解析同性戀:台灣網路新聞中的詞彙搭配與社會態度

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(1)國立台灣大學英語學系碩士論文 Master’s Thesis Department of English National Taiwan Normal University. 解析同性戀: 台灣網路新聞中的詞彙搭配與社會態度 Analyzing Homosexuality: Lexical collocations and social attitudes in Taiwan’s Internet News. 指導教授: 蘇席瑤 Advisor:. Dr. Hsi-yao Su. 研究生: 陳宇卿. 中華民國一零七年二月 February , 2018.

(2) 摘要隨著同志議題越來越受到重視，人們對同志文化(Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) 的社會態度近年來也有改變的趨勢。本研究以社會語言學角度探討同志的表徵。本研究討論在台灣網路新聞媒體中三個關鍵詞彙: 同志、同性戀、同婚，如何在網路新聞中被討論與呈現，並以三個層面來分析：詞彙搭配、新聞標題、新聞內文。研究方法使用數位典藏國家型科技計畫的斷詞工具和自建語料庫軟體 (AntConc tool) 取得中文斷詞結果(Segmentation) 與關鍵詞上下文語境 (Concordance)。研究結果顯示顯著的語義特徵。同志、同婚、同性戀的詞彙搭配有三個語意範疇的共通性: 法律涵義與政治運動(Legal Implication and Political Movement)、立場顯示 (Stance Showing)、關係與身份標籤 (Relationship and Identity Label)。同志與同性戀的詞彙搭配語意範疇極為相似包含: 破壞性行為 (Destructive Behavior)、以及負面情緒 (Negative Emotion)。所收集的網路新聞語料中可發現三個重要主題: 平等與平權(Equality and Sameness)、家庭角色 (The Role of Family)、社會破壞力 (Destruction to Society)。整體而言，負面涵義詞彙與正面涵義詞彙皆在語料中出現，但負面涵義比正面涵義的詞彙表現顯著。本研究的試圖探討同志在新聞網路媒體中的描繪與語意功能上的表徵。藉由分析新聞內文中語言的使用、社會態度和語境結構，確實幫助我們了解大眾對於同志的感知、意義與評價。關鍵詞: 網路新聞、同性戀、詞彙搭配、語意範疇、社會態度、同志 i.

(3) ABSTRACT As concerns about homosexuality are becoming more prominent, social attitudes toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people (LGBT) have changed lately. This study attempts to investigate the representation of homosexuality from a linguistic perspective. We examine three key terms tongzhi ‘homosexual’, tongxianlian ’gay’ and tonghun ’same-sex marriage’ from news reports in Taiwan’s Internet news by studying how homosexuality is represented and described in terms of lexical collocations, headlines and news content. Making use of the tools National Digital Archives Program and AntConc (3.4.4w), we are able to retrieve word segmentation and concordance. Our collocates analysis suggests significant semantic features. The result shows that word nighboring tongzhi, tongxinglian and tonghun share three semantic categories: (i) legal implication and political movement; (ii) stance showing; (iii) relationship and identity label. Collocates of tongzhi and tongxinglian are more similar so the semantic categories overlap with each other heavily, pertaining to destructive behavior and negative emotion. We identify three major themes in homosexuality related discourses, including equality and sameness, the role of family and destruction to society. Overall, our investigation shows that positive and negative attitudes both play a role in online news; they either promote tolerance and equality or are against homosexuality. However, the result shows negative references are more prevalent than positive ones. ii.

(4) The current study carries important implications for the linguistic representation of homosexuality, and analyzing discourses help to explore the intimate association between public perception toward homosexuality and meanings and values through language use.. Keywords: homosexuality, Internet news, lexical collocations, semantic categories, social attitudes, tongzhi. iii.

(5) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 不敢相信我可以完成一本論文坐在書桌前完成最後的謝辭，在寫論文當下我面臨了許多挑戰與困難，好幾次起了放棄的念頭但在眾多朋友師長的鼓勵下讓我學習到了如何解決困難面對挑戰。在這過程當中我接受了許多人的幫助，我真的非常感恩，在完成畢業論文的同時我內心是激動與喜悅。完成論文是對自己的一種負責的態度，研究的過程充滿喜怒哀樂但是我做到了! 在碩士班的求學過程中，我遇見了許多朋友與老師，首先我想先感謝我的指導教授－蘇席瑤老師。第一次看到老師是在碩一的社會語言學，從那個時候開始我就擔任老師的助理，從旁協助研究。我有了論文大致的方向後，蘇老師總是非常有耐心的聽著我的想法並給予我很多實質上的幫助，提供我許多相關方面的書單書籍，整理歸納我參差不齊的文章。如果沒有她的耐心與教導，我是不可能完成我的論文的。每週的開會，老師都提供我多角化的思考模式，鼓勵我從各個方向探討讓我的論文可以更完整。我還要感謝我的口試委員: 陳乃嫻老師、徐嘉慧老師、李臻儀老師。陳乃嫻在第一次口試時就給予我的論文許多有幫助的建言，徐嘉慧老師和李臻儀老師給予我很多語料分析與文獻探討上的重要建議。聽到我要口試時，三位老師皆毫不猶疑地搭應擔任我的口試委員，也在口試當下提出很多我自己找不出來的盲點。我也非常感謝師大教授們這幾年來的耐心教誨。曉虹老師在碩一教導我怎麼樣有邏輯的寫作模式；蕙珊老師的語音學課程以及擔任導師時對我們的關注與關心;Joy 老師在語言分析課程的講解讓我對語料要從何種面向思考有更深入的理解；妙霞老師在語用課時時叮嚀我們要預讀，並在課堂提出很多面向的解釋與思考；薩楊老師的句法課讓我對句法有了更上一層樓的認識。我也要感謝在英語系辦的助教以及出納組的各位行政人員們，不管是在當助理處理學校公文上面的幫助還是在碩班課程上都不吝給予幫忙:慕涵、姿儀、羽立、豪谷、秉融。還有陪伴我一起度過碩班學業的各位同學，沒有你們我沒辦法熬過論文的各種甘苦，Amber 總是樂觀的鼓勵我讓我有動力繼續向前走，一直跑在前頭的 Aries 也是幫我打氣，最貼心的 Lin 不時叮嚀我各種 deadlines，學長 Vincent 總是在我灰暗挫折時扶持我，學長 Andres 在最後關頭互相叮嚀提醒。感謝在我身邊的同事朋友們一直鼓勵我堅持走下去。最後我要感謝我的家人，他們常常擔心我何時能夠畢業，我的媽媽擔心我熬夜讀書等等身體狀況，我的爸爸的鼓勵催促論文進度，還有我的弟弟一直幫我加油，非常感謝我的家人們一路陪伴我走到最後一哩路。. iv.

