam-
paign with a campaign staff employing a cognitively fluent typeface to convey the
authority of their own candidate’s statements, and when directly quoting an op-
ponent, putting that quote in a cognitively disfluent typeface. The result might be
that citizens would more closely scrutinize the opponent’s statements because the
text is not processed as easily. Relatedly, if the text about a political opponent was
written in a disfluent typeface, the audience might better remember a message
that was unfavorable about that opponent.
Media theorist Marshall McLuhan wrote about the importance of images
from TV and movies versus the text found in books and articles when consider-
ing the changing ways people respond to media (McLuhan and Fiore 1962). On
the one hand, people often utilize videos and pictures as well as download video
content from sources such as YouTube. On the other hand, people spend a lot
204 John Donahue
of time emailing each other, reading journalistic accounts (possibly responding

with their own written remarks), and sometimes publishing blogs to let others
view their writings. Additionally, people may primarily talk on their cell phones,
but they usually can also send written messages like emails and texts. Indeed, a
Pew Research poll found that American teenage girls communicated via text at a
median rate of 100 texts a day (Lenhart 2012).
Still, do people agree more with authoritarian statements written in a typeface
that brings up certain past associations, is viewed frequently, or has high cognitive
fluency because it is easy to read? Authoritarian regimes have used the repeated
exposure effect to garner support, but would their messages convey even greater
authority if certain typefaces were employed? Plus, are peoples’ attitudes only af-
fected by typefaces when it comes to the support and assessments of a powerful
group in society and not when it comes to the individual’s attitudes that only
concern themselves, such as the proper way to raise children? In sum, the present
studies attempted to answer these fundamental questions as to whether peoples’
political views are affected by the typeface on the document that they are read-
ing. These studies suggest that typefaces used today do impact attitudes regarding
authoritarianism. The selection of a typeface should be an informed consider-
ation by people communicating messages about powerful groups, and recipients
of such messages should be aware of the effects typefaces can have upon them.
References
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Appendix A: Survey for Study 1 in Arial Typeface
Attitude Survey
The following are statements that people made expressing their opinions. Please ex-
press your personal reaction to each opinion as follows:
Circle (++) if you agree strongly

Circle (+) if you agree but not strongly
Circle (?) if you are uncertain
Circle (-) if you disagree but not strongly
Circle (- -) if you disagree strongly
1. The police in America are pretty trustworthy.

++ + ? - - -
2. I would dislike having to salute an Army Officer

++ + ? - - -
3. The Law rightly claims the allegiance of every citizen at all times.
++ + ? - - -
4. Teachers seldom have a “sense of proportion”.

++ + ? - - -
5. A person should obey only those laws that seem reasonable.

++ + ? - - -
206 John Donahue
6. The Army develops initiative.

++ + ? - - -
7. It is reasonable to say that as a rule teachers work in the best interests of their
students.
++ + ? - - -
8. The Police are quite unfair in their treatment of certain groups in Society.
++ + ? - - -
9. The Law is the embodiment of Justice and Equality.

++ + ? - - -
10. I disagree with what the Army stands for.

++ + ? - - -
11. The Police have a hard job which they carry out well.
++ + ? - - -
12. A teacher is a somewhat ridiculous figure, posing as an authority on the important

things in life, when, in fact, he is often ignorant and immature himself.
++ + ? - - -
13. Laws are so often made for the benefit of small, selfish groups that one cannot
respect the law.
++ + ? - - -
14. Police are unnecessarily violent in handling people they dislike.

++ + ? - - -
15. Teachers freely acknowledge and respect the rights of students.

++ + ? - - -
16. Military drill helps to improve a person’s character.

++ + ? - - -
17. The Army reduces men and women to robots.

++ + ? - - -
18. The Law represents the wisdom of the ages.

++ + ? - - -
19. Teachers do not respect the individual personalities of the students.

++ + ? - - -
20. The Police are generally quite impartial and fair in the way they carry out the Law.
++ + ? - - -
21. The Law is asinine.

++ + ? - - -
22. Police officers like to bully people.

++ + ? - - -
23. I expect there is a good reason for most rules and regulations in the Army.
++ + ? - - -
24. Teachers are usually ready to take quite seriously whatever it is that the students
feel earnest about.
++ + ? - - -
25. The Police help the weaker members of society.

++ + ? - - -
26. Obedience to the law constitutes a value indicative of the highest citizenship.
++ + ? - - -
27. In this day and age students should not be expected to call a teacher “ma’am” or
“sir.”
++ + ? - - -
28. The Army brutalizes people.

++ + ? - - -
29. The disciplinary measures taken by teachers are usually well considered and
desirable.
++ + ? - - -
30. The Police use their “badge” as an excuse to push people around.
++ + ? - - -
31. The sentences of judges in court are determined by their prejudices.

++ + ? - - -
32. People should feel proud to serve in the Army.

++ + ? - - -
208 John Donahue
Appendix B: Survey for Study 2 in Arial Typeface
Please give your reaction to the following hypothetical story below:
It has been reported in the press that the FBI has maintained illegal wiretaps of the
telephones of about 60 persons in the United States who were suspected of being
sympathetic toward radical political organizations. The FBI is reported to be taking no
chances that these persons might become active in their support of these groups. Un-
der current legislation such wiretaps are legally permissible only if a judge has signed
a court order authorizing them. The FBI reportedly has never sought court approval of
these wiretaps because they believed their case was too weak and the courts would
deny them. The FBI has denied the wiretaps exist, and described the report as a
“complete fabrication.”
If the story were true, how serious of a matter would you say the illegal wiretaps are?
(Circle the symbol that best represents your response.)
- - - = Not serious at all; they clearly are justified by the circumstances.

- - = A bit serious
- = Mildly serious
? = Somewhat serious
+ = Pretty serious
++ = Very serious
+++ = Extremely serious; such acts strike at the foundation of a free society.
Attitude Survey
Please express your personal reaction to each of the following opinions in this man-
ner:
Circle (- - -) if you disagree very strongly

Circle (- -) if you disagree strongly
Circle (-) if you disagree but not strongly
Circle (?) if you are uncertain
Circle (+) if you agree but not strongly
Circle (++) if you agree strongly
Circle (+++) if you agree very strongly
1. Truth means different things to different people.

- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
2. A good parent makes sure his or her children have the habit of obedience.
- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
3. It would be wrong to use violence against those who oppose our societal system.
- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
4. People that are currently and historically against the “Establishment” are no doubt
every bit as good and virtuous as those who follow it.
- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
5. If two people are arguing about something, at least one of them must be wrong.
- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
6. The most important value children should learn from their parents is love, not
respect.
- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
7. Groups that question authority are troublemakers and action should be taken
against them.
- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
8. Our country will be great if we honor the ways of our forefathers, do what the prop-
er authorities tell us to do, and get rid of the “rotten apples” who are ruining everything.
- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
9. Absolute moral truth does not exist.

- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
10. It is better for children when they are treated strictly.

- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
11. Groups should always obey orders of the government even if they do not match
their own interests.
- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
12. Everyone should have their own lifestyle and personal preferences, even if it
makes them different from what everyone else has been taught to believe is tradition-
ally right.
- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
13. What is true today will be true tomorrow.

- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
14. Children should be allowed to question their parents’ authority.

- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
15. If a group of people have violated societal norms, they do not necessarily have to
be punished.
- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
210 John Donahue
16. The way our country can get through the crisis ahead is to get back to our histori-
cal values, put some tough leaders in power, and silence the troublemakers spreading
bad ideas.
- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
17. Sometimes there are no right answers to life’s big problems.

- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
18. Smart parents teach their children from an early age who’s the boss.
- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
19. Revolutionaries and members of other rebellious groups can only be submitted to
the authorities by use of non-violent means, even when these groups call for violence
themselves.
- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
20. Our country will be destroyed someday if we do not smash the perversions eating
away at our moral fiber and traditional beliefs.
- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
Suppose your Congressperson gave the following speech:
“If a person stops to think about it, most of the problems we are having can be traced
to the Bill of Rights – or more precisely, to the way it has been interpreted by the
Supreme Court. “Freedom of speech” has been twisted to mean that pornographers
can sell their filth, and that anybody can say whatever he wants, whether it’s good for
society or not. And “freedom of religion” has been twisted to mean children can’t pray
in public schools any more. And think how many drug pushers and criminals have
gotten off scot-free because their “rights” were supposedly violated after they had
robbed or killed somebody.
“A lot of people hoped the new Supreme Court would overturn these terrible rul-
ings made by past Supreme Courts. But it’s clear now they won’t, so we are stuck with
these interpretations as long as there is a Bill of Rights. And we will soon be destroyed
as a nation because of them. So the only thing we can do, to make America the free,
pure, safe nation that the founding fathers intended it to be is to repeal the Bill of
Rights.”
Please circle from “- - -” (Not at all) to “+++” (Very much so) that best represents your
response.
Do you think this speech is sensible?

- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
Not at all Maybe Very much so
Do you think the Bill of Rights should be repealed?

- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
Do you think that you would vote for this Congressperson?

- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
Do you think that you would contribute to a future election campaign for this Congress-
person (such as money or volunteer time)?
- - - - - - ? + ++ +++
Suppose the government, some time in the future, passed a law outlawing various
cults. Government officials then stated that the law would only be effective if it were
vigorously enforced at the local level and appealed to everyone to aid in the fight
against these cults.
Please write down the symbol next to the statements according to the scale below:
- - - indicates the statement is very untrue of you

- - indicates the statement is somewhat untrue of you
- indicates the statement is slightly untrue of you
? indicates the statement is neither true nor false for you
+ indicates the statement is slightly true of you
++ indicates the statement is somewhat true of you
+++ indicates the statement is very true of you
1. _______ I would tell my friends and neighbors it was a good law.
2. _______ I would tell the police about any cults I knew.
3. _______ If asked by the police, I would help hunt down and arrest members of
cults.
4. _______ I would participate in attacks on cult meeting places if organized by the

proper authorities.
5. _______ I would support the use of physical force to make cult members reveal
the identity of other cult members.
6. _______ I would support the execution of cult leaders if the government insisted
it was necessary to protect the country.
We and I, and you and them
People, power and solidarity
Anita Fetzer
This chapter examines the referential domain, communicative function and

perlocutionary effect of the personal plural pronouns I and we, and you and
them in political discourse, considering in particular their role in doing dom-
inance and doing collectivity. Its methodological framework is an integrated
one, combining more recent developments of Searlean speech act theory with
interactional sociolinguistics, in particular co-occurrence and conversational
inference. The paper is organized as follows: the introduction sets the scene,
and the second section presents the contextual constraints and requirements
of political discourse. The third section investigates the form and function of
personal pronouns in English, considering in particular their role in the ex-
pression of individuality and collectivity, and dominance and solidarity. The
fourth section presents a micro-analysis, distinguishing between local contexts
in which collectivity and individuality, and dominance and solidarity are entex-
tualized and others where the referential domains of the personal pronouns are
left underspecified. A conclusion summarizes the results obtained arguing for
a cognitive prototype-based scalar conception of individuality and collectivity,
and dominance and solidarity, which are fore- and backgrounded in interaction.
1. Introduction
In natural-language communication participants refer to themselves and to others,

they make predications about themselves, about others and about referents in the
discourse world and in the social world, and they express evaluations about them-
selves, about others and about referents in the discourse world, social world and
real world.1 Self- and other-references are of key importance to the presentation
1. In this chapter, “social world” refers to a socially constructed world, which is negotiated by
the participants in and through the process of communication and presupposes the existence
214 Anita Fetzer
of self and other, and to their interpersonal and social relationships. Self- and oth-
er-references are used strategically to negotiate discourse identities, and social and
interactional roles, and they are indispensable to the definition and negotiation
of the participants’ interpersonal and social relationships, where they may signify
intimacy, distance and social hierarchy. In mundane, everyday communication,
discourse identities and social roles are constructed, reconstructed, deconstructed
and negotiated directly by the face-to-face participants and by other ratified partic-
ipants in the local context. In media discourse, by contrast, their construction, re-
construction, deconstruction and negotiation concern both the directly addressed
communication partner(s) and other ratified participants in the local context,
and above all, the media audience. In that particular communicative event, the
media audience is the actual addressee of the media discourse and of its negotia-
tion-of-meaning processes. This is particularly true for political discourse, which
has become media discourse par excellence in our digitalized mass-media societies
(cf. Lauerbach and Fetzer 2007; Fetzer, Weizman and Reber 2012).
In mediatized political discourse political agents bring in their discourse iden-
tities, social roles and interactional roles, and at the same time they bring out their
discourse identities, social roles and interactional roles, to employ interaction-
al-sociolinguistic terminology (Gumperz 1996). They do this by foregrounding
one role and by backgrounding others. For instance, the Prime Minister David
Cameron brings in his discourse identities of PM as well as those of a member of
the Conservative Party and of the leader of the Conservative Party, or those of a
husband and father. In a political interview when questioned about government
policies, he will bring out his identity as PM and background the other identities.
When questioned about the state of the Conservative Party, he will bring out the
identity as a party leader and background the others. When questioned about his
summer holiday, he may bring out his identities as husband and father and back-
ground the ones anchored to party politics and government.
The identities and roles brought into the discourse and the local social sta-
tuses of the political agents in a discourse do not necessarily conflate with the
roles, identities and social statuses brought out in that discourse. Quite frequently,
political agents intend to enhance their dominance by doing leadership in media
discourse, and they do that successfully (cf. Fetzer and Bull 2012), but they may
also not succeed in enhancing or keeping that social status and thus not pres-
ent themselves as competent and responsible leaders. In Searle’s making the social
world, bringing-in discourse-relevant features is administered by the “Back-
ground presuppositions”, and bringing-out discourse relevant features, such as
of some kind of human institution. “Real world” refers to the external surroundings and is
functionally equivalent to what Searle (1969) calls “brute facts”.
We and I, and you and them 215
social status, responsibility or competence, is done through practices: “The point

