CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0 Overview

In recent decades, a multitude of attempts have been made to investigate

how language and sex/gender are correlated. Such attempts are usually
characteristic of sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, and feminist linguistics
(Wodak, 1997, p. 1). In these (sub)disciplines, it is believed that if someone
is born female, she will probably grow up to meet her society’s gender
expectations. That is, she would behave in a way considered socially
appropriate for a woman or use a certain conversational style in which she
features what is thought to be ladylike (ibid, p. 21).

Research on how language and sex/gender shape each other as well as

other power-related matters has never stopped: it has developed into new
branches of linguistics. This explains why linguistics now has critical
discourse analysis (CDA) which ‘investigates the relationship between
language and society’ and how the language that people use ‘constructs
reality’, that is, how language shapes the way language users view the world
(Norgaard et al., 2010, 69-71).

The development of CDA has prompted scholars, such as Lesley

Jeffries, to formulate a new branch which fuses CDA and stylistics. This has
led to having a relatively new branch which is called ‘critical stylistics’ (CS)
— which is regarded as ‘‘a method of finding ideology in’’ texts (Burke,
2014, p. 410). On the face of it, the analytical tools that CS provides seem to
be applicable to political texts only. However, these tools can also be used to

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uncover dominance, sexism, and oppression which exist in language
implicitly or explicitly. This is because is said that ‘‘texts make meaning in
fundamentally the same way, whether they are poems, novels, newspapers or
political manifestoes’’ (ibid, p. 408). What is more, the eclecticism of this
framework (i.e. CS) extends over different genres and text-types, including
literary works, political speeches, and folklore. For this reason, CS has been
chosen to be the model of this thesis, which basically revolves around
proverbs: proverbs are known to be a folklore genre (Kerschen, 1998, p. 1).

Proverbs is one of the linguistic phenomena that have attracted a lot of

attention, especially in the domain of sexist language. The reason why
scholars are intrigued by proverbs is that proverbs are used to ‘‘pass on rich
cultural traditions, transmit folklore, and communicate expected codes of
behavior’’ (Kaplan, not mentioned, p. 1). In other words, proverbs reveal
how a specific culture views life and all its aspects (e.g. women, men, the
weather, etc.). Thus, sifting English women-related proverbs (WRPs) on the
basis of CS is hoped to unearth how women have been/were perceived in the
English-speaking countries.

Here, analyzing English WRPs based on CS — as an approach to sexist

ideology in language — means that the language used in the proverbs is the
main element to focus on, in the process of the analysis. Moreover, the way
in which women are perceived, in the English-speaking countries, will also
be explored and unveiled by employing the analytical tools taken from CS,
which again concentrate primarily on language in general and stylistic
strategies in particular.

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 The points mentioned above make conducting the present study, which
fundamentally on (English) WRPs, valuable to linguistics, paremiology (i.e.
the study of proverbs), and the domain of sex/gender in general. To clarify
this argument further, some studies that have been carried out on WRPs
proverbs will be discussed briefly below to see what is missing in the
literature.

WRPs have been a busy area where scholars have put into a lot of time
and effort in order to identify the position of women in society. For instance,
in her paper “The Analysis of Sexism in English Proverbs”, Xin Zheng
(2018, p. 1-2), discusses how English proverbs bear discrimination against
women, and the role they play in strengthening men while increasing “the
self-consciousness of women”. This paper, however, deals with sexism
through looking at some of the social, cultural, and psychological
dimensions of proverbs while it overlooks the stylistic aspects of proverbs;
that is to say, the absence of rigorous linguistic analysis is obvious.

Another attempt to investigate how women are perceived in society was

made by a researcher named Meryem Belfatmi. In her article “The
Representation of Women in Moroccan Proverbs”, she stresses how
Moroccan proverbs portray women as ‘meat’ and ‘fools’ (Belfatmi, 2013, p.
2-4). Yet, her paper still lacks the density of stylistic analysis, which might
be a drawback it has in common with Zheng’s paper.

Research on WRPs is not limited to short papers and articles. In fact,

many books have been dedicated to the investigation into women’s status in
society and the stereotypical qualities of women found in (English) proverbs.
Good examples can be “Never Marry a Woman with Big Feet” by Mineke

3
Schipper, “American Proverbs about Women” by Lois Kerchen, “Women
Through Anti-Proverbs” by Anna T. Litovkina, to name a few. These books,
nevertheless, are limited to the analysis of the cultural and social aspects of
proverbs. This limitation creates a gap in the existing literature that should to
be filled in. In other words, almost no CS studies have been conducted
regarding this topic.

As it has been mentioned above, a good deal of research has been done
to identify how women are represented in (English) WRPs. Yet, none has
been carried out based on CS as a model to sexism and style in English
WRPs. Therefore, it would be plausible to say that the study at hand is
useful and important to linguistics and some other similar fields because it
will tackle WRPs by employing CS, and this will fill in the missing
information in the literature. Nonetheless, this is not the sole aim of the
study. This study also aims at identifying how women have been looked on
in the English-speaking countries as well (a point to be discussed further
soon).

1.1 The Problem

Scholars around the world deem proverbs as sayings that reflect people’s
ways of thinking. This is why they have put a good deal of time and effort
into proverbs. For instance, it has been mentioned above that plenty of
research has been conducted on WRPs in order to get a better understanding
of how different societies view women. However, this line of research has a
gap to fill up: no CS study has been carried out about WRPs. But what is
CS, exactly?

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 CS is an approach to ideology found in “the systematic (coded)
meaning . . . and the contextual and relatively variable meaning of language
in use.” The way in which CS concentrates on language (coded meaning)
and how speakers of a language use their language to represent reality
(Burke, 2014, p. 409) makes this framework very useful to apply to
(English) WRPs. Put another way, proverbs mingle language with the
wisdom which a particular culture has; and CS has been formulated to
analyze language and how it is used to describe the world ideologically. This
makes CS an excellent model to reveal how English WRPs employ stylistic
practices in order to portray women. So, by using critical stylistics as an
approach to sexist language in (English) WRPs, the gap will be filled up in
the literature plus a new way of scrutinizing (English) WRPs’ language will
come into existence.

1.2 Aims

This study aims at:

 Identifying the stylistic practices through which sexism is perpetuated

in English WRPs.
 Exploiting CS to achieve the first aim.
 Examining how hostile and benevolent sexism are deep-seated in the
proverbs.
 Identifying how the English-speaking countries view(ed) women by
sifting through their proverbs.

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1.3 Hypotheses

By scrutinizing the stylistic practices employed women in English WRPs,

this study will reveal how English proverbs contain derogatory and sexist
language which devalues women and limits their roles in society.
Furthermore, it will divulge how the selected proverbs have much in
common in terms of degrading language. In other words, as far as sexist
language is concerned, English-speaking countries have normalized things
such as oppressing and degrading women to the extent their WRPs are
almost duplicated.

1.4 Procedures

In order to carry out this study successfully, the following steps should be
taken:

 Collecting data from different sources which provide WRPs.

 Categorizing the data into different themes. For example, a theme
related to women’s appearance in proverbs, or one which is about
limiting women to be mere objects used at home.
 Analyzing the proverbs on the basis of Jeffries’ CS.
 Arriving at a conclusion in which the key findings of the data analysis
will be discussed.

1.5 Limits

The current study is to be limited to the analysis of twenty-five (25) English

WRPs by exploiting CS. This number might not seem big; however, the
analysis will be rigorous and detailed in terms of concentrating on the
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stylistic features and social significance which the proverbs bear. Put
differently, the critical stylistic analysis will be dense. Also, it should be
noted that an English proverb might have more than 3 versions of it, each of
which has the same proposition but slightly different wording (this point will
be explained in more detail in the data analysis part).

1.6 Methodology

As it has been mentioned earlier, the data of this study is composed of

twenty-five (25) WRPs proverbs collected from (7) seven different books.
These books range from ones dedicated to WRPs and sexist language to
ones that contain general proverbs. This step (i.e. collecting the date from
different sources) has been necessary to achieve objectivity. Below are the
sources from which the data has been taken:

1. “English Proverbs Explained” by Ridout and Witting.

2. “Never Marry a Woman with Big Feet” by Mineke Schipper,
3. “3000 Proverbs” by Sam Phillips.
4. “American Proverbs about Women” by Lois Kerchen.
5. “Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs” by Jennifer Speake (Ed.).
6. “Women through Anti-Proverbs” by Anna T. Litovkina.
7. “Proverbs” by William Scott Downey.

As far as the analysis process is concerned, the present study uses

mixed methods. Put briefly, it integrates qualitative and quantitative
analysis. This is because the stylistic characteristics and patterns of the
proverbs will first be looked for and flagged up and then they will be
quantified in order to highlight their frequency in the proverbs.

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1.7 Value

This study is beneficial to scholars/students who are interested in Jeffries’

CS as an approach to sexist ideology in particular and the concept of power
in general. It also lends a new perspective to topic of WRPs as a linguistic
phenomenon — which is valuable since it is rich in so many linguistic and
cultural aspects to learn. In addition, it fills a void in the existing literature
because the topic of English WRPs has never been looked at from a critical
stylistic perspective.

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 CHAPTER TWO
WOMEN-RELATED PROVERBS

2.0 Overview

The subject of WRPs has intrigued many scholars from different countries and
made them invest time and efforts in it. Whether the proverbs are English (see
Kerschen1998) or from almost every corner of the world (see Schipper 2004),
this subject seems to have had a meteoric rise and become sociolinguistically
significant. There are some reasons why researchers pay lots of attention to this
topic. One of them is because it is believed that probing into WRPs leads to
getting some insights into how human cultures view women (Syzdykov, 2014,
pp. 1-2). In other words, WRPs are an excellent cultural exhibition. Besides
being sociolinguistically transparent, many academics believe that WRPs are
misogynistic (Kreschen, 1998, p. 11).

It should be noted that the interest in WRPs is growing bigger and bigger
with the help of different fields. That is, WRPs, (in the case of this study) CS,
the feminist movement as well as the notion of sexism walk hand in hand. This
is because uncovering sexist remarks in (English) WRPs requires understanding
what is considered as sexist. Thus, a movement like feminism can be of good
use to learn more about how sexist language is employed in English WRPs. For
this reason, the chapter at hand will start with looking at the feminist movement
and its insights into language and gender discrimination. By doing so,
unearthing sexist remarks in the data will not be a very difficult task. That is to

9
say that the critical stylistic analysis of the proverbs will be partially supported
by what feminism offers as regards the sexist language.

2.1 Feminism

Throughout history, many women have spoken out against the inequalities
they have encountered because of their sex. Nevertheless, the concept of
feminism did not come into existence until 1837. In that year, a French
philosopher named Charles Fourier was the first person to use term
“féminisme”. In the ensuing decades, this term became popular in multiple
countries such as the USA and Britain. This term was employed there to
refer to a movement which yearned to put an end to sexism and oppressing
women. Also, it aimed to achieve equality between men and women (The
Feminism Book, 2019, p. 1).

What has been mentioned above may seem adequate information to

have about feminism. But defining this movement could be thorny. This is
because feminist do not appear to agree on one definition. This does not,
however, mean that no attempts should be made to write an insightful
account of the feminist movement since it will provide a partial guideline on
what to be accounted as sexist language in the selected proverbs.

To begin with, if Oxford Dictionary is checked for the term feminism,

a good definition will be found: “the belief that women should have the
same rights and opportunities as men” (Oxford Dictionary, 2012, p. 293).
This definition is as good as what any dictionary would give regarding this
term, but it is unsatisfactory owing to the fact that dictionary definitions do
not cover all of this movement’s aspects. Thus, explaining what feminism

10
aims to achieve and how its continuum is structured will be more sufficient
than just quoting some definitions.

Nowadays, feminism is interested in sophisticated topics related to

linguistics, psychology and sociology, and not only in advocating having the
right to work and being equally paid. For instance, feminists believe that
women are “treated oppressively and differently from men” in their
workplaces in particular and society in general. This claim suggests that
society is controlled by men whereas women are deprived and oppressed. In
other words, feminists think that patriarchy is deep-seated in most societies.
As a result, women’s role has been limited to staying at home and being
used as sexual objects (Mills, 1998, p.2).

For the reasons mentioned above, feminism is considered difficult to

define and its followers do not always agree on one definition, because this
movement has a wide variety of aims and comes in different shapes (ibid, p.
2). However, as far as this study is concerned, the feminist insight into what
is considered sexist language is what matters the most here. That is, how
discourse is exploited to attack women is of paramount importance to this
study. For this reason, not finding a sufficient definition should not be an
obstacle.

With regard to sexist language, the focus on gender and discourse has
been increasing since the 1970s. Since then, feminists have believed that
language is not just a means of transmitting information from a
speaker/writer to a listener/reader; they adhere to the notion of how language
passes and perpetuates patriarchy, sexism, and oppressive social codes
(Speer, 2005, p. 1). For this reason, the way in which language is

11
manipulated to degrade women should be taken into account while trying to
uncover sexism in the selected proverbs, and society in general.

Feminists are also concerned with concepts like power and female
empowerment. They believe that women are oppressed and society is busy
going after issues related to economic power while ignoring women
(Wodak, 1997, p. 42). Perhaps that is why there are radical feminists who
consider society a corrupt and irreparable system that has to be
reconstructed. However, there are also liberal feminists whose aims revolve
around only being treated fairly and paid equally. Although these two types
of feminists might be at the two extremes of the feminist continuum, both of
them appear to support the notion of female empowerment.

In regard to neglecting women’s rights and its connection to English

proverbs, not paying enough attention to women’s problems can be spotted
in English proverbs. Some proverbs even go to the extent that they would
describe women as obtuse, shallow human beings who do not deserve to be
taken seriously. For example, the proverb “Women are wacky, women are
vain; they’d rather be pretty than have a good brain” (Schipper, 2004, p. 79)
is a clear example of how women are looked down on. That is, this proverb
tells its users and listeners to ignore women because they are superficial and
are not as important as other financial and social issues. In other words, it
says that women’s sole interest is their appearance, and thus they should be
dealt with based on that: brainless meat.

The derogatory language used in the proverb above is very frequent in

other proverbs and even in people’s daily communication. Therefore, many
scholars believe that achieving equity might mean that people should start

12
with modifying the language used to describe women and their social roles
in society since language can perpetuate sexism and many other ideologies
in the minds of the members of a speech community (Norgaard, et al., 2010,
p. 12).

The interest in language and sexism has led to a multitude of debates.

To illustrate, one of the trending topics which feminism and some branches
of linguistics such as sociolinguistics 1 and feminist linguistics are interested
in is the importance of distinguishing between the terms “gender” and “sex”.
It is said that the latter refers to the biological differences between males and
females, and it is a “natural fact” that can be seen in the human body
(Wodak, 1997, p. 2). But if it is a mere fact, why is it mentioned here? The
answer to this question lies in the fact that someone’s sex might be used by
society to oppress and stereotype them. For this reason, this term should not
be confused with “gender”. That is to say that being born male does not
necessarily mean you have to like hunting wild animals. This is because
one’s disposition and social environment can play a key role in their
personality formation (Roberts, Wood and Smith, 2005).

As far as the term gender2 is concerned, it is usually employed to refer

to the linguistic, social and psychological qualities that people show. It is
also believed that one’s gender identity is fluid. Put differently, the way
people speak and behave is not fixed: they tend to speak/behave differently
in different contexts. In addition, their sex should not be taken as a reflection
to define their conversational style or how they should behave socially
(Wardhaugh and Fuller, 2015 p. 8).

1
Sociolinguistics is the study of how language and society are correlated and can affect each other
(Wardhaugh and Fuller, 2015, p. 1).
2
It is also known as gender identity.

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 Distinguishing between the terms, which are explained above, is
crucial to this study. This is because degrading women in proverbs is based
on the notion of stereotyping women as a result of their sex. To exemplify,
the proverb “A man is as old as he feels, and a woman is as old as she looks”
(Ridout and Witting, 1967, 115) stereotypes women based on their sex and
tries to forge them into objects that should be superficial and good-looking
rather than being shrewd or down-to-earth.

Finally, perpetuating sexist ideologies in society might indeed have to

do with stereotyping women based on their sex. In other words, you are
female and therefore you are likely to care about trivial matters. Also, you
have to stay at home to nurture your offspring. Nevertheless, note that sexist
language is not always expressed straightforwardly: sometimes sexism is
communicated through kind wording that sounds very altruistic. Thus,
uncovering sexist language in English WRPs may require looking for both
explicit (direct) and implicit (indirect) sexist language. To achieve this, the
Ambivalent Sexism Theory has been employed here, as it is obviously stated
in the title of the ongoing study. For this reason, the next part will be
dedicated to what this theory can offer to the quest of the thesis.

2.2 Ambivalent Sexism Theory

Discussing sexism often leads to agreeing on what it does but rarely what it
exactly is. That is, dictionaries and scholars, who interested in sexism, might
state how sexism affects people in general and women in particular; however,
they would look at what it is from different viewpoints. To illustrate, while there
are a lot of definitions of the term sexism, the one which is frequently cited says
that sexism is “the practices whereby someone foregrounds gender when it is not

14
the most salient feature” (Mills, 2008, p. 1). Although this definition looks
sound, it may cause controversy since it assumes that sexism is simply an
individual mistake that can be rectified when people point out the mistake. On
the contrary, it is believed that sexism is more than just a slip. In other words,
sexism is considered similar to racism and discriminatory language — which are
ingrained in societies (ibid).

One of the relatively new perspectives on sexism is the Ambivalent

Sexism Theory (AST). Like what has been mentioned in the first paragraph,
this theory describes sexism as a ubiquitous ideology. However, AST appears to
be more interested in what is deep-seated inside men’s minds. Perhaps it is
because it originated in the field of psychology. But what is AST, exactly? And
why is it imperative to the thesis? In order to answer these questions, a few
paragraphs will be dedicated to this theory below.

AST was first posited by Glick and Fiske in 1996. Since then, its
advocates have fundamentally been concerned with sexism as a
“multidimensional construct” that has two types of sexist attitudes (Chen, et al.,
2009). From its name, the reader could speculate about what these two attitudes
are: this theory sheds light on two ambivalent feelings which some men have
toward women.

