Article published In:
Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict: Online-First Articles

The language of sexual violence and impropriety

A cross-cultural and cross-linguistic study

ORCID logo | Carleton University, Canada
In Canada, which has two official languages, sexual violence and impropriety have been identified as problems in the military for at least 25 years (see Duval-Lantoine 2022). In the military’s efforts to address these problems, the institutional language has been identified as problematic (Deschamps 2015; Arbour 2022). This paper addresses the labels for sexual violence and impropriety in Canadian English and French using large corpora of language data: the Corpus of Historical American English, the Corpus of Contemporary Amerian English, the enTenTen20 corpus, the frTenTen20 corpus, the Strathy Corpus, and the Canadian Hansard. Findings show differences between the most widely used labels in American and Canadian data and between English and French. This raises questions about the labels adopted by the Canadian military and the extent to which sexual violence and impropriety can be addressed without a critical review of the language in use.
Keywords: sexual violence, sexual misconduct, corpus linguistics, military, Canada’s official languages
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Discursive construction of sexual violence and impropriety
  • 3.Sexual violence and impropriety: A brief history of a lexicon
  • 4.Methods and data
  • 5.Findings
    • 5.1COHA
    • 5.2COCA
    • 5.3TenTen20 corpora
    • 5.4Strathy
    • 5.5Canadian Hansard (English)
    • 5.6When is the term “sexual misconduct” used in Canada?
  • 6.Discussion
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 6 June 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00110.ves
References (41)
References
Arbour, Louise. 2022. Report of the Independent External Comprehensive Review of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces. [URL]
Barca, Lisa A. 2018. “The Agency Factor: Neoliberal Configurations of Risk in News Discourse on the Steubenville, Ohio Rape Case.” Critical Discourse Studies 15(3): 265–284. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beelen, Kaspar, Timothy Alberdingk Thijm, Christopher Cochrane, Kees Halvemaan, Graeme Hirst, Michael Kimmins, Sander Lijbrink, Maarten Marx, Nona Naderi, Ludovic Rheault, Roman Polyanovsky, and Tanya Whyte. 2017. “Digitization of the Canadian Parliamentary Debates.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 50(3): 849–864. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Benoit, Cecilia, Leah Shumka, Rachel Phillips, Mary Clare Kennedy, and Lynne Belle-Isle. 2015. “Issue Brief: Sexual Violence against Women in Canada.” [URL]
Bingham, Shereen G. 1994. “Introduction: Framing Sexual Harassment – Defining a Discursive Focus of Study.” In Conceptualizing Sexual Harassment as Discursive Practice, edited by Shereen G. Bingham, 1–16. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991. “Language and Symbolic Power,” edited by John Thompson and translated by Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson. Harvard: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Burke, Ashley, and Murray Brewster. 2021. “A Military in Crisis: Here are the Senior Leaders Embroiled in Sexual Misconduct Cases.” CBC News, October 21. [URL]
Clair, Robin P. 1993. “The Bureaucratization, Commodification, and Privatization of Sexual Harassment through Institutional Discourse: A Study of the Big Ten Universities.” Management Communication Quarterly 7(2): 123–157. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Davies, Mark. 2008–. The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). Available online at [URL]
. 2010–. The Corpus of Historical American English (COHA). Available online at [URL]
. 2012–. The Strathy Corpus of Canadian English (from the Strathy Language Unit, Queen’s University). Available online at [URL]
. 2015. Hansard Corpus. Available online at [URL]
Deschamps, Marie. 2015. External Review into Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces. [URL]
Doe, Jane. 2012. “Who Benefits from the Sexual Assault Evidence Kit?” In Sexual Assault in Canada: Law, Legal Practice and Women’s Activism, edited by Elizabeth A. Sheehan, 357–388. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. [URL]