I am making (…) is that democracies work not just on rules, but on Background
presuppositions, on practices, and on modes of sensibility” (Searle 2010, 168).
Through the use of language, social status, dominance and power can be repre-
sented as existing entities, viz. as how we intend them to exist and how we intend
them to be represented. Through the use of co-referential pronouns we refer to
dominance and social status as entities endowed with power, which have already
been accepted collectively:
in human language we have the capacity not only to represent reality both how
it is and how we want to make it be, but we also have the capacity to create a new
reality by representing that reality as existing. We create private property, money,
government, marriage, and a thousand other phenomena by representing them
as existing. (Searle 2010, 86)
Against this background, dominance is conceptualized as an interactional achieve-

ment, viz. as doing dominance, as may be deduced from Searle’s differentiation
between power and dominance: “Something has to be added to our core concept
of power, and that is the notion of its intentional exercise “(Searle 2010, 148).
In the default scenario in both mundane everyday discourse and media
discourse, indexically realized self-reference may be expressed by the first-per-
son-singular pronoun I and the first-person-plural pronoun we in English, and
it may also be expressed by generic you, while other-references are expressed
by the second-person-singular and second-person-plural pronoun you, or the
more generalized forms she or he, and they. The question addressed in this chap-
ter is the role of pronominal reference in the construction, reconstruction and
deconstruction of dominance, collectivity and solidarity in interaction, paying
particular attention to co-occurring evaluative expressions. In political discourse,
dominance is brought into the discourse by self and other, and it is brought out in
that discourse by self and other.
In the context of a political interview, references to the direct communication
partner by first name, surname and title all bring in the communication partner’s
social status. Their usage is highly conventionalized but nevertheless interdepen-
dent on the more global and local social contexts. In referring to an individual as
David Cameron, Prime Minister, or even the Right Honourable Member for Wit-
ney, that particular individual is singled out and identified both for himself and
the audience, and is assigned a particular social status. While the use of first and
last name may signify solidarity in the opening section of a political interview,
it may function as a summons in the topical section signifying some upcoming
challenge (cf. Fetzer 2006). A reference to the politician’s position in government
generally signifies a higher social status and thus dominance. However, if it is
216 Anita Fetzer
used in the topical section of a political interview, it may at the same time signify
a forthcoming challenge targeting the politician’s powerful position. A reference
to the politician’s constituency is more neutral in that respect, foregrounding his
role in the conservative party and in parliament. This is not necessarily the case
with the personal pronoun reference you, whose domain of reference is indeter-
minate as it may, in principle, refer to any human being and their discursive roles
in the local and global linguistic and social contexts. Naturally, possible referen-
tial domains of you are narrowed down by local and global context in a political
interview, but the “addressed” addressee may still opt for assigning an individu-
al-based or a collective-based referential domain to you and thereby shift respon-
sibilities in context, giving the pronoun a less determinate interpretation, as has
been shown for the strategic use of pronouns in political interviews by Bull and
Fetzer (2006). If co-occurring with additional identifying linguistic devices, such
as you as the leader of the Conservative Party, you as the former Director of Cor-
porate Affairs or you personally, the referential domain is further narrowed down
and the social status of the individual is entextualized.2 This may enhance the
social status of the individual, as is the case with the reference to party leadership,
and it may contribute to lowering his status as is the case with the reference to the
status as former director. Referring to a political agent by individual-anchored
“you personally” does generally not enhance her/his social status but rather con-
tributes to lowering it.
The focus of this chapter is on the personal pronouns I, we, and you, and on
how they may be used strategically to do construct, reconstruct and deconstruct
dominance, collectivity and solidarity. Given their not always clear-cut domains
of reference and the possible multiple meanings expressed, it is not surprising
that political agents use personal pronouns to good effect: for example, to accept,
deny or distance themselves from responsibility for political action, thereby re-
constructing their social status; to encourage solidarity; to designate and identify
both supporters and enemies (Fetzer and Bull 2008; Wilson 1990).
The chapter is organized as follows. The next section presents the contextual
constraints and requirements of political discourse. The third section investigates
the form and function of personal pronouns in English, considering in particular
the genre-specific distribution of self- and other-references expressing individu-
ality and collectivity, and dominance and solidarity. The fourth section presents a
2. The use of “entextualized” and “entextualization” differ from the ones promoted by Park
and Bucholtz (2009), which define entextualization primarily in terms of institutional control
and ideology. It shares their stance of approaching entextualization in terms of “conditions
inherent in the transposition of discourse from one context into another” (2009, 489), while
considering both local and global contexts.
micro-analysis, distinguishing between local contexts in which collectivity and in-

dividuality, and dominance and solidarity are entextualized and others where the
referential domains of the personal pronouns are left underspecified. The conclu-
sion summarizes the results obtained and argues for a cognitive prototype-based
scalar conception of individuality and collectivity, and dominance and solidarity,
which are fore- and backgrounded in interaction.
2. Political discourse in context
Political discourse has been described as institutional discourse, public discourse,

media discourse and more recently, as professional discourse. It has undergone
important changes in our digitalized and medialized societies, and that is why a
felicitous analysis of politics and of political discourse can no longer comprise text
and talk (Chilton and Schäffner 2002) only, but rather needs to consider political
discourse as a form of both professional discourse and media discourse (Fetzer
and Weizman 2006; Fetzer and Bull 2012). The symbiotic relationship between
political discourse and the media is interdependent on the medium-as-such in
and through which political information, political beliefs and political opinions
are transmitted and shaped. The impact of modern mass-media culture on com-
municative behavior and performance is further reflected in the conversation-
alisation and professionalization of mediated and mediatized political discourse
(Fairclough 1998).
From an ethnomethodological perspective (e.g., Garfinkel 1994), politicians
do politics in and through their acts of communication. In Gumperz’s (1996) frame
of reference, politicians can be seen both as bringing their discourse identities as
political agents into a communicative setting, and as bringing them out in that
setting. However, politicians “do” more than simply “talk politics in the media”.
At the same time, they present their multiple roles and functions, they express
individuality and collectivity, they do dominance and solidarity, and what is even
more important, successful politicians “do leadership in context”. Prototypical oc-
casions for politicians to demonstrate their multiple skills and dedications are po-
litical speeches, which are broadcast as wholes or in part, and political interviews.
The presentation of self is of key importance to politicians in the mediated
political arena, where they present themselves not only as committed public fig-
ures but also as committed individuals, fore- and back-grounding their multifac-
eted discourse identities in line with their communicative goals, for instance as
caring parents, loving husbands, wives or partners, or environmentally friend-
ly people. Hence, politicians and other actors in the political arena do not only
use different types of media and genres strategically to persuade the electorate
218 Anita Fetzer
but they also mix styles and genres, such as the accommodation of narratives in
election campaigns (Duranti 2006), or of small stories in political speeches and
interviews (Fetzer 2010).
The construction, reconstruction and deconstruction of power and solidarity
are a dynamic multifaceted endeavor, which requires an integrated frame of refer-
ence for felicitous analysis. Consequently, the methodological framework adopt-
ed is informed by pragmatics and its premise of intentionality of communicative
action, and by interactional sociolinguistics and its premises of indexicality of
communicative action, conversational implicature and co-occurrence.
In the following section, the theory and practice of pronouns are examined
in context. Particular attention is given to self-reference and to the participation
framework.
3. Pronouns in context
In traditional linguistic-context based analyses, pronouns tend to be looked upon

as representatives of determinate meaning. This is because they are co-referential
with a noun phrase to which they express anaphoric or cataphoric reference. For
instance, the complex noun phrase “the Prime Minister’s interview broadcast on
TV last night” in “the Prime Minister’s interview broadcast on TV last night made
things worse” can be referred to with the third-person-singular pronoun it in “it
made things worse”; the noun phrase “the honourable members of the opposi-
tion” can be referred to with the third-person-plural pronoun they. The speaker
can refer to him/herself with the first-person-singular pronoun I and the hearer
or addressee can be referred to with the second-person-singular/plural pronoun
you. From a linguistic-meaning perspective, the use of pronouns as placeholders
for noun phrases is a clear-cut matter, and that is why there is no need to make
any allowances for potential vagueness or even miscommunication, as the pro-
noun can always be replaced by the noun phrase for which it stands.
From a discursive perspective going beyond linguistic context considering
social, sociocultural and cognitive contexts, and interlocutors’ knowledge of the
world and about the world, the referential domain of a pronoun as a placeholder
for a noun phrase is not always unambiguously clear. This becomes apparent in
the examination of the actual meaning of pronominal references in a face-to-
face conversation (Clark and Wilkes-Gibbs 1992), where speakers’ references are
considered to be intentional endeavors and where the people referred to by pro-
nouns are seen as participants with interactional, institutional and social roles
(Duszak 2002; Mühlhäusler and Harré 1990). For instance, in the dynamic event
of a political interview or a political speech, the pronoun we may refer to the
dyadic set of politician and interviewer, but the set may also include the audience
in the studio, the audience at home, the audience in a conference hall to whom
the political speech is delivered, the party the politician represents, or the gov-
ernment. Moreover, we can also be used in an exclusive manner, referring to the
members of a particular party while at the same time building up an implicit con-
trastive set with members of other parties, thereby excluding them. Analogously,
the pronoun you can refer to the addressee either in the singular, for example,
the interviewer or interviewee, or in the plural, for example, a subgroup of the
audience in a television studio, or indeed the audience as a whole. It can also be
used to refer to the speaker or to express generic reference. You can as well refer
to an unspecific, indeterminate group, such as a political party, where it does not
refer to an actual individual but rather to the individual as a representative of that
group (Leech and Svartvik 1994, 58). In the following, self-reference is examined
more closely, paving the ground for an investigation of its connectedness with the
interactional organization of dominance.
3.1 Self-reference
In a linguistics-based analysis of pronouns, a speaker can express self-reference

by using the personal pronouns I, we or you. In the western sociocultural context
the speaker is generally conceptualized as a speaking individual and that is why
the default for a self-reference is the first-person-singular pronoun I; in pro-drop
languages, the non-overt counterpart, viz. the inflectional morpheme, is the de-
fault, but self-reference may also be expressed by a combination of both pronoun
and inflectional morpheme. In line with Givón’s functional-grammar based con-
ception of markedness (Givón 1993, 178), in which an unmarked configuration
is regarded as more frequent, structurally less complex and cognitively easier to
process, while a marked configuration is considered less frequent, structurally
more complex and cognitively more difficult to process, self-reference may be re-
alized in a non-default or marked manner, and in a default or unmarked manner.
In the unmarked scenario, self-reference is expressed with the personal pronoun I
in English, while in the marked scenario it is expressed with the first-person-plu-
ral pronoun we signifying the speaker’s affiliation with some social group, such
as a political party. Another option to realize self-reference in a marked manner
is the pronoun you in its generic-meaning usage, including the speaker but not
singling her/him out.
In the sociocultural context of political discourse, self-reference is no longer
such a clear-cut matter. This is because the political self is no longer conceptu-
alized as an autonomous self in our digitalized, mediatized societies, speaking
220 Anita Fetzer
for themselves as an individual but rather as a representative of some political

collective. Self-references of the political self are thus always connected with col-
lectives, sometimes in a more explicit, and sometimes in a less explicit manner. In
the context of a political interview or a political speech, a speaker may decide to
make her/his discursive identity more determinate by making explicit the discur-
sive identity or social function or role they intend to project. This can be done by
relating the political self to a political party, government, or some other collective
thereby constructing and reconstructing collectivity, by spelling out the function
or role a political self fulfils in the collective thereby reconstructing collectivity,
or by relating political self to their private domains of life thereby deconstructing
collectivity anchored to the public spheres of life while at the same time con-
structing collectivity and solidarity with ordinary people’s private spheres of life.
It goes without saying that the construction, reconstruction and deconstruction
of collectivity is connected intrinsically with the interactional organization of
dominance: by affiliating self with a dominant collective, such as the government,
a powerful political party or a financially powerful economic group, self intends
to enhance her/his social status.
In the data under investigation, the following co-occurrences and predica-
tions signifying collectivity and dominance have been found. Depending on the
local context, they may foreground collectivity in the public spheres of life signi-
fying dominance (options 1 and 2), or they may foreground collectivity with the
private spheres of life thereby deconstructing public dominance (option 3):
1. an explicit reference of political self to their social identity as a politician,

foregrounding dominance, e.g.,
I am the politician

2. an explicit reference of political self to their social role/function, foreground-

ing dominance, e.g.,
the Conservative Party I’m leading today
me as leader of the Conservative Party
3. an explicit reference of political self to their personal sphere of life, back-

grounding dominance, e.g.,
I personally
I set myself certain clear objectives
I myself said
I give my absolute personal guarantee
a vast majority of parents including myself
To express collective discursive identity, the political self may self-reference with
the first-person-plural pronoun we. Analogously to the construction, reconstruc-
tion and deconstruction of collectivity anchored to a political self speaking on
behalf of themselves thus foregrounding their role as an individual within a col-
lective while at the same time backgrounding their affiliation with a collective,
a political self speaking on behalf of the collective may decide to make her/his
alignment more determinate by making explicit the collective they intend to proj-
ect. This can be done by spelling out the political party, government, or some
other collective thereby foregrounding that collective while at the same time
backgrounding others, and it can be done by foregrounding an indeterminate
sort of collective, thereby deconstructing the political self ’s alignment with a par-
ticular political party or government.
In the data under investigation, the following co-occurrences and predica-
tions signifying collectivity and dominance have been found. Unless there are
explicit dis-affiliations with a collective, they all foreground collectivity but they
do not necessarily foreground collectivity in the public spheres of life. In the first
option they signify dominance, and in the second option the collective is under-
specified thus deconstructing some kind of presupposed dominance:
1. an explicit reference of political self to their alignment with a political party,

e.g.,
what we’ve done as a Labour Party
2. an explicit reference of political self to their alignment with an underspecified

collective, e.g.,
we’ve all been told
The context-dependence of the referential domains of personal pronouns, and

of their communicative function have been refined by Mühlhäusler and Harré
(1990) with respect to a double indexicality of personal pronouns: firstly, person-
al pronouns are anchored to the spatio-temporal domains of the Here and Now,
and secondly, they are anchored to the interlocutors’ responsibilities regarding
illocution and perlocution (Austin 1971), or illocution, perlocutionary effect and
deontic commitments (Searle 2010, 82):
We already have commitments, in the full public sense that combines irrevers-
ibility and obligation. Language is the basic form of public deontology, and I am
claiming that in the full sense that involves the public assumption of irreversible
obligations, there is no deontology without language.
222 Anita Fetzer
The irreversibility of deontic obligations, or the accountability of social action in

the framework of ethnomethodology (Garfinkel 1994), is of particular relevance
to the domain of social interaction, where the pronoun we has a key function in
the process of establishing membership categorization while at the same time sig-
nifying proximity, if not solidarity with the ideology promoted by the collective.
Speakers define explicitly and publicly social groups vis-à-vis their interlocutors
by using we pronouns. At the same time, they state their membership to these
groups thus constructing and reconstructing collectivity, and re-establishing and
reinforcing social identities. In the particularized context of political discourse,
it is not only the pronoun we, which expresses collectivity. It is also the politi-
cal agents themselves, who speak on behalf of collectives and for collectives. The
collectives are endowed with power, and depending on the collective’s status in
the political arena, the political agents bring in more powerful identities and less
powerful identities. In that particular context, the construction, reconstruction
and deconstruction of collective identities may be considered as the default sce-
nario (cf. Fetzer 2013). That is to say, political agents bring in collective identities,
and they bring out collective identities.
The personal pronoun we has also been analyzed in the framework of commu-
nicative grammar distinguishing between inclusive we and exclusive we (Leech and
Svartvik 1994, 58). Following Mühlhäusler and Harré (1990), inclusive we refers to
an original source of a group including speaker, hearer and possibly some other
people, and subcategorizes into (a) an integrative use, which refers to both speaker
and hearer(s), (b) an expressive use, which refers to both speaker and hearer(s), but
additionally expresses solidarity. Exclusive we refers to a group of people including
the speaker but excluding the hearer, for instance the institutional “we would like
to help you” or “how are we today?”. This subcategorizes into (a) an editorial we or
pluralis modestiae (Bazzanella 2002) which excludes the addressee, (b) a coercive
use which refers to the addressee, excludes the speaker but is in the interest of her/
him, and (c) the widely accepted pluralis majestatis we (Mühlhäusler and Harré
1990, 129). The taxonomy is further refined by Bazzanella’s category of inverted
we anchored to a group of people excluding the speaker but including the hearer
(Bazzanella 2002). The referential domain and communicative function of self-ref-
erence are schematized in Table 1.
In political discourse, coercive “we” and inverted “we” are of no immediate
relevance, whereas editorial “we” and both the integrative and the expressive use
of “we” are of interest, because they allow politicians to express alignment and
solidarity, which is generally achieved by setting up an implicit or explicit oppo-
nent. Skarzynska (2002) has demonstrated that we is used strategically in Polish
political discourse to express affective polarization. This can be realized explic-
itly and implicitly. Explicit polarization is achieved through explicit references
Table 1. Self-reference in context

