497875

2013
LAL22410.1177/0963947013497875Language and LiteratureMaestre

Article

Language and Literature

Narrative and ideologies of 22(4) 299­–313

© The Author(s) 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/0963947013497875
Legend of the Black Lagoon lal.sagepub.com

María D López Maestre

Universidad de Murcia, Spain

Abstract
The complete eradication of violence against women remains a challenge for 21st-century
societies. In Spain 606 women were killed by their partners or ex-partners in the period 2003–
2011 inclusive. Figures like these make this phenomenon a very serious social problem which
requires intervention at a plurality of levels. The language used in narratives about these issues is
very important. It can be an additional factor that contributes to the transmission of sexism and
the perpetuation of indirect sexist ideologies that naturalize violence against women. This article
presents a critical stylistics analysis of one such narrative from a feminist point of view. It is a text
displayed at a Visitors’ Centre in Spain to show local culture to children and the tourists who visit
the area. Applying a combined methodology based on feminism, stylistics and critical discourse
analysis, the analysis carried out shows how the text conveys an underlying sexist ideology that
normalizes violence against women and adopts a victim-blaming stance. The article concludes
by stressing the need to raise awareness of the consequences of indirect sexism and naturalized
ideologies covert in discourse, particularly in the field of writing for children and in the public
domain in general.

Keywords
Critical discourse analysis, critical stylistics, gender studies, ideology, naming, sexism, transitivity,
victim blaming, violence against women, women’s studies

1 Introduction
The complete eradication of violence against women remains a challenge for 21st-
century societies. Every year the number of women killed remains intolerably high. In
Spain an average of 67 women per year were killed by their partners or ex-partners in
the period from 2003 to 2011 (see Ministerio de Sanidad, 2013). Figures such as these

Corresponding author:
María D López Maestre, Departamento de Filología Inglesa Facultad de Letras, Universidad de Murcia,
Campus La Merced, C/ Santo Cristo 1, Murcia, 30071, Spain.
Email: lmaestre@um.es
300 Language and Literature 22(4)

(606 deaths) make this phenomenon a very serious social problem, which requires inter-
vention at multiple levels to put an end to this fundamental violation of women’s rights.
It is no easy task. Gender violence is a multifaceted issue that should be addressed glob-
ally taking into consideration a variety of social, political, legal and educational as well
as cultural aspects.
In this context, the language used in the public domain (politics, the media, education
etc.) is as important as other aspects that make up this complex phenomenon. It is well
known that the public discourses of the media and educational institutions play a very
important role in shaping public opinions, influencing the attitudes and life styles of the
population and creating ideologies of representation (Bengoechea, 2010; O’Hara, 2012;
Soothill, 1991). Because of their privileged position in terms of accessibility and influ-
ence, these institutions and the discourses they produce and promote have an instrumen-
tal role in the construction, creation and transmission of culturally based ideologies,
gender-based ideologies being no exception. Thus their responsibility and ethical
accountability to the general public is even more significant in not encouraging sexism
and violence against women in any way.
The aim of this article is to present a critical stylistics analysis from a feminist point
of view of the ideology behind a narrative text from the public domain of education. This
text is a legend that was displayed in 2008 as part of the instructional materials exhibited
at a Visitors’ Centre (Casa del Parque de La Laguna Negra y Circos Glaciares de Urbión
– Museo del Bosque) in the natural park of La Laguna Negra in Soria, a province in
central Spain. Applying a methodology based on feminism, stylistics and critical dis-
course analysis (CDA henceforth), along the lines advocated by Fowler et al. (1979),
Fowler (1991), Simpson (1993, 2004), Burton (1996 [1982]), Mills (1995, 2012), Toolan
(2001), Lazar (2005) and Jeffries (2010), the analysis carried out reveals an underlying
sexist ideology which normalizes violence against women and adopts a victim-blaming
stance. In this sense the text studied is constructed on the basis of cultural myths that
sustain violence against women still deeply ingrained in our culture (Brownmiller, 1975;
Burt, 1980; Clark, 1992). The critical examination of the text also unveils a misogynist
view of the girl in the legend, which highlights the badness in her and is consistent with
other negative representations of women in art and literature which consolidate patriar-
chal power (see Gilbert and Gubar’s 1979 reflection on the angelic/monstrous represen-
tations of women generated by male imagination in literary works). Such images have
been found to be quite pervasive throughout history, as the work of feminist researchers
and feminist literary critics has highlighted (Bengoechea, 2010; de la Concha, 2000;
Gilbert and Gubar, 1979; Mateo del Pino and Rodríguez Herrera, 2004; Morris, 1993).
The text studied in this article also seems to be built on such values and ideas.
This article begins with a section on ‘materials and method’ which includes the text
analysed as well as additional information important for a better understanding of the
ideological consequences that the use of this text for educational purposes may have:
first, a description of the situational context of the text; second, the text in Spanish with
the corresponding translation into English and third a consideration of the theoretical
basis of this study. This is followed by a section on ‘results and discussion’ where the
critical analysis of the discursive features of the text is presented. Finally the article con-
cludes by stressing the need to raise awareness of the consequences of indirect sexism
Maestre 301