The first sexist attitude is called “hostile” sexism. This type of sexism is
said to be expressed in a resentful and negative manner toward women who try
to violate what has been naturalized (see chapter three for further details about
naturalization) in a society (e.g. specific traditions). For instance, the proverb:
“Women, like gongs, should be beaten regularly” (Kerschen, 1998, p.83) is a
good example of how hostile sexism works. It encourages men to beat their

15
wives from time to time in order to keep them under control. Thus, this type of
sexism can be defined as the blatant and hostile beliefs/feelings which some men
have toward women. It is claimed that this sexist attitude is usually employed by
men to avoid women’s rebellion against men’s dominance, as the proverb above
illustrates (Mastari, et al., 2019).

Contrary to hostile sexism, “benevolent” sexism, which is the second

type, is expressed in a chivalrous and affectionate way. Put another way, some
men may communicated their sexist attitudes through language which sounds
altruistic and loving (Chen, et al., 2009). For example, the proverb: “Behind
every great man there is a great women” (Kerschen, 1998, p. 83) looks like a
beautiful compliment. However, it could become a restriction since it gives the
woman a little credit. In other words, it places women back behind their
husbands in a supportive role.

Like the feminist insights into language and sexism, AST and its two
types will be made use of in chapter 4 — which basically revolves around
analyzing the proverbs. Nevertheless, it should be kept in mind that the data
analysis will heavily rely on CS more than anything else. This is because the
study at hand is primarily interested in critically analyzing the stylistic features
of WRPs.

However, uncovering sexist ideologies in English WRPs requires more

than just exploiting CS or considering the insights of feminism and AST. In fact,
in order to fully understand English WRPs, proverbs and their sociolinguistic
characteristics should be discussed and explained. Thus, the rest of the chapter
will center on proverbs in general and WRPs in particular.

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2.3 Proverbs: Overview

Proverbs are ubiquitous: they are heard and seen almost everywhere, in people’s
everyday lives, literature and even movies. They are linguistically built with
wise wording to describe different social situations. These linguistic, wise, short
units can also be serious sociolinguistic weapons which language users exploit
to degrade and attack a particular sex (e.g. women) or a group of people.

The paragraph above provides only some snippets of information about

proverbs. That is, the sociolinguistic properties proverbs bear cannot be tackled
in a paragraph or two; there must be a step-by-step motion that begins with
defining proverbs and ends with their linguistic, social and cultural significance,
with quite a lot of details between them, of course.

In accordance with the above statement, what proverbs are is rather a

shallow definition. This is because there is almost no satisfactory definition of
what a proverb is. That is to say, proverbs are quite difficult to define. This
notion is sponsored by Taylor (1931 as mentioned in Moon, 1997, p. 2) who
affirms that it is hard to give a definition that includes everything a proverb
enjoys unless someone offers a detailed description — which contains all the
linguistic, social, cultural, and didactic characteristics of a proverb. The
difficulty to know what a proverb exactly is may be a hindrance, and this is why
this point will be discussed further in following parts below.

2.4 What is a Proverb?

As it has been mentioned above, it is not easy to define a proverb, yet this
part of the chapter is hoped to offer a congruent account of what a proverb is.

17
And to be more precise, this part is intended to give and discuss some
definitions taken from different sources.

To begin with, if a dictionary, like Cambridge Dictionary, is checked for the

word “proverb”, a simple definition would be found: “a famous phrase or
sentence that gives you advice” (Cambridge Essential English Dictionary, 2012,
p. 364). However, when moving toward books which specialize in paremiology 3,
the term “proverb” would be defined quite deeper. That is, a proverb is
presented as a “linguistic unit” that is used repeatedly in “the discourses of a
language community” until it becomes common enough to be called a proverb.
Also, it is said that this linguistic unit (i.e. a proverb) usually reoccurs in specific
situations in life to express some wisdom or truth about these situations
(Hrisztova-Gotthardt and Varga, 2014, p. 7).

The way in which the term “proverb” is defined above still lacks some details
regarding the length, aesthetic values and cultural significance of a proverb. A
proverb is also said to be a type of saying that is short and strikingly different
from everyday speech, and this is what makes it stand out within regular
communication. Additionally, a proverb is believed to be a mirror that reflects
people’s outlooks and attitudes toward a specific matter (Hildebrandt, 2005, p.
4). To support this point, in her study, Salwa Ahmed presents a set of definitions
— which have been collected from different books and scholars — and almost
all of them agree on the fact that proverbs bear the wisdom and social
experience of a group of people (Ahmed, 2005, p. 12).

A proverb, which is regarded as a true statement, has probably been made by

an observer who weighed a situation to come up with it. And since the proverb
maker first said it, it has been used (metaphorically) to express wisdom and truth
3
Paremiology is a field that studies proverbs (Hildebrandt, 2005, p. 3).

18
about situations similar to the one in which the proverb may have been created.
This notion (i.e. how proverbs come into existence) is averred in (the Spanish
writer) M. Cervantes’ novel “Don Quixote” where one of the characters says,
“In my opinion, Sancho, there is no proverb that is not true, as they are all
observations based on experience itself, the Mother of all sciences” (Schipper,
2006, p. 13).

It is also said that if a proverb exists in one culture, it might be found in an

adapted version in other cultures. This claim is supported by the common beliefs
and traditions which are found in the ancient civilizations. For instance, some of
the observations that were recorded on “clay tablets about 4,000 years ago” are
quite similar in ancient civilizations like African, Greek or Chinese ones (ibid,
13). In sum, some proverbs are universal.

The discussion above begs an important question: Are sexist proverbs

true and universal? According to Schipper (2006, p. 14), when people are
presented with WRPs which are from different cultures, they easily
understand them, as if their background knowledge is familiar with these
proverbs. In other words, women are stereotyped everywhere in the same
way. This may mean that proverbs are universal. But are they true?

In her book “American Proverbs about Women”, Kerschen states that

proverbs should first be approached in terms of what they do, and not what they
are. This is because she believes that proverbs are socially dangerous and can
easily degrade women. That is, she says, “[a proverb] teaches a lesson or gives
practical advice.” However, this lesson/advice, as she warns, might not be
moral. She also asserts that proverbs which contain “bitter humor” are cultural
and traditional heritage but not necessarily wise and moral. To illustrate, the

19
proverb “A widow is a boat without a rudder” is a part of the American folklore
and culture, yet it is metaphorically satirical. Therefore, it would be more
accurate to say that proverbs reflect people’s perspectives rather than the
absolute truth about women (Kerschen, 1998, p.3).

To sum up, based on the discussion held in this part, a proverb can, at least,
be defined as a popular saying which has sociolinguistic features such as having
the outlooks of a culture, pithiness and linguistic beauty. Proverbs can also be
universal as it has been established above; however, their wisdom and truthiness
are often relative. Needless to say, some of them are too misogynistic and racist
to be considered absolute. Apart from finding an accurate definition of the term
proverb, this study needs to delve into what makes proverbs different from other
sayings/folklore genres, how they are made, and how WRPs are usually
analyzed in order to make the analysis of the proverbs as accurate as possible.
Therefore, the rest of this chapter will be devoted to tackling these points.

2.5 Etymology and History

A proverb is an old horse that never stops running until the equestrian stops it;
this is true because a saying becomes a proverb and remains a proverb as long as
language users use it in their daily communication. This belief should be
supported by answering two important questions in order to be validated:

 Where do proverbs come from?

 Where did the term proverb come from?

With regard to the second question, it is said that the term “proverb” first
came down to the English language from the Old French word “proverbe” which
had come directly from both Greek and Latin, and its original morphological

20
shape was “proverbium”. In English, the equivalents of “proverbium” can be an
“adage” or “old saying”. This word consists of two morphemes: pro + verbum:
pro = word and ium is a collective suffix (Hussein, 2005, p. 9). It is also
believed that this combination does not refer to an ordinary word. In fact, it
refers to “a word that a speaker puts forward” to be considered by the listeners
(Rasul, 2015, p. 1), which is basically why proverbs are used.

As etymology of the term “proverb” has been explained briefly, it is time to

answer the first question. However, it should be noted that answering/discussing
the second question may not be clear-cut. That is, it requires differentiating
between proverbs and proverbial expressions/quotations, for example. For this
reason, the part below will explain where proverbs come from and how they are
different from other types of sayings/expressions.

2.6 Proverbs, Idioms and Quotations

Unlike idioms, proverbs are sayings which are claimed to offer wisdom and
advice regarding a specific matter. Moreover, proverbs are usually expected to
be “in the form of sentences” (The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, 2008, see the
introduction). But this statement is not always agreed upon. For example,
“proverbs”, “common sayings”, and even “informal phrases” are sometimes
lumped together in one category called idiomatic phrases/sentences (Spears,
2000, vii). This notion is proposed because proverbs, idioms, etc., are
expressions which cannot be interpreted successfully by just looking at their
lexical items and grammar. That is, language users should go beyond the literal
meaning of words to interpret “idiomatic phrases” (ibid).

The notion above may not be completely true since proverbs are dissimilar to
idioms when it comes to aspects, especially in terms of their didacticity. Put

21
another way, proverbs give moral lessons and are usually expressions that can
grammatically stand all alone as sentences. For instance, the idiom “an A for
effort” ought to be used in context or with more lexical items to convey a clear
and accurate message as in “The plan didn’t work, but I’ll give you an A for
effort for trying so hard” (ibid p. 1). On the other hand, the proverb “Men make
houses, women make homes” (Ridout and Witting, 1967, p. 118) is syntactically
different from the idiom aforementioned. This proverb can obviously stand by
itself and it tells its recipients about what men and women should do in life. In
sum, proverbs warn and advise people whereas proverbial expressions are
merely idiomatic phrases which give no warning and offer no advice (ibid, pp.
14-15).

The flow of this discussion ends with how proverbs and quotations are
different. This will also lead to determining where proverbs usually come from.
To begin with, although the borderline between these two linguistic units may
look unclear, their difference is not impossible to spot. Technically, a quotation
is a saying produced by a speaker — who is known. When it gains some
currency and has been produced and reproduced over and over within a
community, the original proverb maker’s name will probably be forgotten. At
this point, this quotation turns into a proverb. In other words, when people start
using a quotation and it becomes a popular saying in their culture, many of them
might cease to know its maker. Consequently, this popular saying becomes an
established proverb (ibid, pp. 12-13).

As proverbs and other types of sayings have been distinguished, this chapter
is left with discussing how (English) WRPs are usually approached. But before
talking about this point, WRPs should first be accounted for in terms of their

22
social and linguistic importance in order to know what is missing in the
literature. Thus, the parts below are dedicated to tackling this point.

2.7 Sociolinguistic Significance of Proverbs

Proverbs can be effective linguistic tools which language users exploit in

different social contexts. Whether a language user is in a difficult situation or a
good one, they can utter a proverb to defend themselves or show solidarity with
other people. Proverbs are also excellent landmarks to be visited by linguists so
as to flag up how a specific culture views a specific matter.

In her paper, Xin Zheng maintains that proverbs “reflect the social customs
and cultural values” of a culture (Zheng, 2018, p. 1). Another scholar named
Meryem Belfatmi mentions that “proverbs are part of a given society or culture;
they reflect all features of a society ([e.g. its] traditions, habits, democracy,
equality, gender)” (Belfatmi, 2013, p. 15). In his paper “Contrastive Studies on
Proverbs”, Kanat Syzdykov also asserts that proverbs “can artistically embody
various aspects of life, social experience, mental and ethical and aesthetic
values” of a speech community (Syzdykov, 2013, p. 318), just to name a few.

For the reasons mentioned above, WRPs have been the crux of many
scholars who are interested in sexism, which is found in English culture. That is,
they yearn to uncover sexist language in (English) WRPs for they appreciate the
sociolinguistic importance of proverbs.

Note that WRPs proverbs are not the only ones out there. In fact,
collecting and looking at a group of proverbs from different cultures can be
revealing due to their proverbs’ similarities. Whether they are about young
girls, wives or spinsters, almost all of them appear to be identical in terms of

23
degrading women (Litovkina, 2019, p. 3). For instance, these similarities are
clearly stated in the following proverbs: “Woman is more wicked than the
Devil” (Bulgarian), “There is only one wicked wife and every man supposes
he has got her” (this one shows how men perceive their wives) (Dutch) (ibid,
pp. 3-4), “Women are necessary evil” (English) (Phillips, 2019, p. 168).

Additionally, WRPs are not just words uttered in a situation. In fact, they
have many sociolinguistic dimensions. For example, it has been established that
proverbs are figurative linguistic units used in different social contexts to
express some relative truth or observations made by members of a speech
community.

It is also worth mentioning that a saying is called a proverb because it is

likely to be passed from one generation to another (Hrisztova-Gothardt and
Varga, 2015, 1) faster than its counterparts. This implies that proverbs are
usually produced and reproduced in a society and they have an (negative or
positive) impact on people. During the process of using the proverbs, certain
ideologies and stereotypes become fixed, and they may even be transformed into
actions or social codes. Therefore, analyzing the language used in the WRPs of a
specific culture can tell the analyst a lot about how this very culture views
women.

The notion of perpetuating sexist ideologies via language is supported by

many scholars who work in a variety of fields (e.g. feminist stylistics). To
exemplify, Mills, in her book “Feminist Stylistics”, maintains that for a long
time linguists looked at language as a mere vehicle for sending and receiving
information. However, they neglected how language can shape its users’
outlooks and fix ideologies in their society (Mills, 1998, p.1). This neglect is

24
also found in the research done on English proverbs about women. That is,
researchers have not paid enough attention to how language is manipulated in
proverbs in order to devalue women. This point will take the discussion at hand
to its final destination: (English) WRPs and how they have been approached.

2.8 English Women-Related Proverbs

Like all proverbs, English WRPs are a phenomenon which is influenced by

language, culture, and society. Thus, analyzing them critically requires a
good understanding of how the English language and culture interact. This
argument is underpinned in a variety of books and papers which are aimed at
uncovering how women are portrayed and treated oppressively in English
proverbs.

In her book, “Women through Anti-Proverbs”, Anna Litovkina puts

the proverbs into several groups, each of which is related to a particular
social aspect. For example, she talks how spinsters are described in Anglo-
American proverbs (See Litovkina, 2019). Other similar books follow the
same method of tackling (English) WRPs. If this tells one thing, it will be
that women are expected to perform specific tasks in life — which are
usually fixed gender roles such as bearing babies and doing housework. In
other words, these books tend to categorize (English) WRPs into almost the
same themes to the extent that women seem to be given some fixed tasks to
do throughout their lives, and society is likely to take these women to task
over deviating from them.

It has been mentioned earlier that proverbs are generally looked at as

wise, true, pithy sayings. When it comes to their pithiness, it is obvious that
they do have this feature. Nevertheless, the other two aspects (i.e. being wise

25
and true) are unlikely to be always correct (see Kerschen, 1998, pp.1-19).
Appreciating this notion is vital here since proverbs usually generalize
certain qualities about women, and thus, these proverbs might be used to
silence women.

Apart from the concept of truthiness, English WRPs are still just proverbs
after all. That is, they have many characteristics in common with other
proverbs. For instance, like any proverb, English women-related proverbs
are hard to trace back to their makers because they are passed down from
one generation to another orally. In other words, proverbs usually tend to be
transmitted orally due to the fact that they are part of folklore, and folklore
almost always goes through generations orally (Ridout and Witting, 1967,
pp. 7-15). This point is also supported by Kerschen who states that folklore,
which is also called “the voice of the folk”, is an “oral tradition” that
includes different types genres, like sayings, jokes, epitaph and so on
(Kerschen, 1998, p. 1).

Nevertheless, some English WRPs can be tracked to their makers and

even the context in which they were used. To exemplify, in Shakespeare’s
play “Hamlet”, Hamlet says “Frailty thy name is woman” after he sees his
widow mother getting married to his uncle before his sight. This line has
become a proverb since then (Shakespeare, 1990, p. 18-19) even though the
play was written in 1599, which is a long time ago. However, someone may
have said this proverb and then Shakespeare decided to use it as a line in his
play. This argument takes the discussion back to the notion of how proverbs
have unknown makers, who have been forgotten; perhaps Shakespeare was
the first one to write it but not the first one who said it (Ridout and Witting,
1967, pp. 7-15).

26
 The proverb mentioned above might have something that most WRPS do
not have: known origin and context. That is to say, most WRPS are
interpreted literally/metaphorically but rarely talked about in terms of their
makers or original contexts in which they were uttered. Yet again, this is not
a problem to pay attention to here as the current study concentrates on how
English proverbs perpetuate sexism through using stylistic devices.
Importantly, although the origin of WRPS might be unknown or they might
not be as frequent as they used to be in the past, they have probably been a
tool used to preserve “gender discrimination” in English culture (Lomotey
and Chachu, 2020, p. 2).

As far as the seriousness of WRPS and their role in perpetuating sexism

in society are concerned, research has never stopped. Although this subject
may seem to be very narrow to the extent that its data could be scarce, it has
been a very busy area. Many papers and books have been published in an
attempt to find out how women are perceived by society. Several books —
such as “American Proverbs about Women” by Lois Kerchen as well as
“Women through Anti-Proverbs” by Anna T. Litovkina — have been
dedicated to proverbs, women, and society. Moreover, a lot of effort has
been invested in papers that have sought the correlation between these three
variables.

This research does not stop at the level of English proverbs only. In fact,
the interest in WRPs can be found in other languages and countries. For
example, “Gender Ideologies and Power Relations in Rroverbs: A Cross-
Cultural Study” by Lomotey and Chachu is a paper which tackles Spanish
and French proverbs in terms of language and gender discrimination.
Another non-English work is done by Mineke Schipper, in which WRPs

27
from around the globe are collected and analyzed in order to uncover how
women from different countries are viewed.