(6) TABLE OF CONTENTS CHINESE ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………...I ENGLISH ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………….II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………...IV TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………........V LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………..............VII LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………............VIII CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………1 1.1 Motivation………………………………………………………………….1 1.2 News discourse……………………………………………………………..5 1.3 Research questions and organization of present study……………………..8 CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………………….11 2.1 Language, gender, and sexuality…………………………………………….11 2.1.1 Sex and gender……………………………………………………….12 2.1.2 Theoretical models: dominance, difference and performance………..18 2.1.3 Language, gander and sexuality studies……………………………...23 2.1.4 Language and sexuality studies………………………………………26 2. 2 Language ideologies in the media discourse………………………………...31 2.2.1 Language as ideologies………………………………………………32 2.2.2 Gender identity and the mass media………………………………….33 2.2.3 Gender and Language use in the media………………………………34 2.2.4 Critical Discourse Analysis…………………………………………..38 2.2.5 Summary……………………………………………………………..39 2.3 Gender and Language and corpus approaches……………………………….40 2.3.1 Johnson and Ensslin (2007)………………………………………….41 2.3.2 Charteris-Black and Seale (2009)…………………………………….41 2.3.3 Holmgreene (2009)…………………………………………………..42 2.3.4 Baker (2010)…………………………………………………………43 2.3.5 King (2011)…………………………………………………………..43 2.3.6 Summary……………………………………………………………..44 CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY…………………………………………………..46 3.1 Keywords selection and definitions…………………………………………46 3.2 Data collection………………………………………………………………53 3.3 Data analysis………………………………………………………………...61 3.4 Summary…………………………………………………………………….71 CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS AND DISCUSSION…………………………………………..73 v.

(7) 4.1 General distribution of collocates…………………………………………...73 4.1.1The collocates of tongzhi……………………………………………..74 4.1.2The collocates of tongxinglian……………………………………….76 4.1.3 The collocates of tonghun…………………………………………...77 4.2 Assessment of collocations………………………………………………….78 4.2.1 Negative assessment…………………………………………………80 4.2.2 Positive assessment………………………………………………….87 4.2.3 Neutral statement…………………………………………………….91 4.2.4 Discussion…………………………………………………………...98 4.3 Textual analysis……………………………………………………………102 4.3.1 Headlines………………………………………………………………...102 4.3.2 News content analysis…………………………………………………...106 4.3.2.1 Equality and sameness…………………………………………...106 4.3.2.2 The role of family………………………………………………...115 4.3.2.3 Destruction to society…………………………………………….122 CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSION……………………………………………………….127 5.1 Summary of key findings………………………………………………….127 5.2 Implications and limitations……………………………………………….131 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………...134 APPENDIX……………………………………………………...…………………….142. vi.

(8) LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Top key terminology Table 3.2 Distribution of five keywords in four main Internet media Table 3.3 Number of posts each month and important events Table 3.4 Number of words in the four Internet media Table 4.1 The collocates of tongzhi Table 4.2 The collocates of tongxinglian Table 4.3 The collocates of tonghun Table 4.4 Frequency of the negative collocates of tongzhi Table 4.5 Frequency of the negative collocates of tongxinglian Table 4.6 Frequency of the negative collocates of tonghun Table 4.7 Frequency of the positive collocates of tongzhi Table 4.8 Frequency of the positive collocates of tongxinglian Table 4.9 Frequency of the positive collocates of tonghun Table 4.10 Frequency of the neutral collocates of tongzhi Table 4.11 Frequency of the neutral collocates of tongxinglian Table 4.12 Frequency of the neutral collocates of tonghun Table 4.13 Shared collocational groups across 3 terms Table 4.14 semantic groups of words coordinated with the target keywords Table 4.15 Five types of strategies used in headlines. vii.

(9) LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1 Changes in homosexuality Figure 3.1 Search popularity of key terms on Google Trends Figure 3.2 Reliability of Internet media in Taiwan Figure 3.3 Percentage of news items from 2016.05-2017.02 Figure 3.4 Research methodology flowchart Figure 3.5A snapshot of word segmentation Figure 3.6 A snapshot of AntConc Tool Figure 4.1 Theme park metaphor: the conceptual metaphor. viii.

(10) CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Motivation. In the twenty-first century, many nations began legalizing same-sex marriages. Along with the legalization of same-sex marriage, attitudes toward homosexuality in many nations have changed (Hooghe and Meeusen 2013). Awareness to protect the rights and civil liberties of homosexuals has also increased in Asia. Some Asian countries such as Nepal, Vietnam, Thailand and Japan have even considered legalizing same-sex marriages (Misra 2009). Among those Asian countries, as reported by CNN, Taiwan is likely to become one of the first Asian countries to legalize same-sex marriage. According to the Taiwan Social Change Survey, the public’s attitude toward homosexuality has become positive recently. As shown in figure 1.1, Taiwan has made the most progress in higher tolerance of homosexuality from 1995-2012 when compared to China, Japan and Korea in the World Values Survey. By comparing waves (wave 3: 1995-1998; wave 6:20102012) of data between 1995 and 2012, Taiwanese have developed more tolerant attitudes toward homosexuality. The findings show that overall social tolerance 1.

(11) has increased.. Figure 1.1. Changes in homosexuality1 In the following we provide some of the historical background about homosexuality in Taiwan. Before the gay right movement started growing in the 1990s, little attention was given to the issue of homosexual civil rights in Taiwan. However, same-sex marriage has been an issue since the 2000s. The legal movement for gay rights began in 2001. Initially, in 2003 the Executive Yuan proposed the idea of legalization of same-sex marriage under the Human Rights Basic Law, but it was rejected due to the opposition of legislators. President Ma Ying-jeou 馬英九 showed respect to LGBT groups, and he announced that public. Mean scores and percent changes on the 10-point tolerance measure for whether homosexuality is justified in the World Values Survey between wave 3 and wave 6. Adapted from World Values Survey http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp wave:3 (1995-1998); wave 6 (2010-2012) 1. 2.

(12) support was necessary before the law could be approved. In 2013, the chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party, Su Zhen-chang 蘇貞昌 supported same-sex marriage, but different opinions about homosexuality-related issue in the party blocked the approval of the legalization of same-sex marriage. On October 24, 2015, Taipei City held a joint wedding ceremony which allowed same-sex couples to participate for the first time. Mayor Ke Wen-zhe 柯文哲 hosted the event. On 28 October, the Taichung City Government stated that same-sex couples would be allowed to join the next year’s mass wedding ceremony. Despite these divisions, in November 2015, Tsai Ing-wen 蔡英文 declared her positive position on samesex marriage. Finally in October 2016, the legislator, Yu Mei-nu 尤美女 proposed a new amendment to the Civil Code. In November 2016, drafts amendments to Taiwan’s Civil Code which would legalize same-sex marriage and adoption passed the first reading in the Legislative Yuan. Afterwards, on 3rd December, tens of thousands of people protested in Taipei. A week later, on 10 December, nearly 250,000 supporters who attended carried placards calling on the government to legalize same-sex marriage immediately. The supporters have taken to the streets of Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, to demonstrate in front of the Taipei Presidential Office, expressing their desire to legalize same-sex marriage. On 26 December 2016, the Legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee finished and 3.