and naturalized ideologies covert in discourse, particularly among those writing for the
public domain in general and, even more so, among those people in charge of narratives
for children.

2 Materials and method

2.1 Materials: The text and its situational context
As mentioned in the introduction, the text analysed in this article was part of the instruc-
tional materials displayed at a Visitors’ Centre, a public-funded installation, in the
national natural park of Laguna Negra y Circos Glaciares de Urbión in Soria in 2008.
Soria is a province of central Spain, in the eastern part of the autonomous community of
Castilla y León.
Quaternary climatic oscillation 2 million years ago shaped the glacier landscape charac-
teristic of this region which is famous for its unique aquatic ecosystems (see REN de
Castilla y León, 2010). The Black Lagoon is one of them. Such is the beauty of the place
that, in 2007, a Visitors’ Centre and Forest Museum (Casa del Parque de La Laguna Negra
y Circos Glaciares de Urbión – Museo del Bosque) was constructed and inaugurated with
a total investment of 1,943,284 euros (Patrimonio Natural de Castilla y León, 2007). This
institution claims to provide educational interpretative information about the park and the
region, which includes literature as a main focus, since the materials on display include
literary references and works by, as well as information about, authors who have written
about this region, its people and its natural and cultural resources. The exhibition materials
are divided into nine thematic areas, with titles such as a ‘Sensory Forest’, ‘Memory
Corner’, ‘Resources of the Region’, ‘Oral Memory’, ‘Media Room’ and so on.
In one of these thematic areas, there is a heavily ornamented book, huge in size, with
beautiful illustrations and resembling an old manuscript, which shows a compilation of
the legends associated with the park. One of these legends is about the Black Lagoon and
the tragic story of a beautiful young woman who died there. As if it were a fairy-tale, a
sweet female recorded voice reads the stories to the visitors, while at the same time a
beautiful melody of the type associated with medieval music is played. It is well estab-
lished that voice and music can be powerful semiotic devices which contribute to the
transmission and perpetuation of ideologies. In this case the music creates a serene
almost idyllic atmosphere, a fairy tale background that no doubt contributes to the tacit
acceptance of the contents of the text as something normal. Tourists, children and fami-
lies stop at the book (probably attracted by the beautiful format, the fairy tale style and
the beautiful music) to read and listen to the stories. One of these stories is the text that
is presented in the next section.

2.2 The text: Black Lagoon Legend

Spanish version: LEYENDA DE LA LAGUNA NEGRA SORIA

Existía una joven que estaba tan orgullosa de su belleza que alardeaba de ella en todo momento.
Se reía de cualquier pretendiente porque ninguno estaba a su altura y no encontraba galán que
302 Language and Literature 22(4)

la satisficiera. Su cabello negro se ondulaba con tal gracia al viento que era imposible no
mirarla y ella caminaba, orgullosa y segura de ese efecto entre todos los hombres de la aldea.
Presuntuosa, no tomaba en consideración ningún cortejo, y jugando con un joven muchacho al
‘ven aquí, ya no te quiero’, se acercó hasta una hermosa laguna rodeada crestas, donde el joven,
exaltado por los continuos rechazos y burlas de ella, la empujó hacia las aguas con tal ímpetu
que desapareció entre las cristalinas aguas sin apenas darse cuenta.
Desde entonces la llaman la Laguna Negra, porque su agua se oscureció como del día a la
noche, y ella, sabiendo del influjo que aún causa entre los jóvenes, sigue ondeando su cabello
negro en busca de compañía entre esas aguas frías.

English translation
There was once a young woman who was so proud of her beauty that she boasted about it all
the time. She laughed at all suitors as none of them was good enough for her and she did not
find anybody who could satisfy her. Her black hair blew in the wind with such grace that it was
impossible not to look at her and she strutted around, proud and confident of the effect she had
on all the men of the village.
Being presumptuous, she ignored the advances of all who courted her, until one day when
playing hard-to-get with a young man, she approached a beautiful lagoon surrounded by peaks,
where the young man, inflamed by her constant rejections and mockery, pushed her into the
water with such force that she disappeared into the crystal clear waters, almost before she knew.
Since then people call it the Black Lagoon, because its water darkened just as day turns to night,
and she, who knows the hold she still has on young men, continues to wave her black hair in
search of company in these cold waters.

