ABSTRACT
As
a social phenomenon, language reflects all aspects of human endeavor. The
various reflections have been investigated in different sociolinguistic
studies. However, few of such studies have employed the discourse analytical
approach to investigate literary texts. Therefore, this study investigated the
effects of sexism and power dominance on selected drama texts through a
linguistic lens on sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. Existing studies
have shown that the aim of studying conversations in literary texts is to
uncover how characters understand and respond to one another during
conversations based on their gender or that of their interlocutors. Therefore,
this study investigated the discourse features of men and the women’s
utterances in Femi Osofisan’s Altine’s
Wrath and Wole Soyinka’s A Play of
Giants.
The
two texts for analysis were purposively selected due to their thematic thrust
with gender issues. A total number of three hundred and fifty (350) utterances
in 40 conversations involving men and women in the selected literary texts were
purposively selected as the data for analyses. The study employed the discourse
tools of participants, turn-taking, adjacency pairs, interruption, speech
errors, exchanges, directive acts, informative acts, elicitation overlaps in
analyzing the data.
The
result revealed that utterances in the context indicated an undeniable evidence
of sexism and power dominance. The instances of turn-taking, and speech error
showed abundance of a high level sexism and power dominance such as when Lawal
told Aina that women no longer have a place in the society, that it is the
men’s world. The utterances by Lawal is used to show a high level of
sexism. The analysis also showed that
women are regarded as mothers, wives, and their roles are reflected in their
manner of speech. Examples include, when Lawal told Mariam that the only thing
Altine understands is sweep the house, cook the food, wash napkins and mop the
floor, that anything outside that is zero. The analysis revealed that men use
more of speech errors, elicitations, directives, interruptions, overlap, and
repair mechanisms while women use more of informative during conversations.
The
study concluded that women’s utterances are less direct than men’s powerful
language. It was recommended that further sexism studies should be done from
other linguistic perspective such as a conversational analysis of sexism and
power dominance in selected Nigerian prose,a lexico-semantic analysis of sexism
and power dominance.
CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
From the beginning of the 20th
century, men and women have been generally viewed as occupying sharply
different roles in the society; a woman’s place was in the home as wife and
mother; while a man’s place was in the public sphere. Men had legal powers over
the lives of their wives. Sexism and power dominance exist in a completely
different context of cultural norms, political, social rights and
institutionalized rules. Even in the Bible, there is a belief that men are
superior to women and should control all important aspects of society. Male
superiority is displayed in the following passage from the New Testament:
But
I will have you know, that the head of every man is Christ;and the head of the
women is the man…for the man is not ofthe woman. Neither was the man created
for the woman; but the woman for the man (1Cor 11:3-8)
From
birth, parents all over the world treat boys and girls differently. According
to the traditional Islamic laws, three groups of people are not eligible for
legal and religious equality: unbelievers, slaves and women. The slaves can become
free, the unbelievers can become believers, but a woman can do nothing to
change her status. She was permanently doomed to her second class status
(Lewis, 2002). Far and wide, women experience the blatant forms of sexism.
When people talk about themselves or ask
for information about others, they are using language in order to exchange
facts or opinions. Language is used by human beings in social contexts to
communicate their needs, ideas and emotions to one another. Language is a human
vocal noise or the arbitrary graphic representation of this noise, used
systematically and conventionally by members of a speech community for the
purpose of communication (Osisanwo, 2003). From this definition, it is clear
that language is a human phenomenon. Language is purely human and a non-instinctive
method of communicating ideas and emotions by means of a system of voluntarily
produced symbols (Sapir, 1921). Language, as Sapir rightly says, is human –
only humans possess the ability to communicate through language and all normal
human beings possess it.
Language gives shape to people’s
thought; it controls their entire activity. As the most important tool for
human beings, it not only reflects the realities of the society, but also has
various functions to strengthen and maintain social existence. Thus, for a long
time feminists and sociolinguists have shown interest in describing the
differences in language use between the two sexes. This dissertation examines
the effect of sexism and power dominance through a linguistic lens.
Sexism, refers to a set of attitudes
towards people of a particular sex that judges or belittles them on the basis
of their gender, or that perpetuates stereotypical assumptions about gender roles.
