A Comparative Analysis of Gender Stereotypes in Children's Literature in Persian and English within the Framework of Cultural Linguistics

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 M.A, General Linguistics, University of Guilan

2 P.h.D, General Linguistics, University of Guilan

Abstract

Gender stereotypes can be considered as one of the prominent concepts in the field of socio-linguistics. These stereotypes are found at all levels of language application, including children’s literature, and play an important role in the reproduction of sexist language and patriarchal discourse. Through a descriptive- analytic method, the present study aims to investigate the aforementioned stereotypes in forty children’s stories of age groups “A” and “B” and seeks to compare the amount and the types of common stereotypes within the cultural linguistics framework as proposed by Sharifian (2016). Then, a linguistic and cultural interpretation of the stereotypes will be provided. The results of this study indicate that although the amount of gender stereotypes in children’s stories has been diminished in the past decades, patriarchal discourse is still remarkably present on the deep structure level and encodes its values and criteria through the presentation of gendered frameworks and roles in language and affects the audiences.
 
1. Introduction
Amongst all kinds of tools for raising a child and passing on the accurate norms and beliefs, children's literature is of special importance as it is associated with words and plays a crucial role in forming the child's mental image of various concepts. While this field has been subdued until the past decade, new approaches consider children’s literature in line with other literary genres bearing textual and meta-textual relations. The issue of gender and hence gender stereotypes has arisen in critique and literary theory from mid-twentieth century and is regarded as one of the fundamental categories which has tremendous impact in the process of child's socialization and subjectivity. Therefore, the present study aims to compare gender stereotypes within a total number of eighty stories in English and Persian story books of age groups A and B within the framework of cultural linguistics in order to answer the three basic questions of the study which involve the similarities and differences between the gender stereotypes used in story books of the age groups A and B in Persian and English, in addition to the linguistic interpretation of these similarities and differences in these two languages and also the cultural interpretation of the similarities and differences in these works In response to the above mentioned questions "ethnographic-conceptual text/visual analysis", a highly effective method for a comparative study, has been employed to compare both linguistic and cultural interpretation of stories in Persian and English.
 
2. Theoretical framework
Stories in both age groups of Persian and English are examined within the framework of Cultural Linguistics, as it is one of the branches of cognitive linguistics and studies the intersection of language, cultural and cultural conceptualizations. Cultural conceptualizations refer to the kinds of human experiences, constructed by the culture of societies and encoded in language. Many of the characteristics of human languages are embedded in cultural conceptualizations. Cultural linguistics identifies, describes and analyzes these conceptualizations in human languages (Sharifian, 2017a, P:9).
The term refers to fundamental cognitive processes including »schematization«, »categorization« and »metaphors«. In cultural linguistics, schemas are considered as building blocks of cognition that help human being organize, interpret and communicate information. There are 5 types of schemas namely event schemas, role schemas, image schemas, proposition schemas and emotion schemas. Categorization is another form of conceptualization and is the most fundamental human cognitive activity which begins early in life. Another area of language through which cultural conceptualizations encode concrete experiences is the domain of metaphor. In cognitive linguistics, this form of conceptualization is referred to as a "conceptual mapping" or "conceptual metaphor"(Sharifian, 2011, P: 23).
 
3. Methodology
As the research is targeted on the study of 20 stories in each age group of each language, these stories were selected in a randomized manner and examined in the most suited framework of cultural linguistics through a qualitative content analysis. In order to answer the research questions, firstly cultural categories, cultural schemas, and cultural metaphors related to gender stereotypes were identified in the stories and then classified into six categories of family, personality and behavioral characteristics, occupational roles, space, toys, animals, and surreal beings. Then the size of each category in each age group and language besides their similarities and differences were compared to see if there is a meaningful difference in the number of cultural conceptualizations related to gender stereotypes in the stories of the two languages. In the next step and in response to the other two questions of the research, linguistic and cultural analysis of similarities and differences in cultural conceptualizations were presented in both textual and visual contexts.
 
4. Results & Discussion
The findings suggest that despite the existence of gender stereotypes in the stories of both age groups of Persian and English, the rate and the variety of these stereotypes in cultural categories and schemas in Persian stories were dramatically more than English ones both in texts and pictures. Also, the stereotypes seem to be more deeply rooted, more radical and located in concealed linguistic and cultural layers in Persian stories. English has been able to create a minimal context for gender stereotypes by creating new situations and new language; thus, children's stories in Persian require more serious efforts by the authors and cultural programmers.
 
5. Conclusions & Suggestions
Results of the analysis of gender stereotypes in children’s stories of Persian and English based on cultural linguistics has revealed the fact that alongside with the differences in cultural conceptualization in the two languages, there are similarities such as the »occupational role« which is the most repeated category in both languages.
The gendered structure exists in both lexical and grammatical levels of both languages and is constantly reproduced. Although there are no such things as gendered pronouns (third person singular in English) or gender markers within a word in Persian, gendered constructs generally appear in larger linguistic units. However, such constructs are still present in English, they do not have much of a conceptual impact and can be said to have been inactivated and largely lost their discriminatory gender sense.
Also, studying the conceptualizations in terms of the limitations indicated that the substructures and potentials in Persian stories were far less than the English one. Thus, the result of confluence of language, culture and thought in Persian reflects the mental, cultural and social structures that, in turn, do not allow women to emerge both personally and socially. However, the results of the efforts made in English over the years have come to be seen with a more lively and productive language.
Meanwhile, extending the scope of the present study in terms of sample size and content could be a remarkable point considering further studies as examination of children's stories in other higher age groups, moreover, expanding the scope of this comparison can be a valuable contribution to gender-based language research.
 
