Meaning in Context: The Role of Context and Language in Narratives of Disclosure of Sibling Sexual Assault

Dr. Shaw’s qualitative sociolinguistic study (2007) explored how female survivors of brother-sister incest talked about disclosing that abuse to family members. Narrative analysis of the disclosure stories highlights the importance and power of disclosing, as well as ways the survivors were re-traumatized by their family members’ responses. Participants* displayed a pattern/trajectory from agency with first disclosure, to a reduced sense of agency dealing with family responses to their disclosure, and back to greater agency with reflection on and integration of their understanding of the abuse and its aftermath. The participants assert that:

disclosure itself is a transformative action, and that through disclosure and speaking about the abuse they are situating themselves as an individual and as a member of a group reducing isolation and furthering their healing.