The Representation of Women in English and Kurdish Media :A Critical-Multimodal Discourse Analysis Approach

Kareem, Mohammed (2022) The Representation of Women in English and Kurdish Media :A Critical-Multimodal Discourse Analysis Approach. Masters thesis, Koya University.

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Abstract

Abstract Media have the power to shape societies, and influence beliefs, values, and social identities in as much as media discourse is never neutral and constructs certain realities. Strikingly, this occurs not only at the linguistic level but also at the visual level as well due to the multimodal nature of media texts, a fact that has been neglected by much previous work on media discourse. In this respect, previous studies on the representation of women have been too limited in scope in that, as they focused on the linguistic representation, did not result in a holistic picture of how women are represented in the media. More strikingly, no study has addressed this issue in a cross-linguistic context. The present study, therefore, critically investigates the multimodal discourses that underlie the representation of women in English and Kurdish media in order to discover the similarities and differences between the ways in which women are represented in three prominent media genres namely magazine covers, advertisements, and news stories, combining the multimodal discourse analysis with critical discourse analysis in order to find out the ideology representing women in English and Kurdish media. The present study seeks to answer, these questions: To what extent do linguistic and visual discourses about women in English and Kurdish media conceal underlying ideologies, identities, and values? Where do women stand in English and Kurdish media, and is it well representations, or misrepresentations? Are the verbal and visual representations intersemiotically complementary? Are there similarities or differences between the English and Kurdish media in this respect? Therefore, based on the above questions, the study hypothesizes that; discourses about women in the English and Kurdish media, particularly in the visual mode, are marketed by media corporations or agencies using a variety of semiotic resources to increase their business; women are commodified, materialized, and used as accessories to attract the viewer's attention; women are rarely shown as actually influencing the world. In contrast, their physical attractiveness and seduction are emphasized, reinforcing the conventional idea of female sexuality that signifies their authority in both societies; there is frequently no one-to-one correspondence between the verbal and visual forms. To verify the hypotheses and analyze the data, an eclectic multi-dimenstional model, based on Kress and van Leeuwen‘ Visual Grammar (2006); Machin and Mayr‘s representing social actor as well as social action (2012), is adopted. The data is qualitatively analyzed based on sixteen texts, eight for each language in three different genres in both English and Kurdish media. The study concludes that both the English and Kurdish media, with some differences, misrepresent women in order to get the viewer's attention. In both cases the visual and linguistic representations are not correlated.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
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Subjects:	P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
Divisions:	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > Department of English Language > M.Sc. Thesis
Depositing User:	Mr. Rebwar Mohammed Jarjis
Date Deposited:	11 Sep 2023 07:59
Last Modified:	11 Oct 2023 07:11
URI:	http://eprints.koyauniversity.org/id/eprint/394

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