Sexism In News: A Critical Analysis Of News Reporting On The Electoral Victory Of Female And Male Leaders

This thesis is a critical analysis of news reporting on the electoral victory of female and male leaders in The Times in the UK and The New York Times in the US respectively. Adopting a contrastive and statistical study and based on the theories of Critical Discourse Analysis and Systemic Functional Linguistics, this thesis attempts to investigate how news discourse is manipulated under the construction of sexism against female leaders in terms of three aspects. Firstly, an analysis of different verb processes and participant functions employed to represent the female and male leaders by way of the transitivity system reveals that no matter in news headlines or news bodies, female leaders are depicted more subordinately and passively, while male leaders are portrayed more dominantly and actively. Secondly, an examination of classification of different vocatives used to identify both the female and male leaders in the news headlines and of classification of nouns and adjectives employed to refer to them in the news bodies shows that,compared with male leaders, female leaders'identity is lost and their sex or domestic life are much more highlighted than their political achievements. Thirdly, an exploration of different modes of speech reporting in the description of the female and male leaders exposes that in the news discourse, female leaders'speeches are more interfered and controlled, while male leaders'speeches are expressed more directly and manipulated less by the media.Findings from the above three aspects suggest that although female leaders have obtained the same political status as male leaders, there still exists sexism against them in language, which ultimately reflects the asymmetrical power relationship between women and men in the society as well as people's discrimination against women in the daily life. The study finally traces reasons for sexism in the news discourse from the perspectives of psychology, sociology, and sociolinguistics.