Dougherty, Debbie, and Mary Jeanette Smythe. 2004. “Sensemaking, Organizational Culture, and Sexual Harassment.” Journal of Applied Communication Research 32(4): 293–317. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duval-Lantoine, Charlotte. 2022. The Ones we Let down: Toxic Leadership Culture and Gender Integration in the Canadian Forces. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eagleton, Terry. 2007. Ideology: An Introduction. London/New York: Verso. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ehrlich, Susan. 2001. Representing Rape: Language and Sexual Consent. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 1989. Language and Power. London: Longman. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2003. Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fileborn, Bianca. 2016. Reclaiming the night-time economy: unwanted sexual attention in pubs and clubs. London: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fileborn, Bianca, and Nickie Phillips. 2019. “From ‘Me Too’ to ‘Too Far’? Contesting the Boundaries of Sexual Violence in Contemporary Activism.” In #MeToo and the Politics of Social Change, edited by Bianca Fileborn and Rachel Loney-Howes, 99–115. London: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 2006. The Archaeology of Knowledge. Oxon: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Hannem, Stacey, and Christopher J. Schneider. 2022. Defining Sexual Misconduct: Power, Media, and #MeToo. Regina: University of Regina Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hardaker, Claire, and Mark McGlashan. 2016. “‘Real men don’t hate women’: Twitter Rape Threats and Group Identity.” Journal of Pragmatics 911: 80–93. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hollander, Jocelyn A., and Katie Rodgers. 2014. “Constructing Victims: The Erasure of Women’s Resistance to Sexual Assault.” Sociological Forum 29(2): 342–364. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kitzinger, Celia, and Alison Thomas. 1995. “Sexual Harassment: A Discursive Approach.” In Feminism and Discourse: Psychological Perspective, edited by Sue Wilkinson and Celia Kitzinger, 32–48. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Laucius, Joanne. 2018. “What is Sexual Misconduct, Exactly? Depends on who you Ask.” Ottawa Citizen, January 29. [URL]
MacMartin, Claire, and Linda A. Wood. 2007. “Sentencing Sexual Abuse Offenders: Sex Crimes and Social Justice.” In The Language of Sexual Crime, edited by Janet Cotterill, 180–197. London: Palgrave. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Salmona, Muriel. 2019. Le harcèlement sexuel. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schwark, Sandra, and Gerd Bohner. 2019. “Sexual Violence– ‘Victim’ or ‘Survivor’: News Images Affect Explicit and Implicit Judgments of Blame.” Violence Against Women 25(12): 1491–1509. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Serisier, Tanya. 2018. Speaking out: Feminism, rape and narrative politics. Palgrave. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shuy, Roger. 2012. The Language of Sexual Misconduct Cases. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tranchese, Alessia. 2023. From Fritzl to #metoo Twelve Years of Rape Coverage in the British Press. London: Palgrave. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trinch, Shonna L. 2003. Latinas’ Narratives of Domestic Abuse Discrepant Versions of Violence. Amstrdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tyler, Andrea, and Diana Boxer. 1996. “Sexual Harassment? Cross-cultural/Cross-linguistic Perspectives.” Discourse and Society 7(1): 107–133. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wood, Julia T. 1994. “Saying it Makes it so: The Discursive Construction of Sexual Harassment.” In Conceptualizing Sexual Harassment as Discursive Practice, edited by Shereen G. Bingham, 17–30. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, Rudolf de Cillia, Martin Reisigl, and Karin Liebhart. 2009. The Discursive Construction of National Identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Wood, Linda A., and Heather Rennie. 1994. “Formulating Rape: The Discursive Construction of Victims and Villains.” Discourse and Society 5(1): 125–148. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zaccour, Suzanne. 2019. La fabrique du viol : essai. Montréal: Leméac. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zaccour, Suzanne, and Michaël Lessard. 2021. “La culture du viol dans le discours juridique: soigner ses mots pour combattre les violences sexuelles.” Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 33(2): 175–205. DOI logoGoogle Scholar