Evaluative Language in the (Re)production and Resistance of Discourses of Sexual Violence on X (Twitter)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.202510725Keywords:
X (Twitter), evaluative language, Appraisal Theory, sexual violence, online feminismAbstract
This paper investigates the role of evaluative language in the (re)production and resistance of discourses concerning sexual violence on X (formerly Twitter). Drawing on Appraisal Theory (Martin and White 2005) as the analytical framework, the present paper identifies linguistic patterns that either reinforce or challenge patriarchal ideologies, practices and gendered power dynamics in society. Using allegations of sexual assault made against Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation proceedings to the United States Supreme Court in 2018 as a case study, the analysis illustrates that evaluative language was used to (re)enact opposing discourses and (re)negotiate traditional rape scripts and experiences of sexual violence. The findings also reveal the interplay between conflicting narratives —perpetrator vs. victim-survivor— on X and how communication on this platform shapes and reflects societal attitudes toward sexual violence and aggression against women in both North American society and institutions.
Downloads
References
AGARWAL, Amit. n.d. Twitter Archiver. Google Addons. <https://www.labnol.org/>.
BAKER, Paul and Erez LEVON. 2015. “Picking the Right Cherries? A Comparison of Corpus-based and Qualitative Analyses of News Articles about Masculinity”. Discourse & Communication 9 (2): 221-236. <https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481314568542>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481314568542
BEDNAREK, Monika. 2008. Emotion Talk Across Corpora. Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230285712
BEDNAREK, Monika. 2009. “Language Patterns and ATTITUDE”. Functions of Language 16 (2): 165-192. <https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.16.2.01bed>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.16.2.01bed
BLEVINS, Katie. 2018. “bell hooks and Consciousness-Raising: Argument for a Fourth Wave of Feminism”. In Vickery, Jacqueline and Tracy Everbach (eds.) Mediating Misogyny: Gender, Technology, and Harassment. Palgrave Macmillan: 91-108. <https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72917-6_5>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72917-6_5
BOU-FRANCH, Patricia. 2013. “Domestic Violence and Public Participation in the Media: The Case of Citizen Journalism”. Gender and Language 7 (3): 275-302. <https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v7i3.275>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v7i3.275
BOU-FRANCH, Patricia and Pilar GARCÉS-CONEJOS BLITVICH. 2014. “Gender Ideology and Social Identity Processes in Online Language Aggression against Women”. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 2 (2): 226-248. <https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.86.03bou>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.2.2.03bou
BOUVIER, Gwen. 2020. “From ‘Echo Chambers’ to ‘Chaos Chambers’: Discursive Coherence and Contradiction in the #MeToo Twitter Feed”. Critical Discourse Studies 19 (6): 1-17. <https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2020.1822898>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2020.1822898
CLARK-PARSONS, Rosemary. 2019. “‘I SEE YOU, I BELIEVE YOU, I STAND WITH YOU’: #MeToo and the Performance of Networked Feminist Visibility”. Feminist Media Studies 21 (3): 362-380. <https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2019.1628797>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2019.1628797
DEL SAZ-RUBIO, Mª Milagros. 2024a. “An Approach to the Rhetoric of Boebert and Díaz-Ayuso’s Political Tweets on X: A Corpus-Assisted Analysis”. Alicante Journal of English Studies / Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses 41: 75-103. <https://doi.org/10.14198/raei.2024.41.04>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14198/raei.2024.41.04
DEL SAZ-RUBIO, Mª Milagros. 2024b. “From ‘Low-class’ and ‘Talentless’ to ‘Narcissist and Pathological Liar’: a Functional-pragmatic Approach to Meghan Markle’s Negative Evaluation on X”. Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 60 (3): 311-348. <https://doi.org/10.1515/psicl-2023-0068>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/psicl-2023-0068
DYNEL, Marta and Fabio I. M. POPPI. 2020. “Arcana Imperii: The Power of Humorous Retorts to Insults on Twitter”. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 8 (1): 57-87. <https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00031.dyn>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00031.dyn
FRENDA, Simona, Bilial GHANEM, Manuel MONTES-Y-GÓMEZ and Paolo ROSSO. 2019. “Online Hate Speech against Women: Automatic Identification of Misogyny and Sexism on Twitter”. Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems 36 (5): 4743-4752. <https://doi.org/10.3233/JIFS-179023>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3233/JIFS-179023
HARDAKER, Claire and Mark MCGLASHAN. 2016. “‘Real Men don’t Hate Women’: Twitter Rape Threats and Group Identity”. Journal of Pragmatics 91: 80-93. <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2015.11.005>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2015.11.005
HERITAGE, Frazer and Veronika KOLLER. 2020. “Incels, In-groups, and Ideologies: The Representation of Gendered Social Actors in a Sexuality-based Online Community”. Journal of Language and Sexuality 9 (2): 151-177. <https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.19014.her>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.19014.her
HERRING, Susan C. 1999. “The Rhetorical Dynamics of Gender Harassment On-Line”. The Information Society 15: 151-167. <https://doi.org/10.1080/019722499128466>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/019722499128466
HULTMAN, Martin and Paul M. PULÉ. 2018. Ecological Masculinities: Theoretical Foundations and Practical Guidance. Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315195223
