The Language of Mass Shooter Manifestos: A Corpus-Based Analysis of Pre-Crime Narratives

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Emily Powell

The Language of Mass Shooter Manifestos

A Corpus-Based Analysis of Pre-Crime Narratives

Emily Powell

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English

Routledge
30 May 2025

Semantics; Crime & criminology; Criminal or forensic psychology

Series: Routledge Studies in Applied Linguistics

Bringing together scholarship from corpus linguistics, forensic linguistics, and criminology, this book offers a nuanced exploration of moral agency in the pre-crime narratives of offenders.

The volume seeks to complement existing literature in forensic linguistics, which often explore criminal narratives elicited after the crime with the benefit of hindsight, by examining texts written in the midst of events. Analyses draw on a corpus of over 200,000 words of manifestos and diaries written by four ‘lone attackers’ who perpetrated mass shootings, and put together accounts of their lives and the preparation for their crimes. Incorporating stylistic approaches to non-fiction texts with those from corpus linguistics, Powell explores the ways in which these texts influence perpetrators and future offenders and, more broadly, the role of narrative as it relates to harmful actions. A closing section includes a taxonomy of moral agency which may serve as the foundation for future research on understanding agency, responsibility, and offending from a linguistic perspective.

This book will be of interest to scholars in forensic linguistics, corpus linguistics, stylistics, and criminology.

By: Emily Powell
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9781032639956
ISBN 10: 1032639954
Series: Routledge Studies in Applied Linguistics
Pages: 226
Publication Date: 30 May 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Contents List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgements 1. Introduction 2. Background: Mass shooter manifestos, identity and the language of moral agency 3. Constructing and analysing the corpus 4. Linguistic Repackaging of Agency 5. Sharing agency with past and future attackers 6. Virtual agency and self-labelling 7. A taxonomy of moral agency 8. Conclusion Glossary References Index

Emily Powell is Head of the Centre for International English at the University of South Wales, UK.