A construção ideológica da mulher num acórdão sobre violência doméstica

Abstract

In this paper we propose to demonstrate the critical potential of Discourse Studies for understanding ideological constructs in a legal judgment on domestic violence. Taking as reference the concept of ideology proposed by Van Dijk (1995) and the sociocognitive framework that allows linking ideology and discourse, we will analyze certain aspects of the judgment under study, which demonstrate how the structures of a dominant discourse favour a stigmatizing and blaming representation of women who are victims of domestic violence and the consequent excuse and legitimization of violence against them. The object of analysis will be a judgment of the Court of Appeal of Porto, Portugal, issued on October 11, 2017, concerning a domestic violence lawsuit, in which the adultery of the assaulted woman is an argument for excusing the violence exerted by the aggressors. The discourse analysis undertaken will be enunciative-pragmatic, also mobilizing concepts and categories of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). To prove our hypothesis, we will survey and analyze the linguistic means used to represent the actors involved; the predications attributed to them and the verbal processes in which they participate (Reisigl & Wodak, 2009). We will also survey and analyze instances of invocation of doxa and evidentiality, occurrences of strong evaluative modality and mechanisms of illocutionary reinforcement, as strategies for argumentation and legitimization.