Nowadays, the term is most often used to refer to discrimination towards women
(Davis, 1985). According to Wardhaugh (2010), gender is a fact that we cannot
avoid, it is part of the way in which societies are formed around us. Sexism is
a belief that one sex is superior to or more valuable than another. It imposes
limits on what men and women can and should do as separate entities. Sexism in
a society is commonly applied to the women and girls. It functions to maintain
patriarchy, or male domination through ideological and material practices of
individuals and institutions that oppress women on the basis of sex. A common
form of socialization that is based on sexist concepts teaches particular
narratives about traditional gender roles for men and women. According to such a
view, women and men are opposite, with widely different and complementary
roles: women are the weaker sex and less capable than men, especially in the
realm of logic and rational reasoning. Women are regulated to the domestic
realm of nurturance and are emotional and therefore cannot be good leaders in business,
politics and academia.Chukwuma ( 2000) opines that:
Patriarchy
has established male dominance not only in the home especially in terms of
inheritance, but in all facets of human existence, social order or itself dictates and enacts
genderisation of work; some kinds of work are allotted to women as cooking,
washing, cleaning and housewifery in general and light farming (p. 6).
Tuttle,
Blood and Lakey (1983:p 17) defines sexism thus: “Sexism is a complex mesh of
practices, institutions and ideas which have the overall effect of giving more
power to men than women’’.Patriarchy has accorded so much power to men; it is
the actual power structure built around men’s domination of women and the
ability to influence important decisions such as political and economic
decisions. According to Johnstone (2002), power is a situation in which a
subordinate respects the superior and as a relationship that is asymmetrical,
with one person, a superior, controlling the subordinate.
Wartenberg
(1990) defined power as getting someone else to do what you want them to do (p.
12). Also, Max Webber, defines power as “the probability that one actor within
a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite
resistance”. Women in African society are still largely regarded as passive or
weak and as sexual objects. A majority of African societiesare immensely
patriarchal which means that societal norms tend to value the male and relegate
the female.
In the social domain, African women have
borne the brunt of cultural traditions, many of which have been described as
oppressive, and which limit the advancement of women. Male dominance has been cited as a major
obstacle to gender equality. Friedl
(1975) defines male dominance as “a situation in which men have highly
preferential access, although not always exclusive rights, to those activities
to which the society accords the greatest values, and the exercise of which
permits a measure of control over others” (p. 7). It is significant that Friedl recognizes that
men are favored in terms of accessing certain economically and socially
significant materials and rights, such as access to land and property. These institutions and positions in
communities play a role in elevating men over women. These asymmetrical relations are also highlighted
by Divale & Harris (1976)they define male dominance in terms of an
“institutionalized complex” consisting of “asymmetrical frequencies of sex-linked
practices and beliefs” (pp. 521-538). The practices and beliefs, in this case,
would instill prestige to the status of the male gender and devalue the
contributions and capabilities of females.
Sanday (1981) looks at male dominance
from two angles. First, is the
“exclusion of women from political and economic decision-making” and second,
“male aggression towards women” (p. 164). Sanday measures this aggression using five
traits:
1
expectation that males should be tough, brave,
and aggressive;
2
the presence of men’s houses or specific
places where only men may congregate;
3
frequent quarrelling, fighting, or wife
beating;
4
institutionalization or regular occurrence of
rape; and
5
raiding other groups for wives.
Sanday
suggests that the presence of thesefive traits in a society
indicates a high degree of male aggression.
During the seventeenth century, those
who opposed the participation of women in politics mainlyclaimed, “women, by
virtue of their nature, lacked the capacities required of free and equal
individuals and citizens and so posed a threat to the state” (Pateman, 1985, p.
8).Women were portrayed as lacking reason, which made it impossible for them to
participate in the public sphere:“only masculine beings are endowed with attributes
and capacities necessary to enter into contracts, the most important of which
is ownership of property in the person; only men, that is to say, are
‘individuals’ (Pateman, 1988, p. 5). Women, in other words, were not seen as
“free and equal ‘individuals’ but natural subjects. According to Marx, power no
longer constitutes the ‘right of the sovereign’, or the ‘power of the state’ in
relation to (equal and free) citizens, but a specific form of class domination.
Power is always class power, the power of one class, (or a coalition of
classes), of the ruling class, over the others, the dominated classes of the
society. This power, which stabilizes on the basis of dominant social
structures, is reproduced within class antagonism and the struggle of the
classes. The specific unity of society is, therefore, inseparable from the
unity of the specific classes which is
unsure within the class struggle.