Do we have here simply a legend with a moral message suitable for teaching values?
Or taking a more critical standpoint is this a text which conveys an indirect sexist ideol-
ogy, which –unless changes were to be made – makes it unsuitable for educational pur-
poses at a Visitors’ Centre? This article sets out to demonstrate that we have the latter
case here. In order to do this, critical stylistics provides us with an excellent perspective
to uncover and defamiliarize discriminatory ideologies of gender representation and con-
sequently bring to light these hidden ideologies covert in discourse. Therefore the next
section presents the approach and theoretical basis that sustains this study.

2.3 Theoretical basis and method of analysis

Language is not a value-free, transparent medium reflecting reality (Fowler, 1991: 89;
Weber, 1996: 4). On the contrary it is an essential element in social processes (Halliday,
1978), which are constructed in part by the linguistic choices we make in our communi-
cation practices (Weber, 1996). In this respect, the words people use reflect the social,
moral and cultural ideologies of the society that uses them. A very interesting concept,
highlighted in the work of discourse analysts, stylistics and cultural studies, is the idea
that such ideologies become naturalized through the habitualization of discourse to the
extent that people do not perceive them (Jeffries, 2010: 9; Mills, 1993: 138–141;
Simpson, 1993: 6). Through repeated practices and the habitual use of discourse, these
dominant ideologies become rationalized as ‘common-sense’ assumptions about the way
Maestre 303

things are and the way things should be (see the notion of obviousness of Althusser,
1984). The unveiling of these covert ideologies is one of the main motivations of a criti-
cal analysis of discourse. The assumption is that by using appropriate linguistic tools and
referring to relevant historical and social contexts, these ideologies, ‘normally hidden
through the habitualization of discourse, can be brought to the surface for inspection’
(Fowler, 1991: 89). Therefore, a main aim is reformative and social: ‘to unmask ideolo-
gies, to denaturalize common-sense assumptions and, ultimately, to enable and empower
readers’ (Weber, 1996: 4) raising their awareness as to how discourse operates as an
instrument of power and control.
One of the areas where issues of power and control are highly significant is in the
social and discursive construction of gender and gender relations. The work done
within feminism against absolute biological essentialism assumptions has brought to
light the fact that gender is to a great extent a cultural construct and a social practice
(Bengoechea and Morales, 2000: 11) and as such it is continually created and reconsti-
tuted by the activities that people carry out, their discursive practices being one of
them. As we acquire language and interact with others in society we absorb and assume
its ways of seeing. In the case of the conceptualization of gender, very early on in our
lives, we are drawn imperceptibly into a complex network of values, assumptions and
expectations about gender and appropriate gender roles and behaviours. In part through
language, we acquire the conceptions and ideas about femininity and masculinity that
are considered normal and common sense and those that are not. Such assumptions are
often the result of an ancient cultural code of androcentric values and ideologies
ingrained in a patriarchal society, still prevalent in many cases nowadays, which are
legitimized and perpetuated through discourse, sometimes giving rise to neo-sexist
attitudes (Martínez et al., 2010).
One of the pre-eminent vehicles of discoursal construction and transmission of such
patriarchal sexist ideologies is literature, both popular and canonical. Because of the way
it circulates and is consumed as a cultural product, literature is particularly important in
sustaining and legitimizing the discourses of patriarchal androcentric social order. Poetry,
novels, plays and other texts, through their discourses, have constructed in the collective
imagination the cultural code and value system that characterize the models of feminin-
ity to imitate and reproduce and those others to reject and repudiate as unnatural and
devious. The text about the ‘Legend of the Black Lagoon’, in itself a piece of popular
fiction, is about a model not to be imitated. It shows women an exemplary lesson about
a girl whose behaviour is inappropriate according to the patriarchal order and as a conse-
quence is shown as being bad and wicked, a dangerous creature that leads innocent men
to ruin and perdition and deserves a terrible fate. This ideology, however, is not apparent
at first sight. It is quite subtle and is conveyed in an indirect way through the narrative
configuration of the text.
Inspired by the tradition of critical linguistics and CDA, critical stylistics offers a
very interesting perspective to uncover such ideologies (Jeffries, 2010). The textual
analytical approach typical of stylistics complements very well the critical perspective
advocated by critical linguistics and CDA. Within this approach, Hallidayan transitiv-
ity analysis has proved to be a particularly effective method to uncover patriarchal
ideologies, denaturalize patriarchal assumptions and expose gender bias. It has been
304 Language and Literature 22(4)