(13) passed the same-sex marriage bills. The legal movement for gay rights began to gain momentum. On 24 May 2017, Taiwan’s top judges ruled in favor of samesex marriage, paving the way for it to become the first place in Asia to legalize same-sex unions. The top court ruled that the current law preventing members of the same-sex from marrying violated their right to equality and the laws preventing were unconstitutional. It gave the Legislative Yuan two years to amend existing laws and to pass new ones.. Changes of trends towards positive attitudes regarding LGBT civil rights and regulations symbolize that people’s attitudes nowadays have become more liberal. Now with public and political progress of same-sex marriage, the proposal to legalize the bill is still ongoing in Taiwan. To this end, the present study is designed to target exploration of social attitudes toward homosexuality in Internet news. We choose news related to homosexuality on the Internet media as our database for analysis, including collocations and pragmatic meanings. We compile a corpus of online-news texts from a selection of four reliable Internet media databases. Our corpus consists of 100 texts that contain references to homosexuality. Along with detailed descriptions of how journalists report people’s stances, we are able to present word choices and claims about homosexuality clearly.. 4.

(14) 1.2 News discourse. Although homosexuality has been an issue in Taiwan, linguistic use and how it is evaluated have rarely been the focus. Our focus is on social attitudes toward homosexuality currently in the news media. In our study, we focus on references in news only, which is a subset of discourse about the media. Undoubtedly, news is the site when language or media language is discussed. It is not only convenient but also appropriate to confine our study to the scope of online news texts. News discourse is what Lippi-Green (1997:55) calls “the ordering of social groups in terms of who has authority to determine how language is best used.” The Internet news provides the most representative sample of the kind of public opinions of media types as Paffey (2012) stated. News media can be considered such an institution because media’s propose is to provide a public information service, its well established position in influencing and reflecting public opinion and its tradition of particular practices, coverage and format. If ideology is present in language, then the influential position of information to inform and influence readers is an interesting vehicle of ideological transmission (van Dijk 1998). As Fairclough (1995) described:. Media discourse should be regarded as the site of complex and often contradictory processes, including ideological processes. Media texts do indeed function 5.

(15) ideologically in social control commodities in a competitive market, and they are part of the business of entering people, and designed to keep people politically and socially informed, and they are cultural artefacts in their own right, informed by particular aesthetics, and they are at the same time caught up in- reflecting and contributing to – shifting cultural values and identities.. (Fairclough 1995:47). This idea is similar to Fowler’s (1991) idea that the scale of production and dissemination of newspaper discourse, along with economic and political stances, and positions and opinions of each paper are what give the press an important role as a site of ideological diffusion (Fowler 1991). Journalists choose what is important to write and they also choose how the articles should be displayed in terms of editing and arrange them under which news items should be put in front. Linguistic devices such as word choices, framing, depiction, and writing strategies are also made for readers and editors to read and generate, which are what Fairclough considers the shifting cultural values and identities.. According to Richardson (2007:7), “Journalists exist to enable citizens to better understand their lives and their positions in the world and in favor of idealist vision.” With a view to assisting citizens to understand their lives, it is common for news media to emphasize perspectives of what their citizens’ lives are like, and should be like: the reproduction of the model citizen or reader. The relation between readers and news 6.

(16) agency firms the agency as an institution. It can be considered as institutional ideologies. As van Dijk argues, “The ideologies and opinions of news are not personal but social, institutional or political.” (van Dijk 1998:22).. Fairclough (1995) indicates that there are other organizations, economic, political and cultural- that already own authority in their fields and that practice some level of control over media output through their access of its production. The ideologies are hidden and transformed. In sum, news discourse which is categorized as a subset of media discourse includes two major points:. a.. It is firmly rooted in the linguistic choices made by the writers and the decision of. writing materials. b.. The process is natural and there are various styles, characteristics and different. techniques adopted by writers. Fairclough (1995:40). The features of news discourse often obstruct certain focus and the opinions being showed by individual press agency, thus realizing a stronger influence as an objective and vision. In our opinion, the news discourse is a fairly fruitful and crucial area for producing and spreading different ideologies, and especially the ideologies and representations of the world. 7.

(17) 1.3 Research questions and organization of present study. The primary goal of this present study is to explore the social attitudes of the public by conducting a corpus-based study and to uncover the evaluations of homosexuality behind various texts. We investigate data regarding homosexuality which cannot be seen easily without the assistance of a corpus analysis. The present study strives to interpret the data which are generated between 2016 and 2017 and the potential motivating factors for producing the texts. The present study offers collocation and lexical co-occurrences for understanding ideology, cultural meanings, and social representations in a community. What keywords are used more frequently than others? What do they represent? In this respect, the following research questions are addressed:. 1. What are the collocations and lexical co-occurrences of the three key terminologies, tongzhi 同志 ‘homosexual’, tongxinglian 同性戀 ’gay’, and tonghun 同婚 ‘same-sex marriage’?. 2. Are there any semantic differences between collocates of tongzhi 同志 ‘homosexual’, tongxinglian 同性戀 ’gay’, and tonghun 同婚 ‘same-sex marriage’?. 3. How do headlines and news texts represent homosexuality in online news 8.

(18) media?. The study involves collocations of significant keywords and we labeled them as negative, positive or neutral. The present study also involves a particular construction used to discuss homosexuality or against claims of homosexual on each side of position. In addition to this, we expand qualitative analysis on the data and provide relevant examples in the collected corpus. Studying across a lot of data, we examine assessments and evaluative descriptions. The study also considers how the different evaluations form and how the press delivers this issue. We begin by offering a brief review of same-sex marriage in Taiwan throughout the time, which helps understand the rights and representations of homosexuals which are dependent on public discourse. Media representations refer to the varying ways in which the media depicts or portrays the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. To address this issue, we examine public discourses in relation to homosexuality. Chapter 2 introduces relevant research in the field of gender and language, recent work in media and language ideologies, and research using corpus linguistic techniques. Chapter 3 discusses the selection of materials, data construction and steps of dealing with the collected data. Chapter 4 presents the results and discussion, including the language usage, linguistic patterns, and collocational analysis to detect dominant 9.

(19) media discourses. In the last chapter, we summarize our observations and identify further issues for possible research.. 10.

