Representations Of Malay Women In Dina Zaman's Selected Short Stories: A Feminist Stylistic Analysis
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Date
2008-02
Authors
Versay Kudus, Nazima
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Abstract
This study attempts to find out how Dina Zaman uses language to represent
Malay women characters in the selected short stories. In addition, it aims to
assessnwhether the author has challenged or reinforced stereotypical
representations of her characters.
The theoretical framework engaged in this study includes feminist literary
criticism and stylistics and the combinative tools as proposed by Sara Mills
(1998) that is Feminist Stylistics. Theories that underpin this framework are
linguistic theories of M.A.K. Halliday's Social Semiotic Theory of Language
(1978) and Roger Fowler's Critical Unguistics Theory (1979).
In investigating their representations, the tripartite linguistic levels of analyses
(the word, the clause and the discourse) as proposed by Mills (1998) have been
adopted. The linguistic features investigated in selected short stories comprise
naming, transitivity and characters/roles respectively.
From the analyses at various linguistic levels and linguistic options, it is clearly
revealed that the author has deconstructed the ways in which the Malay women
characters are usually represented in narrative texts. Finally, I recommend the
related stakeholders to utilise the proposed methodology so that they not only
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Keywords
Women in literature