This dissertation presents a comparative study of judicial resolutions of rape trials in Spanish and English in order to understand how rape myths that are culturally available and affect text production and perception in three judicial systems. To achieve this goal, two analyses were performed. First, I carried out a qualitative discourse analysis of texts from a corpus comprised of 34 judicial resolutions of rape cases in Spain, Puerto Rico, and the United States. I used the notions of frame and script to seek evidence of the ways in which authors of the texts rely on stereotypical gender roles and outdated conceptions of rape to contextualize and portray the events and persons involved in the crime. In the second study, the objective was to determine how three rape myths affect blame attribution by analyzing how reader perceptions are affected by varying descriptions of a rape event, involving the following: 1) type of relationship between plaintiff and defendant; 2) intentionality in substance consumption; and 3) resistance. A perception test was distributed to 225 participants (85 English speakers, 130 Spanish speakers). Other sociolinguistic variables were taken into account to analyze the results, including gender, age, education, and rape myth acceptance.

The data showed that the authors of judicial resolutions rely heavily on rape myths and stereotypes of rape to reconstruct the narrative of a rape event. However, the result, contrary to previous research, is a strengthening of the plaintiff’s credibility. Specifically, in their written resolutions, the judges emphasize the commonalities between the particular events that fit with the stereotypical script so as to frame it as a “real instance of rape”. The results of the second test showed that the presence of rape myths affect blame attribution. These results coincide with previous research: older males with lower education have a higher degree of rape myth acceptance and attribute more culpability to the plaintiff. English speakers scored lower in the rape myth acceptance test, and it correlated with lower scores of blame attribution towards the plaintiff. Finally, intentionality in substance consumption seemed to have the highest effect on plaintiff blaming.