Referential domain of I Referential domain of we Referential domain of you
Speaker group of people including speaker hearer or addressee
▶ inclusive we
group of people including speaker group of people including
and hearer hearer/addressee
▶ inclusive we:
▶▶ integrative use
▶▶ expressive use
group of people including speaker
but excluding hearer
▶ exclusive we
▶▶ editorial use / pluralis modestiae
▶▶ coercive use
▶▶ pluralis majestatis
group of people excluding speaker indefinite group
but including hearer ▶ generic meaning
▶ inverted we
to self (“we”) and other (“they”), and implicit polarization is achieved through
an explicit reference to us and an implicit reference to them. Here, affective po-
larization is inferred from context. The usage of the pronoun we has also been
examined in Russian political discourse, where it signifies collectivity, community
and common interest (Pyykkö 2002), and it has been examined in parliamentary
discourse, where it has been assigned four different types of reference, namely
exclusive, inclusive, parliamentary community and generic (Inigo-Mora 2004).
The strategic use of self-reference may be further refined by the social-interaction
constraints of footing, as is examined in the following.
3.2 Footing
The multiple discursive roles of speakers and their selection of marked or un-
marked forms of self-reference can be further refined by connecting pronomi-
nal self-reference with the participation format and Goffman’s concept of footing
(Goffman 1981). Goffman argues that participation is not a simple either/or affair
in which one party speaks, while the other party listens. Rather, there are varying
degrees of participation: speakers may take up different footings in relation to their
own conversational contributions, which may be variously described as anima-
tor, author and principal. Thus, whereas the animator is the person who actually
224 Anita Fetzer
utters the words, the author is seen as the “author of the words that are heard, i.e.
someone who has selected the sentiments that are being expressed and the words
in which they are encoded” (Goffman 1981, 144). The principal is “someone whose
position is established by the words spoken, someone whose beliefs have been told,
someone who is committed to what the words say” (Goffman 1981, 144).
Through the selective use of pronouns, speakers can adopt a footing, which
displays either greater or lesser involvement and solidarity, and greater and lesser
dominance, depending on what it is they intend to achieve with their contribu-
tions. For example, De Fina (1995) analyzed the speeches of two participants in
a conference on the Chiapas revolt of January 1994 in Mexico. She argued that
through frequent use of the personal pronoun (“we”), one of the speakers (José
Juaréz) showed his identification and solidarity with the Indian communities in
Mexican politics. Although in Goffman’s terms he was undoubtedly the author
and animator of his remarks, through his choice of pronouns he also stressed the
role of the Indian communities as the principal on whose behalf he was speak-
ing. Conversely, speakers can also distance themselves from what they are saying
through various shifts in footing, thereby deflecting responsibility as author and/
or principal while at the same time intending to construct dominance. In a politi-
cal interview, for instance, an interviewer may seek to establish a politician’s own
individual viewpoint by asking “what do you personally think about a particular
issue”. If the politician’s response is just to state party policy along the lines of
“We have always taken the position that…”, his or her response is that of only
principal and animator; the politician’s position on authorship remains unclear
(Bull and Fetzer 2006). In spite of the fact that authorship and agency cannot be
equated, the acknowledgment of authorship tends to entail the acknowledgment
of responsibility and hence also of agency. So, should a politician acknowledge
authorship of the policy, then s/he also acknowledges responsibility. In this way,
a shift in pronouns can be used to achieve what Goffman would call a shift in
footing.
The strategic use of pronouns is of particular relevance to the investigation
of political discourse, which has become an instance of media communication
and mass speaking (Fairclough 1995). In that particular context, the expression of
alignment and solidarity is done through the strategic use of language in general,
and through the strategic use of pronouns in particular. Here, the group indexical
we is considered to be a major factor in mass speaking. Through we mass speak-
ers can display participation and commitment by signifying over-inclusion and
under-inclusion (Janney 2002): the former refers to the use of linguistic forms
that are more general from a semantic viewpoint, for instance the use of the pro-
noun everybody, generic you, plural we or indefinite plural instead of first-person
singular I. The latter refers to the use of parts of an object, person or entity, such
as head, Labour MP or right to vote, instead of the corresponding wholes, that is

body, minister or democracy.
In the following, the interactional organization of dominance is examined
more closely, considering the following configurations: (1) dominance is brought
into the interaction and it is brought out successfully, (2) dominance is brought
into the interaction but is not brought out successfully, and (3) dominance is not
brought into the interaction in the first place but is brought out successfully.
4. Doing dominance in political discourse
Political discourse and everyday conversation share a number of similarities but

they are also different. Regarding language production and language comprehen-
sion, both are based on the premise of intentionality and indexicality of communi-
cative action and both settings are constrained by generalized and particularized
contextual requirements. While everyday conversation, such as small talk and
other types of social chit-chat is looked upon as an instance of non-institutional
and non-public discourse, political discourse is classified as public, institutional
and, as has been discussed above, mediated and mediatized discourse, addressing
a more or less determinate set of mass audience. This does not only have rele-
vant consequences for the participation format but also for going on-record with
deontic commitment, which, adopting Searle’s argumentation “is internal to the
performance of the speech act” (Searle 2010, 83) and thus “runs counter to the
widely held view in philosophy that the deontic requirements are somehow exter-
nal to the type of speech act” (Searle 2010, 83). This is of particular importance
for the analysis of political discourse, which is public discourse par excellence:
Both the belief and the corresponding statement involve commitments. But the
commitment of the statement is much stronger. If the privately held belief turns
out to be false I need only revise it. But in the case of the statement, I am com-
mitted not only to revision in the case of falsehood, but I am committed to being
able to provide reasons for the original statement, I am committed to sincerity in
making it, and I can be held publicly responsible if it turns out to be false.
(Searle 2010, 82)
Speaking on behalf of collectives and speaking for collectives, and addressing

more and less particularized collectives, political discourse has become some kind
of mass discourse. In that frame of reference, politicians and political leaders may
deliver speeches, provide statements or participate in interviews and talk shows,
for instance, but they do not only voice their individual opinions but rather those
on whose behalf they speak. At the same time they intend to enhance their sphere
226 Anita Fetzer
of influence by expressing solidarity and power. The inherent construction, re-

construction and deconstruction of collectivity are a constitutive part of the activ-
ity of speaking for more or less determinate masses and speaking to more or less
determinate masses. In that context, the strategic use of the first-person-plural
pronoun we is the optimal strategy to keep the collective on whose behalf the pol-
itician speaks diplomatically vague.3 What is more, in our westernized mass-me-
dia colored societies, political actors need to communicate diverse affiliations in
their construction, reconstruction or deconstruction of identity, foregrounding
some while backgrounding others (cf. Fetzer and Bull 2012).
The examination of dominance as an interactional achievement feeding on
the construction, reconstruction and deconstruction of collectivity through the
strategic use of first-person pronouns I and we, and you and them in British polit-
ical discourse is based on a monologic set of data comprising 15 British political
speeches, and a dialogic set with 20 full-length pre-election interviews with candi-
dates from the British Labour Party, the Conservative and the Liberal Democrats
recorded between 1997 and 2003, and 9 full-length interviews with British politi-
cians from the program “On the Record” recorded in 1990, viz. by politicians in a
powerful position who bring power and dominance into the interaction. That also
holds for the speeches, which were delivered at annual party political conferences
either by the leaders of the three major political parties (Conservative, Labour,
Liberal Democrat) or by candidates for the 2005 Conservative Party leadership
election. All of them were broadcast in full on UK television, thus in effect not
only to the audience physically present in the auditorium, but also to the nation
as a whole. As a consequence, they are very much showcases for each politician,
given that social comparisons are inevitably made between them in terms of their
qualities as politicians and as possible leaders who may unify diverse interests and
ideologies.
The goal of this section is not to present a quantitative analysis of the distri-
bution of use of personal pronouns in the monologic and dialogic sets of data
but rather to demonstrate in a qualitative micro analysis how people, power and
solidarity are constructed locally, how they are reconstructed, and how they are
deconstructed, considering the referential domains of the pronouns under inves-
tigation as well as their local linguistic contexts.
3. The same line of reasoning holds for the audience design and the singling out of particular-
ized and generalized sets of audience. Analogously to the strategic use of we and the strategic
construction of collectivity, the strategic employment of you allows the speaker to construct
and reconstruct collectivity with a more or less determinate set of mass audiences of whom the
speaker is a part, or with whom she or he disassociates her/himself with, thus deconstructing
collectivity.
4.1 Dominance is brought into the political discourse and it is brought

out successfully
In the context of political discourse in the western mediatized societies, politi-

cians bring in their discourse identity as a politician of the party in government,
the party in opposition or of a grassroot movement into the discourse and they
intend to bring that discourse identity out in the discourse in order to enhance
their dominant statuses in the political arena. In the monologic configuration of a
party-political speech, party leaders as well as candidates running for leadership
bring in a powerful role, and in that context, they intend to exercise power in-
tentionally thus doing dominance. That also holds for the dialogic configuration
of a political interview where leading politicians of the opposition or of a grass-
root movement, politicians of the leading political parties and members of the
government, above all the Prime Minister or president and their ministers and
secretaries of state bring in their power-endowed discourse identities and intend
to bring them out successfully thus doing dominance in discourse and enhancing
their statuses in the social hierarchies.
An important strategy for bringing-in their political discourse identities is
the entextualizing of their roles and affiliations in the political arena thus assign-
ing these unbounded entities of context the status of bounded objects (cf. Fetzer
2011). To be more precise, the multiple discourse identities of political agents are
no clear-cut entities but rather embedded in context. By entextualizing particular
roles and identities, these are singled out from other potential roles and identities;
at the same time they are assigned the status of a bounded object and made an
object of talk.4 This usually occurs in the opening section of a political interview,
in which the interviewer entextualizes the politician’s role, for instance by spell-
ing out their full name and role in the government as in excerpt (1), which ac-
knowledges her/his status in the political arena, by making explicit the politician’s
historical background referring to his role as a new-comer in “his first full length
interview” and by naming his role in the shadow cabinet in excerpt (2), and by self
entextualizing his role in the party ‘as the first leader in the Labour Party’s history
to win three full consecutive terms in office’ in excerpt (3):5
4. Fetzer (2011) provides a macro- and micro-analysis of the entextualization of an unbound-

ed spatial domain referred to by “here” and “there” in political discourse.
5. To facilitate readability, the transcription adheres to orthographical standards while cod-
ing spoken-language-specific phenomena, such as repetitions and elliptic utterances. Linguistic
cues relevant to the argumentation are printed in bold. Grammatical gender is in accordance
with natural gender.
228 Anita Fetzer
(1) Good afternoon and welcome to on the record. In today’s programme mad
cow disease and the Minister of Agriculture, John Gummer, argues his case
that your beef is safe in his hands. (On the Record 20.05.90)
(2) Today in his first full length interview as the Shadow Secretary of State for
Employment Tony Blair goes On the Record. (On the Record 27.05.90)
(3) Thank you thank you for that welcome thank you for your support thank you
for the hard work, faith and courage that means I stand before you as the first
leader in the Labour Party’s history to win three full consecutive terms in
office. (Tony Blair 27.09.2005)
Explicit references to the politician’s roles and discourse identities are also found
in the closing section of a political interview. These have been identified as refer-
ences to the media frame and interpreted as linguistic cues, which may indicate
“that the social identities of the coparticipants have remained unharmed” (Fetzer
2006, 189).
The interviewer’s entextualizations of a politician’s roles and affiliations which
do not occur in the opening and closing sections tend to have a challenging func-
tion, as is the case in excerpt (4) with “Prime Minister”:
(4) Prime Minister, you say you want half the country to go into further educa-
tion. On your watch as Prime Minister, the number of applicants for univer-
sity has fallen year on year on year, since 1997.
(Question time special 30.05.2001)
The next excerpt examines the construction, reconstruction and deconstruction

of collectivity anchored to the strategic use of we in the monologic scenario of a
political speech. It stems from a leadership contestant speech by David Cameron
from the Conservatives. Excerpt (6) is from his leader speech when the Conser-
vatives were the Opposition party:
(5) (…) real change is ‘bout changing our culture and identity and making it
right for today. It’s not some slick re-branding exercise or marketing exercise
in spin. It’s about making sure that at the next election when all of you and
when I when everyone in this room goes out and fights the greatest battle of
our lives street by street, house by house, flat by flat that we have a message
that is relevant to people today, that shows we love this modern country as it
is and that shows that we think our best days lie ahead as a country …
(David Cameron 04.10.2005)
The construction of collectivity in (5) anchored to the first-person plural pronoun

we/our co-occurs with the NP “culture and identity” over which it has scope. It
presupposes the existence of the NP and thus imports the context of a re-concep-
tualization of collective culture and identity. What is more, it not only imports
that sort of context into the speech but rather entextualizes it by spelling out what
it is not, viz. no “marketing exercise in spin”, thus leaving the domain of reference
diplomatically vague so that an addressee may fill the gap in line with their pre-
ferred interpretation. While leaving the re-conceptualized culture and identity
indeterminate, the construction and reconstruction of collectivity is made more
determinate, entailing the speaker’s self-reference with the first-person singular
pronoun I, connecting it with all of you, which may refer to the media-frame
audience, the members of the Conservative Party, or to any “generic you”, and
then entextualizing it by narrowing down its referential domain to everyone in
this room, and then again specifying the referential domain to collective “we/us”,
which may refer to the British in “our lives”, and to the Conservative Party and its
supporters in “we have a message”, “we love this modern country”, and “we think
our best days lie ahead”. The construction and reconstruction of collectivity goes
hand in hand with the speaker’s doing dominance in context: by constructing and
reconstructing a relevant collective, he deliberately exercises power, enhancing
his social status. This is further supported by the co-occurrence of we/us with
deictic expressions of proximity, viz. place deictic “here”, and the demonstratives
“this” and “these”, foregrounding collectivity and solidarity by intensifying the
pragmatic force of his communicative intention to persuade the present audience,
the mediated audience and the British people to support Conservative policies,
which is yet another collective concept.
In extract (6), David Cameron does not only construct and reconstruct col-
lectivity, but he also deconstructs collectivity by an explicit juxtaposition of us and
them. Through that juxtaposition he intentionally exercises power over “them”
thereby enhancing his position as a powerful leader of the opposition:
(6) This week we have shown that we are back in the centre ground of British
politics. A stable economy. Fighting crime. Backing the NHS and our state
schools. Childcare and flexible working. Improving our environment and
quality of life. These are people’s priorities – these are our priorities. We’ve
seen this week on this stage fantastic new candidates, one third of them
women. But it’s not just who we select. It’s what they do. Our new candidates
they’re changing the way that we think about politics, they’re not just cam-
paigning and delivering leaflets but they’re making a difference in their com-
munities. This week we’ve done that here in Bournemouth. Conservatives,
converting a disused church into a community centre. That’s our idea that’s
social responsibility right here in action. (…)
230 Anita Fetzer
Although we agree with Labour about trust schools, there’s still a pro-
found divide between our approach to education and their approach. They
think equality means treating every child the same. Including kids with
learning difficulties in classes with the brightest. Forcing schools to accept
disruptive pupils, putting up with bad behaviour, no matter what the
damage does to other children. We think equality means something else.
Individual children have individual needs, individual abilities, and individ-
ual interests. Real equality means giving individual children what is right
for them. That should mean more setting and streaming within schools - so
each child can develop at the pace that works for them. It should mean clear
rules of behaviour – so that our children grow up knowing the difference
between right and wrong.
And by the way, I think it matters and I think it means something
whether you’re a man and a woman, or a woman and a woman or a man and
another man. And I am proud that we supported civil partnerships.
(David Cameron 18.11.2006)
As has been shown in the analysis of excerpt (5), the construction and reconstruc-
tion of collectivity is connected intrinsically with first-person-plural self-refer-
ences co-occurring with NPs entextualizing collective values, such as education
(“schools”), “environment” and “quality of life”. That culture- and society-based
collectivity is related to the ideology and values of the Conservative Party, as is
manifest in the predications “we have shown” and “we have done”, and “we are
back” and “we select”, demonstrating collective determination as well as a col-
lective exercise of power. However, collectivity and a dominant status is not only
constructed and reconstructed in the actual delivery of the speech, the “here and
now”. Through the use of the perfective aspect, it is assigned a more sustainable
status, connecting the actual present with the past history of Conservative collec-
tivity.
In the second part of excerpt (6), David Cameron constructs the collective of
leading British political parties, conjoining Labour and Conservatives on educa-
tional policies (“we agree with Labour about trust schools”). At the same time, he
deconstructs the collective by spelling out the “profound divide”, entextualizing
both Labour (“they think”) and Conservative (“we think”) ideologies, enhancing
again the dominant status of the conservatives. Another interesting issue in the
construction, reconstruction and deconstruction of collectivity in the excerpt is
the final part in which first-person-singular and first-person-plural self-referenc-
es co-occur, making explicit the speaker’s beliefs (“I think”) and feelings (“I am
proud”) while at the same time demonstrating that they are a constitutive part
of Conservative policy (“we supported”). Embedded in the argument is gener-
ic-meaning you referring to an indeterminate collective of people with different
sexual preferences. Again, the strategic construction, reconstruction and decon-