(20) CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW Gender and sexuality is the locus of the present study, so the chapter covers general theories and theoretical notions in relation to gender and sexuality. First, we set out to review studies about language, gender and sexuality, which is followed by language ideologies and media discourse. Afterwards, we also review studies on language and gender using corpus approaches.. 2.1 Language, gender, and sexuality. The field of language and gender was established in the 1970s; a lot has been discussed and written about the topic from a range of theoretical perspectives. Before that, there was occasional scholarly interest in this topic, but those studies were limited to describing women’s way of using language as morally correct or identifying genderspecific varieties. The field of language and gender began to flourish with Lakoff (1975), when she published an influential book Language and Woman’s Place. Lakoff argued that women have a different way of speaking from men, which reflects and produces women’s subordinate position in society. According to Lakoff, women’s language is full of particular language devices. For example, they tend to reduce the force or 11.

(21) intensity of things unpleasant and with hedges such as sort of, I think, or with unimportant qualifiers such as really happy, beautiful. This kind of language renders women’s language tentative, powerless and trivial. Language becomes a tool of oppression. Her work aroused people’s interest and brought about a series of research and debate. Many later studies aim at putting Lakoff’s linguistic claims to the empirical test. In the following section, 2.1.1 first introduces the concept of language, gender and sexuality, which is then followed by debates about weather Lakoff’s claims are related to- difference or dominance, which is reviewed in 2.1.2. In the following section, 2.1.1 sets out to offer the background of gender and sex, focusing on gender and sex respectively. We discuss gender as socially constructed and the product of social practice, and we also discuss the relation between gender and biology. Section 2.1.2 introduces major theoretical models to gender variation in language. In 2.1.3, apart from traditional approaches, more recent research has been carried out by trying ways of going beyond a strictly binary thinking of linguistic gender construction and by providing critical analyses of gender discourses and practices.. 2.1.1 Sex and gender. It is important to state at the very beginning gender is understood to be and is distinct from sex. The distinction between sex and gender has been one of the. 12.

(22) foundations of feminist thought. The following pairs of definitions are one typical view:. Sex and gender serve a useful analytic purpose in contrasting a set of biological facts with a set of cultural facts. Were I to be scrupulous in my use of terms, I would use the term sex only when I was speaking of biological differences between males and females. When I use gender, I was referring to the social, cultural, psychological constructs that are imposed upon these biological differences….[G]ender designates a set of categories to which we can give the same label crosslinguistically or crossculturally because they have some connection to sex differences.. (Shapiro 1981:449). The distinction between sex and gender seems to be two slightly different views which argue that differences and inequalities between males and females are due to sex or biology, as in the following.. In all primate societies the division of labor by gender creates a highly stable social system the dominant males controlling territorial boundaries and maintaining among lesser males by containing and preventing their aggression, the females tending the young and forming alliances with other females. Human primates follow this same pattern so remarkably that it is not difficult to argue for biological bases for the type of social order that channels aggression to guard the territory which in turn maintains an equitable environment for the young. Sperling (1991:208). 13.

(23) Some scholars argue that sex-gender models like Shapiro’s are questionable both in the idea of gender and sex because Shapiro implies there are two genders based on two sexes. Linda Nicholson (1994) claims that it overstates similarity within each category and understates similarity across categories. Shapiro’s opinions are usually followed by physical anthropologists and biologists and provide a notion of the biological and how it is associated with social environment. Much recent work in sociolinguistics adopts other approach. Scholars with this view look at the social construction of sex and gender (Cameron 2006). The quote below is a good example.. Gender ought to be conceived merely as the cultural inscription of meaning one pregiven sex…gender must also designate the very apparatus of production whereby the sexes themselves are established. As a result, gender is not to culture as sex is to nature; gender is also the discursive/cultural means by which “sexed nature” or a “natural sex” is produced and established as “prediscursive” prior to culture, a politically neutral surface on which culture acts.. Bulter (1990:7). Gender is not something we are born with, and not something we have but something we do (West and Zimmerman 1987)- something we perform (Bulter 1990). Gender doesn’t just exist, but it continually produces and reproduces and changes through people’s acts when they project their own identities. Gender concerns social behavior, 14.

(24) and it is strongly associated with the social decisions made under the consideration of sex and language plays an important role in establishing these decisions. Gender is something we learn, because we acquire social characteristics and engage in behaviors. Simone de Beauvoir (1952) believed that we gradually become masculine or feminine and we behave in gendered ways for a host of reasons. Gender is not binary, because we are a combination of many characteristics. We act out gender roles from a continuum of masculine and feminine characteristics and we are therefore gendered, and we are involved in a process of our own gendering and the gendering of others throughout lives. In the field of gender and language use, this performance is referred to as doing gender (Bergvall, 1999; Bulter 1990).. In contrast, sex is a biological categorization based primarily on reproductive potential; gender is the social elaboration of biological sex (Eckert and McConnellGenet 2003). Gender performances are not universal, but gender as a social construct is a universal factor influencing the way people live and understand each other. The extent to which behavior is biologically determined or learned through social experiences is tricky and unclear. Some gender roles are quite straightforward. For example, women bear children and they are in the position of a mother. While others are not sex-based, for example both men and women can soothe children and be in a position of fosters. Butler (1990) considers that both sex and gender as socially 15.

(25) constructed. Thus the definition of the biological categories and people’s understanding of each other is ultimately social. Bulter defines gender as a phenomenon brought into being when it is performed. She stated, “Gender is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of a substance, of natural kind of being (Bulter 1990: 43-4). Thus, gender is not something you have once and for all in life, but a growing realization by repeating your acts. As Fausto-Sterling (2000:3) summarizes, ”Labeling someone a man or a woman is a social decision. We may use scientific knowledge to help us to make the decision, but only our beliefs about gender- not science can define our sex. Furthermore, our beliefs about gender affect what kinds of knowledge scientists produce about sex in the first place.”. Some scholars have questioned the distinction between gender and sex, particularly in growing literature on sexual desire and sexuality identities. Researchers tend to question the idea of gender as a simple binary difference. Earlier work focused mainly on the expression of sexuality through specific lexical items (Rodgers 1972). Cameron (2005), Bucholtz and Hall (2004) have discussed the role of language and sexuality, which are clearly linked. Gender itself is no longer taken to be fixed and unchangeable. Thus, there is a shift of research, from research that concentrates on the linguistic realization of gender differences to diversity. The idea has been developed 16.

(26) into queer theory and feminist theory (e.g. Livia and Hall, 1997), and it is in large part for that reason that the word sexuality appears. The idea of gender as performative is increasingly visible for people whose gender identities are not determined by the sex of their bodies at birth or by their early socialization. Those people can be like transgendered and transsexual people, individuals who alternate between different gendered positions, or people who decline to be defined as either men or women but claim to be something in between (Cameron 2005). This view of gender is tightly locked with factors such as sexual orientation. Fuss (1989:202) stated that “What is risky is giving up the security- and the fantasy-of occupying a single subject position.” Fuss argued that it is impossible to justify the category’s boundaries as not all women share the same characteristic nor do they share a single experience. As she said, “Can we ever speak … simply of the female…or the male as if these categories were not transgressed already, not already constituted by other axes of difference such as class, culture, nationality, ethnicity? (Fuss1989:133). Bucholtz and Hall (2004) note how these theories have provided useful approaches for studying power relations surrounding sexuality and gender respectively.. Our research focuses on gender, sex and sexuality as a social construction. Although we recognize that biology imposes certain physiological constraints on most males and females, we treat these differences as socially constructed. In the following section, we 17.

