In the last decade the feminine language has been analysed according to different patterns within communication sciences, sociolinguistics and pragmalinguistics. However researchers have not found sex- or gender-specific traits in female political leaders’ discourse (Lakoff 2003; Luraghi-Olita 2006) and when written texts are involved no significant feature can be pointed out, so that we are allowed to think that in Western world and languages there is no substantial linguistic difference related to this sociographic variable. Nevertheless, there are evidences that the mother’s role in family interaction—a social setting where European women, as well as the Japanese ones, to mention just one example from the Eastern world, maintained a cardinal importance—assumes cross-culturally shaped forms which vary between two ends: power/hierarchy/distance and solidarity/equality/nearness. The principal aim of feminine speech is the mediation either between the children and the father when the woman is mother and wife, or between the brothers and the parents when she is sister and daughter, or between the grandchildren and the son when she is grandmother and mother. On the basis of these considerations, some researchers have found similar signs in other dialogical structures, such as job-interviews or radio advertising—though in the latter the speech is not spontaneous, but “performed”. Through our analysis of a motivated sample of political feminine discourse in television, we want to verify if female politicians tend to apply the same linguistic strategies and the same control manoeuvres which they keep when they are around a table with their relatives. Actually, the claim of those actions is not directly earning power, but the agreement on and the acceptance of an idea or a project. The research will cover the structural organisation of word turns and other pragmatic features (Wilson 1990), as well as a set of linguistic phenomena (e.g. discourse markers, assertiveness, politeness, etc.), sociolinguistic indicators, idioms and rhetoric devices. The messages are analysed also in relation to the framework that the magic box creates around the language of female ministers and deputies. The aim is to show how the typical TV showgirl image (e.g. the Italian letterine, schedine, and various forms of vallette) affects their institutional and concerned speeches, claiming that the female-leader is compelled to use the verbal language also in order to fill the gap determined by the abuse of woman’s body language in many TV shows and in advertising
Catricala', M. (2008). Il politichese al femminile. In Genere e potere. Per una rifondazione delle scienze umane. Atti del Convegno omonimo, La Sapienza Roma 4-5 Maggio 2007 (pp.355-373). ACIREALE : Bonanno Editore.
Il politichese al femminile
CATRICALA', Maria
2008-01-01
Abstract
In the last decade the feminine language has been analysed according to different patterns within communication sciences, sociolinguistics and pragmalinguistics. However researchers have not found sex- or gender-specific traits in female political leaders’ discourse (Lakoff 2003; Luraghi-Olita 2006) and when written texts are involved no significant feature can be pointed out, so that we are allowed to think that in Western world and languages there is no substantial linguistic difference related to this sociographic variable. Nevertheless, there are evidences that the mother’s role in family interaction—a social setting where European women, as well as the Japanese ones, to mention just one example from the Eastern world, maintained a cardinal importance—assumes cross-culturally shaped forms which vary between two ends: power/hierarchy/distance and solidarity/equality/nearness. The principal aim of feminine speech is the mediation either between the children and the father when the woman is mother and wife, or between the brothers and the parents when she is sister and daughter, or between the grandchildren and the son when she is grandmother and mother. On the basis of these considerations, some researchers have found similar signs in other dialogical structures, such as job-interviews or radio advertising—though in the latter the speech is not spontaneous, but “performed”. Through our analysis of a motivated sample of political feminine discourse in television, we want to verify if female politicians tend to apply the same linguistic strategies and the same control manoeuvres which they keep when they are around a table with their relatives. Actually, the claim of those actions is not directly earning power, but the agreement on and the acceptance of an idea or a project. The research will cover the structural organisation of word turns and other pragmatic features (Wilson 1990), as well as a set of linguistic phenomena (e.g. discourse markers, assertiveness, politeness, etc.), sociolinguistic indicators, idioms and rhetoric devices. The messages are analysed also in relation to the framework that the magic box creates around the language of female ministers and deputies. The aim is to show how the typical TV showgirl image (e.g. the Italian letterine, schedine, and various forms of vallette) affects their institutional and concerned speeches, claiming that the female-leader is compelled to use the verbal language also in order to fill the gap determined by the abuse of woman’s body language in many TV shows and in advertisingI documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
