NARRATING GENDER THROUGH LANGUAGE: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF FEMALE REPRESENTATION IN TARIQ RAHMAN’S SHORT STORIES

Abstract

This study critically examines the linguistic representation of female characters in the selected short stories by Tariq Rahman through the three-dimensional model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) by Norman Fairclough. The qualitative analysis of the chosen textual extracts shows that the female characters are mostly presented in discourses of invisibility, relational identity, emotional excess, and unpaid labor, reflecting all issues of deep-rooted patriarchal ideologies of the Pakistani society. The use of lexicon, transitivity and narrative silences often marginalize the agency of women and naturalize their domestic and moral roles. It is also shown that there are moments of discursive resistance especially when egalitarian gender relations are linguistically constructed. This study adds to the interdisciplinary literary research and proves the usefulness of the discourse analysis in revealing the gendered ideologies in the literary works by extending the CDA to the Pakistani English short fiction.