Although much research has been done regarding (English) WRPs, this
research has not resorted to CS. What is more, the analysis is usually
shallow and built on what the writers see and feel about proverbs. For
instance, in her book “Never Marry a Woman with Big Feet”, Schipper
briefly writes about the ironic proverb “The wisdom of a woman is
wonderful to hear” and the American proverb “A wise woman is twice a
fool” are tackled by saying that these proverbs exist “to belittle women’s
intellectual capacities” or preventing women from “having access to”
knowledge (Schipper, 2004, p. 233). Also, Litovkina presents a variety of
proverbs about how women are devalued and laughed at because of their
nature, as the proverbs claim. For example, the American proverbs “Two
women in the same house never agree” and “No house was ever big enough
for two women” are looked at very quickly and with no reference to their
stylistic structures and the linguistic devices which are employed to
discriminate and belittle women (Latovkina, 2019, p. 5). For these reasons,
the study at hand stands out from the rest of research aforementioned since it
exploits CS — which is a text-based framework — to unearth sexist
language in English WRPs. Thus, in order to appreciate how CS will be used
to analyze the data, the next chapter is dedicated to CS in general and its
analytical tools in particular.

CHAPTER THREE
MODEL OF ANALYSIS

28
3.0 Overview
In chapter two, the notion of how language can influence people’s outlook
on reality has been discussed briefly. In this chapter, it will be exemplified
and explained in more detail. That is, answering the question ‘how does
language shape everything around people, exactly?’ will be of paramount
importance. Another vital point to be tackled here is the way discourse
producers implicitly instill ideologies into their society and possibly
manipulate the recipients of their texts so as to make them adopt particular
ideologies. In the course of tackling these points, Jeffries’s model and its
main supporting concepts will be resorted to as this model is what the
proverb analysis will be based on here. For this reason, starting with
defining and appreciating this linguistic model is definitely worthwhile. The
last point to mention here before delving into Jeffries’ critical stylistics (CS)
is that what will be presented below has been mainly taken from Jeffries’
book “Critical Stylistics: The Power of English” (2010); the reader is
advised to consult this work if s/he wishes to have more details about this
model.

CS is a relatively new approach to ideology in discourse. Its

emergence is partly attributed to critical discourse analysis (CDA). Though
CS is said to be a reaction to CDA, both of them still have a lot in common
since they are after analyzing texts critically. However, CS is a text-based
framework whereas CDA tends to concentrate primarily on the socio-
political context in which a text occurs. The focus on the socio-political
aspects of texts has led CDA to paying less attention to the linguistic ones.
This defect (in CDA) has given rise to formulating CS — which is centered

29
on how texts (and their producers) communicate and embed their ideologies
in their recipients. Hence, CS has selected ten analytical tools from stylistics
and critical linguistics to create a toolkit on which a text can be analyzed
critically while keeping the analysis as linguistic as possible, for the most
part. These tools stress the textual-conceptual aspects of discourse. In other
words, they give due weight to analyzing how texts represent the world, and
thus, the text producers’ ideologies can be uncovered. Below are the names
of the tools; however, they will not be explained nor exemplified until CS is
defined and discussed in more detail:

1. Naming and Describing

2. Representing Actions/Events/States
3. Equating and Contrasting
4. Exemplifying and Enumerating
5. Prioritizing
6. Implying and Assuming
7. Negating
8. Hypothesizing
9. Presenting Others’ Speech and Thoughts
10.Representing Time, Space and Society

3.1 Defining Critical Stylistics

Despite the fact that defining CS might take just a few sentences, absorbing
what it precisely is and what it offers is inescapably important. Furthermore,
in order to factor in the way in which sexist language — used in English
WRPs — can be analyzed on the basis of CS as well as how it embeds sexist
ideologies in society, CS should be introduced before the analytical toolkit.

To begin with, it is possible to say that this framework probes into

how stylistic choices can influence their readers/listeners. Moreover, it is
interested in the concept of ideology as its tools are aimed at unearthing

30
ideologies in texts. But what are ideologies? According to Jeffries,
ideologies are a set of ideas that a group of people share. This group would
produce, reproduce, and communicate these ideologies using language
(Jeffries, 2010, p. 5). So, it is because ideologies are usually expressed via
language, analyzing English WRPs — by using CS — will reveal how the
English-speaking world viewed/views women.

It is also worth mentioning that linguistic and sexist ideologies do not

appear out of nowhere. In fact, they might take years and years until they
become naturalized in a culture. In addition, when specific ideologies are
produced and reproduced over a period of time, they not only become
instilled but language users also would consider them normal to the extent
that they would not notice that these ideologies oppress some people: this
process is usually called naturalization (Norgaard, Montoro and Busse,
2010, p. 12). For instance, a proverb like “Two good days for a man in his
life: when he weds, and when he buries his wife” portrays women as a sweet
burden in disguise that will disgust men sooner or later. And when such a
proverb is reinforced with a similar one like “A wife is seen with pleasure
only at the wedding and in the winding sheet” (Kerschen, 1998, p. 20), they
may produce a spark which could turn into a sexist ideology which alerts
men to the professed truth that there are no women with whom they can
make a good marriage.

Apart from the notion of embedded ideologies, another thing to talk

about here is the place where CS came from. This topic has been mentioned
earlier; however, it still needs to be discussed in more detail as CS has quite
a lot of things in common with CDA.

31
 As it has been said earlier, the outset of CS was a reaction to CDA
which in turn came down to the realm of linguistics from critical linguistics
(CL) (Jeffries, 2014, p. 408). When it comes to CDA and CL, these two
(sub-)branches are similar, with the former usually used as an “umbrella
term for both” (Nogaard, Busse and Montoro, 2010, p. 11). That is, both of
them are after how language users exploit language to express a variety of
ideologies explicitly or implicitly, such as using language to claim social
power over other members of their society (ibid, p.12).

CS acknowledges a debt to CDA as an approach to analyzing power

and discrimination in language. However, they are not interested in the same
thing when it comes to critical analysis of texts. For this obvious reason, a
distinction between CS and CDA will be drawn below.

3.2 Critical Discourse Analysis and Critical Stylistics

It has been mentioned above that CDA and CS have some things in
common. One of these things is their interest in how discourse bears
ideologies. But what does discourse mean? Generally speaking, the term
discourse is used to refer to “a stretch of language larger than a sentence”
(Crystal, 2012, 148). Another way to define discourse is by describing it as
“communication viewed linguistically” or “language viewed
communicatively” (Trappes-Lomax, 2007, p. 134). Also, discourse can
simply be defined as a spoken or written text (Jeffries, 2010, p. 7). CS and
CDA may agree on these definitions, but they usually focus on different
aspects when they analyze discourse critically.

As far as CDA is concerned, the social and political situations in

which texts occur are the primary focus. That is, language is primarily

32
analyzed based on socio-political dimensions rather on its linguistic units
(Jeffries, 2010, p. 6). The focus on these dimensions can be seen in
Fairclough’s4 method of language analysis. He offers a model that
constitutes three dimensions to be considered while a text is critically
analyzed. These dimensions start with the formal analysis of a text and end
with paying too much attention to the “socio-historical” context in which the
text has occurred (See Janks, 1997). This shows how CDA is mostly
concerned with the social, political, and even historical circumstances in
which linguistic choices are made (Jeffries, 2010, 6).

Unlike CDA, the concentration of CS is on the way language represents

the world. That is, it provides language analysts with “a set of analytical
tools” to be used while analyzing language and its effects on its recipients
(ibid, 6). Nevertheless, CS still appreciates CDA and its insights into the
correlation between language and ideologies, power and so on. In fact, CS
draws on some concepts from CDA. For example, Halliday presents the
functions of language as three metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal, and
textual; when it comes to CS, the first metafunction is of paramount
importance. Namely, the mechanism in which language can be employed to
name people, things or to make speculations about events is fundamental to
CS.

In regard to the concept of context, CS primarily makes use of the co-

text (i.e. linguistic context) (Jeffries, 2014, p. 409). The fact that CS
concentrates on stylistic choices and their co-text makes it the ideal model to
the study at hand. This is because most proverbs are used on a daily basis,
but their users do not know the historical context in which these proverbs

4
He is one of the CDA proponents.

33
were made (see chapter two). Hence, uncovering sexist ideologies and
language used in English WRPs will mainly be achieved by employing CS;
however, the analysis of the proverbs could draw on some social and cultural
aspects found in the English world. Doing so will help the study to have a
better understanding of how women are portrayed through language. This
means that the analysis should be underpinned by some background
knowledge. This point leads the discussion to the significance of background
knowledge to the analysis and CS as well. This is because perpetuating
(sexist) ideologies starts with ingraining ideas in language users’
background knowledge. To explain this, below is a part dedicated to how
people’s background knowledge interacts with the language they hear/read
and produce.

3.3 Schema Theory: Background Knowledge

Schema theory is a term which is employed in a variety of “cognitive

models”. At the core of this theory, the concept of schema and other similar
ones are found (Simpson, 2004, p. 89). But what does schema mean? The
answer to this question requires noting that when people communicate with
one another or deal with everyday situations, they usually tend to preserve
the energy of their brains. That is, they resort to their previous experiences in
order to go through whatever they have to go through almost effortlessly
instead of scrutinizing every single situation and person. The accumulation
of life experiences will eventually turn into conventional knowledge. This
type of knowledge is known as schema5 (Yule, 2010, 150). A person’s
schemas are stored in his/her memory, and they help him/her interpret
language and deal with what s/he encounters on a daily basis (ibid, 150). For
5
It can be pluralized as schemata or schemas.

34
instance, by reading “There was a pineapple on the table. I ate it.”, language
users will naturally assume that the object pronoun “it” refers the pineapple
and not the table. This suggests that the readers’ schema (i.e. background
knowledge) tells them that it is possible to eat a pineapple but not a table
(Cook, 1990, p. 68).

A schema is not only about having background knowledge regarding

what is edible and what is not, but also about general information related to
different situations in life such as social codes and how everything should be
arranged in a particular order (Jeffries, 2010, p. 10). Moreover, schemas may
mean ideologies when it comes to people who match what they have picked
up and learned throughout their lifetime with new communicative situations.
To illustrate, advertisements — which are based on the notion of how being
slim makes a woman accepted by her society — can perpetuate ideologies
related to women’s appearance. In return, these ideologies may become a
schema instilled in people’s memory so as to tell them what is considered
beautiful (ibid, p. 16). Having established how the concept of schema is
important in terms of embedding (sexist) ideologies, it is worth mentioning
that both CDA and CS share the same interest in this concept. But CDA
usually uses the phrase members’ resources to refer to the background
knowledge that is shared by a group of people or just possessed by one
member (ibid, p. 10). After talking about how CS and CDA have some
concepts and interests in common as well as what makes them different, the
part below will present and exemplify the analytical toolkit provided by CS.

3.4 Analytical Toolkit of Critical Stylistics

35
It has been mentioned earlier that CS concentrates on how language
represents the world. That is, unlike CDA and what its advocates offer, CS is
interested in what a text is doing. Furthermore, this linguistic model includes
almost a comprehensive set of analytical tools that stem from stylistics and
other fields and frameworks to language analysis such as modality and
transitivity. It is also important to note that CS scrutinizes the stylistic
choices made by a text producer — regardless of whether the text producer
has made these choices consciously or unconsciously. This is because
unconscious linguistic choices are usually produced based on the
speaker/writer’s schema which basically reveals his/her ingrained ideologies
(Jeffries, 2010, pp. 15-16).

In order to have a better understanding of what has been said above,

the tools of CS will be presented below. There are ten (10) of them, each of
which is given a simple label to clarify what it is, that is, when a reader
come across them for the first time, s/he will have an idea about what they
are (ibid, p. 15). These tools range from ones which are focused on
analyzing how texts name everything around people (e.g. naming and
describing) to how they represent time, space and society (i.e. the way texts
construct concepts such as time and society) (See Jeffries, 2014, pp. 413-419
for a summarized account of the analytical toolkit). Finally, note that below
are summaries of the tools and how they can be utilized to analyze sexist
ideologies in English. These short accounts are directly taken from Jeffries’s
book “Critical Stylistics: The Power of English” (2010); however, they are
clarified and exemplified further in this study.

3.4.1 Naming and Describing

36
Naming and Describing (ND) is the first analytical tool in the toolkit of CS.
ND can be employed to analyze how English texts (and their producers) use
a variety of linguistic resources to name and describe someone or something.
In other words, a writer/speaker is able to choose a specific word or a phrase
to name/describe what is around him/her (Jeffries, 2010, p. 17).

What makes this tool intriguing is the fact that a text producer usually
picks words ideologically to describe a referent6, that is, s/he selects a word
among other available options to achieve an ideological goal. To exemplify
this, it is known that there are quite a lot of ways to refer to a person. For
example, a speaker can use the referent’s proper noun (e.g. Jake), choose a
more intimate phrase such as my best friend or my brother, or even call
him/her a budgie (to embarrass them). These are possible ways of
referencing to the same entity, and each of which is employed to serve a
specific goal.

Also, it should be kept in mind that this ND concentrates on the

different ways English texts describe the world around their
producers/receivers, and not on answering “the question of how the English
language name the world”; simply because looking at the latter question
may be a gateway to enter to the world of semantics and how English is
semantically different from other languages. This is not one of interest of CS
(ibid, 17). Put differently, DN is centered on the linguistic resources which a
selected to name or describe an entity.

ND also investigates how some linguistic processes such as

nominalization are employed to create some ideological meaning in a

6
The term referent is used to refer to an entity in the (real) world, which is described with a particular
expression (Saeed, 2016,p. 26).

37
particular text. This process is a morphological one, and it is a way of
converting English verbs into nouns to cast some ideologies into the
linguistic recipe. A simple example of this process is when someone says
“The invasion of the country was important” instead of “X invaded Y”. The
former sheds light on the action and rules out the subject whereas the latter
highlights the subject of the action.

Understanding the linguistic practices and possibility of how ND

affects people’s outlook requires looking at how English nominal elements
are built. In other words, knowing how a writer/speaker ideologically
employs linguistic resources to describe an entity should start from the point
at which s/he uses a code (i.e. grammar).

To begin with, it is worth mentioning that a typical English sentence

usually consists of two phrases: a noun phrase (NP) and a verb phrase (VP).
It is the former which is the main focus here. A NP usually consists of two
linguistic elements: a noun as the head of the phrase and another word,
which is connected to it (See Brown and Miller, 2007, chapter one). For
example, in an invented sentence like “The man hurt his wife” we have two
NPs: “the man” and “the wife”. Yet, noun phrases are not limited to the two-
word level: they can be expanded. And the additions a writer/speaker uses
are usually called expansions (Brown and Miller, 1980, p. 23). However,
these expansions are called pre-modifiers and post-modifiers in CS (Jeffries,
2010, p. 19). For this reason, the terms pre-modifier and post-modifier will
be used here. Another reason is that they specify the location of the addition.
To exemplify this, the NP “the man” can be expanded; and by adding pre-
modifiers as in “the devoted man” or “the staunch man”. The NP “his wife”
can be changed to “his disloyal wife” or “his ungrateful wife”. In this case,

38
the text producer does not only expand on the noun phrases, but also justifies
why the man beat his wife.

The last point to mention about NPs is that they usually function as
either the subject or the object of a predicator (i.e. verb) in a sentence.
Semantically speaking, the subject of an action is often referred to as the
Actor while the one that receives the action (i.e. object) is called the Goal
(ibid, 19). Hence, NPs can be the Actor or the Goal of an action.

In summary, ND is a broad term which features three (or possibly

more) linguistic activities. The first one is based on what words a text
producer chooses to point at a referent (e.g. using the word a “leer” instead
of a “smile” to, as the former is connotatively negative and the latter is
connotatively positive). The second linguistic practice featured in ND is the
use of modifiers (including pre-modifiers and post-modifiers) to form NPs
that indicate and describe a referent. ND includes the analysis of
nominalization (e.g. using the noun “invasion” instead of the verb “invade”
to conceal the verbal process of a particular country invading another one)
(ibid, pp. 20-25).

What has been said about these three naming practices may look
sufficient. However, there are so many details to mention about them and
how their analysis is carried out. These details will be resorted to during the
process of data analysis. For the time being, the ideological effects of these
practices will be tackled below in order to demonstrate how ND can shape
what text recipients see.

The effectiveness of CS can be seen in the way this analytical tool

(i.e. ND) works since CS is a text-based approach to ideologies in language.

39
This means it largely focuses on texts to obtain a full understanding of how
they ingrain ideologies in society. But how can grasping the language-
ideology equation be reached without resorting to the context in which a text
occurs? The answer to this question lies in the notion of how
grammatical/semantic forms have specific functions. In other words, ND (as
well as the whole model) revolves around the form-function aspects of texts,
not only their formal properties.

Thus, the forms used to name the world have the potential to shape
readers/listeners minds. For example, adding modifiers, relative clauses,
prepositional phrases (PP), etc. could make the recipient of a text accept
some things about the world without debating them. To illustrate, consider
the following invented examples: “The man stole the car” and “The man’s
stealing of the car has put him in prison.” In the first sentence, there are three
linguistic elements: two NPs (the man and the car) and a predicator (stole).

S
NP P NP
article noun article noun
The man stole the car
Table No. 1 / Sentence Analysis

The sentence above is grammatically correct, yet its structure makes

its proposition susceptible to debate. That is to say, the relationship between
the man and the car exists based on the verb stole. And this relationship can
be debated easily. Namely, someone may say that the man did not steal it.
On the other hand, the sentence “The man’s stealing of the car has put him
in prison” consists of modifiers and phrases that make the proposition of the
first sentence the sentence less susceptible and the readers are more likely to

40
 accept that the man did stole the car. That is to say, this sentence has the
noun stealing as its head — which is modified with the pre-modifier The
man’s. The head is also followed by a PP (of the car), which post-modifies
it. Finally, the predicator has put is used and it is followed by the Goal him,
and the sentence ends in qualifying the predicator by using the PP in prison.

S
NP P NP
pre- head post-modifier object post-modifier
modifier
The man’s stealing of the car has put him in prison
Table No. 2 / Sentence Analysis

What this linguistic construction does is that it changes the verbal

relationship between the man and the car to a nominal unit — which
presupposes (a point to tackle soon) that the man stole the car and his action
got him in trouble. In other words, the process of modifying a sentence, as
shown above, makes a sentence less susceptible to debate and could
mentally force the reader/listener to accept what is written or said about a
particular action.

