A Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Gender Relations In A Thousand Splendid Suns

Critical discourse analysis(CDA),as one of the most important methods for discourse analysis,aims to reveal the relations among power,ideology and language.In general,CDA is mainly used to explore the power relation in public discourses or official discourses,which is rarely employed to analyze literary works.This study is to analyze the gender relations in the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns from the perspective of CDA.There is a great difference in the status of male and female roles in this novel,which means the existence of unequal gender relation.This study focuses on the linguistic features in order to reveal the power relation and inequality phenomenon based on the novel.As an effective analytical tool for CDA,Halliday’s systemic functional grammar(SFG)plays an essential role in the development of CDA.This study,by employing some theories of SFG,makes an analysis of the linguistic features of language in A Thousand Splendid Suns quantitatively and qualitatively.It draws on some passages and conversations regarding the leading hero,Rasheed,and two other heroines,Mariam and Laila.The transitivity process,modality,and mood structure as well as lexicons will be computed and compared in these materials.Subsequently by comparing these collection data,we can investigate the language differences between males and females.According to the analysis of transitivity process,modality and mood structure,as well as lexical classification,this study draws the conclusion that there exist unequal gender relations and men-superiority ideology embedded in the novel.The author attempts to analyze the linguistic features of the male and female characters at the grammatical and lexical level by taking the social historical background of A Thousand Splendid Suns into consideration,and to uncover the unequal power relations between males and females in that society.The males play a dominant role,and females are the dominated beings.Thus,in the males’ eyes,females are subordinated to them.In the meantime,this study finds out the awakening of feministconsciousness from the female protagonists who gradually dare to challenge and resist against the dominance of males.Through this research,it is hoped that the readers will be able to have a better understanding and interpretation of the ideology and power relations hidden in the work.Furthermore,it is hoped that this study can provide a new perspective on the research of gender relations.