CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF WOMEN’S DEGRADATION IN SELECTED AMERICAN AND BRITISH PROVERBS

Abstract

This study sets out to examine women’s degradation in terms of gender inequality in American and British proverbs. The connection between gender relations, language, and the culture of the American and the British community is the aim of this study. Critical discourse analysis is taken into account as a tool to mediate between language and social action. Moreover, in recent years, feminist critical discourse analysis tries to challenge and change the way women are degraded and subordinated across cultures in general and in the American and the British cultures in particular. These negative stereotypes are considered as negative prejudices with regard to ambivalent sexism. These ideas and meanings are seen as social practices which are extremely tied to the social and cultural context in which the type of discourse may occur.  A quantitative research method has been utilized to reach the best understanding of the results of the study. Pertaining to the data, four proverbs represent the American culture and four ones to represent the British culture, too. This research has proposed an eclectic model comprising: Fairclough’s (1995) power and dominance, Lazar’s (2014) Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis, and Glick and Fisk’s (1996) ambivalent sexism. The overall results of the study have shown that women receive misogynistic treatment in both cultures. In a nutshell, this study has presented a critical and linguistic analysis of the way women are perceived in English proverbs from an emancipatory perspective.

Keywords: critical discourse analysis, gender inequality, proverbs, feminist critical discourse analysis, ambivalent sexism