It is obvious that linguistic modifying triggers presupposition. And as

it is shown above, this notion (i.e. modifying) is important when it comes to
employing language to name/describe the world. This notion stems from
semantics for it is usually by word choice more than context. That is, there
are some linguistic triggers (e.g. adverb and adjective prepositional phrases)
that contribute to triggering presupposition (see Saeed, 2016, pp. 97-106 for
further details about presupposition triggers).

3.4.2 Representing Actions/Events/States

41
As it has been stated above, ND is used to analyze the use of English
structures of nominal items and their impact on readers/listeners. Unlike the
previous part, the part at hand presents a tool which is centered on the verbal
elements in English discourse.

It is known that a typical English sentence usually consists of NP(s)

and a predicator. Unlike analyzing NP, examining and analyzing verbal
elements, found in discourse, can be a little bit long-winded and
complicated. However, in her model, Jeffries facilitates the process of verb
analysis by utilizing Halliday’s transitivity as linguistic model to verbal
process analysis (see Jeffries, 2010, pp. 37-50).

Before delving into how verbs are ideologically effective in terms of

representing how actions are done, Halliday’s transitivity should be defined
in order to have a clear pathway. To begin with, traditional (and even some
modern) grammar books use the term transitivity to describe the relation
between a verb and other elements in the same clause (Nogaard, Busse and
Montoro, 2010, p. 163). That is, verbs are divided into grammatical
categories. For instance, a verb like “sleep” as in (the invented example)
“Nomads usually sleep in their vans” is a verb which does not take an object
and thus is called intransitive. Another type of verbs is called transitive. This
one needs to have an object like the verb “see” in “John saw the car”. There
are also other categories such as di-transitive verbs (e.g. give), etc. (see
Quirk and Greenbaum, 1989 for further details).

On the other hand, in Halliday’s model, the notion of transitivity is

used to refer to how a writer/speaker portrays the way in which actions are
done. Put differently, his transitivity revolves around the processes of verbs

42
more than their grammatical forms and syntactic distribution. This is
because his model focuses on how verbs function semantically in a clause
(Nogaard, Busse and Montoro, 2010, p. 99). To clarify this point, consider
this (invented) example: “A complete stranger killed my neighbor’s pet”.
This sentence has three main syntactic elements: two NPs (a complete
stranger and my neighbor’s cat) as well as a predicator (killed). The first NP
is the subject of the sentence and the second one is its object. But when it
comes to the semantic roles of these NPs, they would be described as two
participants: an Actor (a complete stranger) and a Goal (my neighbor’s pet).
And the verbal element (killed) would be considered a “process” that the
Goal performed intentionally. When changing this sentence to the passive
form, the positions of the Actor and Goal will be swapped: “My neighbor’s
pet was killed by a complete stranger”. Grammatically speaking, this passive
sentence has “my neighbor’s pet” as its subject and “a complete stranger” as
its object but the semantic roles are still the same. That is, the Actor is still
“a complete stranger”, the Goal is “my neighbor’s pet”, and the verbal
element remains intentional in terms of its process.

Following what has been said above, the analytical tool at hand (i.e.
Representing Actions/Events/States) presents a dynamic method in which
verbs are divided into different categories based on their processes, rather
than their syntactic features. Discussing these categories and their
subcategories in detail will not take place here since there would too many
details and examples to include here. For this reason, the rest of this part will
fall back on a table in order to summarize transitivity as a model to verb
process analysis. This table contains the four main categories of verbal
processes together with their subcategories:

43
 Main Participants Subcategories
category
Material Actor and Goal 1. Intention (e.g. The student walked out of the classroom).
Action 2. Supervention (e.g. The motorcyclist fell off his
Processes motorbike).
3. Event (e.g. A truck crashed into the bus).
Verbalization Sayer, Verbiage, Verbs such as say, claim, and assure are good examples of
Processes and Goal this category for it revolves around language expressed
orally.
Mental Senser and 1. Mental Cognition (e.g. She realized it was not right).
Cognition Phenomenon 2. Mental Reaction (e.g. They hate racist people).
Processes 3. Mental perception (e.g. He heard what happened to his
best friend).
Relational Carrier and The subcategories are the types of verbs that depict stable
Processes Attribute relationships between Carriers and their Attributes:
1. Intensive relations (e.g. copular verbs)
2. Possessive relations (e.g. have).
3. Circumstantial relations: the verb to be and verbs of
movement (e.g. A lot of displaced families are in Baghdad).
Table No. 3 / Verbal Processes

Although what is shown in the table above seems comprehensive in

terms of covering different aspects of verbal processes, there are further
details which have not been mentioned for the sake of brevity. That is, there
are various sociolinguistic cases and situations which can violate the
categories and their subcategories shown in the table. For instance, using the
verb lose metaphorically as in “I lost my heart” is considered a material
action supervention (i.e. unintentional action) or as a mental reaction (i.e.
the speaker/writer’s emotional reaction to their loved one).

However, this does not suggest that Halliday’s model is ineffective.

On the contrary, it is needed when it comes to analyzing verbal elements

44
employed in texts to understand how the relation between the Actor and the
Goal is represented, and to find out who controls an event and who is being
manipulated in a particular text. Hence, this linguistic model will come in
handy as an analytical tool while exploring and analyzing English WRPs
here.

3.4.3 Equating and Contrasting

It has been established earlier that texts construct almost everything around
their producers and receivers. During this process, texts show their recipients
what is similar to what (i.e. equivalence) and what is opposite to what (i.e.
opposition) in the world — creating these things can be achieved through
semantic and syntactic means, as it will be explained in the following
paragraphs.

Unearthing equivalence and opposition in texts is as vital as looking

for stylistic practices related to ND as well as verbal processes. This is
because texts are usually loaded with ideologies; and as Jeffries puts it, “no
language is ideology-free”. Thus, probing into the linguistic choices a
writer/speaker makes in order to compare and contrast entities will lead to
uncovering (sexist) ideologies. In other words, knowing why a text producer
selects a word/phrase from a number of options (e.g. synonyms and
antonyms) to describe an entity is a crucial point when it comes to
ideologies in texts (Jeffries, 2010, pp. 51-52).

In order to understand how the tool at hand works, the way in which
lexemes interact with each other in (English) language users’ minds should
be highlighted. Firstly, it would be accurate to look at language users’
“lexicon as a network”. For example, the different meanings of a word can

45
be connected in terms of its form (e.g. polysemy), and some words share the
same phonological features but with distinct meanings and morphological
forms (e.g. homophones), etc. (Saeed, 2016, pp. 59-60).

It is worth mentioning that language users sometimes try to create a

relation between two lexemes — which have nothing in common — in a
way that builds an imaginary context in which the lexemes become
synonyms or opposites. To illustrate, if someone says, “This is MMA, not a
classroom”, to someone else, the listener — who has some background
knowledge about martial arts — will infer that these two domains are not
similar, and thus there must be an implicature (see Implying and Assuming
below). Also, the listener notices that the speaker’s utterance has a
positive/negative structure. For these reasons, the listener’s projection will
be based on a context in which these two things (i.e. MMA and a classroom)
are contrasting in terms of toughness. Hence, this utterance may carry an
ideology against educators who would like to do martial arts but are
perceived as too soft to do so.

What should be noted about contrasting is that it can be more

complicated than equating. For this reason, the next paragraphs will be
dedicated to the way entities are equated in English. That is, it would be
better to start with what is simpler.

To begin with, bear in mind that discussing equating, as a linguistic

phenomenon, in detail might take too much space: a thing should not take
place in this short thesis. Instead, a table will be used to explain how
equating can be spotted and analyzed in texts. This table contains some of

46
the tool’s main semantic and syntactic triggers as well as simple examples
for the sake of clarification.

Equating can be achieved syntactically by employing simple

structures. For instance, x is y (e.g. women are ungrateful) or x is like y (e.g.
women are like foxes). In these two examples, parallel structures are used to
create equivalence between the Carrier and the Attribute. In other words,
each sentence has two equal units connected with the verb to be. These
parallel structures express a relationship between the two mentioned
linguistic units (i.e. the subject and its complement). Furthermore, a
speaker/writer is able to create equivalence through apposition (i.e. putting
two nouns next to each other) as in (the invented example) “Women, the
main source of trouble, are difficult to satisfy”. The apposition here is made
by using women + the main source of trouble to equate women with agony,
which men may have (Jeffries, 2010, pp. 53-56). Explaining linguistic
equivalence can go further and further. Thus, the table below will provide
some of the ways in which equivalence can be triggered:

Equivalence Triggers
Type Possible Structure
Intensive relational equivalence X is Y
X seems Y
Appositional equivalence X, Y, (Z)
Metaphorical equivalence X is like Y
Table No. 4 / Equivalence Triggers

47
 Unlike equivalence, opposition is said to have numerous triggers —
that is, contrasting can be created through utilizing a wide range of stylistic
techniques as well as infinite contextual triggers, as it has been discussed
earlier. And in order to save room, the table below will present some of the
possible linguistic triggers of opposition:

Opposition Triggers
Type Possible Structure
Negated opposition X not X
Transitional opposition Turn X into Y
Replacive Opposition X rather than Y
X instead of Y
Parallelism Someone liked X, another liked Y
Your university is X, mine is Y
Contrastives X, but Y
Table No. 5 / Oppositions Triggers

3.4.4 Exemplifying and Enumerating

The part at hand revolves around how language users exemplifying and
enumerating as devices for listing entities. What should be clarified about
these tools is that they sometimes overlap: it is not easy to tell the difference
between them. At this point, the hearer/reader of a list should rely on the
notion of inference7. That is, the hearer/reader may resort to pragmatics in
order to establish whether a list is a case of exemplifying or enumerating. In
other words, distinguishing between these two linguistic notions might
require some access to the context in which a list is used.

7
See Yule, 2010, pp. 131-132 for more details about the inference.

48
 However, it is not impossible to distinguish between them: this is
simply because exemplifying is the case when a speaker/writer gives
examples but not the whole list. On the other hand, enumerating is when a
speaker/writer provides the listener/reader with all things included in a
category — the list is complete. To illustrate this, below are two lists taken
from Jeffries’s book (2010) to show how the subtle difference between these
two textual notions can be spotted:

A. “The whole household turned out to welcome us: Mum, Dad, Uncle Sam
and the twins.”

B. “The whole town was there: The Mayor and his wife, the City Councilors
and representatives of every trade and business you could imagine.”

Example A is obviously enumerating because the hearer/reader will

probably think that all of the family members have been mentioned and the
list is complete. On the other hand, example B sounds like an exaggeration
or just a list that represents some of the people who were at that place.
However, these two cases may need some “pragmatic inferencing” to be
interpreted successfully. The reason why some people confuse these two
notions may be the order and structure which English lists usually follow.
For instance, the examples A and B are structurally identical: both of them
begin with a subject and a colon, and end with a list which expands on the
subject.

Aside from their form, the functions of these stylistic devices are more
pivotal to tackle here. This is because list makers usually have an ideological
message to communicate. Whether they are proverb makers or politicians,
listing items seems to have an ideological effect on readers/listeners. This

49
effect can be created when a speaker/writer presents the listener/reader with
limited options within a list in order to make the list receiver think these
limited options are all what s/he should obey or choose from. This
discussion will be expanded on in the data analysis part where proverbs
which contain lists are analyzed (see chapter 4).

3.4.5 Prioritizing

Prioritizing is a syntactic (and possibly phonological) practice which text

producers exploit to shed light on the most important part of a sentence.
Also, it enables them to organize the elements of a sentence in the order they
wish to have. As a result, it allows language users to prioritize specific
elements whilst give less attention to the rest of them.

Syntactically, Prioritizing is usually achieved with some help from

“transformational grammar”, which accounts for how a sentence can be
packaged in different ways. To clarify this point, consider the following
sentences:

A. The government jailed some protesters.

B. Some protesters were jailed (by the government).

Clearly, sentence A is in the active form whereas B is in the passive form.

These two sentences not only are structurally different but also stress
different elements — that is, sentence B concentrates on the object and the
action. However, the notion of prioritizing does not stop at the level of
changing the position of a sentence: it goes deeper into sentence structure in
general and sheds light on how subordinate clauses might be used to give
further ideological information, but the focus would still be on the

50
proposition of the main clause (a point to be exemplified and explained in
more detail in chapter 4).

3.4.6 Implying and Assuming

Implying and assuming are usually dealt with in both pragmatics and
semantics. However, implying is investigated more in pragmatics because it
often requires relying on its context to be interpreted successfully. On the
other hand, assuming usually falls into the domain of semantics since it can
be linguistically triggered, namely via using of certain linguistic units.

Jeffries prefers using the words implying and assuming in her model
as she believes that these two words are self-explanatory. Nevertheless, in
this thesis, the terms implicature and presupposition will be employed for
they are technical terms used in linguistics. It is also worth mentioning that
these two notions will not be discussed in detail here. So, defining them and
presenting some of their possible forms and ideological effects briefly would
be sufficient for the time being. But some sources are referred to below in
case the reader would like to learn more about these notions.

To begin with, the notion of presupposition can be defined as the

process in which a reader/listener assumes the existence of something. For
example, if someone says, “My friend is a good driver”, the receiver of this
utterance will automatically assume that the speaker has a friend. This
happens because the possessive adjective “my” functions as a trigger which
makes the receiver assume the fact that the speaker does have a friend. For
this reason, it is plausible to say that presupposition belongs to semantics.
That is, it is usually triggered semantically.

51
 The presupposition in the example above is called “existential
presupposition”. From its name, it is clear that this type of presupposition
makes readers/hearers presuppose the existence of the entity being talked
about. Existential presuppositions may establish some ideological
assumptions about the existence of an entity and make it sound like a fact,
which is not very susceptible to doubts or debate.

Existential presuppositions are relatively easy to notice when they are

compared to “logical presuppositions”. The latter is the type of
presupposition that can be triggered by an open-ended set of lexical items.
Briefly, this type of presupposition can be triggered through creating a
logical relationship in a sentence. For example, “factive verbs” (e.g. regret,
realize, understand, etc.) are logical triggers which make it possible for
presuppositions to exist. For instance, saying “Her husband regrets slapping
her” logically presupposes the fact that he did slap her (see Saeed, 2016, pp.
97-104 for further details about presupposition).

As the notion of presupposition has been defined and exemplified

above, now it is time to look at what is meant by implicature. But before
defining implicature, it should be noted that both presupposition and
implicature are likely to rely on what is encoded in texts; however, the
notion of implicature is more context-oriented. Hence, it is considered a
pragmatic notion.

For the reason mentioned above, it would be plausible to say that

implicature is hard to identify based on what texts contain. In other words,
the reader/hearer of a sentence/utterance should go beyond what is encoded
in the sentence/utterance if they wish to interpret it successfully.

52
 As far as defining implicature is concerned, this concept can be
explained best by stating that it is the implicit message which a
speaker/writer conveys via employing both language and context at the same
time. For instance, a speaker might say, “She is a woman, thus she is meek”
to imply a universal fact about women: all women are meek. It is noticeable
that the text producer has not said that explicitly (i.e. all women are quiet
and mild); however, his/her sentence implies a relationship between being a
woman and being meek. This type of implicature is called “conventional
implicature” since it is possible to infer the implied meaning in such a
sentence by just looking at the conventional meanings of words and how
they are arranged.

This type of implicature is usually compared with another type called

“conversional implicature” which cannot be deduced without the falling
back on the context in which it occurs. The latter one will be clarified in the
data analysis part. But for the time being, the discussion about implicature
will be halted at this point (see Brown and Yule, 1989, pp. 31-33 for further
information about implicature).

3.4.7 Negating

Negating a sentence may be easy to do, but its effects on readers/hearers

should not be undermined. To explain this, negating should first be
examined in terms of form and then its function and ideological effects on
recipients. Moreover, it is important to note that negating in English has
open-ended tools and it can crop up in different types of texts. However, a
53
limited set of linguistic negative tools will be provided here so that this
notion is clarified.

With regard to how negation is formed, negating a sentence can be

created by combining the auxiliary verb of a sentence as well as the
“negative particle not” (e.g. The cat has not eaten the budgie yet). It can also
be made with the help of the “dummy auxiliary verb do” to which the
negative particle is attached (e.g. They do not like their manager). Another
possible way to create negation is by using pronouns such as nobody, none,
nothing, etc. (e.g. No one can beat this player). Aside from using not or a
pronoun, there are words which can create negation in a sentence based on
their semantic content (e.g. nouns like lack, amorality; verbs like fail, refuse;
adjectives like scarce, absent). Also, English speakers can employ prefixes
to make negation (e.g. incomplete, asocial, uncompromising).

Above, how negating a sentence can be achieved has been accounted

for. Thus, this part still needs to tackle the functional aspects of negating. To
start with, it is obvious that negating a sentence indicates the absence of an
action or a state of affairs. But how does negating influence the way
readers/hearers view the world. The answer to this question lies in the
positive version of a negated sentence which recipients would picture. For
instance, if someone says, “His wife has not wrecked the car”, the recipients
— of this negative sentence — may picture a positive version in which the
wife has wrecked the car. In other words, mentioning a situation that has not
occurred can conjure up an imaginary world where that situation has
happened. Consequently, text recipients may become scared of unreal
situations or lose their confidence in the wife’s driving skills, for example.

54
3.4.8 Hypothesizing

In the previous part, negation has been introduced as a linguistic tool which
constructs an unreal situation and triggers off the reader’s fear of what
would happen if that situation occurred. In this part, hypothesizing, which is
somehow similar to negation, will be tackled. However, what sets them apart
is that hypothesizing is usually expressed explicitly by the text producer,
who predicts what has happened, happing, or will happen.

As it has been mentioned earlier, hypothesizing essentially revolves

around creating hypothetical situations through modality. For this reason,
modality should be accounted for briefly here. Modality is said to be the use
of modal verbs, some lexical verbs, modal adverbs, intonation, etc. in order
to construct a text which reflects its producer’s view of how a situation is,
may be, should be, must be, or how s/he wishes it were. For example, people
can use might/may to express uncertainty or should to give advice or express
mild obligation as in “You should listen to your doctor”.

Unlike oppressed people, when a powerful group or individual uses a

modal verb, the hypothetical situation could become more believable. This is
because their status is higher and more powerful. Comprehending this point
plays a pivotal role in the analysis of English WRPs; this is because
proverbs are embraced and reinforced by societies, which are believed to be
predominantly controlled by men. Hence, whatever men hypothesize about
women is likely to be considered true.

