Opposition as victimhood in newspaper debates about same-sex marriage

Turner, Georgina; Mills, Sara; van der Bom, Isabelle; Coffey-Glover, Laura; Paterson, Laura L and Jones, Lucy (2018). Opposition as victimhood in newspaper debates about same-sex marriage. Discourse and Society, 29(2) pp. 180–197.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926517734422

Abstract

In this paper, we take a queer linguistics approach to the analysis of data from British newspaper articles that discuss the introduction of same-sex marriage. Drawing on methods from CDA and corpus linguistics, we focus on the construction of agency in relation to the government extending marriage to same-sex couples, and those resisting this. We show that opponents to same-sex marriage are represented and represent themselves as victims whose moral values, traditions, and civil liberties are being threatened by the state. Specifically, we argue that victimhood is invoked in a way that both enables and permits discourses of implicit homophobia.

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About

• Item ORO ID
• 50280
• Item Type
• Journal Item
• ISSN
• 1460-3624
• Keywords
• homophobia; queer linguistics; corpus linguistics; critical discourse analysis; same-sex marriage; equal marriage rights; victimhood; agency; news discourses; UK press
• Academic Unit or School
• Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS) > Languages and Applied Linguistics > English Language & Applied Linguistics
  Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS) > Languages and Applied Linguistics
  Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS)
• Depositing User
• Laura L Paterson