DOMINANCE AND ENTITLEMENT - THE RHETORIC MEN USE TO DISCUSS THEIR VIOLENCE TOWARDS WOMEN

Academic interest in applications of rhetoric to social issues is unde rgoing a revival. This paper develops a rhetorical analysis of discour se generated by men who have been recently violent towards women. The texts have been drawn from transcribed interviews with 14 men who had recently begun or were about to attend stopping violence programmes. E ach 90-minute interview prompted the men on their views towards women, violence and relationships. A range of rhetorical devices within the texts were identified and their effect was analysed. This paper focuse s on five devices: reference ambiguity, axiom markers, metaphor, synec doche and metonymy. The strategic effects of each device are discussed with close reference to sample passages from the transcripts. The pap er explores how these rhetorical devices resource discourses of male d ominance and entitlement to power, and how these in turn resource men in their violence towards women. Increased sensitivity to the nuanced effects of the rhetoric is seen to improve understanding of how men ju stify, camouflage and maintain positions of dominance within relations hips with women.