As far as forming modality is concerned, it is said that the range of a

modal expression doesn’t usually exceed four auxiliaries which would be
followed by a lexical verb (e.g. might have been being chased). Also, modal

55
meanings can be achieved by using not only modal verbs, but also other
forms. For example, a writer/speaker can construct modal meaning by using
lexical verbs (e.g. suppose, wish), modal adverbs (e.g. probably, definitely),
modal adjectives (e.g. sure, probable), and conditional constructions (e.g. if .
. ., then . . .).

It is worth mentioning that creating a hypothetical situation is not only

about using modal verbs (or other linguistic items) but also contexts and
intonation. This does not mean the modal forms touched upon above are not
sufficient. In fact, they can come in very handy when it comes to English
proverbs since these forms can guide the proverb analyst to what indicates
likelihood/unlikelihood and desirability in a proverb. Finally, it should be
kept in mind that whether a text producer utilizes a modal form or
intonation, there are two questions to be begged when analyzing a modal
phrase: what ideas does the text producer want to “conjure up in the mind”
of the recipients? Is it fear or something desirable?

3.4.9 Presenting Others’ Speech and Thoughts

The tool at hand is centered on how speakers/writers’ viewpoints and words

are discussed and reported by others. That is, how someone’s speech and
thoughts can be represented and narrated by someone else. Tackling this tool
is important as it shows how language users can manipulate someone’s
speech in order to create ideological effects.

What makes this analytical tool significant for critical stylistics is the
belief that there will usually be a gap between someone’s exact words and
the person who reports these words. This gap exists because when reporting
a speaker’s words and thoughts, multiple aspects would be neglected. For

56
instance, hesitations such as “er, um, etc. are usually omitted. Also, no
attention may be paid to “intonation and other paralinguistic features”.
Importantly, those who quote others’ linguistic output will usually select
specific parts to mention and neglect the rest of the speech. As a result,
people are usually heard complaining about being quoted out of context. In
other words, their words, emotions, and thoughts are not completely
conveyed. Nothing would be said about what has come before and after the
quotation, too. To clarify this, consider the invented example below:

I love my wife. We’ve been together for many years and I really want to
stay with her forever. I’d do anything for her, but I can’t let her make me
feel as if I’m not the man of the house!

In this example, the speaker’s intention can be changed easily by tweaking

his words or mentioning only a short part of his direct speech while
reporting it. For instance, someone may say that her husband said that he
would never let his wife make him feel as if he wasn’t the man of the house.
Consequently, the husband could be regarded as a misogynist who hates and
belittles his wife.

What is said about quoting people’s speech above is directly related to

the concept of faithfulness. This concept basically refers to how close the
reported speech is to the direct speech (e.g. in the example aforementioned,
it is obvious that faithfulness is not completely present). Furthermore, the
faithfulness of a text ranges from conveying only the proposition (e.g.
reporting that someone has apologized but not what s/he said) to using what
is known as direct speech (e.g. She said, “I can’t stand my husband.”) so as
to repeat the words of the speaker/writer exactly.

57
3.4.10 Representing Time, Space and Society

This part introduces the last analytical tool in the toolkit of: Representing
Time, Space and Society. This tool endeavors to find out and analyze how a
writer/speaker constructs “text worlds” (i.e. mental representations for their
readers/lisnters).

In order to create a text world so as to impact readers/listeners, a

writer should utilize deixis to build the temporal and spatial dimensions of a
proverb, for example. This does not entail that language users have only
deixis in their armory as regards creating text worlds. However, employing
deixis is an excellent way to portray the temporal, spatial and social aspects
of a text. But what does deixis mean, exactly? Simply put, deixis refers to
expressions that refer a person, a place, or time (Yule, 2010, p. 128). What is
more, they are hard to interpret unless they are used in a context/co-text so
as to know what they exactly refer to. These expressions are usually
allocated to different categories as follows:

A. Spatial expressions:
⁃ Adverbs: here (proximal form), there (distal form), etc.
⁃ Demonstratives: this, that, etc.
⁃ Prepositional/adverbial constructions: on the right/ opposite, etc.
B. Temporal expressions:
⁃ Using verb tenses to point to time.
⁃ Adverbs: now, then, etc.
⁃ Demonstratives: this, those, etc.
C. Expressions related to people:
⁃ Pronouns: I, you, she, etc.

58
D. Social deictic expressions:
⁃ Titles: Mrs., Dr., etc.
⁃ Forms of addressing: nicknames, endearments, surnames, etc.
The last group is regarded as social deixis since such expressions are used in
discourse to express different degrees of social closeness or distance
between the participants of a conversation or the type of the hierarchical
relationship between a speaker/writer and their receivers (e.g. an employer
and their employee).

The last point to mention about deixis is that there are two important
concepts to consider while analyzing deictic expressions in a text: deictic
center and deictic projection. The former refers to the way a speaker uses
deixis to describe a state of affairs from their own perspective. On the other
hand, deictic projection fundamentally means the ability to look at a
situation from the other person’s perspective. Clearly, humans have this
ability, but it is claimed that people tend to present events from their own
perspective in order to make the recipients of their text appreciate and
sympathize with their feelings/thoughts or even change their outlook on a
particular matter.

CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS

4.0 Overview

In the previous chapter, critical stylistics (which is the model adopted here)
has been accounted for. However, not everything about it has been tackled;
instead, only the analytical tools and their main concepts have been briefly

59
introduced. This is because there is not much room to talk about the model
in detail (see Jeffries 2010 for further details). In this chapter, these tools
will be utilized to analyze the data. Moreover, while analyzing the data,
further details will be provided about the tools in order to compensate for
what is missing in chapter three.

As it has been explained in chapter three, Jeffries’ model consists of

ten analytical tools. Here, this toolkit will be used to examine the proverbs in
terms of their stylistic choices and ideologies. In other words, by breaking
down these proverbs and analyzing them stylistically, traces of ambivalent
sexism might be found.

However, looking for sexist ideologies by only using CS could be

impossible without having or setting (hypothetical) contexts in which the
proverbs might have been made. In other words, the analysis process will
not only rely on the diction of the proverbs, but also on some (hypothetical)
contexts. These contexts are hoped to provide the reader with a clear idea
about what the proverbs are intended to convey; and thus, the proverbs can
be interpreted successfully with the assistance of CS. This, nevertheless,
does not mean that the proverbs will always be accompanied by their
original contexts (see chapter two for more details about proverbs’ original
contexts). Therefore, some hypothetical contexts should be set here.

However, before delving into the data and some of the possible
contexts of the proverbs, there is a question to be answered: what kinds of
contexts are discussed here? That is, are they social, religious, or political?
First of all, it should be noted that these contexts are more like themes (e.g.
women’s appearance and gender roles). Within each theme, a group of

60
proverbs will be scrutinized. This group forms a world in which a lot of
proverbs are somehow similar. Secondly, by collecting a group of proverbs
and putting them in one theme, a context will automatically appear. For
instance, if there is a host of proverbs that talk about the same point (e.g.
limiting women’s role to housework), it would be valid to put them in one
category, thereby a hypothetical context — in which they have a lot in
common — will be created. Finally, the contexts, of the selected proverbs,
will be presented at the beginning of each theme to help the reader expect
what they proverbs are about.

As far as the data analysis is concerned, it is worth noting that the

analysis will follow a pattern. This pattern starts first with, as it is said
above, the context in which a group of proverbs might have occurred. After
that, the proverbs will be analyzed one by one based on CS.

4.1 Themes

WRPs are a broad topic to be tackled in one thesis. It would be more

accurate to describe this topic as a spider’s web that has women at the center
and a variety of subtopics around it. To avoid getting stuck on this wide
web, it would be better to have specific themes, which have sociolinguistic
importance. Besides having sociolinguistic importance, the chosen themes
here are very common in books which are centered on (English) WRPs
proverbs. The themes are:

1. Women’s Appearance
2. Women’s Roles in Life
3. Treating Women
4. Women’s Nature

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 5. Wives

4.1.1 Women’s Appearance

It seems that women’s appearance is frequently emphasized in English

WRPs. However, it is not important in as much as proverbs care about
women’s well-being. In fact, it is common because English WRPs usually
look at women as if they are part of men’s property. That is, these proverbs
make it look like men own women; and as a result, men should make sure
that their property is beautiful and pleasant so as to keep it around. To
illustrate this, consider the following proverb:

“Never pick women or horses by candlelight.” (Kerschen, 1998, p. 68)

This proverb is somehow straightforward. That is, it clearly sheds

light on three aspects: warning men, equating women with animals, and
emphasizing the importance of women’s outer features. The reader/hearer of
this proverb is likely to know these points due to the stylistic choices and
syntactic structure found in the proverb itself.

As far as the formal elements are concerned, it is obvious that the

proverb starts with an adverbial (Never) followed by a predicator (pick); this
makes the proverb sound like an imperative sentence, but it may not be so.
In other words, the producer of this proverb might want to advise men to
carefully select a beautiful wife.

The predicator can be classified as a material action intention. That is,

it is physical and intentional on the part of the Agent (men). The properties
of this verb give the Agent the mental and physical power to perform an

62
action on the Theme (women and livestock) — that are the entities affected
by the action and presented as helpless living creatures.

In regard to women and livestock, the concept of equivalence can be

noticed here. That is, women are equated with horses. This is also
considered a way of naming that has a pejorative connotation. Put
differently, the use of horses may suggest that women and horses are of
equal importance and that they are picked for almost the same reasons.

Moving toward the end of the proverb, it can be seen that the
prepositional phrase (by candlelight) post-modifies the action of picking
women and animals. That is, it tells its recipients to avoid choosing a wife or
an animal at night. Furthermore, it should be noted that what makes this
phrase bears conventional implicature. Put differently, the phrase by
candlelight implies that picking a wife when it is dark (i.e. when she cannot
be seen well) could be a mistake because a man should ensure that his wife
is attractive enough.

The proverb analyzed above is not the only proverb out there which
talks about women’s appearance; other proverbs exist and reinforce the
ideology which stresses the significance women’s looks; the proverb below
supports this argument:

“A man is as old as he feels, and a woman is as old as she looks.”

(Ridout and Witting, 1983, p.115)

This proverb makes use of parallelism to express the importance of

women’s appearance compared to men. The notion of parallelism is usually
used to suggest the existence of a relationship between two clauses/forms. In
the proverb at hand, there are two paralleled structures: A man is as old as
63
he feels and A woman is as old as she looks. In other words, each one of
them contains the as + adjective + as form, which accounts for a
complement in the form of a comparative .The use of the two comparative
forms here simply suggests that a man is what he feels whereas a woman is
how she looks like.

The two paralleled structures in the proverb are connected with a

coordinating conjunction (and). Thus, it would plausible to say that these
two structures have a relationship that the proverb maker wants to spotlight.
However, this relationship is not of equivalence: it is based on opposition.
That is, although the left structure is syntactically paralleled to the right one,
these two clauses have two different verbs (feels and looks) that make the
two clauses contrasting.

As far as the verbs are concerned, it should be noted that they are
relational in terms of their process. That is to say, both of them fall into
category of relational processes which consists of verbs such as the copula
and intensive verbs in general (e.g. look, seem, feel, and so on). These verbs
express a relationship between a Carrier and their Attribute. In the case of
the present proverb, the two intensive verbs feels and looks are used to
describe the different aging processes of men and women. In other words,
men are given the verb feels to imply that a man is appreciated and respected
for his inner self; and thus, he is allocated a thematic role of Experiencer. On
the other hand, a woman is only desired when she looks young and
physically attractive.

It is clear that this proverb does not only place emphasis on women’s
looks, but also on creating a contrasting world in which men and women are

64
perceived differently. This phenomenon can be noticed in many English
WRPs. For instance, when a proverb highlights women’s outer shape, it is
also likely to insert men on the other pan of the scale. Perhaps, it is believed
that doing so will keep/create a balance in the world.

With regard to both emphasizing women’s appearance and contrasting

them with men, below is a proverb taken from Kerschen (1998). This
proverb revolves around devaluing women’s inner aspects and putting them
in a comparison with men:

“A man without ambition is like a woman without looks.” (p.45)

Here, the proverb begins with the Carrier A man followed by the
adjective PP without ambition to modify the type of men in the examined
proverb. Then, these men, who have no ambition, are equated with women
without looks. The phrase without looks is also another adjective PP which
works as a post-modifier for the phrase a woman. Although both of these
PPs are used as naming techniques to modify the entities they appear after,
the latter is used as a complement for the phrase A man without looks.

The equivalence found in the given proverb is triggered by the phrase

is like — which basically means is similar to and is used to create a simile.
Another point to mention is that the copula (i.e. to be) that is employed to
represent the relationship between a man who is unambitious and a plain
woman as a factual one. Creating this relationship may be considered as a
way to encourage men to do their utmost in order to have a success in life,
but it is definitely derogatory since it stresses what women look like as if
this is all what women have in their armory to give to the world.

65
 To sum, the proverb at hand implies that men need to have ambition to
gain respect and a good social status; otherwise, they might become just like
an ugly woman who is neglected by everyone. In other words, having
ambition is as important as having pleasant appearance to a woman.

The central argument of this theme is that women are desired and
appreciated only when they look beautiful and young; and that is what has
been noticed in the previous proverbs. What is more, a part of the argument
is that women are perceived as a man’s property that he owns and uses to
satisfy his needs, thereby women have to ensure that they are attractive. This
notion is not uncommon in English WRPs. In fact, there are many proverbs
out there which stress the idea of having a woman as a toy to be played with.
That is, women’s beauty is not conceived as art in proverbs. It is more like a
means to fulfill a desire. For instance, in “The Oxford Dictionary of
Proverbs” (2008), there are many proverbs which emphasize this sensual
idea. However, only two of them will be tackled here for the sake of space.
To begin with, consider the following proverb:

“A blind man’s wife needs no paint.” (p. 323)

This proverb has a simple structure. In other words, it is divided into three
separate simple forms: noun phrase + predicator + noun phrase. However, it
is simplicity has more than one implicature.

First, the first noun phrase (a blind man’s wife) — which is the
subject — has the word wife as its head; and because it is the head of noun
phrase, the constituents that precede it are considered pre-modifiers. These
pre-modifiers tell the reader/hear what kind of wife is being talked about
here. Put differently, the reader/listener should ask the question: why is a

66
blind man’s wife chosen? It is because blind people do not see those who are
around them. In other words, a blind man does not need to know whether his
wife looks charming or not: it is her body that does the job. Another possible
interpretation of this pre-modifier is that it could be a metaphor. To rephrase
it, this blind man may not be literally blind: perhaps he is just blinded by
love. Thus, looks do not matter to him.

As far as the predicator needs is concerned, it is noticeable that it is

followed by the quantifier no, which essentially means not any. So, when
needs no paint is regarded as one unit (i.e. as one verb phrase), it means she
does not need any paint. This structure is easy to see, but what is not easy
enough to determine is the kind of process which the verb need expresses.
To put it in another way, is its verbal process intentional on the part of the
wife because she is in control of the action? Or does its process belong to the
category of material action supervention because it is the blindness of her
husband what makes it unnecessary for her to wear paint (i.e. makeup)? In
any case, the context in which the proverb occurs will determine whether the
action is intentional or supervention.

In regard to implying, the sensual implicature which exists in the

proverb above can also be found in other proverbs which are constructed
with different diction. Nevertheless, other proverbs may be more explicitly
implicit than the one above: being explicitly implicit seems like an
oxymoron, but those proverbs do exist. To clarify this, the proverb below is
provided:

“Dirty water will quench fire.” (ibid, p. 135)

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According to “The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs”, the proverb at hand is
usually used to refer to women’s physical ability to satisfy men. And what
makes this one offensive is the hostile sexism that it contains. That is, it uses
the noun phrase dirty water as metaphor to refer to women.

Pondering the noun phrase dirty water will end up in appreciating CS

— as a model that shows how stylistic choices are significant when it comes
to describing an entity. That is to say, it sheds light on why the proverb
producer has chosen the adjective dirty over clean/pure or simply no
adjective at all. This choice is made to back the ideology that the proverb
maker wants to convey. He/she has pre-modified the head of the noun phrase
(water) with the adjective dirty to imply that even ugly women could give
what most man needs.

Moving on to the verbal element of the proverb, it is obvious that the

verb quench is preceded by a modal verb (will). This calls for tackling the
modal verb first and then moving to the main verb. To start with, it should
be noted that will has several functions, and knowing what it is exactly used
for requires resorting to the context and the co-text. However, it is possible
to say that in this proverb the modal will may be used to make a promise. In
this case, it falls into the domain of what Jeffries calls hypothesizing since
the use of a modal verb is intended to create a hypothetical situation in
which the speculation of the proverb maker comes true.

As far as the main verb (quench) is concerned, it has more than one
meaning: 1. to drink water so that you are no longer thirsty 2. to put out a
fire using water or 3. to satisfy a need. 8 Whether the use of the verb is literal
or metaphorical, it still serves one purpose: fulfilling what a man needs who
8
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/quench

68
is metaphorically described as a fire. For this reason, the object (fire = men)
should be labeled the Beneficiary of the action in this context.

The last thing to touch on here is the process of the action. Although it
seems like women are able to control men’s lust, the co-text of the proverb
makes the action (quench) look like an event occurring without the existence
of an animate Actor (women). Instead, the phrase dirty water is used to
express a material action event which may imply the event takes place
without women’s consent.

4.1.2 Women’s Roles in Life

The previous theme has discussed how women’s appearance is perceived in

English proverbs. In this theme, the notion of giving women specific roles in
society will be tackled. However, these two themes are not completely
different. One way or the other, giving women certain tasks to do is usually
based on their physical features. In other words, women are sometimes
judged and given roles based on their sex (i.e. they have physical features
which are different from those of men). This theme will lead the discussion
at hand to the concept of gender roles. This concept has been discussed a lot
in the literature. However, here, it will be highlighted in English proverbs,
and what will support this process is CS. Also, this very concept is important
to this study since it gives it some insight into how women are limited to
particular tasks in life (see Wodak 1997).

