Naming Practices and Insult Terms: A Study of Women Representation in Ali’s The Stone Woman
Keywords:
Insult Terms, Naming, Sexist Language, Overt Sexism, Women RepresentationAbstract
The present study critically analyzes Tariq Ali’s novel The Stone Woman (2000) to find out how he has represented women through different linguistic choices. The data, in the form of words and phrases, have been analyzed by applying Mills’s (2008) theory of sexism. For the contextual discussion the study is guided by Hsieh and Shannon’s (2005) theory of context of situation. Following a descriptive qualitative research method, the data are collected through close reading and note taking techniques and categorized based on the identified patterns. With a focus on two aspects of language use i.e., naming and insult terms for women the study has found that Ali (2000) has presented women in a derogatory way. The study has found the cases where women are not introduced through their names. Moreover, women are also semantically derogated when insult terms are used to represent them with reference to their ugliness, stupidity, immorality, and sexuality. The use of such language which represents women negatively shows a biased attitude of the writer towards gender depiction.
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