used extensively by stylisticians and discourse analysts to examine critically the repre-
sentation of women in literature and popular culture and show how images of women
are constrained by language and culture (Burton, 1996 [1982]; Clark, 1992: 208–224;
Mills, 1995: 143–149, 2012: 97–115; Wales, 1993: 137–156; Wareing, 1990, 1993). As
far as methodology is concerned, this article follows this line and explores transitivity
choices in the Black Lagoon text according to the model outlined by Simpson (1993,
2004), as I have found that his version of transitivity works extremely well for the
ideological analysis of texts. For the rest of the analysis, I use the methodology
employed by Jeffries (2010) in her book on critical stylistics, a much needed publica-
tion that to my knowledge is the best manual on critical stylistics so far. Owing to
space limitations, I look at transitivity and the most significant verbal processes in the
story, first regarding the girl and then establishing the contrast with the young man,
while at the same time considering the most relevant aspects of naming, evaluative
choices, presuppositions, nominalizations as well as aspects of modality in so far as
they are of interest for the textual configuration and the ideological dimension of the
text.

3 Results and discussion

A close scrutiny of the verbal processes associated with the characters in the story
reveals how transitivity plays a very significant role, perhaps more than is apparent at
first sight, in the shaping of the ideology of this text. For ease of reference, let us first
look at a list of the main Predicators as well as the most significant subordinate verbal
choices in the text. They will be italicized and marked with a T (for transitivity) and
a number:

There was (T1) once a young woman who was (T2) so proud of her beauty that she boasted
(T3) about it all the time.

(T1) existential process (T2) intensive relational process (T3) verbalization process

She laughed (T4) at all suitors as none of them was (T5) good enough for her and she did not
find (T6) anybody who could satisfy her.
(T4) behavioural process (T5) intensive relational process (T6) material action intentional
process

Her black hair blew (T7) in the wind with such grace that it was impossible (T8) not to look at
her and she strutted (T9) around, proud and confident of the effect she had on all the men of the
village.

(T7) material event process, (T9) intensive relational process, (T9) material action intentional
process

Being presumptuous, she ignored (T10) the advances of all who courted her, until one day
when playing hard to get (T11) with a young man, she approached (T12) a beautiful lagoon
surrounded by peaks, where the young man, inflamed (T13) by her constant rejections and
Maestre 305

mockery, pushed (T14) her into the water with such force that she disappeared (T15) into the
crystal clear waters, almost before she knew (T16).
(T10) material action intentional process (T11) material action intentional process, (T12)
material action intentional process, (T13) mental reaction process, (T14) material action
intentional process, (T15) material action supervention process (T16) mental cognition
process

Since then people call (T17) it the Black Lagoon, because its water darkened (T18) just as day
turns to night, and she, who knows (T19) the hold she still has on young men, continues (T20)
to wave her black hair in search of company in these cold waters.
(T17) verbalization processes, (T18) material event process, (T19) mental cognition process,
(T20) material action intention process

When transitivity choices are explored from a critical point of view it becomes clear that
most of the verb phrases in the text refer to actions carried out by the young woman in
the story while in contrast the action/murder committed by the young man (T14) is rel-
egated to an adverbial subordinate clause, almost as if it was an afterthought and not the
main action of the story. As a result of this discursive configuration, what the young man
did loses visibility hidden within the syntactic configuration of the sentences in the text.
At this level of structure, highly embedded, the importance of this young man’s action is
thus mitigated, ameliorated and downgraded, while main emphasis is placed on the
actions of the young woman around which the story is centred.
It is also noticeable that many processes carried out by the girl are material processes,
where she appears as Actor. Despite the fact that she is the victim, the entity affected, the
Goal of the action if you will, she is represented as the main actor in the story. Such rep-
resentation fulfils an almost perverted aim: reversing the role of Goal (victim in this
case) to Actor and instigator of the actions in the narrative: It was she who did not find
anybody who could satisfy her (T6); It was she who did not accept any courtship (T10);
It was she who strutted around, proud and confident (T9); It was she who played hard-
to-get with the young man driving him crazy (T11), and most importantly it was she who
initiated the action of going for a walk and approached the lagoon on that terrible day
(T12) and so forth. In the text by means of material action intentional processes she is
shown as intentionally carrying out most of the actions that, in the end, precipitated the
murder.
It is also interesting how, even on the occasions when she is not portrayed directly as
the main actor, her almost magnetic influence and therefore responsibility in the story is
given prominence by the use of other syntactic structures. By means of a material event
process (T7) we are told that her hair ‘blew in the wind’ in a very graceful way. In fact it
was so graceful that ‘it was impossible not to look at her’. In this respect it is significant
how this idea, that is, the effect her hair produced, is not stated as part of the proposition
of the sentence but is implied by the Adverbial of manner that complements the Predicator
‘blew’. In particular it is conveyed by the postmodifier of the head ‘grace’, a structure
which carries the logical presupposition that such an effect really existed and was une-
quivocally certain. The second part of the compound sentence, where this material event
process is used, also contains a reference to her irresistible power of attraction:
306 Language and Literature 22(4)

