This study examines how perpetrators and accomplices (P&As) of honor crimes in the Arab world discursively construct moral accountability in televised interviews. The aim is to understand how language is used to justify or legitimize acts of honor-based violence. Using a Discursive Psychological (DP) approach, the study analyzes televised interview transcripts with individuals involved in honor crimes. The analysis focuses on how interviewees use language to construct identities, assign blame, and invoke cultural norms, with attention to discursive features such as script formulations, category entitlements, and stake management. The analysis reveals that P&As often portrayed themselves as ordinary and morally constrained individuals, while casting the victims as bearers of shame or threats to family honor. Script formulations and references to prevailing social expectations were used to depict the crimes as inevitable or necessary. Responsibility was frequently displaced onto the community, cultural traditions, or familial obligations, particularly when direct justification of the act was problematic. These findings show how honor-based violence is normalized and moral accountability is diffused through everyday discourse. By unpacking the discursive strategies that legitimize such violence, the study underscores the importance of disrupting cultural narratives that sustain honor-based violence. This has critical implications for legal, social, and educational interventions aimed at prevention and accountability.

العنوان

Social Semiotics

الناشر

Taylor and Francis

بلد الناشر

المملكة المتحدة

Indexing

Thomson Reuters

معامل التأثير

1,0

نوع المنشور

إلكتروني فقط

المجلد

1

السنة

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الصفحات

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