struction of collectivity are a powerful means of intensifying the pragmatic force
of the politician’s argument locally, and of their argumentation as a whole, thus
supporting the interactional organization of dominance on the one hand, and sol-
idarity on the other. In the following, attempted and successful deconstructions of
doing dominance are examined more closely.
4.2 Dominance is brought into the political discourse but it is not brought
out successfully
As has been the case in the section above, a dominant status of the participants
may be brought into the discourse because of their social position in politics or
government, for instance. This does not mean, however, that the political agents
bring out that status successfully in a political speech or in an interview. In the
monologic configuration of a party-political speech, the party leader, candidates
running for leadership or members and leaders of government may not bring
out their dominant status at particular stages in their speech, when they do not
receive the expected applause. Instead, they may receive heckling or booing, as is
the case in excerpt (7). Alternatively, the dominant status of an opponent, such as
the leader of the government or of the opposition, is juxtaposed with the project-
ed status of self and thereby deconstructed, as is the case in excerpts (8) and (9).
In the dialogic configuration of an interview, the deconstruction of a dominant
status is generally restricted to confrontational negotiation-of-validity sequences,
as is the case in excerpt (10). In the data investigated, the not-bringing-out of a
dominant status brought-in occurred only locally in the party-political speeches
or interviews. This is because of the mediated status of political discourse, and
because of the generally agreed-upon questions in interviews. There may be local
deviations from those contracts, as has been shown for critical incidents or staged
antagonism (cf. Fetzer 2000).
In excerpt (7), the then leader of the Labour Party and former Prime Min-
ister, Tony Blair, intends to enhance his dominant status in his party which had
been hampered by his decision to send British troops to Iraq. Switching between
I and we constructing collectivity and solidarity on the one hand, he intends to do
dominance on the other by referring to “an important speech”. Instead of receiv-
ing the expected applause, there is heckling and booing and one non-applauding
participant is singled out and referred to explicitly by “sir”:
(7) Right and now for the speech. So here we are again, my toughest week yet,
since the last one, until the next one. An important speech, I’ve got a lot
to say, in fact I bumped into Rodney Bickerstaff who’s written a few good
232 Anita Fetzer
speeches in his time, [CHEERS] and I told him I was I was worried this speech
is going to be too [HECKLING AND BOOING] Thank you [HECKLING
AND BOOING] That’s that’s fine sir, you can make your protest, just thank
goodness we live in a democracy and you can. (Tony Blair 28.09.2004)
Politicians may not only construct and reconstruct collectivity but they may also
deconstruct the inclusion of an unfavorable colleague, e.g., the leader of the op-
position or the head of government, as is reflected in an excerpt from a speech
by the Conservative politician Michael Howard, deconstructing the then British
Prime Minister Tony Blair:
(8) What people want from their politicians is: Accountability. Responsibility.
And a little humility. The very opposite of what we’ve had from Tony Blair.
(Michael Howard 05.10.2004)
The same strategy is employed by Tony Blair, constructing and reconstructing

collectivity of those who fight “to liberate the individual”, and entextualizing their
“struggle against injustice”. This may, in principle, refer to any proponent of de-
mocracy in the whole universe. However, the indeterminate domain of reference
is narrowed down by deconstructing a potential Conservative membership, jux-
taposing their ideology with that of Labour:
(9) And this will be a progressive future as long as we remember that the reason
for our struggle against injustice has always been to liberate the individ-
ual. And the argument is not between those who do and those who do not
love freedom. It is between the Conservatives who believe freedom requires
only that Government stand back while the fittest and most privileged pros-
per. And we who understand, that freedom for the individual, for every
individual, whatever their starting point in life, is best achieved through a
just and a strong community. (Tony Blair 28.09.2004)
The construction, reconstruction and deconstruction of collectivity with the

first-person-plural pronoun we/us/our in the monologic genre of a political
speech is a powerful strategy for a politician to align with the supporters of a po-
litical party, irrespective of its ideology. Because of the indeterminate referential
domain of first-person-plural self-references, supporters may interpret favorable
messages as addressed to them, and unfavorable messages as being directed to-
wards others. If the referential domain is made more determinate by the strate-
gies of juxtaposition or entextualization, the referential domains of collectivity are
made more determinate, and it is those parts of a speech, which may function as
soundbites or quotations for further discourse.
Extract (10) stems from an interview in the 2001 general election between
Jonathan Dimbleby (JD) and the then Prime Minister Tony Blair (TB). The inter-
viewer’s question attempts to deconstruct the politician’s credibility and thus his
dominant status. In his response, Tony Blair juggles between constructing and
reconstructing collectivity on the one hand, and solidarity on the other by ex-
tending and narrowing down the referential domain of I- and we-based self-ref-
erences. While the first-person-singular self-references occur in the context of
cognitive verbs (“think”, “mean”), expression of emotion (“happy”) and intention-
ality (“will defend”), aligning with the audience and showing individual determi-
nation while deconstructing collectivity locally, first-person-plural self-references
are anchored to the collective of the Labour government (“spun against”, “judge”,
“do”, “have”, “deliver”, “say”) expressing collective action:
(10) JD More or less, yes. On- on- on spin, you know, Peter Mandelson said the
other day, there’s been too much spin, there ought to be more vision. Do
you accept the charge that there’s been too much spinning?
TB Well, I- I sometimes think we’re more, sort of, spun against than spin-
ning, in the sense that people have this huge thing about it all. But in the
end, why not just judge us on what we do? I mean, judge us on what we
do. I’m perfectly happy to be judged on what we do, because I will defend
the record that we have. And, you know, you- you talk a lot about pre-
sentation and everything. (…) But in the end, it’s not what matters. What
matters is, are we delivering on what we said, is the economy stronger, is
the money coming into public services, are we doing the things that we
said we would do. (Ask Tony Blair 05.05.2001)
In the dialogic setting of interview, the construction, reconstruction and decon-

struction of collectivity is more dynamic than in the monologic setting of speech.
The first-person-plural pronoun we allows speakers, and political speakers in par-
ticular, to keep their referential domains diplomatically vague. At the same time,
should the communicative need arise, speakers may entextualize the referential
domain thereby importing context into the communicative event and assigning it
the status of a bounded object.
4.3 Dominance is not brought into the political discourse but is brought
out successfully
In political discourse, leading politicians bring in some kind of dominant status.

That also holds for grassroot politicians and members of the audience taking over
the role of an interviewer in panel interviews. Relatively speaking, however, the
234 Anita Fetzer
degree of dominance brought in may vary: it tends to be lower for non-profes-

sional politicians and non-professional interviewers in the dialogic configuration
of an interview. For contestants in the leadership competition, the degree of dom-
inance is only slightly lower in the party-political arena.
Excerpt (11) stems from a panel interview with Tony Blair in which a member
of the audience (AM) asks the prime minister, a dominant person by definition,
a number of very direct question thereby bringing out his dominant status. The
attempted enhancement of the status of the member of the audience is not ac-
knowledged by the interviewer but rather challenged by a request to spell out that
charge. This is complied with by narrowing down the domain of accusation to
the very strong challenge of dishonesty (“I believe that he’s dishonest in presenta-
tion”), which is then extended to the Labour government (“his whole government
lacks trust”). The interviewer supports the intended deconstruction of the dom-
inant status of Tony Blair not only taking up the direct wording of the audience
member but also reduplicating it (“spin, spin spin”) thus signaling alignment:
(11) JD The man with the yellow shirt, down here.
AM W hen does Blair the politician put the interests of the country before
his own naked ambition, or Blair the- the Prime Minister put honesty
of presentation to the electorate before his government’s re-election.
Or are you just simply desperate to win at all costs?
JD What’s your central charge, inside that? Where’s he being dishonest with
you?
AM I believe that he’s dishonest in presentation. There’s too much spin,
du- double accounting, er-
JD OK.
AM Er, and generally speaking, his whole government i- lacks trust.
TB Right, so I think I’ll-
JD Spin, spin, spin- (Ask Tony Blair 05.05.2001)
The next extract comes from an interview in the 2001 general election between
David Dimbleby (DD) and William Hague (WH; then leader of the Conserva-
tives). As has been the case in (12), a member of the audience enhances his status
by asking a very direct question, challenging the Conservative party’s credibility
(“continual Tory half truths”) thereby attempting to lower their dominance. To
save his status, the politician needs to distance himself from the “Tory half truths”
while at the same time not speaking disrespectful of his political home. He em-
ploys the strategy of under-inclusion, not constructing collectivity and speaking
for the collective party but rather deconstructing the interviewer’s you-intended
collectivity, and speaking for the individual only. In Goffmanian terms, William
Hague adopts the footing of animator, author and principal when speaking for the
Conservatives (“we recognize”), and the country as a whole (“our immigration

laws”; “we recognize”; “we should not be closed off ”), and the footing of animator
and author when speaking for himself:
(12) AM Mr Hague, are you aware of the continual Tory half truths about the
so-called problem of immigration, and the damage that does to race
relations, and harbours innate racism?
WH I erm I actually have not spoken at all about immigration, except in an
interview last week to say that the Conservative Party had no proposals
to change our immigration laws, and that we recognize there was a legit-
imate role for immigration into this country. There is a certain amount of
emigration, and immigration, every year. And that is fine, that is how it
should be, we should not be closed off. What I am talking about is abuse
of the asylum system. And in my experience there are many people
who’ve been- become immigrants to this country, and they’ve waited
their turn, and they’ve filled in the forms, and they’ve had to wait, often
a long time, to get their fiancee a spouse into this country, and they are
appalled to see that after they have followed all the immigration rules,
quite rightly, other people try to abuse the asylum system. It’s the asylum
system I want to sort out. (QUESTION TIME SPECIAL 23.05.2001)
Because of its default referential domain, the first-person-plural pronoun we is

the prime candidate for the construction and reconstruction of collectivity. It re-
fers to specific individuals in specific contexts, where it indexes one or more of
their multiple discursive, social and interactional roles. The local meaning of we is
inferred from its referential domain, which can be illustrated by a series of inclu-
sive circles. For instance, the referential domain of inclusive we entails self-refer-
encing I and we. Following Bazzanella (2002), the pronoun indexes an occasional
context and an activated context in conversation, and it is these contexts, to which
its local meaning is anchored. In the former, the referent is retrieved from the
shared context through gestures, for example, and in the latter the referent acti-
vates a particular context, which is part of the participants’ common ground. If
we adapt Bazzanella’s model to the domain of mediated political discourse, the
notion of occasional context does not seem relevant because the audience does
not share the direct referential space shared between interviewer and interviewee
in a political interview or a political speech, or the political speaker and her/his
audience, but only a mediated one. The notion of activated context is very import-
ant because that is the space where the actual language processing and interpreta-
tion of the audience are done. Here, we can refer to a political party and activate
that particular context while at the same time contributing to the construction,
reconstruction and deconstruction of collectivity. From a different angle, we may
236 Anita Fetzer
import context into the ongoing discourse, e.g., a particular political party or one
of its sub-groups, and it may also entextualize context, thus making explicit the
referential domain of the indexical expression and assigning an unbounded ref-
erential domain (or an unbounded object) the status of a bounded referential
domain (or a bounded object) in the ongoing discourse. This is generally done by
its co-occurrence with a political party, the government, or some other explicitly
named collective (cf. Fetzer 2011, 2013).
5. Conclusion
Because of their status as an indexical expression and their paradigmatic position,

