Opposition as victimhood in newspaper debates about same-sex marriage

Turner, G ORCID: 0000-0003-0825-7081, Mills, S, van der Bom, I, Coffey-Glover, L, Paterson, L and Jones, L (2018) Opposition as victimhood in newspaper debates about same-sex marriage. Discourse and Society, 29 (2). pp. 180-197.

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Abstract

In this article, 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 critical discourse analysis (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.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	agency, corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, equal marriage rights, homophobia, news discourses, queer linguistics, same-sex marriage, UK press, victimhood
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	20 Jul 2017 10:45
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2023 06:58
DOI:	10.1177/0957926517734422
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3008564