Linguistic Bearings and Testimonial Practices
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Fiona Ross
Abstract
The paper considers women’s testimonies before the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, tracing the complexities of speaking about suffering. A growing literature suggests that violence and horror corrupt language and interrupt its flow. Testimonial practices focused on violence’s recall then occupy unstable grounds. Arguing that testimony is mediated by the subject positions from which women speak and that these are shaped by cultural convention, the paper traces the effects of ‘modes of discomfort’, drawing attention to the faultlines between words and experience when violence is recalled.
Abstract
The paper considers women’s testimonies before the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, tracing the complexities of speaking about suffering. A growing literature suggests that violence and horror corrupt language and interrupt its flow. Testimonial practices focused on violence’s recall then occupy unstable grounds. Arguing that testimony is mediated by the subject positions from which women speak and that these are shaped by cultural convention, the paper traces the effects of ‘modes of discomfort’, drawing attention to the faultlines between words and experience when violence is recalled.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- About the Authors vii
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Articles
- The language of remembering and forgetting 1
- The debate on truth and reconciliation 13
- Narrative inequality in the TRC hearings 33
- Critical discourse analysis as an analytic tool in considering selected, prominent features of TRC testimonies 65
- South African Novelists and the Grand Narrative of Apartheid 89
- Linguistic Bearings and Testimonial Practices 101
- History in the making/The making of history 115
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- About the Authors vii
-
Articles
- The language of remembering and forgetting 1
- The debate on truth and reconciliation 13
- Narrative inequality in the TRC hearings 33
- Critical discourse analysis as an analytic tool in considering selected, prominent features of TRC testimonies 65
- South African Novelists and the Grand Narrative of Apartheid 89
- Linguistic Bearings and Testimonial Practices 101
- History in the making/The making of history 115
