A Study Of Gender Ideology In Weblog Language Based On Attitude System

This research attempts to investigate male and female gender ideology hidden in weblog language in the Chinese socio-cultural context. Recent years have seen the emergence and popularity of weblog, which is a representative of computer-mediated communication, and weblog’s function of serving as a new platform of expressing opinions by bloggers. This brings forward the issue of gender ideology of male and female hidden in bloggers’ attitudes towards males and females when these bloggers make comments on certain hot topics.Based on this background, the present research is formed. Thirteen weblogs are collected and form a small corpus, two topics are chosen as the topics of the data, and as a result, the four public figures involved in these two topics are the subjects. Therefore, the corpus of this study consists of two parts: seven weblogs commenting on the divorce of Liu Xiang and Ge Tian and six weblogs commenting on Zhang Liangying’s proposal to Feng Ke.To reveal the gender ideology hidden in the attitudes manifested in weblog language, critical discourse analysis and appraisal theory are employed as the study perspective of this research and Fairclough’s three-dimensional model and Attitude System as its theoretical and analytical framework.The data analysis process is divided into three stages according to Fairclough’s three-dimensional model. In the first stage, namely the description dimension, the elements such as vocabulary in weblog language will be analyzed by applying attitude system to find out the differences in the manifestation of attitudes, such as what the different attitude resources manifested in weblog language are, whether they are positive or negative and the distribution of different attitude resources. In the second stage, namely the interpretation dimension, gender ideology of each gender reflected in the attitudes will be analyzed by applying attitude system. In the third stage, namely the explanation dimension, the underlying social-cultural determinants of the gender ideology will be investigated by applying the social construction theory.Correspondently, each stage of the data analysis is to answer a research question. The first stage is to find out the differences in the manifestation of attitudes in the weblog language towards Chinese male and female public figures. The second stage is to decode the gender ideology hidden in the different manifestation of attitudes in Chinese weblog language. The third stage is to expound the social-cultural determinants of this gender ideology.It is found that traditional gender ideology of male and both traditional and nontraditional gender ideology of female are hidden in the attitude manifested in weblog language. To be more precise, the traditional gender ideology of male is male being active pursuer in a relationship and family supporter in family life, the traditional gender ideology of female is female being gentle and quiet lady as a woman, reserved and passive receiver in a relationship and family career in family life, and the nontraditional gender ideology of female is female being brave pusher and female being confident and independent individual in a relationship.This gender ideology in Chinese weblog language are partly traditional and partly non-traditional. The traditional part of gender ideology reflects male being dominant over female and female being subordinate to male, and the non-traditional part of gender ideology reflect that women in contemporary Chinese society in some sense is independent of men.These facts are more likely to find their root from the fact that gender is a dynamic social structure in Chinese socio-cultural context according to social construction theory. On the one hand, the traditional part of gender ideology reflected in Chinese weblog language is the example of gender’s being a social structure and subject to the traditions of Chinese society. In traditional Chinese culture, the basic view is that men are superior than women, reflected in the agreed social norms that a woman should obey to the three obediences and the four virtues, and a woman should be an unaccomplished woman to be a virtuous woman, and this view has not been changed very much till nowadays. On the other hand, the non-traditional part of gender ideology reflected in Chinese weblog language is the example of gender not being static but dynamic and changing with social changes. Social changes in China, such as more and more women begin to become financially independent by having their own career, brings the changes of gender ideology in contemporary China, such as women are becoming confident and independent.The findings on the one hand reveal the still existing gender bias descended from “old China”, namely the ancient and traditional China, and on the other hand reveal the new gender roles of women in “new China”, namely the modern and contemporary China. Women in Chinese society need to continue their efforts to counter traditional gender bias.