Shuhong Luo
College of Nursing, SUNY Upstate Medical University, USA
Corresponding Author Details: Shuhong Luo, Department of Nursing. Suny Upstate Medical University, USA. E-mail: luos@upstate.edu
Received date: 14th November, 2017
Accepted date: 23th May, 2018
Published date: 12th June, 2018
Citation: Luo S (2018) Understanding an Intimate Partner Violence Victim’s Online Posts Using Discourse Analysis. J Comp Nurs Res Care 3: 126.
Copyright: ©2018, This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is a major public health concern. A victim’s voice deserves to be heard and considered seriously. Some Chinese victims choose to seek informal help from the public internet discussion forum anonymously. The study was to explore how a victim’s social language in her online posts enacted the social identities of an IPV victim. Discourse analysis was used as an analytical method. A segment of a victim’s online posts were used to for this analysis. The study focused on the linguistic features of the online post that made the IPV victim’s social language distinctive. The victim’s identities as a wife and as a victim were expressed by her social language. Victim’s little awareness of the perpetrator’s identity and her denial of victim identity were discussed.
Keywords: Intimate partner violence (IPV), Victim, Discourse analysis, Social language, Social identity
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a major public health concern. It is the completed or threatened physical, sexual, or psychological violence by a current or former partner [1]. People who intend to help the IPV victims need thorough understanding of the IPV victim’s real life situation and decision-making process. However, the outsiders may lack a thorough understanding and awareness of IPV victim. The victim’s experiences and voices are usually hard to obtain from the community, as the IPV is a closed-door aair with multiple stages of violence cycles and complicated patterns [2]. The perpetrator does not have to be abusive in the beginning stages of the relationship. The abuse could happen once a week, once a month, or even once a year. IPV not only means physical violence. It also includes intimidation, isolation, lies, threats and verbal abuse emotionally or sexually [3]. When the abusive behaviors do not have the apparent forms of actions or evidences such as physical and sexual assault and when the perpetrator is not abusive at the cycle of violence, IPV is hard to detect, believed, or understood by outsiders. This study seeks to improve outsiders understanding of an IPV victim’s perception and decision-making process while experiencing IPV. In developing such a study, a research question was formulated: What are the specic lexical and grammatical features and functions in an IPV victim’s online posts that characterized her social language and expressed her social identity?
The research setting is in a popular Chinese anonymous online discussion forum. The primary purpose of this forum is to serve as an online community for people to share and exchange information for everyday life. The theme of the forum used in this study is about marriage and relationship, which was created by one of the online users. All registered users in this forum are anonymous. They are able to create discussion forums and main posts, and are able to reply to others’ posts. The existing posts in the forum are accessible publically. Non-regis- tered users can read the posts but are not able to write in the forum. The users join this forum voluntarily. They usually find this forum from online search or word of mouth. Nobody invites any users to this forum. The person who is in charge of this site is the system administrator who works for this website.
IPV victims in the community are usually isolated from social support [4]. The victim label is a stigma pre- venting them from asking for any professional help if it is available, such as a psychological counseling service or a shelter, especially when the violence is not physical [5]. They would rather seek some informal, online help anonymously to make important life decisions. An internet discussion forum entitled with relationship rather than violence is one of the acceptable options for victims to seek informal social support. In an online discussion forum, victims may tell their stories and their interpretation of what they believe about their situation.
I selected a female online user, who posted her IPV experiences three times in three continuous years (from 2010 to 2012). What she had written indicated that her situation became worse each year progressing from emo- tional abuse to physical violence. R was used as a name of this anonymous user in this paper.
In 2018, I analyzed R’s texts written in the first five days of online posts under one thread in 2011, when she started to experience the physical abuse. I created the catalogues of the data (Table 1) to organize the major events of IPV experienced by R in the first five days when she wrote the post in 2011. I used the violence phases in cycle of violence theory [6] to name the titles of her IPV events, which were kindness and contrite loving behavior phase (Honeymoon), tension building phase, and acute battering incident phase. I added linguistic markers, such as intonational contours to the original posts as the transcripts for data analysis.
Discourse analysis was used as a method to analyze the transcripts. Discourse analysis is to analyze the spoken or written languagein-use. This method pays attention to the details of grammar, how function of the grammars of the language [7]. The tools of discourse analysis used in this study were: social language tool, identity build- ing tool, and topic flow or topic chaining tool. The following analyzed the lexical and functional features of R’s social language that expressed R’s conflicted social identities as an IPV victim and a wife.