(27) present different approaches and models to language and gender, and provide studies of language and gender in contexts.. 2.1.2 Theoretical models: dominance, difference and performance. It is important to be aware that there are ways to define, analyze and interpret language use in alignment with gender. The first is the theory of dominance approach. This point of view understands any gender differences in language. When Lakoff (1975) published her influential account of women’s language, she established a set of basic observations about the language of women. She understood any gender differences in language use is a result of women being dominated by men in various interactions.. Women’s speech seems in general to contain more instances of ‘well’, ‘you know’, ‘kind’ and so forth: words that convey the sense that the speaker is uncertain about what she is saying.. (Lakoff 1975:53). Lakoff claimed that typical linguistic features were in women’s speech and that they indicated insecurity in many women. She believed that women were vulnerable to such ways because of their uncertainty and in order to subordinate themselves to others. Lakoff’s idea aroused many possible interpretations of women’s language and patterns.. 18.

(28) Spender (1980) criticized Lakoff’s view of women as deficient. She suggested that it had been men who dominated women as part of a male-dominance system so that women were not flawed as much as they were dominated. She also suspected the subordinated role of women. Researchers did not deny the existence of dominance and oppression in male-female relationships but became unhappy about the negative description of women, since Lakoff (1975) described women’s language as weak, timid, and powerless and women were presented as losers and victims.. Fishman (1980) agreed with both Lakoff and Spender. She conducted a research on conversations among heterosexual couples in romantic relationship, and she suggested that women asked more questions and did the most conversation work. She regarded these orientations as being due to women’s lower position in society rather than any natural incompetence with language or socialized patterns. Women in Fishman’s study were able to deal with language well but they made specific linguistic choices which reflected a lack of power. They remained impotent in order to be in harmony with men, which is another example of dominance. Fishman also suggested that conversations between the sexes sometimes fail because of how men hold onto their role of centrality. Men do not have to provide much concentration in their conversations with women because they have success outside the relationship that they find meaningful to them such as status (Fishman 1980). 19.

(29) In contrast, research which takes a difference perspective considers the differences between men’s and women’s linguistic usage as a result of the different sub-cultures in which women and men are socialized. Tannen (1998) found the use of the term ‘speech style’ more helpful than the terms ‘women’s language’ or ‘men’s language’. According to Tannen, the socialization process begins at an early stage of development. Children participate in gender-specific subcultures with distinct gender style. Therefore, the concept of men and women are not helpful in identifying gendered language patterns, because children are also gendered in their language use from an early age. There are pressures on girls to be gentle and boys to be brave. Maltz and Borker’s (1983) ‘A Cultural Approach to Male-Female Miscommunication found some of linguistic choices work to disadvantage girls in certain ways and to disadvantage boys in other ways, but some do not. Girls seem to be more cooperative playing with dolls, while boys to be more independent playing sports. Girls may habitually use a conversational style of solidarity, while boys may tend to adopt styles based on competition. Both styles of speaking can be beneficial to both groups. The patterns and tendencies are complex and fluid so that generalizations are unhelpful. Maltz and Borker (1982) presented a synthesis of work on gender and language. They claimed that the difficulties found in cross-sex communication are the result of cultural difference.. Tannen (1991, 1995, 1998) has suggested that men and women speak in particular 20.

(30) ways because they have been formed by gender cultures into specific roles and thus most comfortable in them. Tannen view masculine and feminine language as a series of contrasts in conversational style: rapport vs report; status vs support; independence vs intimacy; advice vs understanding; information vs feeling; orders vs proposals; conflict vs compromise. According to Tannen both men and women are more comfortable with these highly gendered roles and keep applying these strategies to support gender roles.. Particularly, the notion that male-female miscommunication became evident when Tannen’s bestselling books ‘That’s Not What I Meant’ and ‘You Just Don’t Understand’ published in 1986 and 1992. Tannen made gender differences in languages a topic for discussion in homes over the English-speaking world. Those books tried to explain why men and women so often miscommunicate with each other when they talk. The problem Tannen identified is that each sex interprets the other’s verbal expressions differently. An example in Tannen’s book deals with Eve, who underwent breast operation and worried that the scars made her unattractive. Eve’s husband was the one who suggested Eve could have plastic surgery. Eve was upset and her husband was hurt and puzzled. Tannen explained it as a clash of male and female norms. Women bring up troubles wanting sympathy and reassurance while men bring up troubles in expectation that someone will provide a solution. Tannen further argues that neither Eve nor her husband was aware of violating the other’s norms, which results in quarrel. Tannen’s overall 21.

(31) message is that both styles are valid. They are simply different. Tannen argues that we should admit gender differences without making value judgments. Women and men belong to different to sub-cultures; interactional problems between men and women are examples. of. cross-cultural. miscommunication.. Parallel. to. cross-cultural. miscommunication, mixed-sex interaction could be explained as being subject to misunderstandings between members of different sub-cultures that had developed gender-typical ways of communicating through socialization in same-sex groups. The difference approach received some critical reviews. Tromel-Ploetz (1991) claimed that Tannen has taken the difference too far. Dominance and power have disappeared from the analysis. Thus, it has been accused that it tends to neglect gendered power structure.. Another point of view by Uchida (1992) is the fact that dominance and difference are often tightly interwoven. In many settings, gender differences may even be used to authorize male domination. Cameron (1995) has suggested that women have various and complex intentions for using uncertain or passive forms of speech while Cotates (1996) has suggested that there is a function at work in the use of certain language strategies, in other words, to include other speakers and to keep the conversation rolling and to not run out of things to say. This can be seen as move to make peace between dominance and difference approaches.. 22.

(32) Many scholars who are exploring gender and language today would agree that things said in conversations depend on many variables. Holme’s (2003) work on women and men in the workplace closely interlaced intention to language use, including what is said and how it is understood. Her work also considers politeness as being in line with gender. Women are more polite than men, but politeness is also influenced by life experiences and socialization rather than gender. Holmes and Sara Mills (2003b) suggested that the component of power is the heart of relationships and thus having a better understanding of power is important in gaining insights into language patterns and tendencies. Other linguists like Bergvall (1999) have wondered if these discussions on masculine and feminine tendencies are necessary, because the focus itself on gender differences may support the view that such differences exist.. 2.1.3 Language, gender and sexuality studies. Many scholars have striven to question gender itself, usually by examining the close relationship between gender and sexuality. Sexuality is generally considered as a form of identity, especially with respect to sexual orientation and as a set of representative practices, especially with sexual activity (Bucholtz and Hall 2004). Such theories come from a queer perspective. They challenge binary and normative concepts based on gender. Challenges to sex norms lead to a series of studies in the 1990s and. 23.

