ABSTRACT
For many victim-survivors of sexual assault, reporting their experiences to police and in a court trial is too harrowing, embarrassing or risky. As a result, many such crimes go unreported and unrecorded. However, informal disclosure such as online forums or confidential reporting tools can offer a reporting option that is more accessible and satisfactory than a formal police complaint, even though it is not intended to result in prosecution of the offender. It can also provide valuable data for researchers working to eliminate violence against women, particularly sexual violence. This chapter describes the use of one such data set and demonstrates the potential for linguistic research to contribute to this field. It is shown that linguists have an important role to play in analysing both the types of questions used in the reporting tools and the range and structure of the narrative responses they elicit. This research can provide insights that assist police and therapists to develop questioning strategies most sympathetic and cognitively appropriate to the traumatised victim-survivor providing evidence or seeking support following an assault.