Social language tool in discourse analysis is to analyze the lexical and functional features of a victim’s social language in the online posts. Social language not only conveys the meaning of a language (or a mixture of languages), but also values, beliefs, feelings, acts, interactions, and with body languages, clothes, non-linguistic symbols, objects, tools, technologies, times, and places [7]. The styles or varieties of social languages enact and are associated with a particular social identity.
Identity building tool [7] in discourse analysis is to analyze victim’s social identities and conflicts. Social identities were dened by the writer’s social language. Building identities in language involve dierent social lan- guages. Everyone must have multiple identities within dierent contexts. There may be a core self for each one of us. The way people tell the stories of their lives and what they have to say about whom they are to others and to themselves, convey the information of their social identities.
Topic flow or topic chaining tool [7]. is to analyze R’s description of the interaction between R and her husband. As indicated in Figure 1, the topic flow or topic chain was demonstrated by the text within each box to demon- strate an argument between R and her husband with 18 interactions.
R described herself as \too angry to speak and only cry but was not able to say anything” during the IPV inci- dent. She had no opportunity to fully express herself or confront her husband during the IPV incident. The time when R published her post was after the IPV incident when her husband had left home. The online discussion forum is a secret and safe place for R and she kept her public online post as a private journal of herself. Until then was R able to fully identify what she would have liked to have said to her husband. There she expressed her sad feelings and concerns and asked for suggestions from other anonymous readers. She wrote \(I have) nowhere to express (myself). (I wish) to get help and suggestion for my confusion!”. R did not have any direct and effective conversation with her husband in her post.
Thematic words used by R provide readers clear pictures of the problematic relationship between R and her husband. R wrote \You (R’s husband) do not care about me! You do not care about our oneand-a-half-year-old daughter!” and \(Our) relationship is so fragile”, which represented the central theme. Money was the central word to express economic abuse. R complained her husband’s economic dominant and self-centered behavior: \ You (R’s husband) did it before asking me (R) nor discuss with me (R) (of your investment). At least I am your wife. Should not I have the right to know it? But you always do thing rst and notify me later.” R used some destructive words to express the abuse she experienced, such as yell, destroy, angry, sad, hurt, bleeding, pain, afraid, mess, shake, knife, tears, cold, chase, cry, bite, etc.
R’s posts communicated ideas and feelings at the same time, not only by the meaning of words but also by their form and patterns. When writing her online post right after the IPV incident, R showed strong negative emotions with the evidences of some lexical features. An informal parenthetical device, a blaming word in Chinese, was used at the top of the post. Intonations such as frequent line changing and exclamation and question mark were used to convey her strong emotions. The length of time to read each line matched the pace of one’s breath when reading the posts in Chinese. Readers are able to feel the rhythm of the language that expressed R’s strong emotion. Texts at the top, the line changing, and use of exclamation and question marks, together with the context determine the degrees of informational saliency [7]. Only after reading a few sentences of R’s posts were the readers able to gure out the seriously hurtful impact on R.
What helped construct a victim’s identity is a perpetrator’s identity, which was built through her husband’s words and action in R’s posts. He said \I am a man” that demonstrated his male dominance. R used the words yell, destroy, crash, and threw to describe her husband’s violence actions toward R. He destroyed R’s computer table and frightened R with some physical abuse. He judged R to be wrong and let R to be responsible for his anger. He did not fold the clothes and put them in the closet after the argument. Instead, he threw them on the the bed and left them as a mess for R to clean up. He shattered the mirror twice when he had nothing reasonable to reply to R. These actions were to attack R’s feelings purposefully.
Topic flow of the argument between R and her husband was indicated in Figure 1. The subject word \you” was used as a main topic shift clause during their argument. It sounded like two people were pointing ngers at each other to criticize and challenge. During the argument, R was always on topic while her husband was not Ontopic” means the second speaker continues to talk about the same topic as the rst speaker, or at least relate to the same topic before introducing a new topic [7].