Her black hair blew in the wind with such grace that it was impossible not to look at her and she
strutted around, proud and confident of the effect she had on all the men of the village

Here the girl is shown as being fully conscious of that influence. By means of a material
action intentional process she is represented as ‘strutting around’, a verb with negative con-
notations which indicates clearly what the narrator says her attitude was. And, as if this
were not enough, this verbal process is followed by an Adverbial of manner made up of
two coordinated adjectives which semantically reinforce each other: ‘proud and confident’.
What we are told she was confident of is ‘the effect she had on all the men of the village’.
Considering the ideology in the text, this postmodifier is particularly significant for two
reasons. First because it asserts that her influence had a totalizing effect and affected all the
men in the village. The universal quantifier ‘all’ leaves no shadow of doubt as to the extent
of the influence she had. And second and perhaps more importantly, it is because this influ-
ence is taken for granted and assumed to be true by virtue of its insertion as a postmodifier
of ‘confident’, which triggers the logical presupposition that this is true. Examples like
these show how important postmodification and the logical presuppositions attached are as
vehicles of ideological transmission in this text, as well as in others in general. These syn-
tactic structures can establish as certain what otherwise would be controversial information
that could be open to debate and questioning. This is the case here where the girl in the
story is characterized not as a woman who is naïve and innocent, but as a very attractive
and assertive young woman who is very sure of her power of seduction. But it is the narra-
tor who tells us this. We do not have access to her feelings as a unified human conscious-
ness. We are not given access to her point of view in order to understand her motivations,
her behaviour, her anxieties or her fears. We have to rely on the mediation of the narrative
voice, external and omniscient, to offer us the interpretation of how she felt. Here as in
many other texts the female experience is silenced (Morris, 1993).
The picture that emerges so far is that her power of seduction comes from her lustrous
hair, which is by no means a new idea in art and literature. Women’s hair has been a
favourite object of the male gaze: sometimes admired, adored or desired but sometimes
feared and viewed with apprehension, particularly when represented metaphorically in
hunting terms as a trap men fall prey to (Gitter, 1984). Representations of these provoca-
tive sirens from literary works and visual art are numerous (Gitter, 1984). Shakespeare’s
Portia, for example, has hair that is ‘a golden mesh t’entrap the hearts of men / Faster
than gnats in cobwebs’ The Merchant of Venice III. ii. 122–123; In Alexander Pope’s The
Rape of the Lock, Belinda’s shining curls ‘Man’s Imperial Race insnare, / And Beauty
draws us with a single Hair’canto 2, lines 23–28. In a spider/siren manner, through such
metaphors women’s hair is attributed the almost magical power of capturing the hearts of
men who are portrayed as vulnerable victims of women’s unfair methods of disarming
them. Similarly a central element of this text is the power of attraction of women’s hair,
and by extension of her beauty and sexuality, an element which is specially highlighted
at the end of this story:

Since then people call it the Black Lagoon, because its water darkened just as day turns to night,
and she, who knows the hold she still has on young men, continues to wave her black hair in
search of company in these cold waters.
Maestre 307

