Indexicality and ideology in narratives about intimate partner violence

Abstract

Abstract Theories of indexicality explain the ways in which linguistic forms are linked to social forms. As such, indexicality deals in part with ideology and cultural discourses. This article demonstrates the ways in which intimate partner violence (IPV), seen as an indexical, discursive formation, facilitates the material and social manifestations and ramifications of IPV. I argue for an expansion of the concept “indexical field” to account not only for phonemic variables, but also lexicosemantic variables. Such lexicosemantic variables are legible in narratives, in particular stories, that are circulated in and around IPV discourse. The indexical field forms a web of potential meanings for IPV. In the indexical field, variables have multiple potential and sometimes conflicting meanings, which can be and indeed are activated and made meaningful differently by different groups of speakers. My data are made up of 57 interviews, 34 with victims/survivors of IPV and 23 with police officers. The differences in indexical meaning surrounding IPV are analyzed from the perspective of critical discourse analysis. In this article, I show how victims/survivors of IPV animate variables in the IPV indexical field with meanings that conflict with the meanings attributed to the same words, phrases, and events by police officers. Because police officers have more institutional power, their indexical meanings often receive preference and coordinate with those of the society at large.