R followed and continued the topic that her husband initiated. R spoke topically on money and family that her husband initiated, and on respect and understanding that she concerned most. R’s reaction to her husband linked to her husband’s topic without initiating any new topic. She changed the topic as soon as her husband changed unless the topic was abusive. R tried to stay reasonable, non-abusive, and non-oensive. When her husband criti- cized R had few real contributions to the family, R followed her husband’s topic on family and explained herself to be right. She gave some examples of how she cared her in-laws: \at least I (R) called them (R’s in-laws) often, at least I went back. (My understanding was when people (their parents) get older, they need mental comforts. They (R’s in-laws) may not take too much consideration on money, but (we) need to call them (R’s in-laws)”. However, R’s defensive actions and explanations did not control the violent situation nor did she stop her hus- band’s violence, but only led her husband to be more destructive and abusive. She described: \You (R’s husband) destroyed my (R’s) computer table, pointed to my nose and said: `from the day we got married, I (R’s husband) swear that I (R’s husband) would never hit you (R) with a little nger. Today you (R) force me (R’s husband) to do so. You (R) argue with me (R’s husband) every day! No way to live a life!’ I (R) was too angry to speak. Then you (R’s husband) destroyed my computer table again!”
However, R’s husband was constantly not on topic. When he shifted to new information, he usually blamed R, such as \you (R) have short eye-sight!” Within 18 interactions of the argument, R’s husband only followed R’s thought twice. However, one of them was a lie, in R’s opinion. Most of the time he only followed his own topic flow. He started a new topic without answering R’s questions in the previous conversation. He did not go in the direction as R wanted, nor did he ever address any of his wife’s concerns or needs. R felt hurt. She wrote: \My tear never stopped when we started arguing. I only cry but was not able to speak anything.” R’s action, reaction, and words during the argument fully revealed R’s identity as an IPV victim.
R’s specic social identity as a wife was enacted by the lexical cohesions and pronouns, which include you”, our daughter”, our parents”, I am a woman”, and other related stories. You” referred to R’s husband. Our daughter” and our parents” were used to show R’s relationship with her husband and revealed her identity as a wife. The thematic words I am your wife” were used to provide readers R’s identity as a wife. The identity of wife” meant to have the right to know the family budget, to take responsibility to maintain the family’s stability in nance and relationships with relatives, to take care of her husband, child, and both parents (in Chinese culture, it even means to put her husband’s family as her primary priority.) R thought she was a very qualied wife by saying how she cared for her husband and her in-laws: I tried to save money and even did not buy any food for myself (when travelling).” She complained not having enough right as a wife in her family: At least I am your wife. Should not I have the right to know (how you spent the money)?” In addition, she said her husband let her to nancially support the entire family including her in-laws’ by herself. She felt her future life burden would be much more than she expected as a woman. She complained I am a woman”, which indicated that she needed to be protected and supported by her husband.
It appears that R had identity conflicts as a wife and an IPV victim. The identity of wife requires R to stay in the relationship and trust her husband. The identity of victim requires her to leave the relationship and not to expect her husband to meet her needs. Two activated oppositional identities must result in some degree of dissonance [8]. To diminish the psychological stress due to the identity conflict, one may choose to accept one identity and reject another.
R chose to keep her identity as a wife and deny her identity as a victim with the evidence that she wrote I still loved my husband” two times in her posts. After the IPV incident, R did not take any action to leave the relationship. R chose to believe her husband was innocent but not a perpetrator. She gave herself hope by believing her husband wanted to come back as a husband but not as a perpetrator: You (R’s husband) actually wait for me (R) to ask you (R’s husband) back.” R did have some internal doubts about her husband’s love when he was back:”(R) still felt there were something (wrong) between us. . . .you did it purposefully. You tried to keep distance between us.” However, R did not do anything further to resolve her internal doubts, such as to go to a professional counseling service. Instead, R normalized her abusive relationship experience by trying to function as a better wife, such as to control her anger: When I want to get angry, (I need to) smooth my emotion rst. This is to exercise my patience.”
This study focused on the linguistic features of the segment of the online post that made the IPV victim’s social language distinctive and helped outsiders to understand her better. R’s social identity of wife and victim are conicted. R’s social identity as a victim was expressed by her social languages in these areas: R expressed her feelings as a victim; R described the images and other details in the IPV incident The interaction patterns between R and her husband showed R was always on topic, while her husband was usually not on topic nor did he address R’s needs. R’s husband’s language and actions were described as a perpetrator that contributed to R’s identity as a victim. R’s social identity as a wife was expressed by her claim, her family relationship with other family members and her family history written in the transcript.