the first-person-singular and plural pronouns I and we, and the second-person
pronoun you as well as the other-reference they seem to be prime candidates for
the construction, reconstruction and deconstruction of collectivity, solidarity and
dominance, foregrounding particular roles and identities while backgrounding
others. All of the indexicals may be used to achieve those goals, and it is both the
local context, where collectivity, solidarity and dominance are brought out, and
the more global sociocultural context, through which they are brought in. This
is particularly true of monologic and dialogic political discourse, in which poli-
ticians and other political agents speak on behalf of political parties, commities,
governments and the like.
The dialogic genre of political interview underlies different contextual con-
straints and requirements than the monologic genre of speech. Here, the refer-
ential domains of the pronoun we, and of other indexical expressions, may be
negotiated directly, and participants may be requested to make the referential
domain unambiguously clear, which is not the case in the monologic setting of
political speech, where a direct negotiation of meaning is not possible. Further-
more, in the dialogic setting of interview, there is a structured interplay between
self-references with I, we or you, and other-references with you, and that is why
an analysis of the construction, reconstruction and deconstruction of collectivity
needs to differentiate between a we- and a you-anchored construction of collec-
tivity, that is to say, is the interviewee addressed as a representative of a collective,
or rather as an individual.
Contrary to everyday interactions, where “[c]omprehenders / interlocutors
arrive at a particular understanding of we in a particular context, and usually
avoid interpretations other than the intended one by exploiting all the contextu-
alization cues (e.g., the asymmetrical power relationship, ..) which allow for draw-
ing the right inferences” (Bazzanella 2002, 250), politicians exploit the procedure
in order to get in a conversational implicature. They activate particular contexts,
import them into the ongoing discourse, and they may entextualize context as-
signing it the status of a bounded object.
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Language, normativity and power
The discursive construction of objectophilia
Heiko Motschenbacher
The present paper aims to shed light on how social actors orient to sexual
normativity in their talk. It relates normativity to (Foucauldian) notions of dis-
course and power, arguing that local linguistic negotiations of sexuality are gen-
erally shaped by a competition between dominant and marginalized discourses.
The empirical section focusses on how sexual normativity is linguistically con-
structed in conversations related to objectophilia, a form of sexual desire that
is clearly non-normative. The data consists of telephone calls from the German
radio phone-in show Domian. It is shown how speakers co-construct sexual
normativity in general as well as more specific forms of it such as humano-
normativity and heteronormativity. Even the construction of non-normative
desires is predominantly structured by normative sexuality discourses.
1. Introduction: Sexual normativity, discourse and power
A recent development within the field of language and sexuality is the differen-
tiation between approaches that concentrate on the linguistic construction of
sexual desire (Cameron and Kulick 2003, 2005) and those that show a stronger
focus on sexual identities (Bucholtz and Hall 2004). Still, it must be acknowl-
edged that sexual construction in most contexts involves the construction of sex-
ual identities as well as desires and that an exclusive focus on only one of these
two aspects is, therefore, inadequate. Hence, the present paper uses the concept
of normativity as a starting point for its discussion and analysis of the role that
language plays in the discursive construction of sexuality. Another advantage of
the concept of normativity is that it allows for a more direct association between
the language used to construct sexuality and issues of power, which is a central
motivation of the current paper. A focus on normativity does not enforce a binary
choice between desire and identity, as normativity is relevant for the linguistic
240 Heiko Motschenbacher
construction of both sexual identities and desires (and their complex linkages; see
Motschenbacher 2014).
Modern linguistics, especially in its structure-oriented Saussurean and
Chomskyan strands, has largely declared itself to be a descriptive undertaking that
avoids prescriptive statements of how speakers should use language and rather
aims at a neutral description of how speakers behave linguistically. However, this
position could only be successful because it is based on the exclusion of any social
aspects that shape language in use. As soon as these aspects are admitted, it is dif-
ficult to view language as anything but a decisively normative and power-related
phenomenon (see Bourdieu 1991; Taylor 1997, ch. 8): people perceive language as
guided by normative principles of correctness or contextual appropriateness; lan-
guage teaching orients to normative standard grammar; certain linguistic features
are normatively associated with certain speaker groups and contexts; language
plays a normative role in nationalist discourses (“one nation – one people – one
language”); the monolingual native speaker is traditionally viewed as the norma-
tive authority; etc. The ways in which society shapes and controls the linguistic
behavior of individuals are numerous. A descriptive approach to language does
not just deny the influence of such normative authority, power and ideology on
language. It rules out, at the same time, the relevance of individual agency in
the shaping of language (Taylor 1997, 122). Linguistic agency as well as nor-
mativity are in such a theorization attributed to actual language use (Saussure’s
parole, Chomsky’s performance) and are therefore traditionally not deemed to be
of interest to linguistics, which concentrates on the abstract language system that
speakers of a particular speech community are said to share (Saussure’s langue) or
that ideal native speakers develop in their minds in accordance with the princi-
ples of universal grammar (Chomsky’s competence; see also Love 1994, 779–780).
From the perspective of Queer Linguistics (Hall 2013; Leap 2013; Motschen-
bacher 2010, 2011; Motschenbacher and Stegu 2013), it is important to note that
“language” and “sexuality” have in common that they are both normatively struc-
tured phenomena that are shaped by processes of discursive materialization. The
notion of “discourse” that is relevant here is not a purely linguistic one but more
related to Foucault’s definition of discourses as “practices that systematically form
the objects of which they speak” (Foucault 1972 [1969], 49), i.e. discourses struc-
ture our access to reality and knowledge. The normative structures associated
with “language” and “sexuality” have materialized through repetition in actual
(linguistic and/or sexual) performances. Still it needs to be acknowledged that
these processes may work quite differently across contexts and that a local focus
on such performances may find that the way “language” and/or “sexuality” has
become ritualized in a particular community of practice may differ drastically
from how this materialization process affects society at large. In other words,
Language, normativity and power 241
what may have the status of non-normative (linguistic, sexual) behavior when
viewed from a macro-perspective may be part of the interactional norm in a cer-
tain social micro-context. Norms that have larger social currency generally work
in the interest of an influential, high-status group that is in a position to enforce
its norms on society at large (Bowerman 2006, 702).
Foucauldian discourses are inextricably linked to issues of power. Some dis-
courses are prominent in public and therefore qualify as dominant discourses,
whereas others are more marginalized or even silenced (for a sexuality-related
discussion of this aspect, see Kulick 2005). This indicates that discourses do not
usually occur in isolation but are more likely to surface in webs of competing dis-
courses, with powerful discourses enjoying a perception of greater legitimacy. It is
important to point out that Foucault does not conceptualize power as a top-down
phenomenon, i.e. as a possession in the hands of certain powerful actors and in-
stitutions. He rather sees power in a bottom-up fashion, namely as a ubiquitous
phenomenon that pervades all human communication. Accordingly, power and
inequality are in the present study not viewed as phenomena that are necessarily
tied to individual participants in a conversational exchange but rather as associat-
ed with sexuality discourses whose competition can be said to constitute a power
struggle that is likely to affect participants’ linguistic choices. Foucault does not
see power in purely negative terms, as a repressive mechanism. He rather stresses
that an exertion of power invariably leads to resistance (Foucault 1978 [1976],
101; see also Mills 2003, 33–34). Even though discourse in the Foucauldian sense
is not restricted to language as a constructive medium, language plays a central
role in how discourses take shape. For linguists, this means that language and lan-
guage use contain traces of discourses that can be studied by means of linguistic
analysis.
Historically speaking, it is of interest to note that the evolution of heteronor-
mativity has been concomitant with a reconceptualization of sexuality in the
19th century. This conceptual shift, which has been described by Foucault (1978
[1976]), changed sexuality from something that used to be viewed in terms of
sexual activities and desires (typically constructed via verbs) to a characteristic
that is now tied to the practicing person as a social category (typically constructed
via personal nouns and adjectives; see also Cameron and Kulick (2003, 22) for an
overview of Roman sexual terminology, which includes many deverbal agentive
nouns and is therefore still more firmly rooted in a desire conceptualization). The
Western social categories of the “heterosexual” and the “homosexual” evolved in
the 19th century as the result of pathologizing labeling processes in the medical
sciences (Foucault 1978 [1976], 43). Prior to this, the church and the courts used
to be central institutions shaping dominant sexuality discourses. In religious and
legal contexts, it was certain sexual acts (like sodomy) that were condemned or
punished (Cameron and Kulick 2003, 19–21). The idea that certain types of sex-
ual activity may function as the basis for sexual identity categories (and that one
is rather than does one’s sexuality) is therefore a relatively recent phenomenon.
Concurrent with this personalization of sexuality is the development of sexual
norms that can be said to “rank” sexual identities.
In fact, the aim of some language and sexuality scholars to take desire rather
than identity as a starting point for their discussions can be seen as an attempt to
reverse (or at least not further entrench) the normative discourses that are now
widely tied to sexual identities. This procedure illustrates another important fact
about (linguistic as well as sexual) norms: they are context-dependent and subject
to continual change in human communication processes. Although concrete lin-
guistic/sexual performances are generally influenced by an abstract set of ritual-
ized norms, they are clearly less likely to conform to them entirely. In other words,
there is invariably a gap between the norm and actual performances that shifts the
materialization of the norm into a certain direction. In cases of an intended sub-
version of current norms, this gap may be relatively large (consider, for example,
drag queen acts), but subversion may also come in more subtle shades, namely in
the numerous ways that people do not meet social norms on an everyday basis
(see Butler 2004, 218).
Even though Foucault’s description of the historical shift from a desire-based
to a (more) identity-based conceptualization of sexuality can today be consid-
ered well-received wisdom, the linguistic consequences that such a shift is likely
to cause have so far not been studied. In principle, one can think of two ways
in which this can be done. The most direct approach would be to use historical
language data dating from before the 19th century and to compare them with
the construction of sexuality in recent language material. A more indirect way of
studying the conceptual shift is to use contemporary language data and analyze
how desires that have not yet or only marginally materialized as sexual identities
are linguistically constructed. It is the latter of these two approaches that is ad-
opted in the present study. Section 2 introduces objectophilia as a non-normative
form of desire that has so far only marginally become discursively materialized.
This is done to provide the basis for a comprehensive qualitative study of how
sexual normativity creeps into talk about objectophilia. The data and methods
used in the study are outlined in Section 3. The empirical analysis in Section 4
describes how participants in a German radio phone-in show orient to sexual
normativity as a structuring principle. The concluding section recapitulates cen-
tral insights from the analyses and discusses their implications for the discursive
shift from desire to identity in the conceptualization of sexuality.
2. Objectophilia
One form of desire which is only starting to become discursively shaped has been
termed “objectophilia” or “objectum sexuality”, i.e. a person’s sexual desire for in-
animate objects: “[O]bjectophiles experience a range of emotional, romantic and/
or sexual attractions to objects, often forgoing or dispensing with human roman-
tic or sexual intimacy” (Marsh 20101). Even though some cases of objectophilia
have recently been made public by the media, there is to date only minimal re-
search on the topic (apart from a questionnaire study conducted by Marsh 2010).
Two such cases that have received public media attention are those of Erika Eiffel
and Eija-Riitta Eklof Berliner-Mauer, who have claimed to have been in romantic
relationships with the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Berlin Wall. As the names of
these two persons suggest, they also claim to have married their objects of desire
(see the 2008 British documentary Married to the Eiffel Tower or Thadeusz 2007).
However, objectophiles do not invariably engage in romantic relationships with
famous buildings. They may also express a desire for smaller inanimate objects of
everyday life. Although self-identified objectophiles are few in number, they seem
to be relatively well connected to each other in internet forums (see, for example,
Objectum Sexuality Internationale 2011).
Projecting sexual desire onto inanimate objects is of course not an entirely
new phenomenon. Various forms of sexual fetishism have been documented (for
a linguistic study on this topic, see Wilson 2012). However, what distinguishes
a sexual fetish from objectophilia is that objectum sexuals do not just see their
desired objects as toys for achieving temporal sexual gratification but rather as
long-term partners with whom/which they feel deeply and romantically united.
It is not surprising that the wider public has tended to view objectophilia as a
paraphilia or pathology, often evoking a sexual trauma as a cause, which is com-
monly understood as the reason why objectophiles turn from human beings to
inanimate objects when searching for emotional or sexual satisfaction. Sexologist
Amy Marsh (2010) comes to the conclusion that,
[j]udging from the thoughts expressed in open-ended responses, O[bjectum]
S[exuality] appears to be a genuine – though rare – sexual orientation. The emo-
tions and experiences reported by OS people correspond to general definitions of
sexual orientation. (Marsh 2010)
1. This article is taken from an online journal and does not contain any pagination.
3. Data and method
The data for this study is taken from the German radio phone-in program
Domian, which is simultaneously broadcast on the German TV channel WDR
and has been aired in its current form since 1995. The program has become fa-
mous for allowing callers to publicly discuss often very delicate, sexualized topics
with the show host Jürgen Domian. Callers are identified by their first name only,
which is in many cases a pseudonym. This allows callers to stay largely anony-
mous, even though their voices stay unmodified. The host is a well-known me-
dia figure in Germany. He has never made a secret of his sexual orientation as a
homosexually inclined bisexual man and has proven to react in a fairly tolerant
fashion to sexual topics that lie well outside the heteronormative realm (his motto
being Alles ist erlaubt, solange es gut tut und niemandem schadet. “Everything is
allowed as long as it feels good and does not harm anybody.”). It is, therefore,
a combination of the non-heteronormative atmosphere of the program and the
possibility to communicate anonymously that seems to create a public space in
which topics such as objectophilia – otherwise a largely silenced discourse – can
be discussed.
From the material generated by the show, a small corpus consisting of four
conversations was compiled, in which callers talked about their objectophile de-
sires. The video files of these conversations are accessible on YouTube. The con-
versations were transcribed with the help of the transcription software F4 (created
by researchers at the University of Marburg, Germany). Detailed transcription
conventions can be found in the appendix.
The four conversations were not chosen randomly, but rather because they
represent the clearest cases of objectophilia on the show so far (compared to
other conversations that have a stronger leaning towards the sexual fetish side).
Moreover, it is interesting to note that the interactants in the last three of these
conversations also create intertextual links to the earlier conversation(s) on the
topic on the show. The first conversation took place during an edition of the show
under the motto “extreme predispositions” (Extreme Neigungen; 2 March, 2001),
in which a transsexual man (using the pseudonym Joachim, aged 35) talked about
his romantic relationship with a Hammond organ (duration: 13:27 mins). The
second objectophile caller (Jörg, aged 34) phoned in only one week later (8 March,
2001) and identified himself as being a transsexual man in love with a circular
saw bench (duration: 13:50 mins). The third conversation was aired on 7 De-
cember, 2002. This time a caller (Ruth, aged 50) described her romantic relation-
ship with a jukebox (duration: 13:00 mins). The last conversation in the corpus
is more recent, dating from 10 July, 2011. In this conversation, the caller (Steffen,
aged 42) elaborates on his partnership with a rubber tree (duration: 15:49 mins).
Besides these four main stories, the callers also talk more generally about their
objectophile desires and about other objects with which they were previously in
relationships (Ruth, for example, talks about her former love for a TV set, railway
tracks and a chimney), but these aspects only form shorter anecdotes within the
conversations.
The analysis will proceed qualitatively, studying in detail how the interactants
construct sexuality and orient to sexual normativity in their talk. This will be
done in a bottom-up manner. The data was searched manually for instances of
normative construction. These were then compared in order to detect recurring
patterns in the data. The subheadings in Section 4 correspond to the main pat-
terns as identified in the corpus.
4. Sexual desire, identity and normativity in conversations

on objectophilia
At the most general level, it can be said that the data analyzed yield a wealth of
evidence for how sexual normativity surfaces in conversations. The mechanisms
detected range from more indirect, implicational devices to direct references to
normativity. The following section first illustrates how objectophile identities and
desires are linguistically constructed by the participants. Subsequently it is dis-
cussed how interactants orient to various kinds of normativity, namely normativ-
ity in general, humano-normativity and heteronormativity.
4.1 The linguistic construction of objectophile desire vs. identity
Before the analysis of how normativity is oriented to in talk, it is worthwhile to

look at whether objectophilia is constructed as a sexual desire or as an identity in
the data. However, this procedure is also indirectly linked to normativity. When
sexual desires are transformed into identities, it can be expected that they develop
their own sets of norms. In the present data, only little evidence of such materi-
alization can be found. Even though other types of sexual and non-sexual self-
identification (for example, as a female, male, transsexual, bisexual, gay, Swiss,
shy or sensitive person) are common across the four conversations and despite
the fact that objectophilia is the central topic, only one of the four callers (Ruth)
identifies as being (an) objectophile (ich bin objektsexuell; see extract (1)):2
(1) III – 00:29 to 00:40
Ruth: also ich ä:hm ich bin objektse- objektsexuell (.) das heißt ich bin also seit ich
denken kann äh in gegenstände verliebt das heißt also ich kann mit men-
schen sexuell überhaupt nichts anfangen
‘so I uhm am objectum se- objectum sexual (.) this means for as long as I
can think I have been in love with objects so this means I don’t know at all
what to do with human beings sexually’
In this description, Ruth constructs herself as a person who has come to terms
with her sexual identity. The identity label objektsexuell “objectum sexual” gives
her account an impression of finality. However, she also indicates that this finality
is the result of a longer and at times troublesome process of self-identification:
(2) III – 09:27 to 09:57

Ruth: […] (.) ich hab schon darunter gelitten einfach a- es ist nicht einfach wenn
man merkt anders zu sein (xx) als die andern (.) und dann die sexualität
die hatte für mich auch keinen namen ich wusste gar nicht was mit mir LOS
ist was äh was das überhaupt ist jetzt wenigstens hat die sexualität für mich
einen namen also es heißt objektsexualität wenigstens DAS […]
‘[…] I have suffered from this easy a- it is not easy when you realize you are
different (xx) from the others (.) and then the sexuality didn’t have a name
for me either I didn’t know what is wrong with me what uh that actually is
at least now the sexuality has a name for me so it is called objectum sexu-
ality at least that […]’
In extract (2), Ruth describes her incipient identification process as a matter of

suffering, caused by the realization that she is different from other people (ich
hab schon darunter gelitten […] es ist nicht einfach wenn man merkt anders zu
sein (xx) als die andern). Even though being different does not per se represent
a negative aspect, it becomes clear from Ruth’s account that she conceptualizes
her being different in terms of deviation from the norm. The description shows
that she does not so much perceive her objectophile desires as problematic but
2. Individual forms and passages taken from the data are quoted by means of a code which
consists of a Roman number (I to IV) identifying the four conversations chronologically and a
time mark identifying at which point in the conversation the respective passage occurred. For
the sake of readability, longer passages in which the conversational floor is largely held by one
of the two participants while the other participant only gives minimal feedback are here repro-
duced as monologic (i.e. unlike in the original transcript).
rather the fact that these desires do not seem to fit into dominant sexual identity
categories and therefore appear to be illegitimate and pathological. Ruth’s meta-
linguistic comment die sexualität die hatte für mich auch keinen namen (“the sex-
uality didn’t have a name for me either”) bears witness to the discursive struggle
she underwent, apparently feeling that there were no words to express her per-
sonal experiences. The existence of an identity label, on the other hand, bestows
a higher degree of legitimacy and recognition on objectophilia that is likely to
relieve the personal crisis that objectophiles may face. However, Ruth describes
this circumstance only as a partial relief. This becomes evident in her continued
construction of her desires as “wrong” (ich wusste gar nicht was mit mir LOS ist)
and through her use of the adverb wenigstens “at least”, which implies that naming
cannot totally erase the unintelligibility of objectophilia.
The construction of a pre-identity stage, i.e. references to objectophile desires
rather than identities, is far more pervasive in the four conversations. The callers
commonly state, for example, that they feel sexually attracted and emotionally
attached to their object, become sexually aroused through their object, perform
certain sexual acts with it, or that their object shows certain features that they find
particularly appealing. This is illustrated in extracts (3) and (4) below.
(3) I – 04:19 to 04:58