It should be noted that this theme follows the same pattern used in the
previous one, but it revolves around a different topic. This theme may be
more challenging than the last one simply because it deals with social
matters: what women are expected to do throughout their lifetimes. To

69
illustrate this point, this theme will set out from a proverb taken from Ridout
Witting (1983):

“Men make houses, women make homes.” (p. 118)

This proverb has two independent clauses, each of which has a subject
(Actor), a predicator and an object (Theme). This means that they are two
paralleled structures. However, these two structures, which are syntactically
equal, have different propositions; the first clause asserts that men build
things whereas the second one states that women look after what men build.
As a result, a contrast has been generated by this parallelism.

It can also be seen that men and women are equally given the same
predicator (i.e. make) which is a material action intention. This may imply
that men and women are able to make their own decisions to better their
lives, for example. Nevertheless, the first clause — which highlights men —
is prioritized: it comes first and then women are mentioned. In other words,
it is placed before women’s duties (i.e. making homes). Perhaps the proverb
prioritizes men because it is believed that men should make efforts to build
houses, and then women come to make this house warm and full of love
homes.

In this proverb, naming appears to play an important role. The two

words house and home are employed according to their connotations. This is
because a house is just a building whereas a home is where someone feels
comfortable and loved. What is more, according to the proverb, in order to
make a house a comfortable home, women should make sure that they take
good care of it.

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 Another point to mention here is the choice of the verb make. There
could be two implicatures in the co-text of this proverb. Although make is
used in both clauses, it is likely to have different metaphorical functions in
terms of its meanings. That is to say, it refers to men’s efforts to go out and
make a living but women’s fixed duties to provide the house with love and
warmth. For this reason, verbs like build or provide are not used.

After analyzing the individual elements used in the proverb, a look at

the whole structure should be taken to interpret the proverb as a whole. The
two paralleled structures are syntactically but not semantically equal; they
have different propositions. For this reason, it would be valid to say that this
syntactic-sematic dichotomy implies three messages: 1. men and women are
structurally equal (i.e. they are human beings). 2. they have different roles in
life due to their different physical features . 3. releasing these two points will
create a balance in life, which is similar to the syntactic one found in the
proverb.

Finally, apart from CS, this proverb displays the main argument of the
ambivalent sexism theory. In other words, the proverb may sound altruistic
and kind (i.e. not hostile), but deep down, it has some traces of benevolent
sexism. And as it has been discussed in chapter two, benevolent sexism is
the type of sexism which is not aggressive, yet it is sexist in terms of
limiting women’s roles in general.

With regard to benevolent sexism, it is attention-grabbing how women

are usually put on a pan and men on the other one of the scale of English
WRPs. It seems that these proverbs try to prove something regarding
creating a balance in the world. Whether they sound hostile or benevolent,

71
they often appear to marginalize women. To consolidate and clarify this
argument, a few more proverbs will be introduced and analyzed below. To
begin with, here is a proverb from Phillips’ book (2012):

“Children suck the mother when they are young and the father when they
are old.” (p. 29)

The proverb above has one Actor (children) and two Themes (the
mother and the father). Yet, its Themes can be substituted for only one
Theme; for example the word parents could have been used instead. This
way the proverb would look like the following: children suck their parents.
However, substituting the Themes for one inclusive word might create
equity in terms of gender roles; and things may look fuzzy. It is also worth
mentioning that women (i.e. the mother) are prioritized in the proverb. Put
differently, they are placed before men in the proverb. This prioritizing
originates an implicature that may emphasize the importance of the presence
of mothers during people’s childhoods.

It is noticeable that each Theme (i.e. the mother and the father) is
followed by a relative clause (RC) which post-modifies the time when the
action of sucking takes place: these two relative clauses basically are naming
tools here. What is important about these RCs is not only their function, but
also their syntactic parallelism: each one of them consists of RC + subject +
copula + complement. Nevertheless, they contain different propositions in
terms of when the action occurs. In other words, the noun phrase the mother
is followed by the RC when they (i.e. children) are young; and it is known
that children need to be nourished and loved when they are little. On the
other hand, the noun phrase the father is followed by the RC when they (i.e.

72
children) are old. Perhaps this means that children start to appreciate the
concept of having money on them and buying things with it at time of their
lives – the father should give his children some money out of duty. Thus,
these two RCs, which are syntactically paralleled, set a contrast between
what women are required to do and what men ought to do.

The last thing to be scrutinized here is the verbal element of the

proverb. The predicator suck is used in the active form, and it is a material
action intention. This means that children directly perform an action on both
of their parents. However, action suck has more than one sense: it could be
literal or metaphorical. Namely, it is used to describe a literal process of
pulling in milk (or metaphorically speaking, love) from mothers and a
metaphorical process of taking money from fathers9. As a result, it would be
plausible to say that the use of the verb suck here creates a figure of speech
called zeugma10 in semantics; and that is what makes it (with the help of the
conjunction and) produce two meanings in one sentence.

The proverb above shows what women should do throughout their

lives compared to men are expected to do; however, this is not always the
case. There are some proverbs that declare their intention more explicitly
and are particularly concerned with women’s behavior only. Moreover, they
divide women into two types: obedient women (or wives) and ones who are
not. The latter type is usually depicted as the materialistic type of women.
To exemplify this, consider the proverb below:

9
See the phrase: to suck someone dry at: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/suck-sb-sth-
dry
10
Zeugma can be defined as “the simultaneous evoking of distinct senses of a word in the same sentence,
usually by conjunction of phrases or clauses” (Saeed, 2016, p. 456).

73
“A prudent woman studies the comfort of her husband and house; whereas a
scold and spendthrift thinks of parties and fashions.” (Downey,1858, p. 19)

This proverb consists of two independent clauses joined with the

conjunction whereas. Being structured this way makes the two clauses
express two opposed ideas. In other words, this proverb uses a stylistic tool
called explicit opposition to create a contrast between two types of women.
This tool usually uses words/phrases such as by contrast and whereas to
express opposition. For this reason, it is called explicit opposition: the
opposition is expressed in words explicitly.

As far as the syntactic structure of the proverb is concerned, the two

clauses are equal. That is, each one of them consists of subject + verb +
object. Having these two equal syntactic structures creates syntactic
parallelism which is made to contrast two entities in the case of this proverb.
Again, this type of structure seems to be common (see the analysis previous
proverb above). This can be clarified if the clauses are broken down and
analyzed. However, the semantic content of these two clauses is different
despite their syntactic equivalence. This is an important point to be
examined below, too.

It has just been mentioned above that these two clauses express two
opposite propositions. The first clause is about a type of woman who is
different from the one found in the second clause. Put differently, the first
woman, who is the head of the noun phrase, is pre-modified by the adjective
prudent. Together, prudent + women form a noun phrase which is opposed
to the type of woman found in the second clause – scold and spendthrift. So,
what makes these two women different is the way naming is employed. That

74
is, naming is exploited here to present a world in which there are two
opposite versions of women. What is more, the way in which naming is used
in the proverb is similar to using complementary opposites where there are
two completely opposite things (e.g. alive versus dead). However, the
lexical items used here are not complementary opposites; they even have
different parts of speech (i.e. prudent is an adjective whereas scold and
spendthrift are nouns). Yet, a prudent woman and a scold and spendthrift are
utilized in a way that represents the world as having two different types of
women. Importantly, in this world, if a woman is interested in parties and
fashions, this means she is not prudent. That is, if she is not X then she is Y.

Moving on toward the verbal elements, there are two predicators

which are attached to the different types of women mentioned above. A
prudent woman is given the predicator studies which is a verb that involves
deep thought and scrutinizing. On the other one, a woman who is not
prudent and does not care about here household is given the predicator
thinks of. This verb is classified as a mental cognition in Jeffries’s model.
Verbs which belong to the mental cognition category are the kind of verbs
that are cognitive and are not done physically. Perhaps this is why this wife
is a scold: she cares about clothes and going to parties a lot and keeps on
nagging her husband to give her what she desires, but she does not always
do these activities, simply because she just thinks of them.

Another point to mention about this proverb is that its recipient is

likely to interrupt the word woman as a wife. This is not mentioned in the
proverb, though. This is because the use of the word husband triggers the
existence of a wife. Thus, the concept of converses (i.e. type of opposites) is
employed here to specify what category of women is being discussed (a

75
wife). This discussion leads to the last parts of the two clauses: the comfort
of her husband as well as parties and fashions. Breaking down the first noun
phrase will result in unearthing the existence of naming. That is, the head of
the noun phrase (husband) is pre-modified by the prepositional phrase the
comfort of plus the possessive adjective her to state what a real prudent
woman should bear in mind in order to avoid being a scold and spendthrift,
who likes shallow activities such as parties and fashions – seemingly,
according to the proverb, it is satisfying her husband and making sure he is
untroubled what makes a woman a good wife.

The proverb analyzed above tells its readers/hearers what a woman

should do in order to be considered a good wife. It also expresses benevolent
sexism since it does not attack women directly. It just tells women how to
avoid being shallow for the sake of their husbands. However, some other
English women-related proverbs which have to do with women’s roles are
usually hostile. That is, some people might consider them impolite. To save
room, have a look at another proverb from Kerschen’s (1998) to clarify this
point:

“A wife is a young man’s slave and an old man’s darling.” (p. 19)

This proverb may look relatively long in terms of the number of the
lexical items, but it fundamentally consists of three main parts: subject (a
wife) + copula (is) + complement (a young man’s . . . darling).

The overall analysis of the proverb will start with the copula which
sets equivalence between the subject (a wife) and the complement (slave and
darling). However, if the proverb is to be analyzed thoroughly, a step-by-
step critical stylistic analysis should be carried out.

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 To begin with, women, and especially wives, are portrayed as slaves
and beloved things at the same time, and that they belong to men. But the
subject (wife) is not pre-modified, thus, it is not clear what kind of woman is
being touched on. Is she young or old? Is she rich or poor? This implies that
women are generally considered men’s property.

Disagreeing with the notion of this implicature could be thought of as

an act against nature. This is because the relationship between the subject
and the complement is represented as a state. That is, the subject and the
complement are linked by the copula is.

Recall that in critical stylistics, Jeffries tackles verbal elements based

on Halliday’s transitivity where there are three general verbal categories:
actions, events, and states. The last category is the one to which copula (or
linking verbs) belong. In this category, verbs like the verb to be are usually
used to state stable and factual relationships between the subject (in this
case, its thematic role is Carrier) and its complement (Attribute), which is
the case in the proverb at hand.

In the complement part, there are two men, not only one. This can be
spotted by looking at the two indefinite articles (a and an). Put differently, if
there were only one man, there would be one article and the complement
would look like this: a man’s slave and darling. What is more, the producer
of the proverb has utilized naming to pre-modify two different men: a young
man and an old one. After that, he has carried out to describe the wife using
the words slave and darling.

The nouns slave and darling can be labeled antonyms in the context of
this proverb. In other words, although the opposite of slave could be master

77
or freeperson, the context in which the word slave is used makes it an
antonym of darling. That is, one of them refers to a person who works really
hard for someone else (in the case of the proverb, for men) whereas the other
one is beloved respectively. Therefore, it would be valid to say that this
proverb carries opposition at the semantic level.

Finally, describing a woman as a slave who belongs to a young man

might be intended to imply that a young man is handsome and healthy
enough to not let his wife control him. On the other hand, an old man should
be careful not to upset his charming, young wife.

In a similar fashion, there are many other English proverbs that

portray women as men’s servants; and they usually do this by using a copula
to emphasize that this notion is factual and normal. To support this
argument, this part will end with another proverb; but this time the proverb
is taken from Schipper (2004):

“A good wife is a perfect lady in the living room, a good cook in the
kitchen, and a whore in bed.” (p. 216)

Like the previous proverb, this proverb consists of subject + copula +

complement. The use of the verb is expresses a state which is a stable and
fixed relationship between being a good wife and the three characteristics
mentioned in the list. To clarify this further, a critical stylistic analysis will
be carried out on the entire proverb.

To start with, the proverb begins with a noun phrase (A good wife),
which is the subject. The head of the subject (wife) is pre-modified by the
adjective good. It is known that the opposite of the word good is bad. Thus,
the use of the adjective good, which probably means righteous here, implies
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that if a wife does not live up the expectations of the list (i.e. what is
mentioned in the complement part), she would be considered a bad woman.

Moving on towards the complement, the reader is expected to realize

that the proverb makes use of the notion of enumerating. However, one
might say that the list only contains some examples which determine the
righteousness of a wife. For this reason, it would be confusing to decide
whether the list is an instance of enumerating or exemplifying.

However, it should be noted that a three-part list usually attracts

speakers/listeners and indicates completeness. Perhaps it is because
language users often tend to use three-part lists in their daily
communication, and thus, three-part lists have become embedded in their
culture (e.g. English-speaking countries). For instance, it is common to hear
people in races say “On your marks, get set, go!”

The reasons mentioned above make it possible to state that the list
found in the complement part is likely to be an instance of enumerating
rather than exemplifying. But why is it so important to determine whether the
list is an instance of enumerating or exemplifying? This is because
enumerating indicates that a list is complete. Therefore, the three
characteristics/activities stated in the list are not just some desired examples
which should be found in a wife. According the proverb, they are all what a
woman needs in order to be a good wife.

As far as the content of the list is concerned, the reader/hearer will

find three salient characteristics a woman should have: a perfect lady, a
good cook, and a whore. These three noun phrases are tinged with a good
wife. That is, the notion of equivalence is employed here to equate the

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subject (a good wife) with the traits found in the complement part.
Nevertheless, these noun phrases would sound vague if they were out of the
proverb’s co-text. In other words, the word whore, which is a disapproving
and derogatory word, literally refers to a sex worker. As a result, her
husband would be considered a procurer. Yet, the intended meaning of this
word is a wife who does whatever her husband wants her to do to please
him: this would count as a naming technique. For this reason, there are three
prepositional phrases (in the living room, in the kitchen, and in bed) used to
set a context in which a wife is inside her home and with her husband. That
is, these three phrases function as a naming tool which post-modifies the
nouns placed before them. Finally, the three adjective prepositional phrases
seem to talk about three different locations in one place: home. This implies
that a woman is not allowed to leave her husband’s place. In other words,
she is stuck in the three dimensions which are mentioned in the prepositional
phrases.

4.1.3 Treating Women

In the previous part, some proverbs which are related to women’s limited
roles in life have been tackled. Another common topic which researchers,
who are interested in proverbs, highlight is the wisdom, and advice which
English proverbs give on treating women, especially wives. Thus, the part at
hand will be dedicated to this matter. Like the last two themes, five proverbs
will be provided and analyzed in this one. The first one is taken from “The
Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs” (2008):

“A woman, a dog, and a walnut, the more you beat them the better they be.”
(p. 510)

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 In this proverb, women are equated with animals and trees. That is to
say, this equivalence may imply that an animal and a tree can be beaten or
even purchased; and the same thing can be applied to women: they are just
property.

The naming choices (a dog and a walnut) in this proverb are not
random, especially when it comes to walnut trees. And using animals or
objects in women-related proverb is not uncommon. That is, women are
usually equated with objects and living things (e.g. livestock and dogs). Of
course, equating a human being (in this case a woman) with an animal (a
dog) is commonly considered a derogatory remark.

As far as beating a walnut tree is concerned, it is said that this practice

is “old custom” that people did in order to fetch the fallen fruit and to let
short and new “fruiting spurs” grow (see Hadfield 1957). Therefore, the
stylistic choice of a walnut tree bears an implicature that asserts the
importance of hitting women in order to keep them under control and ready
to serve you.

Another point to be mentioned here is the information structure of the

proverb. It starts with listing three items (a woman, a dog, and a walnut) and
then tells the recipient, of the proverb, what to do to them. In other words,
women and the other two items are prioritized, especially women because
they are put the first item in the list; perhaps this means that this proverb has
been specially made to attack women. That is, the position of the Theme (i.e.
a woman …) creates a cleft structure that emphasizes the first element in the
proverb.

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 Moving toward the second part of the proverb, it is noticeable that
there are three stylistic techniques used: the use of deixis, the type of the
predicator, and transitional opposition. Firstly, the deictic expression (i.e.
pronoun) you is to be tackled. This deictic expression is used in the proverb
without specifying the sex of the Actor (the doer of the action). This creates
some sort of vagueness since deictic expressions need to have a context, in
which they were previously mentioned in order to interpret them
successfully (see Brown and Yule, 1989). For this reason, the deictic
expression used in this proverb may refer to anyone regardless of their sex
(i.e. men and women). Secondly, the predicator which is utilized here is a
material action intention. Using a material action intention indicates an
action which takes place physically. Put differently, the proverb encourages
the recipient to literally beat women. Finally, the use of the structure the
more … the better … indicates a transitional opposition. That is, this
opposition is, in fact, a contrast between two states: a change from one state
to another one. It is also worth mentioning that it is not stated what attitudes
women must have in order to be beaten: you just have to beat them to make
them serve you better.

Like the proverb analyzed above, some English proverbs seem to be

interested in equating women with animals and objects. However, some of
them have gone to the extent that they portray women as inferior to animals.
For instance, some proverbs say that animals are more trustworthy than
women. To clarify this, consider the following proverb from Kerschen’s
(1998):

“Trust your dog to the end, and a woman to the first opportunity” (p. 95)

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 This proverb starts with the verb trust which can be classified as a
mental cognition since it is connected to what goes within the human brain.
That is, the recipient of the proverb would be well advised to use his/her wit
when it comes to dealing with a woman.

It is because the verb trust is classified as a mental cognition, the

thematic role of grammatical object of the sentence would be called
Phenomenon. Thus, the forms your dog and a woman are the Phenomenon
of the verb trust. Also, although it appears that your dog and a woman are
the grammatical objects of the verb, the proverb suggests treating them
unequally.

The reason why these two entities above are unequal is that both of
them are post-modified by two different prepositional phrases: to the end as
well as to the first opportunity respectively. These two phrases are naming
tools which draw a distinction between dogs and women in terms of trusting
them. In other words, women are compared to dogs, and this creates
equivalence. However, inside this very equivalence, there is a contrast
between how people should view dogs as opposed to women. Therefore, this
equivalence-contrasting equation results in creating an implicature that
asserts that women and animals are equal but some animals are even more
privileged when it comes relying on them.