Victims in the community usually have the conflicted desires of whether to move on or to keep the family together and control the violent situation. They may seek a way to remain in their intimate partner relationship as a wife or partner without battering. However at the same time, they complain about being victimized in the relationship. These may reflect the victim’s ambiguous sense of self in interpersonal relationships and identity conflict. Some of the victims eventually reframe, restory, and construct a new narrative that helps them to man- age their stress - a resilience process that helps the victims to grow stronger when dealing with IPV [9]. In this study, R eventually chose her identity as a wife and denied her identity as a victim.Arriving at the nal decision to leave or continuing the relationship is a dynamic process for those who are subjected to violence in the community. Victims face a number of complicating factors such as nances, culture, values, children, and social supportive resources that might prevent victims from leaving an abusive relationship [10]. Some of the victims are manipulated psychologically by their perpetrators not to leave the relationship because of their low selfesteem or some other psychological issues [11]. Victims would decide to change the circumstance when they reach one of the ve turning points [12]: they want to protect others from the abuse and abuser; when they experience increased severity and humiliation with abuse; when they have increased awareness of options and access to supporting system; when they recognize that the abuser will never change; and when their partner betray them.
The reasons for R’s denial of a victim’s identity might be that R was more committed to her marriage relationship than to her individual’s human dignity and safety; there were not enough outside supportive resources that allowed R to leave the relationship; R did not have enough awareness of her abusive situation; or R did not have enough knowledge to realize or to accept the truth of the perpetrator’s tactic. All these possible reasons helped to explain a common question about IPV victims: Why does not she (the victim) just leave?
IR’s posts online provided valuable information regarding IPV in real time. It was the transitioning time when R’s situation changed from emotional abuse to physical abuse. Victim gets benets during the process of wring. When arguing, victim may have no time to reflect the IPV situation but simply reacts defensively and unconsciously. Writing helps victim to think and reflect her real thoughts and feelings during IPV. Victim was also able to get social support from other online repliers. These self-expression and outside support may help the victim to break up the silence and isolation during acute battering incident phase, when the victims are often too frightened to seek any help they need [6]. Internet discussion forum might be a safe heaven for IPV victims who desperately need help. However, more research need to be undertaken in the area of IPV victim and internet anonymous help seeking.
Discourse analysis is an eective tool to help professionals and outsiders to deeply understand the victim’s experience. Discourse analysis adds research evidence on how the victim is abused during the IPV context. It validates the cycle of violence theory within the domain of the victim and the internet forum. Discourse analysis of this paper was cooperated with cycle of violence theory [6], such as the way on how the catalogue was organized and the transcripts were discussed. The catalogues and titles provided a clear picture of IPV process that matches the cycle of violence theory. Discourse analysis is an ecient way to reveal the emotion abuse process during IPV. The victim had a lot of emotion descriptions accompanied with IPV. She felt abused at rst, however later she doubted her internal voice and denied her victim identity. This further explained the process of how the victim was emotionally manipulated and was hard to escape from the relationship within the cycle of violence. The ndings of the discourse analysis help the readers to identify the tactic of perpetrator’s by understanding IPV intellectually.
This study may give some potential guidance to online professional counseling and social work services. Pro- fessionals may be able to find solutions to prevent the abusive situation from the beginning, and how to correct a couple’s destructive communication patterns if they choose to stay together. This research was about posts published by an anonymous online Chinese user in a public discussion forum about “marriage and relationship” in the year of 2011, when the online counselling service was not as popular in China as nowadays. If R were able to get some effective counselling services and right directions, she might be able to face the reality to seek the solutions for her situation and might have avoided being physical abused in the third year. Although online counselling resources are available for online users these days, research is needed in the areas of IPV online help seeking; the evaluation of whether online writing helps to form self-identity and help self-awareness of IPV; and the online social network and types of social support.
More research is needed to conduct in the areas of IPV online help seeking; the comparison of the culture dierences between Chinese and American online users, such as how they create focus groups, how they write their own stories, and how they support each other; the evaluation of whether online writing helps to form self-identity and help self-awareness of IPV is needed; and the online social network and types of social support.
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