Linguistic Sexism in T.V. Drama: A Linguistic Analysis of Verbal Violence against Women in the Egyptian Sitcom Al-Kabeer Awi

Abstract

Linguistic Sexism in T.V. Drama: A Linguistic Analysis of Verbal Violence against Women in the Egyptian Sitcom Al-Kabeer Awi Heba Nayef Abstract This paper attempts to shed light on sexism in Egyptian comic T.V. series as represented in the sitcom Al- Kabeer Awy (The Big Boss). Through employing a qualitativeand quantitative analysis of four episodes (13 scenes), the study investigates the way language is manipulated and used to disparage women in this sitcom. Adopting the theoretical framework of feminist CDA, this paper employs three tools of analysis; namely, lexical choices and titles, transitivity, and collocations. The data showed that in the (13) scenes subject to analysis, the majority of names and titles used by Al-Kabeer, the main male character, to address Hadeyya, the main female character, were either disparaging words or direct insults. It was also shown that such insults were used as a source of humor. Moreover, lexical collocations used in association with Hadeyya were shown to be largely negative. The analysis also revealed that she was only praised in terms of sexual attributes. The study shows that such type of women representation and linguistic sexism in T.V. in general, and sitcoms in particular, cannot be regarded as benign source of humor but it can actually provide a fertile soil to grow ideologies of gender inequality and masculine hegemony Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/ijlc.v4n1a9