(33) 2000s which focused on various kinds of sex and gender relations. The hijras in India (Hall 2002) refers to a group of people who do not fit into gender-binary categories. They are people who were assigned male at birth and they are officially recognized as third gender by the government, being neither completely male nor female. The hijras cannot construct their identities through gender binarism. Hijras make creative use of the Hindi grammatical gender system, which they use not just to index themselves as female but also to convey certain attitudes. For example, they use masculine grammatical gender to express dissatisfaction with other hijras (Hall 2002). Hall’s work with Indian hijras highlights the process of socialization into gender. In another study, investigating yan daudu (i.e., men who act like women) in Nigeria, Gaudio (2009) suggests that even in an Islamic society, Nigerian men talk like women and they often have men as sexual partners. The group violates norms of gender and sexuality. Cameron’s (1997) study of men who are college students watching a basketball game, and gossiping about other men who they label “gay”, shows how men construct themselves as heterosexual by criticizing other men.. Studies on groups, individuals or strategies help understand how gender is learned and performed. There is a close relationship between sexuality and gender and any other social identities, which is worth exploring (Sedgwick 1990). Barrett’s (1994) research of the linguistic strategies adopted by African American drag queens shows how they 24.

(34) appropriate stereotypes of white women in order to criticize white stereotypes about black men. McElhinny’s (2003) work on women working in a traditional workplace shows some common concepts of what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a man. Inoue’s (2006) work on Japanese women’s language (JWL) emphasizes the co-construction of gender, class and national identity. Inoue shows how JWL was aggressively constructed during the nineteenth century. JWL’s composition serves as a modern nation-state to resist the Western colonial invasions. Weidman (2006) states that in postcolonial India, Carnatic classical music is now considered as a symbol of uncolonized Indian specialty. Her work displays how the devaluation of music functions as a symbol of women in the colonial period and is interlaced with the internalization of music and expression within the body.. Still other works on language and gender attempt to explore history and social change. For instance, Ahearn (2001) analyzes the modern discourses in Nepal. Gal (1997) presents transformations after 1989 in east and east central Europe. Inoue (2006) investigates neoliberal transformations in the Japanese workplace. Kuipers (1998) explores transformations on masculinity and ritual speech after the Dutch colonial period in Sumba. Kulick (1992) demonstrates the language shift and modernization in Papua New Guina. Yang’s (2007) work on neo liberal reconstructs gender in socialist China. 25.

(35) 2.1.4 Language and sexuality studies. This section offers relevant review on the interaction between language and sexuality, which is also the core part of the present study. We can start by understanding the role of desire from an academic perspective. Researchers have shown intimate detail that desire play a role in sexuality studies and more precisely how sexuality impacts our language use and behavior. Cameron and Kulick (2003) adopt a postmodern approach and argue that desire should play a central role in trying to understand human behavior. Because “desire encompasses more than just the preference for partners of the same or the other sex: it also deals with non-international, non-conscious and non-rational dimensions of human sexual life. The unconscious and irrational aspects of sexuality may not be manifested on the surface of people’s behavior in the same way that their behavior displays the sexual identities they have consciously chosen (“gay,” “lesbian,”, “straight”) (2003:140).. Research on language and sexuality has been done to address another aspect. The aspect of how language is used in discussions about gender. That is, how ideologies about gender, sex categories, sexuality are produced and reproduced through language and language use. Wong and Zhang’s (2000) study provides examples of activists’ stylized use of tongzhi. The study explores the word tongzhi in G&L Magazine,. 26.

(36) published in Taiwan. This magazine focuses on sexual minorities in Hong Kong, Taiwan and overseas. It covers topics such as fashion, fitness, local and foreign news of interest to Chinese sexual minorities. The magazine’s target is to support and to encourage gays and lesbians in Taiwan and Hong Kong and to promote the movement for equality. The study focuses on two linguistic resources: lexical and discourse features. G&L Magazine focuses on resources related to Western gay and lesbian cultures, women’s movement, Chinese revolutionist discourse and Chinese kinship system in order to create a style that distinguish themselves from other communities. This style creates an imagined community that shapes the ideologies of equal rights for gays and lesbians for gender equality, resistance, self-respect and solidarity. These expressions include combat, struggle and encouragement such as zhandou 戰. 鬥 ’combat’, zuozhan 作戰 ’fight’, nul 努力’strive’, fendou 奮鬥 ’struggle’, wuchi 武器 ’weapon’, da fangong 大反攻 ’fierce counterattack’. These expressions often appear with exclamation marks as slogans. Through the use of tongzhi, activists invoke the voice of tongzhi. They are united by the shared belief and promotion of equal rights for Chinese sexual minorities. Activists call on Chinese sexual minorities and create liberty, solidarity and intimacy. Cameron (2008) makes the important point that we do not define ideologies as ‘beliefs’ but as ’representations’. In other words, gender ideologies are not distinct from truths about gender. This distinction also focuses on the 27.

(37) social aspect of ideologies. Discourses about gender and sexuality influence and shape how we think about sex categories.. Wong’s (2005) research focuses on the reappropriation of tongzhi by a mainstream newspaper in Hong Kong. This study examines the struggle over the meaning of tongzhi. The analysis is based on 126 articles about lesbians, gay men and other sexual minorities published between November 1998 and December 2000 in ODN. Wong argues that tongzhi is not a positive term, and the term tongxinlian ‘homosexual’ often appears in the news of medical and legal content. Tongzhi often appears in highly sensationalized news stories, such as murder, fights, gay sex clubs and domestic disputes of gay couples. The use of tongzhi becomes the tool for journalists to make fun of same-sex desire. In this way, they can increase the entertainment value of the news story. In ODN, tongzhi does not represent sexual minorities or lesbian and gay people in general, but lesbian and gay people who participate in illegal, immoral, and improper behavior. Among words that refer to sexual minorities, Wong (2008) conducted a research on the semantic change of the word tongzhi by investigating the word embedded in everyday discourse. Wong participated in the activities of several tongzhi organization. The author directly interviews and observes to collect data on activists’ use of tongzhi as well as similar labels such as gay and tongxinglian ‘homosexual’. Focusing on the semantic change of tongzhi from comrade to sexual minorities, Wong 28.