Plato and Aristotle, two of the most
influential philosophers in the ancient Greek world, both had radical views on
the nature and capabilities of women. Many of these views were similar, yet
somehow Plato became a champion of the female cause, while Aristotle was
labeled a male chauvinist. Plato, in The
Republic, argues that women should be able to take on the same social roles
equally with men in his ideal state. His ideas are based upon the view that
women and men have the same nature with respect to acting as guardians of the
state, except that one is weaker while the other is stronger. Aristotle on the other hand, returns women to
their traditional roles in the home, being subservient to men. There is no
equality in nature for Aristotle, he declares: as regards the sexes, the male
is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female
subject. And the same must necessarily apply to all mankind.
Aristotle believed that women were
inferior and described them as ‘deformed males’. In Cynthia Freeland’s
catalog she quotes ‘Aristotle says that
the courage of a man lies in commanding, a woman’s lies in obeying; that
‘matter yearns for form, as the female for the male and the ugly for the
beautiful; that women have fewer teeth than men, that female is an incomplete
male or ‘as it were, a deformity’. Aristotle believed that men and women naturally
differed both physically and mentally. He claimed that women are ‘mischievous,
less simple, more impulsive, more compassionate, more easily moved to tears,
more jealous, more querulous, more apt to scold and to strike, more prone to
despondency and less hopeful, more void of shame or self-respect, more false of
speech, more deceptive, of more retentive memory and more wakeful, more
shrinking and more difficult to rouse to action’ than men. This is Aristotle’s
thought towards the male and the female. At no point did Plato deny that there
are no differences between the sexes- his idea on equality lies solely in the
nature of humans. He does not pretend that women are physically capable as men,
nor does he deny that women are better at tasks like weaving. He said that
‘giving the same training, education and opportunities, suitable women could be
equally suited to the position of guardian to their male counterparts’. Plato
said that women are physically weaker than men, but should not be prevented
from being trained.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
In the African society, sexism manifests
daily in different ways. Many societies have continually compromised women’s
freedom, dignity and equality through cultural stereotypes. The nature and
forms of gender social stereotypes have been captured in various forms of
literary and linguistic studies. However, there is little attention paid to the
sociolinguistic approach to such concerns, especially from socio-discourse
analytical perspective. Therefore, this study investigates the explication of
sexism and dominance in selected Nigerian drama.
This study is therefore different from
other previous analysis of authentic texts because it is an investigation of
literary drama texts the findings of which will be unique and contribute
significantly to sociolinguistic knowledge due to the fact that drama is the
closest to reality of all literary genres.
1.3 Objective of the Study
The main objective of this study is to
find out the sexism and power dominance from the linguistic perspective of
language use in Altine’s Wrath and The Play
of Giants. The specific objectives are to:
1. identify
and explain sexist language use in the selected texts;
2. examine
from linguistic perspective how the writers portray the oppressive and discriminative nature of sexism in the
society; and
3. investigate
the effects of sexist language use in the texts.
1.4 Research Questions
In line with the objectives of the
study, the following research questions are posed:
1. How
do characters use sexist language in the selected texts?
2. From
what linguistic perspective have the writers portrayed the oppressive and
discriminative nature of sexism in the society?
3. What
are the effects of sexist language portrayed in the selected texts?
1.5 Significance of the Study
It has been observed that many studies on
gender have been carried out based on the way participants understands
themselves, there is little attention paid to the sociolinguistic approach to
such concerns especially from socio-discourse analytical perspective.
Therefore, this study investigates the explication of sexism and power dominance
in Osofisan’s Altine’s Wraths and
Soyinka’s A Play of Giants and this
study would serve as a reference
material for sociolinguistics, discourse and sociology researchers.
1.6 Scope of the Study
In order to utilize a well
structured and organized language use that is spontaneous as typical of the
spoken text, this study has utilized language purposively selected samples from
the drama text selected. Two African drama texts were selected. They include;
Osofisan’s Altine’s Wrath and
Soyinka’s A Play of Giants.
1.7 Theoretical Framework
The theoretical framework this this
study is the model of Discourse Analysis
by Michel Foucault (1997) which sees discourse as a form of social action that
plays a part in producing a social world
including knowledge, identities and social relations and thereby maintaining
specific social patterns. It also focuses on power relationships in society as
expressed through language and practices.