Domian: ich äh ich rede jetzt von der sexualität was macht dich geil an der orgel
‘I uh I am talking about sexuality now what about the organ makes you
horny’
Joachim: ja das aussehen [auch wie die aussieht]
‘yes the looks [what it looks like too’]
Domian: [das aussehen] (.) das heißt wenn du die orgel
‘[the looks] (.) this means when you the organ’
äh wenn eine orgel in ei- in einer best- in einer bestimmten form
‘uh when an organ is in a- in a spec- in a specific shape’
Joachim: ja= ‘yes=’
Domian: =auch AUSsieht hat das eine DIrekte sexuelle erregung bei dir zur folge=
‘=as well this also causes direct sexual arousal in you=’
Joachim: =ja genau das AUSsehen halt das is für mich wie n wie n schöner KÖRper
halt ne die=
‘=yes exactly the appearance that is for me like a like a beautiful body you
see the=’
Domian: =SO jetzt is- bist du sexuell erregt von von der orgel namens rosaLINda (.)
was passIERT dann du stehst sexuell erregt vor der orgel was passiert
‘=so now i- you are sexually aroused by by the organ named rosalinda (.)
what happens then you are standing sexually aroused in front of the organ
what happens’
ja is dann halt schon dass ich die dann (.) äh: auch KÜsse dann auch mit
Joachim:
streicheln und wirklich auch in ARM nehmen ich hab dann wirklich was was
ich in den ARM nehmen kann das is n k- einfach n schö- wunderschöner
körper
‘yes then it happens that I (.) uh: kiss it as well then also with stroking and
really taking it into my arms as well I really have then something some-
thing I can take into my arms that is a b- simply a beau- very beautiful
body’
In extract (3), Domian asks the caller what it is about his Hammond organ that
turns him on (was macht dich geil an der orgel). He replies that it is the appearance
of the organ that has this effect (das aussehen; wie die aussieht) and even likens the
organ to a “beautiful body” (wie n schöner KÖRper). This amounts to a construc-
tion of the objectifying male gaze on the organ. As is common for conversations
on sexual topics on the show, the host then continues with his investigative ques-
tions by asking about concrete sexual acts that the caller performs with the organ
(du stehst sexuell erregt vor der orgel was passiert). Joachim then responds with a
description of these sexual acts, which include kissing and stroking the object as
well as taking the organ into his arms (dass ich die dann (.) äh auch KÜsse dann
auch mit streicheln und wirklich auch in ARM nehmen). A similar desire focus is
evident in the following passage:
(4) III – 04:27 to 04:50

Ruth: und ja als ich in diese wohnung zog a- hab ich doch keine ahnung gehabt
dass ich mich jemals würde in diesen kamin verlieben (.) das ist dann gesche-
hen (.) dann hat seine WÄ:Rme die beHA:Glichkeit die geMÜ:Tlichkeit das
hat mich dann TOTAL in den bann genommen (.) und dann leider musst
ich dann jetzt aus dieser wohnung rausziehen also weil der hausmeister hat
dann seine nichte rein getan also das war für mich also GANZ schlimm ich
war dann am nullpunkt also […]
‘and yes when I moved into this flat I didn’t know at all that I would ever
fall in love with this chimney (.) that happened then (.) then its warmth
the comfort the cosiness this totally captivated me then (.) and then un-
fortunately I now had to move out from this flat well because the caretaker
let his niece move in so that was well very upsetting for me I was at rock
bottom then […]’
In extract (4), the caller clearly constructs her relationship with a chimney as
highly emotional, echoing well-known love-related discourses. Among them is
the trope that love hits people unexpectedly (hab ich doch keine ahnung gehabt
dass ich mich jemals würde in diesen kamin verlieben) and captivates them (das
hat mich dann TOTAL in den bann genommen). Moreover, she conceptualizes it
as a great loss that she had to move out from the flat, which was perceived by her
as a forced separation from the chimney (das war für mich also GANZ schlimm
ich war dann am nullpunkt).
It becomes evident from these descriptions that objectophile desires are not
conceptualized in fundamentally different ways from more normative human de-
sires. Three of the four callers do not use objectophile as an identity label but iden-
tify themselves with other more common sexual identity labels (e.g. heterosexuell
“heterosexual”, I – 07:19; bisexuell “bisexual”, siebzig bis achtzig prozent schwul
“seventy to eighty per cent gay”, both IV – 06:17). This does not necessarily mean
that they do not consider objectophilia as a central part of their identity. It rather
represents evidence for the fact that objectophile identities have so far not discur-
sively materialized to a significant extent and are therefore not readily available as
a means of identification.
4.2 Orienting to sexual normativity in general
In the corpus data, sexual normativity partly surfaces in explicit judgments of

objectophile desires as exceptional. Note that exceptionality, as a matter of de-
scriptive normativity (Hall and LaFrance 2012), has relatively little normative
force as such. But the exceptionality of objectophilia is in the data mostly viewed
in negative terms. This is attested by the use of adjectival descriptors belonging
to the lexical fields “weird”, “strange”, “odd” or “crazy”, which clearly construct a
prescriptive form of normativity. Such constructions are invariably voiced by the
host, while the callers do not usually describe their own desires like this. A list of
the adjective phrases that are used in this way in the corpus is given under (5a):
(5) a. n bisschen kurios ‘a bit strange’ (I – 01:16)

sehr bizarr ‘very bizarre’ (I – 05:57)
das schrägste und verrückteste was ich in meinem leben gehört habe ‘the weird-
est and craziest [thing] I have ever heard in my life’ (I – 08:23)
das verrückteste was ich bisher gehört habe ‘the craziest [thing] I have heard so
far’ (I – 08:43)
ziemlich albern ‘pretty silly’ (II – 01:11)
so schwer zu verstehen ‘so hard to understand’ (II – 03:34)
so absurd ‘so absurd’ (II – 07:48)
völlig abstrus ‘completely absurd’ (II – 08:44)
so schräg ‘so weird’ (II – 10:02)
(etwas) sehr merkwürdiges ‘(something) very strange’ (III – 02:06)
ein bisschen seltsam ‘a bit strange’ (III – 03:29)

äußerst bizarr ‘extremely bizarre’ (III – 05:15)
sehr verrückt ‘very crazy’ (III – 12:59)
äußerst schräg ‘extremely weird’ (IV – 01:24)
sehr bizarr ‘very bizarre’ (IV – 02:02)
lustig ‘funny’ (IV – 04:20)
verrückt ‘crazy’ (IV – 05:04)
ausgesprochen schräg ‘downright weird’ (IV – 12:51)
(sowas) ungewöhnliches ‘(something) that unusual’ (IV – 12:51)
sehr schräg ‘very weird’ (IV – 15:19)
The high exceptionality of objectophilia is in these adjectival phrases further

stressed by the wealth of intensifiers and superlative forms used. The non-
normativity of objectophilia is also commonly expressed by means of noun phras-
es, as illustrated in (5b). These tend to resemble the most common adjectival word
fields identified above, sketching out objectophile desires as weird, crazy and non-
sensical.
(5) b. seltsame kapriole der sexualität ‘strange whim of sexuality’ (I – 09:30)

son sexuellen spleen ‘such a sexual spleen’ (I – 11:25)
seltsamkeiten ‘oddities’ (II – 10:59)
welche ungeheuren kapriolen ‘what monstrous whims’ (II – 13:36)
wahnsinn ‘madness’ (II – 13:50)
unfug ‘nonsense’ (III – 02:49)
seltsame affinität ‘strange affinity’ (III – 10:35)
ganz merkwürdige spielart der natur ‘very strange game of nature’ (III – 11:07)
(der hat) n knall ‘he’s out to lunch’ (IV – 01:32)
As it can be assumed that the callers are relatively familiar with the idea of having
objectophile desires, it is not surprising that such constructions are almost invari-
ably voiced by the host, who is less accustomed to such ideas. But it is also evident
from the data that Domian often uses these negative constructions to contrast his
own more liberal views with those of the wider public which is more likely to view
objectophilia in negative terms (see extract (6)):
(6) III – 02:26 to 02:49

Domian: […] ich weiß dass ich damals als ich das zum ersten mal gehört habe (.) hier
geLACHT habe
‘I know that then when I heard this for the first time (.) I was laughing here’
Ruth: ja?= ‘yes?=’
Domian: =ne weil ‘=no because’

Ruth: @
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Domian: man das nicht KENNT und man denkt [na was ist] denn das für ein UNfug
‘one doesn’t know that and one thinks [hold on what] kind of nonsense’
Ruth: [ja ja] ‘[yes yes]’
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Domian: ne? (.) [aber ich] habe dann gelernt aus den gesprächen mit äh
‘you know? (.) [but I] then learned from the conversations with uh’
Ruth: ja ja [ist klar] ‘yes yes [is clear]’
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Domian: mit den beiden äh anrufern [dass] es da überhaupt nichts zu lachen
‘with the two uh callers [that] there is nothing to laugh’
Ruth: [ja] ‘[yes]’
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Domian: gibt [sondern dass das ne wirklich (.) ne] ernste seriöse sache ist
‘about [but that this is a really (.) a serious respectable issue’
Ruth: [ja ja absolut nichts nein] ‘[yes yes absolutely nothing no]’
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In this passage, Domian states that he could not help but laugh when he talked
to an objectophile caller on the show for the first time. He frames this reaction
and the associated thought processes as a generic human phenomenon, using the
indefinite pronoun man “one” (weil man das nicht KENNT und man denkt na was
ist denn das für ein UNfug). This is also co-constructed by Ruth, who repeatedly
supports Domian’s elaborations with minimal feedback. But these typical reac-
tions are then discarded as inappropriate, as the host claims that he has learned
from the conversations with these callers that objectophilia must be respected
and taken seriously (dass es da überhaupt nichts zu lachen gibt sondern dass das ne
wirklich (.) ne ernste seriöse sache ist).
Another way in which the host commonly orients to sexual normativity is
by asking questions that suggest objectophiles suffer from a certain lack that they
compensate with their relationships with objects:
(7) I – 09:17 to 09:52

Domian: hast du das gefühl dass dir da was fehlt? dass es äh verbunden ist mit einer
großen EINsamkeit? oder [akzep]TIERST du diese (.) seltsame s- äh äh
‘do you have the feeling that you lack something? that it uh is linked to a
great loneliness? or do you [accept] this (.) strange s- uh uh’
Joachim: [nein] ‘[no]’
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Domian: (.) kapriOle der sexualität wenn ichs mal so nennen darf
‘(.) whim of sexuality if I may call it that’
Joachim: mhm (1) [nein] ‘mhm (1) [no]’
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Domian: [akzep]tierst du das so oder äh findest du dass das schon was
perVERses oder was krankes ist
‘do you accept it like that or uh do you think that this in fact is something
perverse or something sick’
Joachim: ne überhaupt nicht also ich FINde also ich fühl mich sehr gesund dabei sag
ich mal und ich ich sach ma jedes hat seine daseinsberechtigung ich tu nie-
mandem weh damit ich ich kann ich kann ich hab unheimlich viel fantasie
ich kann das AUSleben (.) [und]
‘no not at all well I find well I feel very healthy with it I can say and I I say
everything has its right to exist I don’t hurt anybody I I can I can I have
incredibly much fantasy I can live this out (.) [and]’
Domian: aber es bleibt [doch] dennoch immer ich glaube
das ist n ganz natürlicher trieb des menschen eine sehnsucht nach liebe und
geliebt werden wie erfüllst du DAS bei dir
‘but still it always remains I think that is a very natural drive in human be-
ings a longing for love and being loved how do you satisfy that for yourself ’
Joachim: äh: ich sach mal (1) äh::m LIEbe ist für mich halt auch ich hab n sehr guten
freundeskreis
‘uh: I say (1) uh::m love is for me also I have a very good circle of friends’
In the exchange above, the host uses a question that suggests a belief that objec-
tophiles are deviant and suffer from loneliness (EINsamkeit) and a certain lack
(hast du das gefühl dass dir da was fehlt?). He stigmatizes objectophilia as a strange
whim of nature (seltsame […] kapriOle). The non-normative construction is fur-
ther underlined by the use of the verb akzeptieren “accept” (normative concepts
are commonsense and do not need to be “accepted”). Finally, he even explicitly
confronts the caller with the fact that objectophilia may be seen as something
perverse or sick (findest du dass das schon was perVERses oder was krankes ist).
However, all of the normative suggestions brought forward by the host are refuted
by the caller, who stresses that he feels very healthy (sehr gesund) in what he does.
The host is not convinced by this answer and reinstantiates his original question,
this time by evoking a natural human drive to love and to be loved in return
(das ist n ganz natürlicher trieb des menschen eine sehnsucht nach liebe und geliebt
werden). It is the second component (being loved) that he implies to be impossi-
ble to achieve when someone loves an object. The caller does not dispute that such
a natural drive exists. He rather states that this drive is in his case satisfied by his
circle of friends rather than by his object of affection.
For reasons of space, only some of the relevant mechanisms that are involved
in orienting to normativity could be illustrated here. Others include the continued
work that the host and the callers perform to search for and give explanations for
objectophile desires or the interactional construction of objectophilia as a rarity.
Taken together, the discursive mechanisms outlined in the present section illus-
trate how interactants orient to sexual normativity in their talk. They co-construct
objectophilia as a form of sexual desire that is “weird” and “rare”. They describe
objectophilia as a non-normative taboo topic that is either completely silenced
or, when it is in fact talked about, confronted with negative reactions and social
sanctions of various kinds. While the present section has elucidated how speakers
orient to sexual normativity on a more general level, the following sections elab-
orate on how two specific forms of normativity, namely humano-normativity and
heteronormativity, surface in conversations about objectophilia.
4.3 Orienting to humano-normativity
The term “humano-normativity” has been coined here to describe normative

mechanisms that are specific to the discursive construction of objectophilia as
a sexuality that does not focus on human desired objects. It is predictable that
(most) human-focused desires will generally be treated as preferable to objecto-
phile desires. The following analyses concentrate on how linguistic practices con-
tribute to human-focused desire being permanently made a normative yardstick
for objectophile desires. A central mechanism in this respect is the linguistic per-
sonification of the object. This is a strategy that is in principle not necessary when
one talks about inanimate objects. However, it is apparent that it is frequently
employed. This can be taken as evidence for two aspects: first, that the person-
focused materialization of Western sexualities as a dominant discourse impacts
on how objectophiles view their sexuality; and second, that objectophile people
make an effort to accommodate to their (over wide stretches) non-objectophile
audience in order to make objectophilia more intelligible to the wider public.
Within the group of linguistic personification strategies, the practice of giving
one’s object a personal name is most prominent. Naming an object is, in this case,
not just an act of personal recognition via labeling; it also has wider implications,
namely that objectophile people communicate with their objects, which means
that they both talk to them (and address them with their name) and have the
perception that their objects also communicate with them (though not verbally).
Three of the four callers state that they have given their objects personal names
(or are at least thinking about doing this). Jörg talks about his thoughts to name
his circular saw bench Siegfried (II – 12:51), while Steffen claims that he has a
tradition of naming all of his rubber trees Hans-Georg (IV – 04:17). Joachim, by
contrast, does not address his current object lover, a toy locomotive, by means
of a human first name but rather uses a specifically coined term of endearment:
Schnuffeloma (“cuddly granny”;3 I – 07:13). However, as extract (8) demon-
strates, Joachim also used to address his former objects of affection by means of
forenames:
(8) I – 02:03 to 02:32