At the end of the text this idea that she is a seductress and is aware of it appears
again in the relative clause that modifies the Subject and Actor ‘she’. In this relative
clause there is a mental cognition process, which is significant in ideological terms:
‘she, who knows the hold she has on young men’. This postmodifier, as in the other
cases seen before, carries the logical presupposition that indeed she was fully con-
scious of her powers of seduction, an affirmation which, to say the least, is open to
question, since because of the special nature of mental processes, this is something that
can only be asserted by the person who is experiencing the sensing processes him or
herself but here this is given full credibility. It is also interesting that the direct object
in classical terminology or the phenomenon in transitivity terms of ‘knew’ is the nomi-
nalization ‘hold’: What she knew was the ‘hold’ she had on men. Apart from being a
nominalization, ‘hold’ is a metaphorical linguistic expression generated by the concep-
tual metaphor sexuality is a physical force / physical appearance is a physical force
which characterizes physical appearance as a force that one person exerts over another
and was identified by Lakoff and Johnson in their article ‘The metaphorical logic of
rape’ (Lakoff and Johnson, 1987). The interesting thing here is that by means of the
verb ‘continues’, chosen as Predicator in the main clause, the impression that is given
is that this is a force that she can manipulate at her will through the power of her hair.
Not only was she attributed part of the responsibility for what happened to her actions
and behaviour when alive, but also even when she is dead she is still assigned an inten-
tional responsibility to ruin and lead men to perdition. In spirit, knowing the hold she
has on young men, she tries to exert it. In this respect it is interesting to notice how
what is primarily an event process, through a collocational incongruity, is turned into
a material action intentional process when the narrator says that she ‘still waves her
black hair looking for company in these cold waters’. Thus, an action carried out by a
natural force, in this case the wind, is represented as being intentionally manipulated
by this young woman who will cause the death of those poor men who cannot resist her
charms. Here her hair is confirmed as a lethal weapon of attraction and the victim is
definitely turned into the aggressor in this story. She is a seductress, a woman whose
power of attraction is magnetic and potentially lethal. In this sense, this text can be
compared to other texts that articulate the male fear of the power of women’s sexuality.
The figure of the fatal temptress has emerged consistently in western culture to the
point of becoming an archetype in art and literature: Eve, Salome, Delilah, Pandora,
Helen of Troy and others (Warner, 1987). Danger assumes a female form and women’s
desirability is threatening. The logical consequence of this is obviously that part of the
blame for what has happened lies with her. So far transitivity is consistent with the
ideology of the seductress.
Naming practices are also essential in shaping the misogynistic stance of the text.
Choices in naming contribute to a characterization of the girl that is so negative that the
reader is predisposed to dislike her and perhaps to conclude that she deserved her fate.
By looking at the noun phrase that makes up the Existent in the existential process that
opens the text we can form an idea of the opinion that the narrator has.

There was once a young woman who was so proud of her beauty that she boasted about it all
the time.
308 Language and Literature 22(4)

This is a complex noun phrase that describes the girl in very negative terms. This
negative information is not conveyed by the premodifier ‘young’ or the head ‘woman’
which are quite simple choices but once again by the postmodifier that follows. This
postmodifier not only tells us that she was proud of her beauty but also that she was so
arrogant and conceited that she boasted about it all the time. The use of the adjective
‘proud’ and the verbalization process ‘boasted’ add emphasis to each other and intensify
the negative impression of her character, again in a matter-of-fact way, with the aggravat-
ing factor that this is presented as a recurring conduct as is presupposed by the time
Adverbial ‘all the time’. This description, all packed up within a noun phrase not open
for questioning, sets the mood for what follows.
Through value-laden lexical choices, the girl is presented in an unflattering light as
being proud, boastful and presumptuous. We find here a clear case of overlexicalization.
The adjective ‘proud’ is used twice. A repetition like this in such a short text highlights
this trait as a very significant feature. In addition, we are told that she was ‘presumptu-
ous’ (‘presuntuosa’), a synonym which goes a step further in creating an even more nega-
tive evaluation of the character of the girl. As Fowler pointed out, overlexicalization is
very important for critical studies because it points to areas of intense preoccupation in
the experience and values of the group which generates it, allowing the linguist to iden-
tify peculiarities in the ideology of that group (Fowler et al., 1979). In this case such
overlexicalization discloses the ideology behind the text and it is a means by which the
narrator mediates our perception about the girl reinforcing our impression of the wicked-
ness in her. A further factor that reinforces the patriarchal ideology of the text is the
evaluation conveyed by the construction ‘being presumptuous, she ignored the advances
of all who courted her’, as if a woman was expected to be flattered, grateful and utterly
content to have men courting her. The acceptance of such an assertion positions the
reader in line with a pre-eminent discourse of femininity, whereby it is natural for women
to desire to be girlfriends or wives. As a consequence those other women who do not
comply with the submissiveness of the eternal feminine are automatically vain and con-
ceited. All these lexical choices used to describe her character and the actions she carries
out accumulate to build on the idea of the badness in her and encourage the idea that he
killed her because “she asked for it”.
The contrast is evident when we look at the characterization of the young man. Very
little information is offered about him. We only know that he was young (which suggests
inexperience and lack of maturity), but no other details are given. There is no physical
description, no indication of his character, nothing apart from being told that he pushed
her into the cold waters resulting in her death. But as an excuse for his behaviour we are
told that he was angered with reason. By means of the relative clause that postmodifies
the noun phrase ‘the young man’, we are told that he was ‘inflamed by her constant rejec-
tions and mockery’. This conceptual metaphor anger is fire (Kövecses, 2003: 21; Lakoff,
1987: 388) tells us he was in a state of intense emotional agitation: ‘he was inflamed’.
And the reason why he was feeling so bad is explained by the nominalizations ‘rejections
and mockery’. Such actions, presupposed to exist, are in fact rather vague and indetermi-
nate in nature. We do not know exactly what it is that she did to him, how she mocked
him or what kind of “abuse” she inflicted upon him. If she had rejected him so much and
so often one cannot help but wonder why she was even with him that day. The only thing
Maestre 309