JAKI, Sylvia, Tom DE SMEDT, Maja GWÓŹDŹ, Rudresh PANCHAL, Alexander ROSSA and Guy DE PAUW. 2019. “Online Hatred of Women in the Incels.me Forum: Linguistic Analysis and Automatic Detection”. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 7 (2): 240-268. <https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00026.jak>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00026.jak
JANE, Emma A. 2017. Misogyny Online: A Short (and Brutish) History. SAGE. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473916029
JONES, Lucy, Małgorzata CHAŁUPNIK, Jai MACKENZIE and Louise MULLANY. 2022. “‘STFU and Start Listening to How Scared We Are’: Resisting Misogyny on Twitter via #NotAllMen”. Discourse, Context & Media 47: 1-10. <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2022.100596>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2022.100596
KILGARRIFF, Adam, Vít BAISA, Jan BUŠTA, Miloš JAKUBÍČEK, Vojtěch KOVÁŘ, Jan MICHELFEIT, Pavel RYCHLÝ and Vít SUCHOMEL. 2014. “The Sketch Engine: Ten Years On”. Lexicography 1: 7-36. <http://doi.org/10.1007/s40607-014-0009-9>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40607-014-0009-9
KRENDEL, Alexandra. 2020. “The Men and Women, Guys and Girls of the ‘Manosphere’: A Corpus-Assisted Discourse Approach”. Discourse and Society 31 (6): 607-630. <https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926520939690>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926520939690
KRENDEL, Alexandra. 2023. “The Reddit Manosphere as a Text and Place: A Three-part Analysis”. In Esposito, Eleonora and Majid KhosraviNik (eds.) Discourses in the Digital Age: Social Media, Power, and Society. Routledge: 69-88. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003300786-6
LAWRENCE, Emilie and Jessica RINGROSE. 2018. “@Notofeminism, #Feministsareugly, and Misandry Memes: How Social Media Feminist Humor is Calling out Antifeminism”. In Keller, Jessalynn and Maureen E. Ryan (eds.) Emergent Feminisms Complicating a Postfeminist Media Culture. Routledge: 211-232. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351175463-13
LONEY-HOWES, Rachel. 2018. “Shifting the Rape Script: ‘Coming Out’ Online as a Rape Victim”. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 39 (2): 26-57. <https://doi.org/10.1353/fro.2018.a698452>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/fro.2018.a698452
MARTIN, James R. and David ROSE. 2007. Working with Discourse: Meaning behind the Clause. Continuum.
MARTIN, James R. and Peter R. R. WHITE. 2005. The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. Palgrave Macmillan.
MENDES, Kaitlynn, Jessica RINGROSE and Jessalynn KELLER. 2018. “#MeToo and the Promise and Pitfalls of Challenging Rape Culture through Digital Feminist Activism”. European Journal of Women’s Studies 25 (2): 236-246. <https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506818765318>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506818765318
MORIKAWA, Nora. 2019. “#YesAllWomen’s Language: Women’s Style Shifting in Feminist Discourse on Twitter”. Discourse, Context & Media 28: 112-120. <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2018.11.001>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2018.11.001
PAGE, Ruth. 2022. “Analyzing Multimodal Interactions in Social Media Contexts”. In Vásquez, Camilla (Ed.) Research Methods for Digital Discourse Analysis. Bloomsbury Publishing: 159-176.
PALOMINO-MANJÓN, Patricia. 2022. “Feminist Activism on Twitter: The Discursive Construction of Sexual Violence and Victim-survivors in #WhyIDidntReport”. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 10 (1): 140-168. <https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00049.pal>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00049.pal
PALOMINO-MANJÓN, Patricia. 2024. “Challenging Discourses of Sexual Violence on X: The Linguistic Representation of Victims and Perpetrators in Kavanaugh’s Confirmation Process”. Alicante Journal of English Studies / Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses 41: 105-127. <https://doi.org/10.14198/raei.2024.41.05>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14198/raei.2024.41.05
PEARCE, Michael. 2008. “Investigating the Collocational Behaviour of MAN and WOMAN in the BNC Using Sketch Engine”. Corpora 3 (1): 1-29. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/E174950320800004X
R CORE TEAM. 2020. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Version 4.0.1. RStudio, PBC.
STUBBS-RICHARDSON, Megan, Nicole E. RADER and Arthur G. COSBY. 2018. “Tweeting Rape Culture: Examining Portrayals of Victim Blaming in Discussions of Sexual Assault Cases on Twitter”. Feminism & Psychology 28 (1): 90-108. <https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353517715874>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353517715874
THOMPSON, Geoff. 2014. “AFFECT and Emotion, Target-value Mismatches, and Russian Dolls: Refining the Appraisal Model”. In Alba-Juez, Laura and Geoff Thompson (eds.) Evaluation in Context. John Benjamins: 47-66. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.242.03tho
VAN DIJK, Teun A. 2006. “Ideology and Discourse Analysis”. Journal of Political Ideologies 11 (2): 115-140. <https://doi.org/10.1080/13569310600687908>. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13569310600687908
VAN LEEUWEN, Teun. 2008. Discourse and Practice: New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis. Oxford U.P. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195323306.001.0001
WHITE, Peter R. R. 2004. “Subjectivity, Evaluation and Point of View in Media Discourse”. In Coffin, Caroline, Ann Hewings and Kieran O’Halloran (eds.) Applying English Grammar: Functional and Corpus Approaches. Routledge: 229-246.
WHITE, Peter R. R. 2011. “Appraisal”. In Zienkowski, Jan, Jan-Ola Östman and Jef Verschueren (eds.) Discursive Pragmatics. John Benjamins: 14-36. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/hoph.8.02whi
ZAPPAVIGNA, Michelle. 2012. Discourse of Twitter and Social Media: How We Use Language to Create Affiliation on the Web. Bloomsbury. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781472541642
ZAPPAVIGNA, Michelle. 2018. Searchable Talk: Hashtags and Social Media Metadiscourse. Bloomsbury.
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Patricia Palomino-Manjón
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