Domian: […] äh diese äh: orgel hat die auch n namen übrigens?
‘[…] uh this uh: organ does it also have a name by the way?’
Joachim: ja richtig ‘yes right’
Domian: die hat n NAmen ‘it has a name’
Joachim: ja? ‘yes?’
Domian: ei- ein einen ei-= ‘a- a a a-’
Joachim: =ja also auch n wirklich n:: weiblichen namen auch=
‘=yes well a really a:: female name too=’
Domian: =ja wie heißt die orgel? ‘=yes what is the organ called?’
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joachim: also ich hatte eine die hieß rosalinda [und dann] hatt ich später
‘well I had one that was called rosalinda [and then] I had one later’
Domian: [@@]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joachim: noch eine ja ich hatte erst es waren drei ich hatte erst eine die hieß susi dann
hatt ich eine die hieß rosalinda
‘another one yes I first had there were three I first had one that was called
susi then I had one that was called rosalinda’
Domian: ja ’yes’
Joachim: und dann hatt ich auch noch mal ne maryrose
‘and then I also had a maryrose’
Domian: @@@
While talking about Joachim’s love for Hammond organs, Domian asks paren-
thetically whether the organ also carries a name. When Joachim states that this
is indeed the case, Domian reacts with great sensation, indicated by the greater
stress prominence of the word “name” in his immediately following utterance (die
hat n NAMen) and his stuttering (ei- ein einen ei-) in his next turn. Joachim then
3. The term Schnuffeloma is difficult to translate, because it allows for a range of associations.
Besides its connotation of tenderness, the component Schnuffel may also be read as an ono-
matopoetic form imitating the sound that a locomotive typically makes, or it may indicate that
smelling the object plays a role.
recalls that his former organs were called Rosalinda, Susi and Maryrose, to which
Domian responds with laughter at two points. It is, therefore, apparent that the
naming strategy does, at least initially, not really fulfil the job of making objecto-
phile desires more understandable to other people but rather causes amusement.
Another way of linguistically humanizing an object is by describing its appear-
ance and shape using body-part terminology. The social relevance of construct-
ing (often gendered) human bodies via body-part vocabulary has been quite well
documented in discourse analytic studies (Jeffries 2007; Motschenbacher 2009).
In descriptions of objectophilia, body-part descriptions form an integral compo-
nent of the eroticization of the object, as extract (9) illustrates:
(9) I – 02:58 to 03:17

Joachim: immer wenn ich gegenstände auch personifiziert hab und letzendlich auch
die orgel war das für mich so: die hat für mich die hat für mich n gesicht (.)
das sind die die tasten das sind für mich als wenn sie die zähne hat und auch
die: (.) wenn ich das das holz seh das is für mich genau wie auch äh (.) wenn
man die maserung als wenn man haare sieht wenn das jetzt rötlich ist das
holz das war dann für mich als als als hätte sie lange rote haare halt
‘everytime I have personified objects and eventually also the organ that was
for me so: it has for me it has for me a face (.) that is the the keyboard that is
for me as if it had teeth and also the: (.) when I see the the wood that is for
me just like also uh (.) when one the grain as if one sees hair if it is reddish
the wood that was then for me as as as if it had long red hair’
In this account, Joachim is likening the appearance of his organ to that of a human
body. He identifies certain features of the organ as resembling the face (gesicht),
teeth (zähne) and long red hair (lange rote haare) of a human (probably female)
body.
Even though linguistic personification of objects is in the data more frequent-
ly performed by the four callers, it also needs to be pointed out that the host at
several points engages in a humanizing co-construction, for example when he
asks Joachim to give his toy locomotive a big kiss from him (du gibst einen dicken
knutscher deiner schnuffeloma von mir (.) ok?; I – 12:35), tells Jörg to greet his cir-
cular saw bench (und gruß an siegfried; II – 13:50), or promises Steffen to sign an
autograph for him and his rubber tree (ich hab noch NIE in meinem leben ein au-
togramm für einen gummibaum (.) geschrieben und das mach ich dann SEHR gerne
nachher; IV – 15:19). It can therefore be said that the callers’ successful (or at least
more convincing) performance of objectophilia hinges on the co-production of
other people who treat this kind of desire as legitimate.
Still, there are other moments in the conversations in which the host clearly
suggests that having desires for human beings is preferable. For example, he re-
peatedly asks the callers whether they have accepted and come to terms with their
desires (e.g. hast du dich damit abgefunden und arrangiert; II – 09:52), which sig-
nals that these sexualities are generally perceived as less than ideal. Another such
instance can be found in extract (10), where he expresses his hope that Steffen will
fall in love with a human being in the future:
(10) IV – 14:37 to 14:46

Domian: […] (.) hh wenn’s dein ding ist dann mach es so (.) wenn de (.) dich doch
nochmal in einen menschen verlieben könntest wär vielleicht auch ne gute
erfahrung noch das würd ich dir auch wünschen
‘[…] (.) hh if it is your cup of tea then do it like this (.) if you (.) could nev-
ertheless once again fall in love with a human being it would perhaps also
be a good experience I would wish you that as well’
These continuous shifts in how the host constructs his own attitude towards ob-
jectophilia – seeing it once as acceptable and once as less acceptable than human-
focused desire – can be interpreted as the result of an ideological dilemma that, on
the one hand, makes him communicate a relatively tolerant view on non-normative
sexualities, and, on the other hand, adheres to the dominant sexual discourse that
human beings should live out their sexual desires with other human beings.
In the present section, the analysis has concentrated on the linguistic con-
struction of humano-normativity as a dominant discourse shaping conversations
on objectophilia as a non-normative form of desire. Objectophilia is largely con-
structed against human-focused desire as an evaluative yardstick. This is evident
in linguistic personification practices such as giving objects a personal name, lik-
ening objects to human bodies, and comparing object-focused sexual relation-
ships and activities with human-centered ones.
4.4 Orienting to heteronormativity
The linguistic construction of heteronormativity in relation to objectophilia is of

course not clearly separable from the personification mechanisms outlined in the
preceding section. In many cases, objects are not just treated like human beings
but, more specifically, as female or male human beings involved in a heterosexual
relationship. How this is done linguistically is the subject matter of the present
section. Of course, the choice of personal names discussed in the preceding sec-
tion is a common means of gendering one’s desired object. But, as the following
extracts will show, there are also other linguistic means that are frequently em-
ployed in the corpus to achieve this effect. In other words, one may observe addi-
tional practices of linguistic feminization and masculinization. One such example
can be found in Joachim’s description of his organ (extract (11)):
(11) I – 01:02 to 01:13 & 01:46 to 01:59

Domian: n musikinstrument ‘a musical instrument’
Joachim: ja (.) und das war dann halt so dass es für mich dann auch zur sexualpartne-
rin geworden is später?
‘yes (.) and that was then like that that it later became a female sexual part-
ner for me as well?’
[…]
Joachim: u:nd ich sach mal die orgel das war für mich halt auch ne möglichkeit (1) äh
auch meine sexualität zum ersten mal auch als MANN zu erleben das war
für mich halt meine freundin
‘and I can say the organ that was for me also an opportunity (1) uh also to
experience my sexuality for the first time also as a man that was for me like
my girlfriend’
As can be seen in the extract above, Joachim consistently uses grammatically

feminine German forms when referring to his desired object. In principle, this
could be explained in three ways. On the one hand, the German word for organ is
grammatically feminine (die Orgel) and may therefore be said to trigger feminine
agreement in third person singular pronominal satellite forms as well as in co-
referential personal nouns (in cases where objects are personified). Another ex-
planation may be that Joachim treats the German noun Orgel as lexically female,
but this is doubtful because then he would have to use this noun invariably in this
way (i.e. also for organs he is not in love with). A third possibility is that he uses
the feminine grammatical gender to disambiguate referential gender. This means
that he would only feminize concrete organs to which he refers as his lovers in a
given context. An examination of the first part of extract (11) indicates that both
the first and the third explanation bear some relevance for Joachim’s usage. Here
it is not the grammatically feminine form Orgel that is used but the grammati-
cally neuter noun Musikinstrument (“musical instrument”). In the second turn,
Joachim refers anaphorically to this noun twice: once with the neuter pronoun es
(“it”), which indicates grammatical gender agreement, and once with the lexical-
ly female and grammatically feminine personal noun Sexualpartnerin (“female
sexual partner”). However, the latter agreement pattern cannot be explained in
terms of grammatical gender and must therefore be an instance of indexing fe-
male referential gender.
In the second part of extract (11), the grammatically feminine noun Orgel is
initially used and later anaphorically referred to with the grammatically feminine
and lexically female personal noun Freundin (“girlfriend”). What is more inter-
esting in this part is the fact that the feminization of the object is constructed as
an integral component of successfully passing as a (heterosexual) man. Joachim
reveals at one point in the conversation that he is a female-to-male transsexual
person who has undergone corrective surgery and has been living as a man for
ten years.
It is also worth noting that Domian co-constructs Joachim’s sexuality, for ex-
ample, by asking him who his current female lover is. His question wer ist denn
im moment dein- deine aktuelle geliebte (“who is at the moment your- your.FEM
current.FEM lover.FEM”; I – 06:34) is interesting because it seems to cater for two
kinds of passing. The use of grammatically feminine and lexically female forms in
reference to Joachim’s desired object supports his passing as a heterosexual man.
But the use of the personalized interrogative pronoun wer (“who”) instead of the
inanimate form was (“what”) constructs the object as human and, as a conse-
quence, Joachim’s relationship with the object as (more) legitimate. Another pas-
sage in which host and caller co-construct the feminization of inanimate objects
is given in extract (12):
(12) II – 11:59 to 12:28

Domian: mhm hat die säge eigentlich auch einen namen? (.) benennst du sie?
‘mhm does the saw actually also have a name? (.) do you name it?’
Jörg: noch nicht ich weiß nur eins dass sie erst mal WEIBlich ist=
‘not yet I only know one thing that it is female in the first place’
Domian: =sie ist weiblich genau das is auch n wichtiger aspekt äh sind diese gegenstän-
de äh s- s- sind die neuTRAL oder weiblich männlich [sie ist sie ist weiblich]
‘=it is female exactly that is also an important aspect uh are these objects
uh a- a- are they neutral or female male [it is it is female]’
Jörg: [nein nein also nach]
meines was ich empfinde ist entweder männlich oder weiblich und sie ist
weiblich=
‘[no no well after] mine what I sense is either male or female and it is fe-
male=’
Domian: =und der schrank wie war der? ‘=and the wardrobe how was it?’
Jörg: der war damals (.) die war auch weiblich=
‘it was then (.) it was female too=’
Domian: =auch weiblich also du stehst auf weibliche gegenstände
‘=female too so you are into female objects’
Jörg: so: [muss wohl was dran sein] weil zweite mal jetzt ne?
‘so: [there must be some truth in this] because second time now right?’
Domian: [@@@]
In this exchange, Domian first asks a question that humanizes the circular saw
bench, namely whether it also carries a name. Jörg replies that this is not the case
and in the same turn initiates the feminization of the object by stressing that it is
definitely female (ich weiß nur eins dass sie erst mal WEIBlich ist). In other words,
although the German noun Säge “saw” is grammatically feminine and lexically
gender-indifferent, Jörg genders it by specifying its concrete referential gender as
female. This construction induces Domian to ask more generally whether Jörg’s
desired objects are neutral, female or male (sind diese gegenstände äh s- s- sind
die neutral oder weiblich männlich). Note that this question still leaves the option
that objects may be gender-neutral. However, this latter option is clearly ruled
out by Jörg, who insists that his desired objects are either female or male (was ich
empfinde ist entweder männlich oder weiblich), and that his circular saw bench is
female (und sie ist weiblich). Domian then asks of which gender Jörg’s former ob-
ject lover, a wardrobe, was. Again his question is open to a gender-neutral answer,
because he does not ask whether it is female or male but rather “how” it is (und
der schrank wie war der?). This shows that Domian at first does not fully support
the gendering process initiated by Jörg.
It is also noteworthy how Jörg genders the wardrobe linguistically. The German
noun Schrank “wardrobe” is grammatically masculine. In his gendering statement
(der war damals (.) die war auch weiblich), Jörg switches from prioritizing gram-
matical gender agreement (the demonstrative der is grammatically masculine)
to prioritizing his personal attribution of referential gender (the demonstrative
die is grammatically feminine). It is only after Jörg has identified the wardrobe as
female as well that Domian clearly engages in object feminization by concluding
that Jörg is “into female objects” (also du stehst auf weibliche gegenstände). With
this conclusion, Domian in fact suggests that Jörg follows heteronormative values,
whereas Jörg himself originally had not ruled out that his desired objects may be
male. However, at this point he gives in to Domian’s heteronormative construc-
tion by saying that the evidence provided by the wardrobe and the circular saw
bench seems to point into that direction (muss wohl was dran sein weil zweite mal
jetzt ne?). This equals a negotiated compromise that conceptualizes Jörg’s non-
normative objectophile desire as showing partly normative traits as well.
Masculinization in connection with inanimate objects also occurs in the data,
but it is in many cases less likely to be perceived as a non-normative construction.
The reason for this lies in the fact that in German the masculine grammatical
gender is widely attested to fulfil male-specific as well as (pseudo-)generic func-

tions and, therefore, has a wider referential potential (see Bußmann and Hellinger
2003). For example, when Ruth states that she changed her romantic partners
throughout time (hab ich dann natürlich die PARTner also in anführungsstrichen
gewechselt; III – 03:20), she uses the grammatically masculine form Partner in
the plural. This usage oscillates semantically between a male-specific and a ge-
neric reading, which has the effect that the masculinization of the objects is here
less clear than in cases of object feminization via the feminine grammatical gen-
der. However, there are other passages in the data in which masculinization is
achieved by other means than the masculine grammatical gender. One such in-
stance is presented in extract (13):
(13) III – 07:26 to 07:42