(38) argues that the semantic change of social labels is motivated by speakers’ desire to take different stances and to project different personae. The study reveals a discrepancy between activist’s explicit and implicit motivations. Most activists emphasize the positive references of tongzhi, because of the activists’ desire to present themselves as members of the tongzhi movement. However, Wong would hesitate to claim that there is activists’ explicit motivation since there is no need to identify themselves in Chinese societies. Sometimes, using tongzhi as one of linguistic devices to construct a public persona is implicit motivation. Tongzhi activists present themselves as members of tongzhi movement when interacting with outsiders.. There are also studies outside of Asia, conducted in countries such as Africa, the United States, Latvia and Poland, exploring homosexuality within various discourses. Tetty’s (2016) study reports about homosexuality in Ghanaian media. Tattey collects news story and editorial published in various online Ghanian media and portals. Ghanian media plays a significant part in framing and setting the agenda for public discourse on homosexuality. They do this through regarding homosexuality as a threat to the social order. Media reports brought visibility to the issue but created the moral panic towards homosexuality. Tetty argues that the media stimulates homophobia and heterosexism although they claim they support human rights and democratic citizenship. The ideology is embedded within particular sociocultural system. As the case in the 29.

(39) study, the panic in Ghana is strengthened by the authorities who have access and control over the media.. Trammell (2015) investigates first-person testimonials written by gay and lesbian Christians in the newsmagazine Christianity Today between 2000 and 2010. Trammell identifies the common and dominant theses on how homosexual Christians negotiate their faith with their sexualities. Christianity Today testimonies frame the gay Christian experience as painful and embarrassing. The writers consider homosexuality as a condition that they would not choose for themselves, and it leads to shame, hurt and emotional trauma. Trammell suggests that a person can be both gay and Christian as long as that person recognizes his or her sexuality as a condition of sinful pain. In other words, Christianity Today testimonies frame homosexuality as a spiritual problem. The main reason they consider homosexuality bad is because it doesn’t align with evangelicalism. The magazine also encourages homosexual Christians to define their sexualities and experiences on their own terms. Christianity Today offers a powerful medium and an outlet for Christian’s voices.. Chojnicka (2015) investigates the discourse of gender dissidents using the example of Latvian and Polish LGBT and feminist blogs. The analysis suggests differences between the condition of movements in Latvia and Poland. In Latvia, the. 30.

(40) presence of LGBT is weak, and it is rarely seen. There are no blogs talking about samesex parenting. The blogs focus on describing suffering and loneliness. On the contrary, there is less sarcastic radical discourse in Poland. Chjnicka concludes that the LGBT and feminist movements have a stronger position in Poland than in Latvia.. We learn from the above review that sexuality creates a comprehensive picture in sociolinguistics field. The studies include many aspects, from the general notion of sexuality to how sex categories, sexuality and language use interact with each other in various styles of forms such as magazines, newspaper and blogs. The above studies reveal that sexuality has researched so far and they allow us to pinpoint exactly how sexuality affects various media discourses.. 2. 2 Gender and language ideologies in the media discourse. This section provides language use within media and investigates how language is used to create convincing content as well as a tool to advance popular ways of thinking. This section also covers ideologies in the press, some debates concerning language and identities, contact and code-switching in broadcast media and youth, gender and cyberidentities in computer-mediated communication. This field is across a range of sociocultural, geographical and media-technological contexts. Many media themes and images reflect the power relation in society. 31.

(41) 2.2.1 Language as ideologies. Over the past few decades, researchers have been exploring the notion of language ideology and have aimed to unlock the mechanism of language in context of social processes. Language ideology is to explore ‘the mediating links between social forms and forms of talk.’ (Kroskrity 1999:21, Woolard 1998:3) More precisely, the aim of studies about linguistic ideology is to show how linguistic phenomena are invested with meanings and values through the production, reproduction and contestation of conventional indexical ties. As Woolard notes: (i) perceived features, genres, styles or varieties of language and (ii) broader cultural representations of their alleged speakers in terms of nationality, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, aesthetics, morality and so on (Woolard 1998:27). At this point, it is important to understand how such very cognitive patterns end up in people’s heads, and end up there as collective phenomena (Blommaert 2005). In other words, we want to get information or understand social mechanisms through which particular ideas or beliefs about linguistic practices are produced, circulated or challenged. Telecommunication technology like newspapers, telephones, televisions, computers, and tablets have become increasingly noticeable in modern society when individuals engage in daily interaction, thereby gaining experiences of themselves and. 32.

(42) a range of different realities, including linguistic reality (Coupland 2007). Critical discourse analyst Cameron (2007) has demonstrated how the media are in relations of power and ideology given that ‘the representation of any issue for a mass audience has implications for the way it is understood’. Similarly, the power of language ideologies cannot be solely situated in the media in general or more precisely, in their symbols as part of the production processes supporting media texts (Johnson and Ensslin 2007b). Woolard (1998) considered the media as ‘institutions of power’. In a word, the power of the media is a complex phenomenon that requires a great deal of detail and social deconstruction.. 2.2.2 Gender identity and the mass media. Gauntlett (2002) identified several themes related to gender identity and media, including the fluidity of our gender identities over time, the decline of the depiction of traditional gender roles, and the idea of gender role models. These alternative ideas and images have created a space for a diversity of identities but they also bring with them new demands and requirements. Levy (2005) identified the ‘raunch’ culture and had a newfound understanding of today’s young women. She explores ‘misogyny’ (a man who hates women or believes that men are much better than women) by women who not only participate in this culture but also encourage their own unfair use. Mary Pipher. 33.

(43) (1994) identified in the 1990s how young girls absorb society’s messages about appearance in particular. She criticizes advertisers who push the image of attractive women to impossible standards. This focus leads young women to believe that they are only valuable if their body parts look a particular way.. However, Gauntlett (2002) considers gender role models in the media as cultural navigation points for individual members of society. In his opinion, the discourses of feminine power related to sexuality and gender roles are today’s most leading expressions in the mainstream media. The media demonstrate a huge number of messages about identity and acceptable forms of self-expression, gender sexuality and lifestyle. He depicts masculinity, femininity and to an extent, sexuality in a variety of media (men’s and women’s magazines, television, film, popular music and self-help books) to explore how these representations influence gender identity. Even if many media sources remain traditional notions of femininity and benefit from it, the participation and choice that women themselves cannot be ignored. For example women like the products and choose to buy what they want (Caldas-Coulthand 1996).. 2.2.3 Gender and Language use in the media. The power of the media in language ideological processes lies to a considerable extent in their practices as gatekeepers in the control of ‘expert system’ (Giddens 1991). 34.

(44) In other words, the media, forced by particular economic and political rules, open up discursive spaces, and as a result, give a public voice to a variety of social actors who compete with each other in claiming regarding what counts as legitimate knowledge in the domain of language (Blommaert 1999). As van Dijk (1993) mentioned, individuals with high social, cultural and symbolic capital always have greater opportunity to access the processes of media production (Blommaert 2005). Similarly, the emergence of communicative web 2.0 technologies (e.g. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter) has paved the way for a range of discursive spaces to individuals and groups who may not have had conventional access to public media.. Clearly, all media producers have the power to rescale social, cultural, and symbolic capital and as a result reshuffle authority and knowledge on issues, especially in the very act of choosing, citing and styling (Coupland 2007). The media are designed to the production of newsworthiness in the name of information and entertainment and public knowledge under specific economic and political conditions (Richardson 2007). It is obvious that media professions have a range of interest in constructing and obscuring the boundaries between categories ‘expert/lay’, ‘information/entertainment’, ‘ordinary/celebrity’ and ‘public/private’ (Fairclough 1995).’’. Litosseliti’s (2006) works presented comes from an investigation of gender and. 35.

