Language, Ideology and Identity in Serial Killer Narratives

by Christiana Gregoriou, Michael Burke (Series Editor)

In this book, Gregoriou explores the portrayal of the serial killer identity and its related ideology across a range of contemporary crime narratives, including detective fiction, the true crime genre and media journalism. How exactly is the serial killer consciousness portrayed, how is the killing linguistically justified, and how distinguishing is the language revolving around criminal ideology and identity across these narrative genres? By employing linguistic and content-related methods of analysis, her study aims to work toward the development of a stylistic framework on the representation of serial killer ideology across factual (i.e. media texts), factional (i.e. true crime books) and fictional (i.e. novels) murder narratives. ‘Schema’ is a term commonly used to refer to organised bundles of knowledge in our brains, which are activated once we come across situations we have previously experienced, a ‘group schema’ being one such inventory shared by many. By analysing serial murder narratives across various genres, Gregoriou uncovers a widely shared ‘group schema’ for these murderers, and questions the extent to which real criminal minds are in fact linguistically fictionalised. Gregoriou’s study of the mental functioning and representation of criminal personas can help illuminate our schematic understanding of actual criminal minds.

Genres: Linguistics

208 pages, Paperback

First published December 21, 2010

Reviews

[Ilse A · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I could say I read it in one sitting, unable to put it down, but I can't - despite this book very much deserving such praise, my own planning prohibited this. Nevertheless, I had a hard time putting it down every time I had to, and in general found it very informative and, yes, entertaining. Not only has the book provided me with loads of ideas for my own future - I do not mean a future as a serial killer, of course, but as an academic analyzing crime fact and fiction - and with loads of films to watch, series to download and books to read.
I cannot go into a detailed review as of now, as I could not pace myself in such a way that I could make detailed observations - I was too excited, wanting to absorb all of it as fast as possible - but I promise to attempt so in the near future. This excitement as well as the fact that I finally sat down to read the remaining stretch on a night where I really should've gone to bed early made that at certain moments I felt that "these observations are really awesome, but what are you actually trying to prove here?". Luckily, I had no time to grow impatient, waiting for the answer; conclusions are given at the end of each chapter, as well as a larger one as a chapter at the end, and these enlightened much.
Basically, I think that for now, I have in my hands a book that deserves a designation as the newest most treasured book in my collection. Absolutely awesome.