Critical Discourse Analysis Of Gender Stereotypes In Chinese Magazine Advertisements

There are gender stereotypes embodied in advertisements. Ads reflect gender stereotypes and reinforce them and their influences on the audiences. The audiences, by watching the ads, gradually form their perceptions of gender which are highly stereotyped.Up to now, most studies on gender stereotypes in ads both at home and abroad are conducted on the basis of content analysis with few having gender stereotypes embodied in advertising language analyzed from a critical view. Aiming at exploring the ideology in language in the service of power, CDA approach can serve as an effective tool for the examinations of gender stereotypes-a kind of sexist ideology-projected in ads. What's more, most studies on gender stereotypes in ads address TV commercials with few involving magazine ads. Therefore, this thesis is designed to explore gender stereotypes embodied in Chinese magazine ads with Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach, in the hope of helping the audiences of both sexes to become aware of the ideology disguised in ads that manipulates them, to raise their consciousness to struggle with gender stereotypes and to free from the influences of the mass media and form their own independent opinions.In the analysis, clause is the basic unit and fairclough's three-dimensional framework is adopted. The analytical focuses are located at transitivity system in ideational function and mood and modality system in interpersonal function in the framework of Halliday's systemic-functional grammar (SFG).The descriptive analysis is carried out in three aspects, namely, transitivity system, imperative mood in mood system and two modality types (probability and obligation) of one modality form, namely, can-wish verbs in modality system. In terms of transitivity system, the data is analyzed in terms of the frequency and distribution of different process types with reference to the participants. In terms of mood and modality system, clauses of imperative mood and those with can-wish verbs in the two groups of ads are listed and compared in number and percentage.With the aid of statistics, the differences between linguistic features in men ads and those in women ads are found which reveal certain gender stereotypes in ads as follows:(1) Men are considered as objective and rational while women, subjective and emotional. Besides, men are active, energetic and powerful while women, passive, suppressed and objectified who easily get affected and influenced.(2) Men are vigorous, characteristic of initiative, activity and creativity. In contrast, women are not active in outer activities. They are typically capable of dealing with passive inner activities and mental experience, but lack in the competence in doing actions.(3) With confidence, independence and self-discipline, men are ready to take responsibility for their actions while women, with dependence in thoughts and actions, are fearful of responsibilities.The thesis consists of six parts:Chapter one defines the term "gender stereotypes" and talks about the aim and significance of the study.Chapter two reviews the previous studies on gender stereotypes in ads both at home and abroad with their limitations mentioned.Chapter three introduces the main CDA concepts and theories and discusses the relationship between CDA and systemic-functional linguistics (SFL).Chapter four is concerned with research methodology, including criteria for sample collection and main theories and analytical methods in transitivity system, mood system and modality system.Chapter five deals with the descriptive analysis of the data, which is mainly, carried out in three aspects, namely, transitivity system, imperative mood in mood system and can-wish verbs in modality system. Finally, results and findings are summarized.Chapter six summaries the main points of the study, talks about the limitations of the thesis and brings up suggestions for further studies.