"I was so afraid all you wanted from me was sex": a corpus-assisted study in the pragmatics of manipulation in online child sexual groomers' discourse

Using a corpus pragmatic approach, we analyse online groomers’ discourse within chat logs from the Perverted Justice Foundation (PJF) archive (2019) (www.pjfi.org) to expose online groomers' stylistic modus operandi. Informed by Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) (Giles et al., 1973) and Sorlin’s Manipulative Discourse (MD) Model (2017), the study shows that online child sexual offenders’ use of implicit, belief-based manipulation is based on two paradoxes: (1) The offenders’ use of a ‘transparency’ tactic to establish a reciprocal, adult-to-adult relationship and draw the child-target in; and (2) the ‘polite’ offenders falsely passing the power and control over to the child, thereby creating in the child’s mind an illusion of free choice, maturity and capacity to consent. It is suggested that the two paradoxes contribute to the development of one narrative with, as its recurring theme, the implicit, yet prevalent adultification of the child. We argue that the discursive adultification of the child-target deserves to be further explored, as it can lead to role and responsibility reversal, which supports online grooming processes and, crucially, it may result in the child-victim’s self-blame and reluctance to report OCSEA.