Trusting women seems to be a gripping issue in which proverbs are

interested. Whether the proverbs place emphasis on the notion of women’s
flightiness or the absence of their chastity, trust is highlighted in them
frequently. Moreover, they give advice on how to avoid women’s

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flightiness. To exemplify this, the proverb below Kerschen’s (1998) will be
analyzed:

“Handle with care women and glass.” (p. 70)

The proverb at hand starts with the verb handle which is followed by
the prepositional phrase with care, which functions as a naming device that
post-modifies the verb handle. These two forms (i.e. handle + with care) are
usually seen on packages that contains fragile objects. This phrase is also
used as a song title by the English-American band “The Travelling
Wilburys”. In their song, the singer expresses his sadness and
disappointment. This is why he wants his beloved one to “handle [him] with
care” since he is weak and needs someone to take good care of him.11
Therefore, the use of the phrase handle with care implies that the entity
which comes after the phrase is vulnerable.

Another point to mention here is that the verb handle is a material

action intention. This means that the Actor of the action should be careful
when using his/her hands to pick up or move the Theme (i.e. women and
glass). However, this action may be just a metaphor that implies women are
as sensitive as glass. This metaphor is created due to the existence of handle
with care as well as the word glass in the proverb. In other words, together,
these two forms make a co-text in which such a metaphor is valid. Yet,
equating women with glass might have other possible implicatures such as
1. when glass is broken, it is likely to be irreparable. 2. treating women
badly might prompt them to lose their chastity.

11
You can check out the song at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o4s1KVJaVA

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 Distrusting women does not stop there, but it includes even matters
like not to confide in them. The notion of not confiding in women is not
uncommon in English proverbs. In fact, there are many proverbs which put
emphasis on this notion. That is, they tell people to treat women as
adversaries rather than partners. For this reason, a proverb about this matter
is provided below Kerschen’s (1998):

“He knows a little who tells his wife all he knows.” (p. 20)

This proverb may look simple and clear, but its producer has probably
made sure to craft it stylistically so that his/her message passes to others
clearly and successfully.

To begin with, the first part of the proverb, which is placed before the
relative clause, can stand by its own as a complete sentence. That is, it has
subject (he) + predicator (knows) + object (a little). These three elements
contain some interesting details; however, they become even clearer with the
help of the rest of the proverb (i.e. the relative clause), which modifies what
kind of man is being discussed. To clarify this, look at the clause he knows a
little; this clause has the deictic expression he as its grammatical subject.
This deictic expression is followed by a mental cognition process (knows).
For this reason, the thematic role of the grammatical subject he would be
Senser (i.e. someone who should use his mental power to understand
something).

Now, as the clause has its Senser and process, it still needs a
Phenomenon. In the case of the clause, it is the pronoun a little is to be
considered the Phenomenon. Thus, it is clear that this clause presupposes
that men are ignorant and meek. But this proposition can be debated and

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debunked if there is not another proposition to get all the attention.
Therefore, a relative clause is attached to the main clause to post-modify the
kind of man that is being talked about. This is why the clause is followed by
a relative clause.

This relative clause starts with the relative pronoun who to refer back
to the Senser. Then, there is the verb tell which is inherently a verbalization
process appears. After that, the verb is followed by his wife that, in this case,
would be called the Target of the verbalization process; and the Verbiage
(i.e. all he knows) is placed at the end of the clause. The Verbiage may refer
to a man’s knowledge, secrets, his fortune, or all what has been mentioned
in this list; determining which point to choose would depend on the context
in which the proverb is used.

By analyzing the stylistic techniques utilized in this proverb, it

appears that the proverb as a whole implies that women are not to be trusted.
And if a man confides in them, he will not be considered wise enough to
understand how cunning they are.

The last proverb to be tackled in this theme (Treating Women) has

almost a similar proposition to the ones analyzed above. However, different
metaphors are used in order to convey a slightly different message. This
proverb also places emphasis on the importance of treating women carefully
because they might turn against their husbands without any prior warning.
The proverb has been taken from Phillips (2012):

“If you make your wife an ass, she will make you an ox.” (p. 166)

This proverb makes use of a conditional structure to hypothesize

about what will happen if a man treats his wife in a particular way. That is, it
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uses the structure of conditional sentences type 1 (i.e. if + present simple,
will) to say that this action is likely to occur. Also, the structure of the
proverb bears two paralleled structures which may be constructed to
reinforce the proposition of the proverb.

When it comes to the first clause, which is the if-clause, it seems to

have grammatical elements similar to the ones in the main clause. However,
they have different deictic expressions (Actors and Themes) as well as
different metaphors (ass and ox). Yet, they both have the same predicator
(make). This predicator may be considered a material action intention. Here,
the verb make does not refer to a building/creating process. In fact, it refers
to a change-of-state process. That is, it expresses a transitional opposition
(i.e. contrasting) from one state to another. And this ability to turn someone
into something/someone else is given to both the husband and his wife.

Both if-clause and main clause end with a compulsory element. These
two elements are needed to complete the meaning of the verb make.
Therefore, the last two compulsory elements (an ass and an ox) might be
intended to stand out. In other words, they are prioritized in order to say that
they bear the main idea/message of the proverb.

To interpret these two metaphors successfully (i.e. an ass and an ox),

there should be something to say about these two animals. To start with, the
producer of the proverb has chosen to name/describe the wife as an ass (i.e.
donkey) since people usually associate this animal with stupid individuals.
On the other hand, this stupid wife can turn her husband into an ox; oxen are
known to be draught animals (i.e. they pull heavy loads): they are trained to

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work on farms just like water buffaloes and mules12. Unlike oxen and other
similar draught animals, donkeys make decisions; and if they feel unsafe,
they would not do their task13. Also, they usually suffer in silence to the
extent people do not realize that they are sick. Thus, it would be plausible to
say that this way of naming implies that if a husband takes his wife for
granted, she might turn against him without any prior warning.

4.1.4 Women’s Nature

In the previous theme, some proverbs which are related to treating women
have been tackled. The overall message of these proverbs is that women are
cunning and that they should be treated based on this fact. But what makes
the producers of these proverbs believe that women are not trustworthy?
This question can be answered by looking at some other proverbs which
revolve around women’s nature. Thus, the present part will concentrate on
proverbs centered on this topic. To begin with, below is the first proverb in
this category Litovkina (2019):

“Any woman can keep a secret, but she generally needs one other woman to
help her.” (p. 6)

This proverb has two independent clauses. These clauses are linked by the
coordinate conjunction but. As a coordinate conjunction, its function is to
connect two opposite ideas. In other words, it creates a contrast. However,
in the context of this proverb, but is used to be more like a way to negate the
first clause. That is, it is used to say that the first clause is not true. This is
because clause in which it exists completely contradicts the first clause.
12
Watch real videos about oxen at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y00wexMse5o and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLeF6XMlvnc&t=77s
13
Watch a real video about donkeys’ qualities at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3BjzsG5UZ0&t=1s

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 To clarify this opposition/negating further, the content of the two
clauses should be analyzed. To start with, the first clause begins with the
grammatical subject (Any woman). Then, it is followed by the modal verb
(can) which expresses ability. As for the main verb (keep), it is used in a
sense of not exposing a fact, which is the grammatical object (a secret).
Thus, the proposition of the first clause asserts that women have the ability
to not expose what you have told me. In other words, they are trustworthy.

On the other hand, the second clause which starts with the coordinate
conjunction but ironically negates what has just been stated in the first
clause. Put differently, it refers back to the same woman, who is mentioned
in the first clause, by saying she needs another woman to share the secret
with. And using the verb needs here expresses women’s pressing necessity
to share secrets with other women. As if they have this trait by nature, just
like babies who need constant attention and care from their parents to
survive.

Having analyzed the content and structure of the proverb, it would be

possible to say that the proverb’s implicatures have come to the surface: the
proverb implies that 1. women are unreliable by nature. 2. for this reason,
they shouldn’t be confided in.

The proverb analyzed above is not the only one to talk about women’s
nature. In fact, there are many other proverbs that seem to attack women in
terms of their qualities. But to avoid repetition, the rest of the proverbs will
be about different topics which are related to women’s characteristics.
Therefore, the second proverb in this theme will be about the materialistic
aspect, which the proverb below claims that women have, Litovkina (2019):

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“When money talks, women don’t miss a word.” (p. 83)

The present proverb starts with the subordinate conjunction when to set the
context in which women don’t miss a word. The use of this conjunction is
considered a naming technique, which modifies what comes after it.

This very conjunction is followed by the subject of the clause (money)

and then its predicator (talks). It is because the word money, which is the
Actor, refers to an inanimate entity, the verb talks should be classified as a
material action event. That is, it is an event which takes place rather than an
action done by an animate entity (e.g. a person). In sum, the subordinate
clause when money talks is used to modify the main clause as well as create
a context in which money prevails over women in the situation.

As far as the syntactic structure of the main clause is concerned, there

are three main constituents: subject + verb + object. However, when it
comes to the roles of these elements, they would be labeled differently based
on what they do. First of all, there is the subject of the clause. It is clear that
the subject is women , but its thematic role would be Senser since the action
(don’t miss) would be classified as mental perception (i.e. it has to do with
how animate entities perceive the things around them). What is more, the
object (a word) is to be considered Phenomenon for it is not a physical
object. In other words, the semantic content and syntactic configuration of
the clause makes it obvious that the state of affairs mentioned in the clause is
mental rather than physical.

Based on what has been above, it can be said that this proverb implies
and stresses two notions: 1. women are materialistic by nature and that is

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why they cannot resist money. 2. if you are rich, you can have power over
women and influence them.

The proverb which has been dealt with above emphasizes that women
are materialistic and opportunistic at the same time. In the same fashion, the
third proverb, underneath, devalues women’s judgment; that is, it looks at
another aspect which is claimed to be found in women, especially young
ones, Phillips (2012):

“A maiden with many wooers often chooses the worst.” (p. 100)

This proverb almost has the structure of a typical and simple English
sentence. Yet, it has some linguistic additions that modify the main
elements; and without them, a different proposition would be come to the
surface.

To begin with, the first element in the proverb is the subject/Actor (a

maiden). This entity is not vague and general. In fact, it is post-modified by a
prepositional phrase (with many wooers), which is a naming strategy. Thus,
the reader/hearer would know that the proverb talks about a
young/unmarried woman.

Another point to mention about this proverb is the selection of the

adverb of frequency (often). This sounds like the producer is not completely
sure about his/her argument. For this reason, s/he hasn’t used always. Maybe
it is because s/he knows that there are usually exceptions to everything; this
is why s/he just hypothesizes about a world in which the action mentioned in
the proverb occurs.

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 With regards to the predictor (chooses), a material action intention is
used to express the physical and mental ability of the Actor to do the action
of choosing the worst man. The predicator is followed by its object/Theme.
This entity (the worst) would be considered the Theme since it is affected by
the action of the Actor. Grammatically/semantically speaking, this might
sound simple. Yet, the use of the worst is not clear. It is not modified by a
phrase/adjective. Therefore, it is vague and objective to the extent that the
recipients of the proverb would not be able to know the exact qualities being
talked about. This vagueness may be intended to create an implicature that is
centered on the lack of young women’s wisdom. In other words, the proverb
tries to say that women are not bright enough to choose for themselves.

Like the proverb above, there are other proverbs which stress
women’s shallow outlooks on life. Moreover, such proverbs usually state
their intended messages explicitly. That is, they manifest hostile sexism. To
clarify this, consider the one below, Schipper (2004):

“Women are wacky, women are vain, they’d rather be pretty than have a
brain.”(p. 79)

This proverb consists of three parts: the first two parts have copulas
and the last one has a structure that is usually used to express preference.
But what does this mean? To answer this question, new paragraphs should
be written down.

To start with, the first clause contains subject + copula + complement.

That is, the subject (women) is the Carrier of the Attribute found in the
complement. These two elements are linked by an intensive verb (are). It is
known that this kind of verb (to be) is used when a text producer wants to

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describe a stable relationship between the Carrier and its Attribute. As a
result, the relationship between being a woman and the quality of being
wacky is represented as a fixed and factual thing.

Like the first clause, the second one is constructed based on the same
pattern (i.e. subject + copula + complement). However, the word used to
describe women is different: they are described as vain. Thus, using an
intensive verb as well as adjectives like wacky and vain explicitly
emphasizes that women are strange and superficial by nature.

Finally, proverb ends with the structure would rather + base verb than
+ base verb. In general, this structure is used to express preference. But this
kind of preference does not appear to exist without something which is less
important to the subject of the verb. In other words, the third part of the
proverb claims that women would generally choose being beautiful over
being clever. Additionally, its structure bears a contrast between two
different states. This contrast seems to create opposition similar to the one of
complementary antonyms; this type of antonyms is known to express a
simple linguistic/logical equation: if you are not X, you are Y. In other
words, the use of the structure aforementioned implies that if a woman
chooses to be pretty, this means she is empty-headed.

Having finished analyzing the proverb above, it is time to move on to

the last proverb in this theme. This one is also centered on women’s nature,
but it provides more details about women’s behavior than the previous
proverbs do. The proverb below can be found in Kerschen’s (1998):

“Women are saints in church, angels in the street, devils in the kitchen, and
apes in bed.” (p. 183)

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This proverb has got a lot of details. Yet, a quick look at its syntax will end
up in finding out that it has the following structure: subject + copula +
complement. Within the complement part, there are four nouns each of
which is followed by a prepositional phrase to as a post-modifier.

To clarify what has just been mentioned above, a step-by-step critical

stylistic analysis will be carried out. To begin with, the subject of the whole
proverb is women. It is considered a Carrier, not an Actor, because it is
followed by an intensive verb (i.e. to be). This proverb, as it has been
mentioned earlier, expresses a stable relational process between the Carrier
and its Attribute. In the case of this proverb, the Attribute is everything after
the verb (are).

As the Carrier and its verb have been dealt with, the complement part
will be analyzed. First, women are described as saints. However, according
to the proverb, the trait of being respected and holy is not around all the
time. It can only be seen when women go to church. How can one tell? The
answer to this question lies in the prepositional phrase that comes after the
word saints to post-modify it.

After being described as saints, women are labeled angles. This

sounds pleasant. Yet, the same pattern appears again, and thus, the word
angles is post-modified by the propositional phrase in the street to limit the
quality of being beautiful and innocent to a specific context.

The list goes on, now women are viewed as devils when they are in
the kitchen. Like the previous two linguistic items in the list, this one
follows the same pattern: noun + prepositional phrase. Nevertheless, the use
of the word devils is a metaphor which contradicts what has just been said

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about women (i.e. being saints and angles). In the case of this phrase at
hand, being devils in the kitchen may refer to a world in which women are
excellent cooks, cooks who put some drops of deadly poison in their
husbands’ food, etc.: it depends on the context.

The last item in the list is and apes in bed. In this one, women are
labeled apes when they are in bed. In other words, they become wild and
lose the qualities of saints and angles when they make love. Interpreting this
is quite easy since the label apes is followed by the post-modifier in bed.

To sum up, naming is utilized here to make metaphors (like saints and
devils) which in turn create implicatures. These implicatures, with the help
of the prepositional phrase as modifiers, explain the behavior of women and
what men should expect to see when dealing with them. Also, the notion of
contrasting is employed by choosing words like saints versus devils and
angles versus apes. These contrasting qualities imply that women’s nature is
similar to the four seasons: sometimes, they constantly change from being
cold, calm and beautiful to being hot and frantic. Moreover, all these details
are arranged in a list which seems to be an enumerating tool for it is
presented in a way similar to a complete list of the four seasons. What more,
enumerating itself suggests a complete list, and thus, the list found in the
proverb implies that women are trapped inside their nature which make them
useless outside of the circle of doing religious ceremonies, caring about how
people view their appearance, cooking, and making love.

4.1.5 Wives

In the previous theme, a good deal of analysis has been conducted in order to
probe into how women’s nature is perceived in English proverbs. As it has

95
been established, those proverbs give advice on how women should be
treated based on their natural behavior. Perhaps such proverbs have
contributed to creating stereotypes which assert that women are flighty,
unreliable and untrustworthy. As a result, it is noticeable that when it comes
to choosing a wife, there are a great number of proverbs that warn men to
carefully pick wives. To exemplify this, consider the following proverb from
Litovkina (2019):

“Choose a wife rather by your ear than your eye.” (p. 9)

This rather short proverb has the structure of an imperative sentence.

That is, it starts with a verb. However, the proverb is not necessarily a
command. Depending on the context in which it occurs, it can be just a
suggestion or a warning. In addition, the predicator choose, which makes the
proverb looks like an imperative sentence, can be a material action intention
or a mental cognition. This can be determined by the intention of the proverb
producer whether it is an action that men take or an idea they should bear in
mind.

Moving toward the part which has the object of the verb choose, a
wife can be labeled the Theme/Goal of the action or the Phenomenon of the
cognitive process. Either ways, it is still the entity on which the action is
performed.

Then, the preferable way in which a wife should be chosen is

represented by using the structure rather … than …. Put differently, the
word rather is followed by a prepositional phrase (by your ear) to imply that
a woman’s reputation is imperative; it may also imply that it is important to
choose a wife who is kind and does not nag at her husband day and night.

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After that, the less preferred method of choosing a wife is introduced: [by]
your eye. This subjectively refers to the idea of not going after women’s
appearance, especially if they are disreputable. To sum up, it is clear that the
producer of the proverb intended to make two contrasting ways of choosing
a wife; s/he has done so by utilizing a contrasting syntactic trigger called
replacive opposition in which a text producer chooses one option over
another based on his/her preference. This type of opposition can be achieved
through patterns such as X instead of Y, rather X than Y, etc.

Choosing a good wife does not seem to be the end of the story. In fact,
some proverbs are centered on degrading women after they get married.
There are many English proverbs of this type. However, there is not much
room to tackle all of them plus some of them are just variations of the same
proverb. For this reason, only four more proverbs will be introduced and
analyzed throughout the rest of this theme. To start with, consider the
following proverb from Kerschen’s (1998):

“A wife is seen with pleasure only at the wedding and in the winding sheet.”
(p. 20)

At first glance, the phrase A wife looks like it is the subject of the
sentence for it is the first form. That is, it is placed in the grammatical
position of a typical subject, but it is not so because the verb of the sentence
is in the passive form. This means that this entity (A wife) is given the
quality of being prioritized. In other words, it is the focal element of the
proverb.