Domian: wie aber wie funktioNIERT das ‘how but how does that work’
Ruth: ja du musst dir vorstellen äh die die jukebox hat ja ein elektrokabel also das
ist quasi für mich de- der penis
‘yes you have to imagine uh the the jukebox has an electric cable so that is
quasi th- the penis for me’
Domian: un- (.) und äh du f- du führst dieses elektrokabel auch EIN?
‘an- (.) and uh you in- you also insert this electric cable?’
Ruth: ja mhm (1) doch das das funktioniert genauso @@
‘yes mhm (1) it it does function this way @@’
Before this passage, Domian had asked Ruth whether she performs sexual acts
with her jukebox, which Ruth answered in the affirmative. On the question how
this works, Ruth constructs the jukebox as being similar to a male body, likening
its electric cable to male genitals (die jukebox hat ja ein elektrokabel also das ist
quasi für mich de- der penis) and the sexual act performed to a heterosexual pen-
etration act.
The extracts analyzed in this section have shown that in talk about objecto-
philia, the interactants do not just normatively orient to human-human sexual
relationships but also to heterosexual relationships as the norm to which objecto-
phile desires have to relate. Objects are over wide stretches feminized or mascu-
linized, probably in an attempt to render objectophilia at least partly normative or
better understandable for the wider public.
5. Conclusion
The context studied in the present paper can be seen as fairly liberal and less
conservative with respect to the treatment of sexuality. It is apparent from the
data that, despite the non-normativity of objectophilia, sexual normativity is still
prevalent in such a context. The analysis of how objectophilia is linguistically
constructed in public telephone conversations demonstrates that non-normative
sexualities are commonly subjected to discursive regimes that are less relevant
for the construction of (more) normative sexualities. They are more likely to be
interactionally conceptualized as desires rather than identities, as weird, patho-
logical, in need of explanation or as falling short of normative sexual ideals. Even
though the analyses have, in this study, concentrated on objectophilia as a specific
form of non-normative sexuality, it is apparent that many of the normative mech-
anisms operative in this dataset are also relevant (or at least were relevant) for the
construction of originally non-normative sexualities that have today gained wider
acceptance. Before their wider public recognition, gay male and lesbian identi-
ties, for example, were also heavily stigmatized, constructed as strange, deviant,
or in relation to heterosexual norms (think of the stereotypical question of who
takes over the female or the male part in same-sex relationships, for example).
Although such constructions are still anything but absent, it is probably fair to
say that the perception of their non-normativity has, at least in Western societies,
decreased over time.
The preceding empirical analyses have shed light on how objectophilia as a
form of sexual desire that has so far only marginally been materialized into a
sexual identity is interactively co-constructed in talk. Future research should sup-
plement the findings of the present study by looking at the linguistic construction
of sexuality across time periods. This will yield more direct evidence on the lin-
guistic consequences of the shift from desire to identity in the Western conceptu-
alization of sexuality.
Supplementing the present findings with diachronic data is also deemed nec-
essary as the present study indicates that more contemporary conceptual shifts
from desire to identity are of a different quality than the comparable shift in
the 19th century. A central difference is caused by the historical circumstances.
Whereas people in the 19th century were not familiar with a broader concept of
sexual identities, today identities are a salient form of sexual conceptualization.
That the latter are now part and parcel of people’s everyday lives makes contem-
porary shifts from desire to identity clearly less remarkable. In fact, it can be as-
sumed that the discursive materialization into an identity is more easily achieved
today, given that identities form a dominant conceptual pattern through which
we make sense of sexuality. This process is further accelerated by the wide avail-
ability of public media that are powerful motors for the discursive development
of (newly recognized) sexual identities.
Furthermore, the (immediate) consequences of the conceptual shift from de-
sire to identity seem to be vastly different. The coinage of sexual identity labels
(such as heterosexual and homosexual) in 19th century medical discourse initially
had a pathologizing effect, i.e. the newly evolving sexual identities were viewed in
a negative light. The objectophilia data, by contrast, tell an entirely different story.
Here evolving from a (mere) desire into an identity is rather viewed as a process
of empowerment that gives objectophilia a higher degree of visibility, public rec-
ognition and legitimacy (and, as a consequence, depathologization). Should this
process advance, objectophile identities are likely to acquire their own internal
normativity while gradually becoming less structured by external norms such as
humano- and heteronormativity. A similar development can be witnessed for gay
male and lesbian identities, which are today also associated with normative (often
in-group) expectations of what gay men and lesbian women should be like (see
Koller 2013; Milani 2013).
The construction of objectophilia in the conversations analyzed bears further
witness to the connection between discursive formations and power. In principle,
there is an infinite set of desires and sexualities but only those that are more fre-
quently constructed via language have the potential to act as normative yardsticks
(cf. heteronormativity) or to develop their own internal normativity (as is the case
with gay male and lesbian identities today). Other forms of desire are silenced or
can only be safely talked about under very special circumstances (such as the ano-
nymity and sexual tolerance of the Domian show). But even when they are talked
about and constructed via language, they are discursively subjected to dominant
sexuality discourses which act as norms. This means that norms have a strong
(though not determinative) influence on what is said and how it is said and form a
strong component within local renegotiation processes concerning sexual norms.
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Appendix: Transcription conventions
(.) short pause (smaller than one second)

(1), (2) etc. longer pause in seconds
= latching
[ ] simultaneous speech
naTÜRlich emphasis
@@@ laughter
? rising intonation
ja:: prolonged sounds
(xxx) unintelligible speech
[…] passages left out
Subject index
A connotation 10, 22, 64, 65, E

animator 229 83–86, 90, 94, 98, 100 emotional potential 151
argument strength 171, 179– control 3, 31, 52, 127, 179, entextualization 216, 227, 228
181, 184 181–183, 185, 186 equality 18
Arial 195, 196, 198, 199, conventionalization 171 expressive use 222
201–203 Corpus of Contemporary
attitude(s) 2, 91, 93, 194, 196, American English (COCA) F
200–202 23 Firth, John Rupert 4, 22
attribution countenance 7, 9, 17, 19, font 193
inherent attribution 86, 90 23–26, 31, 33, 35, 38, 40–52 footing 223, 224, 234
internal attribution 83 Courier 196, 198, 199, 202 force dynamics 3, 45, 46, 114
situational attribution 86 Critical Discourse Analysis Foucault, Michel 22, 82,
audience design 226 (CDA) 9, 10, 20, 22, 108, 240–242
author 7, 8, 224, 234, 235 110–112, 136, 166 Fraktur 194
authoritarian 194, 200, 201 cultural model(s) 113, 126, 132, Frame Semantics 45
authoritarianism 194, 196, 134, 136 fuzzy function 175
198–202, 204 cyberbullying 12, 143, 145
authority 19, 29, 31, 44, 45, 60, G
99, 116, 193, 196, 198, 203, 240 D gender 49–52, 60, 63, 70, 93,
denotation 22, 84 129, 168–170, 172, 179, 257,
B deontic commitment 221, 225 259, 260
bounded 227, 233, 236, 237 desire 239, 241–243, 245, 247, generalized exchange 157
British National Corpus (BNC) 249, 250, 253, 255, 256, 259,
5, 23 261, 262
H
brook 7, 9, 17, 19, 23–26, 29, Dewey, John 21
Halliday, Michael Alexander
30, 35, 38 discourse(s) 5–12, 18, 20–22,
Kirkwood 5, 27, 29, 33
81, 82, 97–99, 107–116, 132,
hedge 8, 11, 165, 166, 168,
C 136, 138, 153, 167, 174, 177,
171–182, 184–188
challenge of perlocutive 182, 214–237, 239–244, 248,
Helvetica 11, 194, 195, 203
divergence 153 253, 255, 256, 262
heteronormativity 241, 256,
coercive use 222 hegemonic discourse(s)
262
cognitive fluency 194–196, 110–112, 115, 116, 138
heterosexual 241, 249, 256, 258,
199, 203 institutional discourse 217
260, 262
collectivity 220–222, 226, political discourse 11, 107,
Hoey, Michael 22
228–230, 232, 234, 236 174, 175, 214, 215, 217, 219,
homosexual 241, 262
conceptual metaphor 107, 111, 222, 223, 225–227, 231, 233,
humano-normativity 253, 256
113–115, 117 235, 236
Hunston, Susan 22
Conceptual Metaphor Theory discursive othering 132
(CMT) 107, 136, 139 discursive reframing 136
I
conceptualization 45, 84, 85, dominance 6, 19, 82, 110, 167,
Idealized Cognitive Model
87, 89, 91, 92, 97, 100, 108, 214, 215, 217, 220, 221, 224,
(ICM) 10, 105, 109, 112–117,
111–116, 121, 137, 261 226, 227, 229, 231, 234
119, 121, 123–127, 132, 134–137
dominant group 53, 54, 81, 82
266 The Expression of Inequality in Interaction
identity 11, 12, 29, 52, 56, 70, 71, multiple and concurrent principal 224, 234
75, 82, 99, 125, 135, 145, 147– partnerships 49 procedural 165, 185
150, 194, 201, 214, 220, 221, Muted Group Theory 9, 53, 70 processing 10, 11, 166, 171, 176,
226–229, 239, 242, 245–247, 179–186, 188, 196, 235
249, 261, 262 N depth processing 195
ideological square 127, 128, 135 Neo-Firthian Linguistics 22, holistic processing 175
image schema(s) 114, 120, 44, 45 instruction processing 174,
122–125, 137 nonreferential 83, 90, 91, 94, 96 188
implicature 7, 8, 11, 186–188, norm(s) 8, 10, 52, 125, 169, profile fake(s) 154, 158
236 241, 242 pronoun(s) 7–9, 11, 29, 83, 213,
indexing 35, 132, 136, 257 normativity 12, 239, 240, 242, 215, 216, 218, 219, 221, 222,
inequality 1–7, 9, 18, 19, 21, 22, 245, 249, 251, 253, 256, 261, 224, 226, 228, 232, 233, 235,
27, 44, 109, 147, 167, 170, 241 262 236, 257, 258
inequality triad 3
institutional communication O R
176 objectophilia 12, 239, 243, rape 10, 81, 83–92, 94–100
integrative use 222, 223 246, 247, 249–253, 255, 256, recipient 7, 8, 111, 116, 166, 167,
interactionism 21, 44 260–262 169–172, 176, 178–180, 182,
interlocutor-centeredness 173 other-reference(s) 213–216, 236 185–188, 204
interpersonal 3, 5, 6, 20, 72, referential 83, 84, 89–91, 94,
165, 176, 179, 183, 187, 188, 214 P 96, 218, 254
intertextuality 132, 134 Papyrus 194 referential domain 213, 216,
perlocution 157, 166, 221 217, 221, 223, 228, 229, 232,
K persuasion 153, 156, 179, 183, 233, 235, 236
KWIC (key word in context) 184 regime of representation 110
format 23 persuasive impact 176 repeated exposure (effect) 11,
pluralis modestiae 222, 223 194, 203, 204
L politeness 170–172, 179, restricted exchange 157
labeling 9, 52, 71, 85, 92, 241, 185–187
253 power 1, 3–7, 9–12, 20, 49, S
social labeling 21, 29 51–54, 56, 64, 70–76, sans serif typeface(s) 196, 199,
Labeling Theory 9, 21, 53 81–84, 94–96, 109–111, 202, 203
label(s) 7, 9, 33, 49, 51–60, 113, 136, 137, 143–147, 152, schema(s) (see also image
62–75, 82–85, 88–91, 93–98, 153, 155, 157–159, 179, 180, schema(s)) 7, 35, 45, 108,
100, 183, 246, 247, 249, 262 182, 183, 187, 196, 203, 215, 109, 171, 183, 194, 203
218, 222, 227, 229, 230, 239, schematization 21, 33
M 241, 262 self-reference(s) 215, 218–223,
markedness 219 attributive power 167 229, 230, 232, 233, 236
Mead, George Herbert 21, 52 institutional power 20 semantic preference(s) 23, 24,
meaning 4, 7, 9, 17, 19, 21–23, interactional power 6 26, 27, 44, 45
32, 35, 36, 44, 45, 83–94, 98, relational power 167 semantic prosody 23, 24, 30,
108, 110–113, 134, 136, 178, 184, social power 82, 84, 97 33, 34, 45
188, 195, 214, 216, 218, 235, 236 statusful power 6 serif typeface(s) 196, 199, 202
MI (mutual information) score power relation 7, 51, 146, 169, sexuality 12, 51, 52, 57, 239–242,
23–25 171 245–247, 250, 252, 253, 257,
mitigator 173, 177 powerlessness 8, 11, 96, 136, 258, 261, 262
Monospaced 199–202 165, 168, 172, 173, 177, 179–184, desire-based
Monotype Corsiva 199–202 187, 188 conceptualization of
multifunctionality 174, 187 presentation of self 217 sexuality 242
priming 11, 83, 194, 202, 203
Subject index 267
identity-based 166–187, 218–220, 222–224, Thomas, William Isaac 21

conceptualization of 226, 229, 230, 233, 235, 238, Three-Process Theory 3
sexuality 242 240, 253 transitivity 22
language and sexuality 239, speaker-centeredness 173 Hallidayan transitivity 27
242 speaker traits 165, 169, 178– Turner, John C. 3, 4
objectum sexuality 243, 246 180, 185, 186 typeface(s) 7, 8, 11, 193–200,
sexual networks 50–52, 56 Speech Act Theory 213 202–204
Sinclair, John 22 status(es) 19, 21, 22, 29, 50,
social construction(s) 21 52–54, 62, 67, 75, 85, 90, 94, U
Social Dominance Theory 82, 97, 99, 109, 147, 148, 168, unbounded 227, 236
96 170–172, 179, 186, 214–216,
social reality 22 220, 222, 227, 229–231, 233, V
social world 52, 127, 136, 137, 234, 236, 241 vague language 179
213, 214 social status 62, 147, 148, virtual character assassination
sociolinguistics 19, 20, 165, 168, 168, 214–216, 220, 229 10, 143, 145, 146, 150
213, 218 Stubbs, Michael 22 virtual identity 147, 148, 150
cognitive sociolinguistics style 181, 182, 184, 188
19 powerful style 168–170, 172, W
Labovian sociolinguistics 177, 179–181 we 8, 222–224
20 powerless style 166, 168, editorial we 222
interactional sociolinguistics 170, 172, 173, 178–182, 184 exclusive we 222, 223
20, 213, 218 speech style 168–172, 179, inclusive we 222, 223, 235
solidarity 9, 11, 19, 20, 166, 175, 181, 184, 188 inverted we 222, 223
213, 215–218, 220, 222, 224, pluralis majestatis we 222
226, 229, 231, 233, 236 T
speaker(s) 3, 7–9, 11, 12, 20, Talmy, Leonard 3, 4, 45, 114
21, 28, 45, 56, 145, 153, 155, Tanzania 49–52, 54–56, 59, 60,
63, 64, 67, 68, 70, 72–75

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The Expression of Inequality in Interaction

Pragmatics & Beyond New Series (P&BNS)

Editor Associate Editor

John Benjamins Publishing Company

the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The Expression of Inequality in Interaction : Power, dominance, and status / Edited by

© 2014 – John Benjamins B.V.

The expression of inequality in interaction.

Part I. Focus on third persons

Representing inequality in language:

Sexual network partners in Tanzania: Labels, power,

A “rape victim” by any other name: The effects of labels

Unveiling the phantom of the “Islamic takeover”:

Power eliciting elements at the semantic-pragmatic interface:

Part II. Focus on speaker/author

Powerless language: Hedges as cues for interpersonal functions 165

A true authoritarian type: How fonts can facilitate positive opinions

Language, normativity and power: The discursive construction

Subject index 265

Rainer Schulze and Hanna Pishwa

– How can we classify different types of inequality, power, dominance or status

“valued (non-) material resources”

“those feeling deprived

Figure 1. Components of the inequality triad

world in terms of entities or components with respect to literal and non-literal

the latter being an exemplification of more recent discourse pragmatic perspec-

Part I: Focus on third persons

The chapter by Schulze demonstrates the ability of written language to represent

Hockett et al. examine the language of rape as used in psychological litera-

Part II: Focus on speaker/author

discourse appears to be highly conventionalized, yet allowing the individual

Focus on third persons

Using large, computerized corpora, this study aims to provide lexico-grammat-

1. Introduction: Aim of the inquiry and key research questions

through continuous adjustment (i.e. alteration, redefinition, modification, or re-

– What is so special about these patterns or constructions from a semantic and

2. Language and “dominance”, “inequality”, “power” and “status”

Concepts such as “dominance”, “inequality”, “power” and “status” constitute a field

3. Corpus and method: Combining quantitative

4. Findings: Quantitative and qualitative evidence

The investigation of verbal brook and countenance (Table 1) began by examin-

5. Findings: Refining the collocational profile

All these nominals in direct-object position represent a limited range of deverbal

2008 FIC Bk:MostWantedMan ǁ precious wedding gift that to Melik always

That brook predominantly contributes to acts of social labeling is also ev-

Table 6. The brook profile

What is remarkable in all these concordance lines is the diversity of nominals

While the sayer-verbiage configuration as a typical transitive construction re-

In contrast to brook, countenance shows participle uses in its inflectional pro-

BPO W_fict_prose ǁ, sales of office. Terrorising and plunder, all by Mamelukes,

6. On the interaction of words, context and patterns or constructions

What we are looking for primarily, so far following a systemic-functional ap-

Table 7. The COUNTENANCE profile

– What are the semantic or cognitive categories expressed by and complements

COMMUNICATOR ADVERSE ACT

She will brook no foolishness

Syntactic information: phrase types and grammatical functions

Figure 1. The configuration and correlation of semantic/cognitive categories

COMMUNICATOR ADVERSE ACT ADVERSARY

Syntactic information: phrase types and grammatical functions

Figure 2. The configuration and correlation of semantic/cognitive categories

COMMUNICATOR ADVERSE ACT SPECIFICATION ADVERSE ACT

the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence

Powerless language: Hedges as cues for interpersonal functions 165

Subject index 265