we know for sure is that by means of the premodifier ‘constant’, and the presupposition
it triggers, these rejections and mockery are identified as being recurrent. In ideological
terms this is a mitigating factor. It sounds like the typical exculpatory defence in crime
passionnel narratives where it is common to hear that the aggressor commits the crime,
upon the rise of passion, because of a sudden strong impulse such as sudden anger or
heartbreak rather than as a premeditated action. Often the excuse given is ‘temporary
insanity, rapture, loss of self control, temporary or permanent mental disorder or even
lack of maturity or the immaturity of youth, always with an undercurrent of unrequited
love’ (Vallejo Rubinstein, 2005: 54). What is serious about these justifications is that
they soften the responsibility of the aggressor. In the Black Lagoon text we find similar
ideas. She provoked him so much and so often that in the end he could not control his
actions and pushed her into the water with the result of her death. And this characteriza-
tion although not in itself legitimizing the crime at least opens a way to justifying it. Here
again the victim is blamed because of how she acted.
In any case what is undeniable is that according to the narrator he killed her. A murder
has been committed. But in this text, as in many other cases in the patriarchal order
where the male sex is privileged over the female, discourse can be put to the service of
the androcentric patriarchal position through the lexical choices that have been made.
The lexical choices in connection with the manner of her death are very revealing. The
text does not speak of killing, murdering, homicide or gender-based violence. In a euphe-
mistic almost poetical way, by means of an intransitive clause, the narrator says that she
‘disappeared into the crystal clear waters’. A transitive material process clause: ‘he killed
her’ is attenuated by the use of an intransitive clause ‘she disappeared’ with the effect that
the affected participant now occupies subject position. In this way a report of ‘what x did
to y’ (material action intentional process) is turned into a report of ‘what happened to y’:
‘she disappeared’ (a prototypical supervention process). In addition, we are told that she
disappeared into the clear waters almost before she knew. This creates another mitigating
factor: She did not suffer. She hardly realized she was dying, therefore the action com-
mitted against her does not seem to be so bad. By making these choices the murder is
recounted in a superficial, almost frivolous way and, as a consequence, its seriousness is
mitigated and its gravity is ameliorated. The young man’s actions are thus excused. In
contrast, the girl is evil and is blamed right till the end, even for an unexpected event after
her death. When she died, the waters of the lagoon turned dark, as if her very death
unleashed the forces of darkness and brought blackness to the once crystal clear waters.
The text relates this using a verbalization process where the Sayer is a rather vague
choice ‘people’. It is followed by an Adverbial subordinate clause of reason that contains
a material event process: ‘since then people call it La Laguna Negra because its water
darkened just as day turns to night’. By doing so the narrator is establishing a telling
contrast between day and night, transparency and darkness and the girl before and after
her death in the lagoon, perhaps to signal her evil nature.
Before the analysis is finished, a couple of further points should be made about modal-
ity because it is also a very significant component for the shaping of the ideology in the
text, in particular because it plays a part in assigning full credibility to the true nature of
the information given in the passage. By means of categorical assertions, the narrator
expresses absolute certainty, admitting no shadow of doubt about what happened. The
310 Language and Literature 22(4)

information is presented as if it was an incontestable truth, although it is clear that what

we have here is a third-person narrative. It is the context of tradition and the common
cultural heritage behind this piece of popular fiction that gives this text an aura of author-
ity and wisdom that is not easily questioned. Usuality modality is also crucial in this
story as it gives an eternalizing effect to her actions and a justification to his. Adverbials
such as ‘all the time’ referring to her constant boasting about her beauty or ‘still’ in the
‘hold she still has’; the premodifier ‘constant’ in ‘her constant rejections and mockery’
and more importantly the verb ‘continues’ in the final line show how important iterative
devices are as mitigating factors. This is particularly the case with the verb ‘continue’
which is used to round off the text giving an everlasting character to her intentional
actions:

and she, who knows the hold she still has on young men, continues to wave her black hair in
search of company in these cold waters.