As far as the verbal element is concerned, it is noticeable that the verb

phrase (is seen) is in the passive form. As a result, the Senser is absent: it

97
could be anyone, though. Yet, if the notion of opposition is to be employed
here, it would be valid to say that the Senser of the verbal element is the
wife’s husband. This is because the antonym of wife is husband; where there
is a wife, there has to be a husband. It is also worth mentioning that the
absent doer of the verb is labeled Senser here since the predicator (is seen)
falls into the category of the mental perception processes (e.g. hear, feel, and
so on). Put differently, the proverb is centered on a mental process that the
Senser, who is likely to be the husband, experiences.

With regards to the verbal element, the last point to touch on is the
prepositional phrase with pleasure which post-modifies the predicator. This
phrase tells the reader/hearer how the (absent) Senser feels. Also, because
this very phrase is a modifying device, it would fall into the naming.

The rest of the proverb explains when seeing a wife with pleasure
happens. Basically, it works as an adverb that modifies that entire process.
To clarify this, further details should be provided. To begin with, there is the
adverb only which is used to limit the situations in which seeing a wife
gladly occurs. These situations are two: at the wedding and in the winding
sheet. Notice that the first situation is an event. That is, it is not when she is
in her wedding dress. This may imply that the man is not happy because he
is getting married to her, but it is the beauty of the event and the attention he
gets out of it are what make him happy. The second phrase is in the winding
sheet, and this one implies that the view of a dead wife fills the husband with
joy. Thus, the overall implicature is that wives are a burden on their
husbands.

98
 English proverbs believe they can justify why a wife is a heavy
burden. They claim that wives are untrustworthy and scolding and warn men
that they should bear this notion in mind when dealing with their wives. For
example, the proverb below places emphasis on the importance of not
trusting a wife Kerschen’s (1998):

“Give your wife the short knife, keep the long one yourself.” (p. 20)

The overall syntactic structure of this proverb displays parallelism. It

has two paralleled clauses which both have the following configuration:
predicator + indirect object + direct object. However, the semantic content
of these two paralleled structures makes them propose two different
propositions.

The first clause starts with the verb give which is considered a
material action intention. Nevertheless, using the phrase the short knife in
the context of the proverb may make the verb give just a metaphor. That is,
the proverb does not talk about a real knife, and thus, the verb give would be
a mental cognition which is similar to saying realizing the danger of doing
something. What is more, the proverb makes use of naming when it comes
to the (metaphorical) object that should be given to a wife. Put differently,
the word knife is employed here because it is a sharp tool that can kill or hurt
someone very badly. So, using it implies that if you do not want to be
physically or mentally hurt, avoid trusting your wife.

On the other hand, the second clause bears a contrasting idea. In other
words, the phrase long knife is opposed to the one in the first clause (short
knife). Moreover, even the verbal element of the second clause expresses a
different process from the verb give does. That is, the verb keep may also be

99
a metaphor, but it implies that the husband already has power over his
wife/household, and thus, he should not hand it over to his wife. This power
is represented by using the phrase the long one, which refers to a big knife.

The emphasis placed on wives’ flightiness is great. Some proverbs are

centered on this matter to the extent that having a loyal, and preferably old,
wife is portrayed as an essential support that a man needs to go throughout
his life happily. However, loyal wives alongside other (materialistic) things
are lumped together in a way which devalues women. To exemplify this
point, consider the following example from Schipper (2006):

“There are three faithful friends – an old wife, an old dog, and ready
money.” (p. 152)

The proverb above utilizes the notion of enumerating to give its

reader/hear three reliable sources of support. That is, it has a typical
structure of a list: a clause which has the head noun friends followed by an
em dash to introduce the three-part list.

First of all, looking at these three friends will surely end up in

noticing that these friends are pre-modified by the adjective faithful. Being
pre-modified is a good way to narrow down the topic being discussed, which
is technically about good and unchanging friends.

Then, when moving to the list itself, it is noticeable that the first part
is an old wife. This entity is also pre-modified by an adjective (old), and this
limits the inference that the recipient of the proverb would make. That is,
s/he is not likely to think of a beautiful young lady. Moreover, using the
adjective old to modify wife implies that a long-term wife is what a man

100
needs to feel supported and cared for. This is because old wives – who
happen to be mothers – are usually sincere and ready to listen to you.

The analysis above sounds kind and respectful to women; however,

the second item (an old dog) may have a bad connotation – an insult. This is
not always easy to judge for it depends on the speaker’s intention as well as
how the word dog triggers the background knowledge of the recipient.
Furthermore, this part (an old dog) is equated with the first one (an old wife)
in terms of the similar structure of the two phrases and the pre-modifier
(old). Perhaps this is intended to create an implicatue that stresses the
importance of having a long-term companion.

The last part of the list is ready money. In this phrase, the word ready
can be used as a collocation of money to refer to money which is “available
to be spent”14. Thus, there is not much to say about structure of the phrase.
Nevertheless, when this phrase is touched on in the context of the proverb, it
is clear that having money (which is a materialistic thing) is equated with
having a good wife. In other words, the wording of the proverb reveals what
the text producer views as equal. In the case of this proverb, women are
perceived to be equal to dogs and money.

The last proverb to be tackled in this theme is about what wives are
thought to be like and hate. Note that the proposition of this proverb is found
in some proverbs, but with different wording. Thus, analyzing the one below
will be a good shortcut to other variations:

“The wife who loves the looking glass, hates the saucepan”

(Kerschen, 1998, p. 20)

14
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ready?q=ready+

101
 What makes this proverb worth the attention is that it concisely
expresses a proposition found in a myriad of English proverbs. Also, its
clear structure is built upon opposition. This opposition is triggered by the
use of antonyms: love and hate as well as the looking glass and the saucepan
— which happen to be opposites in the context of the proverb. To clarify this
further, the two paragraphs below are provided.

To start with, the grammatical subject of the proverb is The wife; and
because the verbs loves and hates belong to a category of processes called
mental reactions, the grammatical subject will be labeled the Senser. This
Senser is followed by the relative pronoun who — which is basically a
naming device used to provide more information about the Senser.

The content of the relative clause is made of two verbs: loves and
hates. These predicators are followed by two noun phrase: the looking glass
and saucepan respectively. Choosing these words implies that there is a
world in which if a wife is the first type (i.e. she cares about her
appearance), then she cannot be a good housewife. On the other side of this
world, if a wife likes cooking and caring for her household, she will be
respected and appreciated. In other words, the proverb at hand claims that if
a woman is not X then she is definitely Y.

4.2 Results

In this part, the frequency of the model’s tools will be discussed briefly —
and at the end of it, a table is provided to summarize what will be said
below. Another point to touch on before tackling the tools and some figures

102
is that the model’s tools will be dealt with based on their overall frequency,
not their frequency within each proverb. In other words, if one of the
proverbs had two similar forms (e.g. two material action intentions), they
will count as one since there is no need for repetition.

First and foremost, the proverbs utilized the notion of implicatures

twenty-five (25) times; this number is the highest among other tools.
However, it was noticeable that those implicatures did not come to surface
on their own: the co-texts of the proverbs and the conventional meanings of
the linguistic items, used in the proverbs, were a major factor in creating
implicatures. For instance, by employing ND twenty-three (23) times, those
implicatures were triggered.

Another prominent stylistic device, which was spotted in the proverbs,

was contrasting. It was utilized fourteen (14) times in the data to create a
contrast between good and bad women. Moreover, this tool pointed out a
host of universal and gender-related tasks which should be done based on
someone’s sex. On the other hand, equivalence was exploited less. This
device — which appeared twelve (12) times — helped equating women with
many different entities (e.g. animals, trees, objects).

In regard to the verbal elements, the most common type of verbs was
the material action intention — the proverbs used this type eight (8) times.
Usually, it was men who performed this kind of action; however, women
were also assigned this type. So, it did not matter who performed this
process: the most important thing was how this type of verbs was used
within the contexts of the proverbs themselves.

103
 Unlike material action intentions, verbs like the copula and mental
cognition were not very frequent. Each one of them appeared only five (5)
times. Finally, categories such as mental action event, verbalization process
and mental perception were employed the least: twice (2), once (1), once (1)
respectively. The last point to mention about the predicators of the proverbs
is that some of them, as it has been said previously, could belong to different
categories. This is because the context in which they occurred might affect
their processes (i.e. whether they were physical, mental, etc.).

Apart from the verbal elements, enumerating was also noticed to be

utilized three (3) times so as to create lists in which women are trapped.
What is more, prioritizing appeared five (5) times to shed light on certain
aspects, which were favorable in the proverbs. Furthermore, the proverbs
employed hypothesizing four (4) times in order to make predications and
suggest plans for the future.

Finally, Notions such as deixis, presupposition as well as negating

were not very common in the proverbs since they were exploited twice (2),
once (1), once (1) respectively.

No. Tool Frequency

1 Implicature 25
2 ND 23

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3 Contrasting 14
4 Equivalence 12
5 Material action intention 8
6 Mental cognition 5
7 Other verbal categories 4
8 Enumerating 3
9 Prioritizing 5
10 Hypothesizing 4
11 Others 4
Table No. 6 / Frequency of Tools

CHPTER FIVE

105
 CONCLUSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND
SUGGESTIONS
5.0 Overview

The chapter at hand centers on the results which have been obtained based
on analyzing twenty-five English WRPs using the toolkit of CS. Also, it
provides the reader with some conclusions which will help him/her reflect
on the thesis and its implications for the literature in general. More
importantly, this chapter will attempt to verify the hypotheses suggested at
the beginning of this thesis. After providing the conclusions, some
recommendations — along with suggestions — will be made in order to
pave the way for more similar studies.

5.1 Conclusions

This thesis has set out to unearth how English proverbs degrade women via
employing a variety of stylistic techniques. Based on the qualitative as well
as quantitative analysis conducted, it is valid to conclude that English WRPs
are sexist; this can be noticed in how the analyzed proverbs are structured
stylistically. In addition, note that being sexist does not only mean these
proverbs are hostile towards women, but they might be benevolent. That is,
some of them do not criticize women explicitly. In fact, they sound fair in
terms of allocating social roles to men and women. To clarify this, the
following list sums up what the proverbs try to convey:

 Women and animals should be treated equally for they serve similar
purposes.
 Women are valued as long as they are young.

106
  Unlike women, men should be respected based on how ambitious they
are.
 Women are sex objects.
 Men should build while women come in second in the process of
building.
 If a woman is interested in her appearance and going to social events,
she does not make a good wife.
 An old man is not to trust his young wife.
 Women are expected to be polite, hardworking, and good at sex at the
same time.
 Unless husbands treat their wives badly, they will not be able to
control them.
 If a woman does something bad only once, do not trust her anymore.
 Women are fragile as glass, so do not test their reliability.
 Men must not tell their wives everything.
 Women are not able to keep a secret.
 Women are materialistic.
 Women cannot make right decisions.
 Women prefer being beautiful to having deep outlooks on life.
 Women’s reputation should outweigh their appearance.
 A wife is a burden and cannot be removed until she is dead.
 Wives might have ulterior motives, thus, they are not to be trusted.
 Old wives are more faithful than young ones.

The points mentioned above are obvious evidence that English WRPS are
sexist. This indicates that sexism is deep-seated in English world as they

107
produce and reproduce proverbs which share the same propositions. This
sexism has been uncovered by adopted CS which proved to be effective in
detecting sexist language in proverbs. However, during the analysis process
some unexpected questions have appeared such as whether the proverbs
oppress not only women but also men. In other words, although this study
illustrates that English proverbs degrade women, it raises the question of
whether they are against men at the same time.

5.2 Recommendations

The following points are recommended to be implemented:

 EFL teachers should consider using English WRPs in their classrooms

as they reflect how English-speaking countries perceive women.
 EFL teachers can make use of English WRPs to teach their students
English since many proverbs are structured in a straightforward way
which in turn makes them easy to memorize.
 Public speakers and writers who are interested in sexism and equality
can employ the English WRPs for they can affect readers/listeners. As
a result, they can convey their thoughts more easily.

5.3 Suggestions for Further Research

Researchers and students of linguistics who are interested in sexism and

language can carry out studies similar this one. While doing so, they
should bear in mind that sexist language is not limited to oppressing only
women. In fact, there are myriads of misandrists in the world whose
language is worth analyzing based on critical models such as CS and
CDA. To clarify, consider the following topics:

108
 Conducting a critical stylistic study regarding English women-and-
men-related proverbs.
 Carrying out a contrastive stylistic study of English and Arabic
proverbs about women.
 Conducting a CDA study on gender roles which are stressed in
English proverbs about women and men.

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 Appendix

Women-Related Proverbs

1. A blind man’s wife needs no paint.

2. A good wife is a perfect lady in the living room, a good cook in the
kitchen, and a whore in bed.
3. A maiden with many wooers often chooses the worst.
4. A man is as old as he feels, and a woman is as old as she looks.
5. A man without ambition is like a woman without looks.
6. A prudent woman studies the comfort of her husband and house;
whereas a scold and spendthrift thinks of parties and fashions.
7. A wife is a young man’s slave and an old man’s darling.
8. A wife is seen with pleasure only at the wedding and in the winding
sheet.
9. A woman, a dog, and a walnut, the more you beat them the better they
be.
10.Any woman can keep a secret, but she generally needs one other
woman to help her.
11.Children suck the mother when they are young and the father when
they are old.
12.Choose a wife rather by your ear than your eye.
13.Dirty water will quench fire.
14.Frailty thy name is woman. (mentioned in chapter two)
15.Give your wife the short knife, keep the long one yourself.
16.Handle with care women and glass.
17.He knows a little who tells his wife all he knows.

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18.If you make your wife an ass, she will make you an ox.
19.Men make houses, women make homes.
20.Never pick women or horses by candlelight.
21.The wife who loves the looking glass, hates the saucepan.
22.There are three faithful friends – an old wife, an old dog, and ready
money.
23.Trust your dog to the end, and a woman to the first opportunity.
24.When money talks, women don’t miss a word.
25.Women are saints in church, angels in the street, devils in the kitchen,
and apes in bed.
26.Women are wacky, women are vain, they’d rather be pretty than have
a brain.

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 ‫المستخلص‬

‫اثارت االمثال اهتمام وفضول العديد من العلماء حول العالم‪ .‬ويكمن السبب وراء هذا االهتمام هو‬
‫االعتقاد بان االمثال تكشف لنا الطريقة التي تنظر فيها الشعوب من مختلف الثقافات الى الحياة‪ .‬أن هذا‬
‫المعتقد هو السبب األول التي دفع الباحث الى االنطالق في رحلة بحث و تقصي عن نظرة العالم‬
‫الغربي للمرأة‪ ،‬وبالتأكيد أن هذا سوف يتم عن طريق تحليل مجموعة من االمثال االنكليزية‪ .‬باالضافة‬
‫الى السبب المذكور آنًفا‪ ،‬فأن ندرة وجود تحليل اسلوبي نقدي في الدراسات المتعلقة باالمثال‪ ،‬وخصوصا‬
‫تلك المتعلقة بالنساء والتحيز وفقا لجنس الفرد (النوع االجتماعي ) ‪ ،‬يعد سببا اخرا ألجراء هذه الدراسة‬
‫‪.‬‬

‫ومن أجل التعرف على صورة النساء من خالل االمثال االنكليزية ‪ ،‬تم االستعانة بتحليل دقيق لجعل‬
‫الدراسة الحالية أكثر موضوعية و للحصول على نتائج دقيقة‪ .‬وعليه تم اختيار "االسلوبية النقدية"‬
‫(كمنهج) لتحليل االمثال بناًء عليها‪ .‬ومن الجدير بالذكر تعد هذه الدراسة هي دراسة متعددة‬
‫التخصصات ‪ ،‬فهي تتناول "االسلوبية النقدية" و "الحركة النسوية" و "التحيز المتناقض " (والتي هي‬
‫نظرية ولدت من رحم علم النفس)‪ .‬و بناًء على المشار إليه سابًقا‪ ،‬سوف يتم تناول و تحليل ‪ 25‬مثال‬
‫متعلقا بالمرأة ‪.‬‬

‫يبدو أن عدد االمثال المذكور انًفا غير كاٍف الن عدد األمثال اإلنكليزية في ثقافة المجتمع األنكليزي‬
‫التعد وال تحصى‪ .‬لذا يجب ان نضع بعين االعتبار ان تحليل الخصائص اللغوية في مثل واحد واالهداف‬
‫االيدلوجية لهذه الخصائص قد يستغرق الكثير من الوقت ويتطلب مساحة كبيرة ‪ .‬وعلى العكس اغلب‬
‫الدراسة المتعلقة باألمثال‪ ،‬تهتم الدراسة الحالية بالتفاصيل االسلوبية وااليدلوجية لألمثال‪ .‬فهي دراسة‬
‫مركزة‪ .‬بمعنى انها ال تحلل خمسة عشر مثال في صفحة واحد كما فعلت العديد من الدراسات السابقة‪.‬‬

‫و بعد االنتهاء من تحليل االمثال تحليال وصفيا واحصائيا‪ ،‬توصل الباحث الى بعض االستنتاجات‬
‫المهمة والتي من بينها أن االمثال االنكليزية المتعلقة بالمرأة هي امثال تظهر عدائية للنساء‪ ,‬أي أن هذه‬
‫االمثال تفرض حدودا و قيودا اجتماعية حول المرأة وتطالبها بعدم تجاوز هذه الحدود‪ ،‬هذا باإلضافة‬
‫الى رسم بعض الحدود‪ ،‬حيث تضع هذه االمثال النساء في خانة الحيوانات واالشياء الغير حية‪ .‬ولكن يبدو‬
‫انه من الصعب التعرف على التحيز الجنسي في مثل هذه االمثال و خصوصا عند استعمالها في سياقات‬

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‫مختلفة‪ ،‬فهذه االمثال يمكن ان تكون سالح ذو حدين و من الممكن استعماله ضد النساء والرجال على‬
‫حدا سواء‪.‬‬

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