Article published in:
Critical Linguistic Perspectives on Coping with Traumatic Pasts: Case studies
Edited by Christine Anthonissen and Jan Blommaert †
[Journal of Language and Politics 5:1] 2006
► pp. 71–96

Critical discourse analysis as an analytic tool in considering selected, prominent features of TRC testimonies

| University of Stellenbosch
This paper considers a number of salient, characterising features of the verbal mediation process that took place in the TRC hearings on gross human rights violations. This is done with reference to the methodology developed in Discourse Sociolinguistics. It considers how various participants represent a particular event, each taking the perspective from which they experienced it. It notes the differences in verbal choice, and in textual and information structure of (i.a.) a journalist who witnessed this particular instance of public police excess, of a woman involved because her home was at the scene of the confrontation between police and youngsters, of one of the commanding police officers who had been subpoenaed and thus was not a voluntary witness at the hearing, of a doctor who treated patients after the event, of a school teacher who could articulate the particular kind of protest youngsters engaged in at the time, and so on. It also highlights a particular practice of reformulating which appears to be typical of discourses that mediate past atrocities with a view to founding new and improved democratic practices.
Keywords: South Africa, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Discourse Sociolinguistics, mediation, recount, reformulation
Published online: 14 April 2006
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.5.1.05ant
References

References

Berger, P. L. and Luckmann, T.
1966 The Social Construction of Reality. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Boraine, A.
2000 A Country Unmasked. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Crocker, D. A.
2000 Truth commissions, transitional justice, and civil society. In: R. I. Rotberg and D. D (eds). Truth v. Justice - The Morality of Truth Commissions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 99—121. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
DeBeaugrande, R. and Dressler, W.
1981 Introduction to Text Linguistics. London: Long-man.Google Scholar
Du Toit, Andre
2000 The moral foundations of the South African TRC: Truth as acknowledgement and justice as recognition. In: R. I. Rotberg, and D. D (eds). Truth v. Justice - The Morality of Truth Commissions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 122—140.Google Scholar
Fairclough, N.
1989 Language and Power. London: Longman.Google Scholar
1992 Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
1995 Critical Discourse Analysis. London, New York: Longman.Google Scholar
2003 Analysing Discourse. London, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fowler, R., Kress, G., Hodge, R. and Trew, T.
1979 Language and Control. London: Rout-ledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Kress, G. and Hodge, B.
1979 Language as Ideology. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kress, G.
1990 Critical discourse analysis. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 11, 84—97. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Krog, A.
1998 Country of My Skull. Johannesburg: Random House.Google Scholar
Matouschek, B., Wodak, R. and Januschek, F.
1995 Notwendige Ma�nahmen gegen Fremde? Genese und Formen von rassistischen Diskursen der Differenz. Vienna: Passagen Verlag.Google Scholar
Muntigl, P., Weiss, G. and Wodak, R.
2000 European Union Discourses on Un/employment. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pope, R.
1995 Textual Intervention - Critical and Creative Strategies for Literature Studies. London, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Reisigl, M. and Wodak, R.
2001 Discourse and Discrimination - Rhetorics of Racism and Antisemitism. London, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rotberg, R. I. and Thompson, D..
(eds)2000 Truth v. Justice - The Morality of Truth Commissions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Swartz, L.
1996 Culture and mental health in the rainbow nation: Transcultural psychiatry in a changing South Africa. Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review 33(2,) 119—136. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Swartz L
1998 Culture and Mental Health: A Southern African View. Cape Town: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Titscher, S., Wodak, R., Meyer, M. and Vetter, E.
1998 Methoden der Textanalyse: Leitfaden und �berblick. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Titscher, S., Meyer, M., Wodak,R., and Vetter, R.
2000 Methods of Text and Discourse Analysis. Transl. B. Jenner. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Tutu, D. M.
1999 No Future without Forgiveness. London, Johannesburg: Random House.Google Scholar
Van Dijk, T. A.
1981 Studies in the Pragmatics of Discourse. Berlin, New York: Mouton. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1984 Prejudice in Discourse: An Analysis of Ethnic Prejudice in Cognition and Conversation. Amsterdam: Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Van Dijk, T. A..
(ed 1985 Discourse and Communication: New Approaches to Mass Media Discourse and Communication. Berlin: De Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Vincent, A.
1995 Modern Political Ideologies. 2nd ed. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Wodak, R. and Matouschek, B.
1993 We are dealing with people whose origins one can clearly tell just by looking: Critical discourse analysis and the study of neoracism in contemporary Austria. Discourse and Society 2(4,) 225—248.Google Scholar
Wodak, R., Menz, F., Mitten, R. and Stern, F.
1994 Die Sprachen der Vergangenheiten. Frankfurt aM: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Wodak, R., Nowak, P., Pelikan, J., Gruber, H., DeCillia, R. and Mitten, R.
1990 Wir sind alle unschuldige T�ter. Diskurshistorische Studien zum Nachkriegsantisemitismus. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Wodak, R. and Van Dijk, T. A..
(eds)2000 Racism at the Top. Klagenfurt: Drava.Google Scholar
Wodak, R.
. (ed1989 Language, Power and Ideology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1996 Disorders of Discourse. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 7 other publications

Anthonissen, Christine
2020. Autobiographical Narrative of Traumatic Experience: Disruption and Resilience in South African Truth Commission Testimonies. Applied Linguistics 41:3 ► pp. 370 ff. Crossref logo
Hobbs, Valerie
2018. Disability, the ‘good family’ and discrimination in the dismissal of a Presbyterian seminary professor. Journal of Language and Discrimination 2:2 ► pp. 133 ff. Crossref logo
Lawrence, Susan
2009. Annelies Verdoolaege, Reconciliation Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2008. Pp, xii. 238. Hb USD 158.00, EUR 105.00.. Language in Society 38:2 ► pp. 262 ff. Crossref logo
Olayinka Unuabonah, Foluke
2020. Argumentation in Nigerian investigative public hearings. Journal of Argumentation in Context 9:2 ► pp. 199 ff. Crossref logo
Ruiz, Marcela & Oriana Bernasconi
2019. Reports on categorization and classification of human rights violations in Chile (1974–1978). Discourse & Society 30:1 ► pp. 44 ff. Crossref logo
Unuabonah, Foluke Olayinka
2016. Contextual Beliefs in a Nigerian Quasi-Judicial Public Hearing. Journal of Asian and African Studies 51:5 ► pp. 619 ff. Crossref logo
Unuabonah, Foluke Olayinka
2017.  But as a stance marker in Nigerian investigative public hearings. Pragmatics and Society 8:3 ► pp. 400 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 may 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.