Discussing Mills’(1995)

Feminist Stylistics
.
FCDA

 Articulating a feminist discourse praxis

 They are motivated by the need to change substantively the existing conditions of these
gendered relations.
 Men’s failure to give credit to feminist by citing their work
 It is necessary within CDA to establish a distinctly’ Feminist Politics of articulation
 To avoid gender oppression
 An attempt to empower women linguistically and politically
 An attempt to make CDA , a prominent approach in the humanities
Why FCDA?

 To reverse blatant sexism that emerged in the wake of post feminist black wash
 To challenge frequently taken for granted gendered assumptions and hegemonic power
relations
 FCDA suggests the usefulness of language and discourse studies for the investigation of
feminist issues in gender and women studies

What’s in a name?

 Inclusion of the term ‘feminist’ in various sub- fields by feminist scholars such as feminist
pragmatics, feminist stylistics, feminist conversation analysis etc.
 To bring change across male- stream disciplines in humanities, social sciences and
sciences.
 CDA is known for its overtly political stance and is concerned with analysis of various of
social inequality and in justice.
 An attempt towards positive discursive construction of female gender.
HEGEMONY AND gender ideology

 An attempt to win the consent of larger proportion of population

 Patriarchal ideology is socially structured
 FCDA is a type of analytical activism
 Marxism and FCDA
 FCDA aims at examining how power dominance are discursively produced and resisted in
a variety of ways through textual representations
 To avoid the mechanism of discursive and coercive powers regarding women’s
marginalization from the domains of power
 FCDA suggests a perspective that comparative rather than univeasal
 Gender in Discourse

1. Gender Sensitization
2. Gender and Stereotypes
3. Three Waves of Feminism
4. Gendered Roles in Society
5. It is only for man
6. Gendered classrooms, Family, Society, Work places
7. Gender is violence
8. How to establish a de-gendered society
9. To encourage polarized thinking
Gender in Discourse

 Use of colors
 Size of picture
 On which page it appears either front page or inner page
 Semiotics codes and conventions which underlie both linguistic and visual aspects
 Socio cultural analysis of media by linking properties of text to ideologies, power
relations and cultural values
 An obvious limitation of semiotic analysis is its comparison with linguistically
oriented approaches .
 It does attend systematically to detailed properties of the texture of the text.
Gendered Proverbs

1. Long hair short wit

2. Old wives tale
3. Frailty thy name is woman
4. Sally is as cold as a block of ice
5. Translation is just like a woman if it is fair it is not beautiful and vice versa.
6. The way to man's heart goes through his stomach
7. Man is wolf
8. Khawand Srahny da sup Honda ay
9. Orat nu mar lia ya kandh nu mar lia ik brabar
English proverbs

 A woman has even cheated the devil

 A woman is like a lemon, you squeeze her and through her away
 Seven women in their right senses are surpassed by a mad man
 A woman’s tongue cracks bones (Nazar bladan---)
 A good husband makes a good wife
 A woman’s work is never done (wahely run---)
 A good man is hard to find
 Hell has no fury like a woman scorned
Proverbs

 A man is as old as he feels, a woman is as old as she looks

 It is a man’s world (tell her)
 One tongue in enough for a woman
 Root cause of evil
 The way to man’s heart is through his stomach
 Boys will be boys
 Behind every successful man-----
 Practice makes a man perfect
Verbal views

 Verbal views Express cultural views of gender

 Shukar hy beti k bojh sy azad howa
 Betion ny agly ghar jana hy
 Orat aik bar hafty main aik bar mar na khay to uska dimag thek nai rahta
 Male generic language excludes woman
 Woman are defined by their appearances
Colour connotations

 white = purity, innocence, virtuous, chastity, goodness, decency, etc.

 black — evil, impurity, guilt, vice, sinfulness, indecency, immorality, etc.
 red - blood, passion, sexuality, fertility, fecundity(able to produce many children), anger,
sensuality, etc.
 green = hope, insecurity, naivete,( inexperienced), candour (true), trust, life, existence, etc.
 yellow = liveliness, sunshine, happiness, tranquillity, peacefulness, etc.
 blue - hope, sky, paradise, tranquillity, calmness, mysticism, mystery, etc.
 brown = earthiness, naturalness, primordiality (very ancient), constancy, etc.
 grey - dullness, mistiness, obscurity, mystery, nebulousness (unclear), etc.
 Introduction

