'The ultimate violation’: a linguistic taxonomy for rape euphemisms in courtroom discourse

Abstract

This paper presents a new taxonomy for classifying rape euphemisms and demonstrates its application through a study that systematically analysed closing arguments in four rape trials. In the study, all references to the rape in question were classified into four categories: 1) euphemistic, neutral, 2) euphemistic, sexual, 3) euphemistic, violent and 4) orthophemistic, violent. The findings showed that closing arguments contain many euphemistic references to rape, despite the fact that unambiguous, direct language is preferable in courtroom discourse. Furthermore, the following themes emerged in the lawyers’ euphemistic language: 1) rape testimony framed as a narrative, 2) sexual connotations in official legal charges, 3) highlighting the victim’s perspective and 4) conflating rape and sex. The study highlighted a need for sensitising the language of closing arguments to prevent retraumatising the rape victims and demonstrates how the proposed taxonomy can support future research on rape euphemisms and potentially other ‘taboo’ dicourse contexts.