(45) language use in the media. There are magazines and television programming targeted at women. Litosseliti (2006) lists several UK women’s magazine connecting with the audience. Below are the use of language used on the covers of magazines.. Cosmopolitan: the world’s no1 magazine for young women She: For women who know they want B: Everything you want Woman’s own: for the way you live your life and the way you’d like to Minx: For girls with a lust for life Executive woman: For women who really do mean business Wench: Where women are, where they are going, and where they should be already Company: For your freedom years. Litosseliti underscores the use of personal pronouns as a common feature which builds a relationship between the producer and the audience. The use of personal phrases (e.g. ‘most of us’, or ’we’) makes connections with a reader leading solidarity. As Mary Talbot (1995) called this solitary, a synthetic sisterhood. As a result, this created structure of a feminine community is located in an ideal setting where economic or social differences are not made explicit. Any women can imagine herself as part of the sisterhood promoted. 36.

(46) Talbot (1995) criticizes the invention of a consumer femininity in particular because of the representation of women as helpless and foolish consumers. Some researchers see the various discourses used in advertising suggest that the language of advertising more often makes women in the personal consumer position (the shopper position). However, the language makes men as independent individuals, as Myers (1998) noted, “Ladies, look for…” while “Men, insist on…” Gender research works on a level of presumption about desire and sexuality. As in the previous section stated, the feminist discourses of dominance are suitable for the rise of the male experience. Michelle Lazar (2005) refers to this tendency as a discourse of ‘popular post-feminism’ or a ‘global neo-liberal discourse of post feminism’.. It is doubtful that news producers and journalists are immune to all distorted gender images. Sara Mills (2003b) explores how the news media texts are written and how different standards impact what is presented, how and by whom. Mills depicts a series of reasons for the selection of chief news items, proposing that male television newscasters are regarded as more dominant while female more often show soft human stories instead of harsh news.. Some studies provide the relationship between media representations of language issues and societal understanding. Paffey (2010) investigates mainstream newspaper. 37.

(47) discourse, and the emphasis is on the context of Spain. Paffey represents how Spanish is constructed in marketing. The author depicts the dialectic interaction between mainstream Spanish newspaper and the prominent Real Academia Espanola in establishing the power of the government.. 2.2.4 Critical Discourse Analysis. Informed by the spirit of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), we follow the general idea of CDA because it enables us to conduct an in-depth analysis in terms of mass media and underlying meanings, namely, content in the news report in my present study. Analysts have often studied societal discourses by focusing on mass media. CDA has been playing a key role in the reproduction of dominant knowledge, ideologies in society and the main access through which the elite exercise their own power (van Dijk, 1993a, 2005). According to van Dijk (1993b), social media involves social cognition. Social cognition constitutes the connection between discourse and action, thus illustrating how discourses transform social practice. In this respect, social recognition links dominance and discourse. It influences how individuals interpret the word and react to the interpretation. The core of CDA is to critically analyze forms of text. CDA is interested in describing, explaining and analyzing the ways dominant discourses influence socially. 38.

(48) shared knowledge, attitudes and ideologies. As van Dijk (1993b:249) notes, “It is a study of the relations between discourse, power dominance, social inequality” and it focuses “ on the role of discourse in the reproduction and challenge of dominance.” This approach reflects the realities of the social world and helps to compose reality (Phillips and Jorgensen 2002). CDA aims to link transparent discourse role in social life and there are three levels of analysis: text, discourse practice and socio-cultural practice (Fairclough 1995). CDA helps understand the texts are socially constitutive and socially shaped Fairclough & Wodak (1997). Furthermore, CDA claims that power relationship are constructed and maintained in discourse and it is important to understand the way social power abuse, dominance and inequality are enacted, reproduced and resisted by text and talk (van Dijk 2001) In this sense, we can “organize the multitude of beliefs about what is the case, good or bad, right or wrong” with CDA (van Dijk 1998: 8). CDA is particularly useful to systematically link properties of discourse interactions and texts with features of their social and cultural circumstances (Fairclough 1999). 2.2.5 Summary. The media serves as both a mirror and a tool of gender stereotyping; therefore it is worth considering the power relation and manipulation. Conventional kinds of feminine and masculine appearance are shaped by the mass media to promote various ideas. 39.

(49) Understanding the strategies on the part of media becomes an important goal in order to get the main idea of the relationships between language ideologies and media discourse. In other words, in spite of the particular theoretical approaches, studies on language ideologies and media discourse cannot be restricted to be purely linguistics. A serious examination is necessary to obtain the complexity of language ideologies rooted in media contexts.. 2.3 Gender, Language and corpus approaches. To explore the issue of language and gender, corpus linguistics approaches are applied extensively in recent research. McEnery and Hardie (2012:1) define corpus linguistics as “ a group of methods for studying language….dealing with some set of machine-readable texts…or corpus which is usually of a size which defies analysis by hand and eye alone within any reasonable timeframe…corpora are invariably exploited using tools which allow users to search through them rapidly and reliably.”. Corpus approaches are fairly popular among language and gender research. Some researchers conduct their analysis by hand and eye only, but more and more papers have analyzed data by using corpus methods in their research. They incorporate a mixture of qualitative and quantitative approaches to certain degrees. In this section, I will offer brief summaries of each paper and discuss how they show the application of corpus 40.

(50) approaches to gender and language research.. 2.3.1 Johnson and Ensslin (2007). This paper explores the way in which language is represented in relation to gender in two British newspapers, The Times and The Guardian. They collected a corpus of British broadsheet news articles including references to language in order to reveal gender and language ideologies. Paying attention to terms ‘his language’ and ‘her language’, they compare the context in which males and females were written about in relation to their linguistics features. They adopted the quantitative and qualitative analysis of a corpus within news texts, including 96 instances of the specific terms, his language or her language. As for numbers of tokens, their analysis reveals obvious male dominance. ‘His language” appears more than three times as much as ‘her language’. A qualitative analysis demonstrated that male uses of language tended to be positive evaluation, such as aesthetically pleasing, association with ‘plain-talking or taboo breaking. On the other hand, female language use was less likely to be positive.. 2.3.2 Charteris-Black and Seale (2009). Charteris-Black and Seale (2009) dealt with a corpus of 1000+ interviews with people who had experienced a health or illness condition. They put emphasis on gendered strategies that people used when talking about their health condition. They 41.