 Language simply as a tool/vehicle for ideas rather than as a material entity which may in fact shape
those ideas.
 As Lee states: ‘Language clearly not a mirror that reflects reality, rather it functions to impose
structure on our perceptions of the world.’ (1992, p.8)
 Close analysis makes us aware of the way that language choices may serve the interests of some
people to the detriment of others.
 Language & Power: How language contributes to the domination of some people by others.
(Fairclough, 1989, p.4).
 Main aim: ‘not only to capture the way in which meanings of gender are represented so that it is
possible to contest/interpret those representations: but also to ‘make strange’ the way gender is
represented in our culture and to think the ways in which it could be represented differently and
more productivity for both genders’.
 Understanding ‘Feminist Stylistics’

In the glossary of this book, she defines the term as ‘a form of politically motivated
stylistics which aims is to develop an awareness of the way gender is handled in texts’
(Mills, 2007)
Understanding ‘Feminist Stylistics’

 Looking separately at the two terms – ‘feminist’ and ‘stylistics’ – it has to be said
that feminist ideas or feminism in general is truly hard to define, as there are
numerous different aspects and approaches to this topic, which would probably
require its own thesis.

 For our purpose it should suffice to say that feminists in general feel that women
in patriarchal societies are often oppressed and discriminated against and that men
and women are treated quite differently.
Understanding ‘Feminist Stylistics’

 This does not mean that all men benefit from these societal structures, as there are
also men who are oppressed.
 But feminism is aimed at ‘changing the social structure to make it less oppressive
to women, and, for that matter, to men.’ (Mills, 4)
 On a linguistic level, feminists’ goal is to illustrate how differently gender is
treated in texts and how language favors men over women.
Understanding ‘Feminist Stylistics’

 Taking a quote from Geoffrey Leech and Michael Short, they deepen this statement and
claim that
in general, literary stylistics has, implicitly or explicitly, the goal of explaining the relation between language
and artistic function. The motivating questions are not so much what, as why and how. From the linguist’s
angle, it is ‘why does the author here choose to express himself [sic] in this particular way?’. From the critic’s
viewpoint it is ‘how is such-and-such an aesthetic effect achieved through language?’ (Leech and Short quoted
in Mills, 5)

Thus what the field of stylistics deals with, according to Mills, is why an author decides to use
a particular way of expressing himself/ herself over another and how specific effects are
achieved through language.
Mills’ & Field of Feminist Stylistics

 Mills and the field of feminist stylistics is mainly concerned with is

analyzing the point of view, agency, metaphor and transitivity in a
text
 thus showing how closely related they are to matters of gender.
 Moreover, feminist stylistics aspires to reform the way gender is
represented in texts or at least draw attention to the problem of
misrepresentation of either men or women.
Levels of Analysis

Mills’ three-part model based on

 the ‘analysis at the level of the word’,
 the ‘analysis at the level of the phrase or sentence’
 the ‘analysis at the level of discourse’.
Analysis at the Level of the Word

 The use – or rather the misuse – of individual words is dealt with in

the first attempt of any analysis. Through the use of generic nouns
or pronouns a certain negative effect is achieved in the view of
women. (he-men etc)
 The same applies to terms of address along with the negative
description of women in certain texts, which end in language-based
sexism.
 policeman, fireman, craftsman versus craftsworker, policeofficer, firefighter
 Analysis at the Level of the Phrase or Sentence

 In the second section of analysis, the focal point will be the observation of the meaning of a whole phrase or
sentence, as opposed to looking at words in isolation.

 With the former, we often encounter the problem of having a certain view in mind of what the word could
mean, so that we interpret it in particular (negative) ways. When looking at a whole phrase, however, we do
not isolate certain words but see the words in relation to their context, as well as their co-text (words with
which they co-occur)
 A: I am going to complain to the director.

B: do you think “HE” will be able to do anything?

