“Labelled a murderer”- A discursive analysis of Amanda Knox’s construction of innocence

White, Louise (2015) “Labelled a murderer”- A discursive analysis of Amanda Knox’s construction of innocence. Loughborough University. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

The research question for this investigation is how Amanda Knox formulates her discourse to construct herself as being innocent of the murder of Meredith Kercher. To explore this research question, pre-existing data, a 2014 interview with Knox, were transcribed and then analysed according to discursive psychology. The analysis found she constructs innocence by using a variety of practices to perform three key actions. These actions are the construction of: Knox’s ignorance about the murder; Knox as a credible and honest person; and Knox as being victimised. Implications of these findings include that they provide a greater understanding about the ways convicted murderers construct innocence, therefore extending the findings of previous literature on fact construction to a more forensic linguistic field. There is also the possibility of applications and future studies which could explore this area further.