Rethinking sexual violence labels: exploring the impact of ‘victim’ and ‘survivor’ discourse

Figures & data

Table 1. A guide to critical feminist poststructuralism.

1. Analyse the Text as Discourse	Read the transcript and highlight/make notes of how the text is put together linguistically. Make notes on features of the text e.g. participants grammar, vocabulary being used, flow of ideas (where they start and where they end), and associations. Consider how discourse is activated through the text.
2. Identify Important Issues	Read the transcript and mark quotations you feel represent an important issue. Name the issue as you see it.
3. Identify Participants Beliefs & Values	Provide the quotation (cut and paste) and write something about the Belief & Value presented with the quotation.
4. Discursive Practices	Write about the discourses the author relies on (social and institutional discourses) to create the text. Consider how this this informs the important issues you identified.
5. Responding to Relations of Power	How does the discourse reproduce social order and how does it cause a rupture in it? Consider how it restructures social order and what the social consequences of this are.

Figure 1. Linguistics patterns for the label survivor in the discourse of Identity.

A word cloud depicting the frequency of words used in participants quotes when describing their beliefs on the label survivor in the discourse of Identity. The words that were used the most frequently were: Strength, Move On, Empowering, Brave, And Believe.

Figure 2. Linguistics patterns for the label victim in the discourse of Identity.

A word cloud depicting the frequency of words used in participants quotes when describing their beliefs on the label victim in the discourse of Identity. The words that were used the most frequently were: Weak, Powerless, Helpless, Ill, Negative, Pity, and Suffers.

Figure 3. Linguistic patterns for the label victim in the discourse of Blame.

A word cloud depicting the frequency of words used in participants quotes when describing their beliefs on the label victim in the discourse of Blame. The words that were used the most frequently were: Fault, Trick, Imply, Event, Happen, and Blame.

Figure 4. Linguistic patterns for the label survivor in the discourse of Blame.

A word cloud depicting the frequency of words used in participants quotes when describing their beliefs on the label survivor in the discourse of Blame. The words that were used the most frequently were: Reassuring, Survived, Empowering, Way, Believe, and Through.

Figure 5. Linguistic patterns for the label victim in the discourse of Severity.

A word cloud depicting the frequency of words used in participants quotes when describing their beliefs on the label victim in the discourse of Severity. The words that were used the most frequently were: Violence, Crime, Assault, Rape, Better, Serious, and Legal.

Figure 6. Linguistic patterns for the label survivor in the discourse of Severity.

A word cloud depicting the frequency of words used in participants quotes when describing their beliefs on the label survivor in the discourse of Severity. The words that were used the most frequently were: Romanticised, Situation, Demeaning, Serious, Situation, and Light.

Figure 7. Linguistic patterns for the label survivor in the discourse of Survival.

A word cloud depicting the frequency of words used in participants quotes when describing their beliefs on the label survivor in the discourse of Survival. The words that were used the most frequently were: Survive, Life, People, Event, and Live.

Figure 8. Linguistic patterns for the label victim in the discourse of Survival.

A word cloud depicting the frequency of words used in participants quotes when describing their beliefs on the label victim in the discourse of Survival. The words that were used the most frequently were: Alive, Extreme, Appropriate, Pain, and Traumatic.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author ([email protected]), the data are not publicly available due to ethical restrictions and the data containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.