Select Bibliography
Alvanoudi A. 2017. The interface between language and cultural conceptualization of gender in interaction: The case of Greek. In: Sharifian F. (ed) Advances in Cultural Linguistics (pp. 125-147). Singapore: Springer.
Browne, B.A. 2013. Gender stereotypes in advertising on children’s television in the 1990s: A cross-national analysis. Journal of advertising, 27(1), 83-96.
Gooden, A.M., Gooden, M.A. 2001. Gender representations in notable children’s picture books: 1995-1999. Sex Roles, 45(1), 45-89.
Lakoff, G., Johnson, M. 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago press.
Maghsudi, S. 2004. An investigation into the role of women in kid’s stories. Women Research, 3 (2), 43-63. [in Persian]
Moeinifar, H. 2009. The representation of gender cliché in media: A case study of the yellow pages of Hamshari. Cultural Research, 3 (2) 3, 4-5. [in Persian]  
 
Sharifian, F. 2009. On collective cognition and language. In H. Pishwa (ed), Language and social cognition: Expression of social mind. Berlin: Mount de Gruyter.
Sharifian, F. 2011a. An Introduction to Cultural Linguistics. Tehran: Neviseh Parsi Publications. [in Persian]
Sharifian, F. 2011b. Cultural conceptualizations and language: Theoretical framework and applications. Amesterdam: John Benjamins.
Sharifian, F. 2017. Cultural Linguistics. Amsterdam/PA: Benjamins.
 

Keywords


احمدی، ب. 1371.  از نشانه‌های تصویری تا متن. تهران: مرکز.
سفیری، خ. 1388. جامعه‌شناسی جنسیت. تهران: جامعه‌شناسان.
شیخ رضایی، ح. 1386. «اگر زیبای خفته پسر بود»، پژوهشنامة ادبیات کودک و نوجوان، 51 (12):  54-60.
متولی، م. 1389. گفت‌و‌گو با یازده نویسندۀ زن. تهران: نیلوفر.
معینی­فر، ح. 1388. «بازنمایی کلیشه­های جنسیتی در رسانه؛ مطالعۀ موردی صفحه حوادث روزنامۀ همشهری»، فصلنامۀ تحقیقات فرهنگی، 3 (2): 4-5.
مقصودی، س. 1383. «بررسی نقش زن در داستان‌های کودکان»، پژوهش زنان، 3(2): 43.
مهران، گ. نراقی­زاده، ا. ملک‌زاده، ش. 1395. «بررسی نقش کلیشه‌های جنسیتی کتاب‌های ادبیات فارسی و زبان فارسی سال اول دبیرستان در انتخاب رشتۀ تحصیلی دانش­آموزان دختر و پسر»، فصلنامۀ نوآوری‌های آموزشی، 61 (16): 44 -47.
وحدانی، ف. سلیمی، ف. 1394. «بررسی کلیشه‌های جنسیتی در کتاب‌های ادبیات کودکان (زیر هفت سال)»، همایش بین­المللی جستارهای ادبی، زبان و ارتباطات فرهنگی: 14-16.
Alvanoudi A. 2017. The interface between language and cultural conceptualization of gender in interaction: The case of Greek. In: Sharifian F. (eds) Advances in Cultural Linguistics (pp. 125-147). Singapore: Springer.
Browne, B.A. 2013. Gender stereotypes in advertising on children’s television in the 1990s: A cross-national analysis. Journal of advertising, 27(1), 83-96.
Caesy, N. Sotoudeh, H. 2002. Television studies: The key concepts, London & New York: Routladge.
Dihn, T.N. 2017. Cultural linguistics and ELT curriculum: The case of English textbooks in Vietnam. In sharifian, F.(eds.), Advances in cultural linguistics. (pp. 721-745). Springer, Singapore.
Forker, D. 2016. Gender in Hinuq and other Nakh-Daghestanian languages. International Journal of Language and Culture, 3(1), 90-114.
Gooden, A.M., Gooden, M.A. 2001. Gender representations in notable children’s picture books: 1995-1999. Sex Roles, 45(1), 45-89.
Hunt, P. 1994. An introduction to children’s literature (Vol.37). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lakoff, G., Johnson, M. 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago press.
Langacker, R. 1994. Culture, cognition and grammar. In M. Putz (eds.), Language contact and language conflict (pp. 25-53). Amesterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Lutz, C. 1987. Goals, events and understanding in Ifaluk emotion theory. In N. Quinn @ D. Holland (eds.), Cultural models in language and thought (pp. 181- 238). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nishida, H. 1999. A cognitive approach to intercultural communication based on schema theory. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 23(5), 758.
Penelope, J. 1988. Prescribed Passivity: The language of sexism. In The Nebraska Sociological Feminist Collective (eds.), A feminist ethic for social science research. Lewiston/ Queenston: Edwin Mellen Press, 38-60
Sarvasy, H. 2016. Sexless babies, sexed grandparents: Nungon gendered person terms. International Journal of Language and Culture, 3(1), 115-136.
Sharifian, F. 2009. On collective cognition and language. In H. Pishwa (Ed), Language and social cognition: Expression of social mind. Berlin: Mount de Gruyter.
Sharifian, F. 2011. Cultural conceptualizations and language: Theoretical framework and applications. Amesterdam: John Benjamins.
Sharifian, F. 2017. Cultural Linguistics. Amsterdam/PA: Benjamins.
Yu, N. 2007. Heart and cognition in ancient Chinese philosophy, Journal of Cognition and Culture, 7(1), 27.