A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Manipulation And Abuse Of Power In Aurélie Moeremans’ Memoir Broken Strings

Abstract

This study examines the discourse of manipulation and abuse of power in Aurelie Moeremans’ memoir Broken Strings: Fragments of a Stolen Youth using Teun A. van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach. The problem addressed is that manipulative and power-abusive language patterns in memoirs of grooming and relational abuse remain under-explored, as most CDA research has concentrated on fictional or political-media discourse. This study employs a qualitative, descriptive-analytical method combined with library research: linguistic units (words, phrases, clauses, and narrative segments) in Broken Strings were identified, marked, and classified using the read-and-record technique into categories of manipulation strategy, guided by van Dijk’s framework of positive self-presentation, negative other-presentation, mitigation of responsibility, and emotional control. Twenty data extracts across four categories show that the perpetrator systematically combines idealizing flattery and debt-creating attention to secure trust, devaluing remarks about the victim’s body and judgment offset by reassurances of loyalty, explicit threats and surveillance relabeled as protection or romance to secure coerced formal consent, and denial-attack-reversal sequences that convert his own public misconduct into evidence of her supposed failings. These strategies operate together as a single, escalating discourse of domination in which control is repeatedly narrated as care and devaluation is always followed by reassurance. This study concludes that memoirs constitute a rich and underused source of discursive data for CDA and contributes to public understanding of how manipulative language operates in relational violence.