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Part of
Language and Violence: Pragmatic perspectives
Edited by Daniel N. Silva
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 279] 2017
► pp. 227–248

Chapter 9
Discursive constructions of deviance in the narratives of a prison inmate

This chapter aims at identifying a specific type of discourse about violence: the stories of adherence to drug trafficking, their emergence in the research context and the processes of identity construction resulting from said context. The data comes from fieldwork done during 2009 in one of the main prison institutions in Brazil. Interviews were realized with inmate members of Rio de Janeiro criminal gangs who attended the prison school. These interviews were then qualitatively analyzed, from a micro-perspective approach, in light both of studies on oral narratives, based on interactional sociolinguistics, and of identity studies, especially those which consider narrative discourse as a privileged locus for social identity construction and analysis. From the analysis of the narratives’ structure systems of coherence, it was possible to understand the way in which inmates neutralize the force of values and of accepting order so as to give new meaning to deviant actions, as being pleasant or respectable.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Identity and discourse
  • 3.Deviant identity
  • 4.Narrative Analysis
  • 5.A brief contextualization of the data
  • 6.The beginning of José’s involvement in drug trafficking: Sequentialities and causalities
    • 6.1The mitigation of agentivity
    • 6.2The “agenda” of the interview and the observer’s paradox
  • 7.Final considerations
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 9 November 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.279.10bia
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