 The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach
 The school she goes to isn’t very good: its only a girl’s school
 The Man is a Wolf, Sally is a block of Ice
 Analysis at the Level of Discourse

 The last point of analysis deals with the overall unit of textual analysis, namely
that of discourse.
 Mills claims that discourse often does not find its way into a stylistic analysis, as
many critics feel that it is not actually a linguistic matter but rather deals with
larger structures of individual items that make up a whole.
 What is even more crucial is the study of the effects of these larger units on the
reader/audience, which means how the text is constructed and how the reader
decodes what is written.
 Objectification of female body: Racial discrimination
 Black Women
 Sprawling figure
Analysis
In the image under analysis, a lady is presented wearing black dress. She is wearing white shoes. A white purse is also
there alongside the lady. In the background, there is a cupboard in which some shoes and bags of different hues are
placed. Some words are also visible in the picture. After making the text analysis, the researcher makes the semiotic
analysis of the image, that is, the process by means of which the object is produced and received. This is the second
phase of Fairclough's model. It involves a paraphrasing or translating into familiar and intelligible terms which is not
immediately apparent or explicit. This is an advertising billboard of metro shoes and company name is also visible in
the picture. Words "My passion, my obsession and my desire" are written in the picture. There is a picture of stylish
lady who is wearing silky black dress and showing golden hair. She is sitting in a reclining posture. Her hair is of
golden color. She is playing the role of a model that uses metro shoes. We can also observe different beautiful shoes
and bags in the picture. Apparently this is an advertising bill board displaying the shoes and bags of a company.
Applying third dimension of Fairclough's model, the researcher makes the critical discourse analysis of the picture. This
dimension is called social analysis. In this phase, the researcher explains the image with reference to social semiotics.
There is repetition of words "my" for three times and this word is associated with passion, obsession and desire. The
word “my” shows the degree of certainty and authenticity. This bill board has been placed to advertise shoes. But these
words have no link with selling that particular shoe. It seems as if the woman in the picture is uttering these words to
attract the public. The woman appears to be a commodity in place of shoes. She is a sex symbol and sex object. She has
been presented in such a way as to distract the attention of the people from other objects. When one looks at the picture
at the first glance, it remains unclear what is she selling. After observing the whole bill board, one comes to know that it
is advertisement of shoes and bags. The woman is eyeing at the watcher of the board in spite of the fact that she is
selling shoes and she should look at them. She is dominant in the whole picture and her eyes show her camera conscious
nature. There is concept of white color and whiteness in the picture. White color gets the attention very easily. Woman's
complexion is white. She is seducing with trickery and incitement. There are various connotations of words in the
picture. "Metro" has been written in red capital words to make it prominent whereas a little place has been specified for
word shoes, and image of shoes. The woman is sitting in inviting posture having seductive eyes and she has put her best
leg forward having a hand on her leg and it seems as if she is not selling shoes. Rather she is exposing herself. Website is
also mentioned on the board to show the authenticity of the brand.
Thus it is clear from this analysis that the capitalists attract the common public by showing them those
elements which are eye catching. In reality, their purpose is to get profit at every cost. They present their
commodities in a very deceptive way.
The researcher has also analyzed the picture with reference to Ronald Barthes’s model of semiological
discourse analysis. For example a picture of a full, dark bottle is a signifier that relates to a specific
signified: a fermented, alcoholic beverage. However, it can be related to a new signified: the idea of healthy,
robust, relaxing experience. Motivations for such manipulations vary, from a desire to sell products to a
simple desire to maintain the status quo. These insights brought Barthes in line with similar Marxist theory.
Same situation can be observed in this picture. The picture depicts the picture of a young lady wearing
advertised shoes. The beholder of the board can relate this situation with his ownwell being. If a lady looks
at the picture, she will feel that after wearing these shoes she will appear as attractive as the woman in the
picture is. So a sign can take part in a new level of signification where it becomes the signifier to a new
signified at another level.
Bravery and men
Brave man
Brave
 Stereotyping of women

 Semiotic discourses
Conclusion

 Make explicit some of the untenable assumptions

 Lead stylistics away from the analysis of the language of the text
 An analysis of socio-economic factors which have allowed that language to appear
 Have determined the type of interpretations which are possible
 Gender is foregrounded in the text in ways which can be predicted
 Language analysis can help to challenge the so called notion of normality by providing
alternative choices within language and explaining the way these alternative choices can lead
to different and more productive meanings
 Feminist stylistics covers endless areas :
 Text
 Media : Advertisements, Newspapers etc.