Gendered Discourse Markers in Ma Ba‘d al-Hubb (After Love) and Sakhb wa Nisa’ wa Katib Maghmour: A Comparative Analysis in Light of Robin Lakoff’s Theory
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31185/lark.5034Keywords:
Language and Gender, Gendered Discourse, Robin Lakoff, Hudia Hussein, Ali Badr, Lexical Analysis, Syntactic Analysis.Abstract
This study examines gendered linguistic markers in Ma Ba‘d al-Hubb by Hudia Hussein and Haris al-Tibagh by Ali Badr, through an analytical approach based on Robin Lakoff’s theory of language and gender differences. The research aims to identify discourse patterns used by narrators and characters to represent gender relations, focusing on two main levels: the lexical level, which includes color-related terms, oath expressions, insults and derogatory language, honorifics and terms of respect, intensifiers, hedges, exclamations, and vocabulary specifically referring to women; and the syntactic-functional level, which covers proverbs, colloquial expressions, short/simple/parallel sentences, ellipsis and incomplete sentences, interrogatives, imperative forms, and repetition. The findings reveal both intersections and divergences in the employment of gendered markers between the two novels: After Love tends to foreground the female voice through a personal and emotional tone, whereas The Tobacco Keeper features a historically and politically oriented male narrative voice. The study concludes that the socio-political context of each text shapes the structure of gendered discourse and reframes certain aspects of Lakoff’s hypotheses within the Arabic literary context.
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