Even after death she does not change: the badness in her compels her to go on forever
looking for ‘company’, an interesting euphemistic lexical choice, in the cold waters of
the Black Lagoon. She is indeed a deadly dangerous woman both when she is alive and
as a ghostly presence.
In my opinion what is definitely missing in this text is a clear condemnation of the
crime committed against her. Nothing, no matter what, can justify the murder of a per-
son. The seriousness of the murder should have been highlighted and the murderer rep-
robated and condemned appropriately. If gender-based violence is to be eradicated,
ideologies that tolerate or excuse violence against women should not be used, repro-
duced or perpetuated in public discourse and even less so in educational discourse. So
the question to be asked here is why is a text such as this used as part of the instructional
materials in a Visitors’ Centre?
Although it is true that a certain measure of equality has been achieved by women in
western societies, studies have also shown that despite advancement in many areas,
forms of sexism still persist in contemporary societies. It may not be blatant discrimina-
tory sexism that involves repeated external coercion, but rather other more covert and
subtle manifestations (Benokraitis and Feagin, 1986; Lazar, 2005; Swim and Cohen,
1997; and see Mills’s concept of indirect sexism, 2008: 152). In this respect, gender
inequality can be reproduced and observed in subtle ways through the beliefs and actions
of women and men who act in ways that unconsciously generate or perpetuate male
domination as well as sexist attitudes (Martínez et al., 2010). This may go some way to
explaining why this text has been presented and exhibited in this way in a Visitors’
Centre. What we have here is the product of a society that generates the gendered condi-
tions that make it possible to articulate discourses such as these that normalize violence
against women and blame the victim. This text shows a kind of subtle or indirect sexism
that, naturalized in discourse, has affected the lives of so many women and the way they
have been represented in literature and popular culture for centuries and even nowadays.
I do not think this is the result of a special kind of ill-intentioned manipulative animosity,
but is certainly harmful anyway. For this reason there has been a strong emphasis in
feminist literary criticism on the need to become resisting readers (Fetterley, 1978;
Maestre 311

Morris, 1993) to learn to read critically against the grain and to construct narrative posi-
tions in texts from which to challenge dominant values and gender assumptions when
they are unjust and discriminatory.

4 Conclusion
The critical stylistic analysis carried out gives textual evidence that the legend of the
Black Lagoon presents an underlying sexist ideology which normalizes violence against
women and presents a clear case of victim-blaming. Through the examination of discur-
sive structures such as transitivity choices, naming, presuppositions, modality and so on
it has been possible to unveil how this sexist ideology operated in a latent way in the text.
A misogynistic stance has also been uncovered in contrast to a more sympathetic view
toward the aggressor, whose responsibility in the crime is minimized and excused.
All things considered, this is a very serious issue, particularly if we take into consid-
eration the situational context where the text is displayed, in a public installation directed
at tourists, families and children. I would like to conclude by appealing to the authors of
children’s and educational narratives to be aware of these naturalized ideologies as well
as of the fact that gender-based crimes are still happening on a regular basis in Spain and
in the rest of the world. They should make a conscious effort and take special care in
examining how they talk about gender and violence and how they present it to children
and people in general. It is of paramount importance that the linguistic practices they use
do not naturalize and perpetuate ideologies that sustain gender-based violence.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or
not-for-profit sectors.

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Author biography
María Dolores López Maestre is a Senior Lecturer in the English Department of the University of
Murcia (Spain) where she teaches undergraduate as well as master courses on literature, culture
and gender studies. She has published widely in the field of critical discourse analysis, corpus
linguistics and stylistics in many journals including International Journal of Corpus Linguistics,
International Journal of English Studies, Resla, Altlantis, SELL Studies in English Language and
Linguistics, Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses and Revista ES Revista de Filología Inglesa. She
has also contributed chapters to monographic studies: in García Martínez, El Diálogo Intercultural,
2009; in Gómez Morón et al., Pragmatics Applied to Language Teaching and Learning, 2009; in
Scheu and Saura, Discourse and International Relations, 2007; in Otal et al., Cognitive and
Discourse Approaches to Metaphor and Metonymy, 2005 and others. María Dolores López Maestre
is also the author of several books for students of English Language. Currently her main areas of
writing and research are critical stylistics, cognitive stylistics (especially metaphor analysis) and
gender studies.