Some pages of this thesis may have been removed for copyright restrictions. If you have discovered material in Aston Research Explorer which is unlawful e.g. breaches copyright, (either yours or that of a third party) or any other law, including but not limited to those relating to patent, trademark, confidentiality, data protection, obscenity, defamation, libel, then please read our Takedown policy and contact the service immediately ([email protected]) Rhetorical moves and identity performance in online child sexual abuse interactions Volume One Emily Alice Chiang Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Forensic Linguistics Aston University September, 2018 © Emily Alice Chiang, 2018, asserts her moral right to be identified as the author of this thesis. This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright belongs to its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without appropriate permission or acknowledgement. !1 Centre for Forensic Linguistics Aston University Rhetorical moves and identity performance in online child sexual abuse interactions Emily Chiang Doctor of Philosophy 2018 Thesis Summary Online child sexual abuse (OCSA) is a pervasive problem facilitated by the anonymity afforded to offenders online. From a largely social constructionist perspective, this thesis explores linguistic expressions of identity by participants across a range of OCSA interactions, including offenders and suspected offenders, victims, and undercover police officers. The thesis is structured around three individual studies, each involving a different abusive interaction type. Each study employs Swales’ (1981; 1990) move analysis framework, exploring how participants use rhetorical moves as a resource for identity performance. Study 1 concerns a convicted offender who strategically cycled through numerous adopted personas when interacting with victims online. It considers his performance of various identity positions through his use of rhetorical moves across different personas. One persona is found to diverge significantly from the rest, and is identified as a possible reflection of the offender’s ‘home identity’. Study 2 considers interactions between suspected offenders and undercover police officers posing as offenders. It compares the participants’ move use and explores linguistic realisations of supportive exchanges, finding that aside a few notable differences, undercover officers perform the offender identity similarly to genuine suspected offenders. Study 3 explores dark web forum posts authored by ‘newbies’ attempting to join existing online communities of suspected offenders. It examines the identity positions performed in the posts and considers how positions of competence and expertise contribute to the persuasive process of seeking membership into online offending communities. Taking findings from these studies, the thesis discusses the possible contributions of move analysis to OCSA research and how rhetorical moves are used as a resource for identity performance, and offers an approach to identity analysis based on rhetorical moves. It concludes by arguing for move analysis as a useful goal-centred approach to identity investigation and describes potential implications of this work for law-enforcement, education and research. KEY WORDS: online child sexual abuse, identity, move analysis, rhetorical move, strategies !2 Acknowledgements Writing this thesis has felt at times arduous, but overall it’s been an immensely enjoyable experience. First and foremost I would like to thank my supervisors, Tim Grant and Carol Marley, for their unfailing support over the past three years. Special thanks to Tim, whose advice, guidance and answers to sometimes strange questions somehow managed to make the process only half as difficult and scary as it could have been. It needs acknowledging that this work could not have been carried out without the support of the UK police force who provided the data for the project; thank you not just for the data but also for your support for the field of forensic linguistics and your openness to collaborative work and exploratory approaches. Thanks also to everyone at the CFL. When embarking on a PhD, you get told to prepare for a lonely and isolated experience. I am lucky to say I didn’t experience this once, and that is purely down to my CFL family. I would also like to thank my friends outside of the CFL, who have dutifully listened to my incoherent ramblings about linguistic moves, as well as allowed me to escape my work whenever I needed to. Finally, I am most grateful to my family, in particular my parents, Stephen and Emma Chiang, my brother, Toby Chiang, and my husband, Kevin Carmody. Thanks to my parents for their unfaltering encouragement and support, and for never asking when I’m going to get a real job (soon, I promise!). Thanks to Toby for the thoughtful comments and feedback (and for actually reading the entire thesis - seriously, I owe you one!). And special thanks to Kevin, first for the tech support, but mostly for everything else. This thesis is dedicated to you. !3 Table of contents Volume one Chapter 1: Introduction .......................................................................17 Online child sexual abuse............................................................................................. 17 Aims and research questions....................................................................................... 19 Thesis structure............................................................................................................. 21 Originality and implications.......................................................................................... 23 Chapter 2: Online child sexual abuse and linguistic contributions to the literature .........................................................................................24 Introduction.................................................................................................................... 24 Prevalence .....................................................................................................................25 Offenders and victims................................................................................................... 28 Online offender typologies............................................................................... 28 Victim characteristics....................................................................................... 29 Stereotypes...................................................................................................... 30 Internet and technology affordances........................................................................... 31 Combative measures ....................................................................................................35 Legislation .......................................................................................................35 Covert investigations....................................................................................... 36 Education......................................................................................................... 38 Technology....................................................................................................... 39 Online grooming ...........................................................................................................41 Definitions and terminology............................................................................. 41 Process and characteristics ............................................................................44 Linguistic research........................................................................................................ 46 Conclusion...................................................................................................................... 53 Chapter 3: Language and identity in online child sexual abuse interactions............................................................................................ 54 Introduction.................................................................................................................... 54 From essentialism to constructionism........................................................................ 55 The interactional model................................................................................................. 57 Emergence and positionality........................................................................... 58 Indexicality....................................................................................................... 60 Relationality..................................................................................................... 66 !4 Partialness....................................................................................................... 68 Retaining essentialism.................................................................................................. 70 Identity in the current research ...................................................................................73 The resource-constraint model........................................................................ 73 The hierarchy of identities model..................................................................... 75 Conclusion.....................................................................................................................