“Among mechanisms making linguistic avoidance and consequent euphemising possible, Lamb and Keon (1995) describe using neutral terms regarding gender, such as ‘abuser’ and ‘perpetrator’, considering the couple inappropriately as the agent and using the passive form; thus the talk is of women or children who have been raped and wives who have been beaten and killed rather than men, boys or husbands who rape, beat and kill. This process is particularly visible when it is interwoven with professional jargon. In an analysis of the clinical records of a first-aid hospital department in the US, Warshaw (1993) observes how both the perpetrator and the context of the violence disappear: women are beaten, but it is not understood by whom, they are killed by some impersonal agent, hit by a fist, a bottle or a chair moving through space just at that time. Often they are also no longer women, but an eye, a jaw, the spleen or the liver. This method, which is typical of medical language, is certainly not used deliberately to hide male violence; but in fact it contributes to making it invisible to the eyes of health staff.” ~ Patricia Romito, A Deafening Silence: Hidden Violence Against Women
Posted on: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 17:35:53 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015