Discourse is the general idea that
language is structured according to different patterns that people’s utterances
follow when they take part in different domains of social life. This discourse
analysis is not just a one approach, but a series of interdisciplinary
approaches that can be used to explore many different social domains in many
different types of studies. Fairclough
(1992) states that : “Discourse for me is more than just language use: it is language
use, whether speech or writing, seen as a type of social practice’’ (p. 28).
However, discourse is still deficient in the sense that it does not effectively
cater for visual language which is an important part of discourse
which encompasses written text, spoken text, textual graphics as well as images.
Discourse analysis can be seen as an explicit, systematic account of
structures, strategies or processes of text or talk in terms of theoretical
notions developed in any branch of the field.Foucault’s view is that subjects
are created in discourse. He argues that discourse is not the majestically
unfolding manifestation of thinking, knowing, speaking subjects or as Steinar
Kvale (1992) expresses the position ‘the self no longer uses language to express
self, rather language speaks through the person. The individual self becomes a
medium for the culture and its language’(p. 36).
1.8 Author’s
Profile: Femi Osofisan
Femi Osofisan was born in 1946 in
Erunwon village in Ogun state, Nigeria. He is a prolific critic, poet, novelist
and playwright, whose work mainly attacks political corruption and injustice.
He was educated at the university of Ibadan, Dakar and Paris. He has also
worked as a professor of Drama since 1985 at the University of Ibadan where he
spent most of his adult career. Osofisan was the General Manager and Chief
Executive of the National Theatre Lagos. He has won prizes from the Association
of Nigerian Authors (ANA) for both drama (1980) and poetry (1989) and in 2004
he was awarded the Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM), the highest
academic prize in Nigeria.
Author’s Profile: Wole
Soyinka
Oluwole
Akinwande Soyinka was born on the 13th of July 1934 in Abeokuta in Western
Nigeria, at the time still a British colony. His father Ayo was a school
supervisor and his mother Eniola a shopkeeper, both well-respected members of
the local community. Although Soyinka was brought up in an English-speaking, Christian
environment, his parents belonged to the Yoruba tribe, and the family often
visited the father’s ancestral home in Ísará, a traditional Yoruba community.
When Soyinka was twelve, he went to Ibadan to study at the prestigious
Government College, and at 18 he enrolled at the city’s new university. After
two years, he moved to England to study English Literature at the University of
Leeds, where he specialized in drama tutored by the distinguished Shakespeare
critic G Wilson Knight. In 1957 Soyinka received his BA and enrolled for a
Master’s degree, but abandoned it to work in the theatre. He moved toLondon and
started working as a script-reader for the Royal Court Theatre, and a year
later produced his first play, The Swamp-Dwellers, at the University of London
Drama Festival.
During his involvement with the Royal
Court, he also wrote work for their regular one-night ‘productions without
décor’, in which he also acted. Meanwhile, both The Swamp-Dwellers and his new
play, The Lion and The Jewel, were produced in his native Ibadan. n 1960,
Soyinka received a Rockefeller grant which enabled him to return to Nigeria to
study African drama. He founded a theatre company, 1960 Masks, for whom he both
directed and acted in several productions of his own plays. In 1962 he was
appointed lecturer in English at the University of Ife, and at around the same
time, he alsostarted to write critical and satirical commentary on the
political situation in Western Nigeria.
Over the next few years Soyinka
continued to write and direct a wide range of plays, from comedies to
politically minded plays. He also organized an improvisational ‘guerrilla
theatre’, wrote for radio and television, and published both his first novel
and his first collection of poetry. In 1967, during the Nigerian civil war,
Soyinka wrote an article in which he proposed a cease-fire. For this, he was
accused of sympathizing with the Biafran rebels, and imprisoned for treason for
nearly two years. Soyinka spent much of his prison time in solitary confinement,
and has described his traumatic experience in the collection Poems From Prison,
and the autobiographical novel The Man Died. Afterhis release from prison, he
went into voluntary exile, and spent some time in Ghana where he became editor
of a leading intellectual journal. In 1975 he returned to Nigeria, and was
appointed Professor of English at the University of Ife.
Soyinka continued to write plays,
critical essays and film scripts, and in recognition of his achievement, he was
awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986. By this time, his plays were
being produced all over the world. He has worked as a guest lecturer at several
universities world-wide, including Cambridge, Sheffield and Harvard, where he
received an honorary doctorate in 1993.
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