Language And Gender: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Tweets And Hashtags On Aurat March 2021

Abstract

Language assists in shaping the ideas and creates diverse views on domestic, social and political issues. It is evident that inequality and power imbalance in online discourses lead towards the social understanding of problems faced by the mass. Aurat March has stirred patriarchal norms and the so called dignity of not only some of the Pakistani men but women as well. The present study aimed to highlight gender biasness presented through language on the Aurat March 2021 through selected tweets and hashtags. It also analyzed the relatedness in the diverse views of both the genders (male and female) in order to highlight the social mentality of Pakistanis regarding gender based roles in Pakistani culture. Data was collected from the hashtags, namely: #AuratMarchKHI, #LetHerDecide, and #BelieveHer that were repeatedly circulated on twitter. The corpus consisted of 200+ tweets which were collected from using the above stated hashtags. Critical discourse analysis was done on the selected data by using Fairclough’s three-dimensional model (1995). Results of the study revealed that most of the male twitterati shared the biased attitude towards Aurat march 2021. The selected tweets and tweet replies supported the idea of patriarchal society of Pakistan.  The current study concluded that Aurat march is minimizing the gap between domestic and social problems. It gives voice to all the unheard stories of women which were neglected in the past. The present study adds to the existing knowledge in the field of language and gender by examining the language used by both male and female genders to address gender roles and social issues. Further studies can be conducted by analyzing the language used in the placards and media coverage on Aurat march to examine the diverse views.