A critical discourse analysis of Gender Stereotyping in it’s a boy girl thing movie

ABSTRACT

The critical discourse analysis is a critical approach to discourse analysis that explores texts not as truths but as discourses that act in the world in ways that both define and distribute power. CDA sees discourse and language as “social practice”. The social practice presents an ideological impact. It could produce and reproduce unequal power relations between social classes, men and women, minority and majority groups which are represented in social position. Therefore, through discourse practice, racism, sexism and imbalance in social life is considered as natural.

The example of unequal power relation naturalized by discourse is the discourse of gender stereotyping. It is unvarying form or pattern of gender role; a fixed or conventional notion or conception of gender, held by a number of people, it produces an inequalities for subdominant group. It is sometimes published or showed in certain Medias. One of them is movie used in this research. It is It’s a Boy Girl Things Movie that proposes gender stereotyping of human role based on their sex. These stereotypes generate misperception on sex role where it discriminates women.

That movie is analyzed using the descriptive qualitative approach in finding and analyzing discourses of gender stereotyping applied. In analyzing the data found from the movie, the researcher comes to several processes. Firstly, finding the dialogues presenting discourse formation and its strategies, explaining the microstructure, superstructure and macrostructure to generate the main discourse presented based on theory of Teuw Van Dijk. Secondly, explaining the strategies of discourse found where it naturalizes uncommon perceptions of gender differences in society, and displaying those analyzed data in the form of tables which is completed with the analysis of three main approaches of Van Dijk’s theories. Thirdly, analyzing the main effect of generated discourse on subdominant groups namely women.

On this research, the researcher focuses on investigating the discourse of gender stereotyping presented in dialogues of the main character. It is then analyzed from aspects of microstructure, superstructure and macrostructure from the process of its formation. Those discourse of gender stereotyping found are classified into ninth kinds of discourse formation. Nine of them present an unequal stereotyping on women. While, after generating the discourse formation, the research analyzes its strategies to normalize and eliminate the common discourse of gender role. These processes are verified to analyze critically its negative effects to the women in social life.

Finally, the researcher suggests to the next researcher concerns in the comparing certain Medias having similar topic of discourse to analyze its effect to the paradigm of society on discourse presented.