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Feminist Critical Discourse Analyses: Michelle M. Lazar
Houndmills & New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2005.
Reviewed by Gerardo Del Guercio
Michelle M. Lazar’s latest study Feminist Critical Discourse Analyses: Gender, Power and Ideology in Discourse argues that CDA1 is a linguistic theory that can be applied globally in a variety of daily interactions. Compiling a series of essays from scholars specializing in various academic disciplines including not only herself but Erzsébet Barát, Concepción Gómez Esteban, Carlos A.M. Gouveia, Janet Holmes, Izabel Magalhães, Luisa Martín Rogo, Kathryn A. Remlinger, Mary Talbot, and Ruth Wodak, Lazar convincingly advocates that CDA is “[a] critical perspective on unique social arrangements sustained through language use, with goals of social transformations and emancipation” [1]. CDA is therefore the theory that postmodern feminists and linguistic academics are using to examine why a strict gender hierarchy still exists at the workplace, home, and public sphere. The gender hierarchy Lazar discusses is a complex social order that seemingly empowers women but that still actually sustains male supremacy. Michelle M. Lazar argues that men continually rule discourse because language is a male created mode of expression. CDA critiques whether “discourses which sustain a patriarchal social order: that is, relations of power that systematically privilege men as a social group” [5] are what transforms the status quo into a feminist prerogative of an equal social order wherein gender plays no factor in human relations or who we ultimately are. Janet Holmes’ essay “Power and Discourse at Work: Is Gender Relevant?” challenges the assertion that gender no longer plays a role at the workplace. Holmes defines power “as ‘a systematic characteristic’ a transformative non-static feature of interaction” [32]. By “non-static” Lazar suggests that the male figure in a conversation always remains the tenor because the workplace is traditionally a masculine domain and that male pronouns typically connote more power than do female ones. Holmes cites a variety of workplace interactions drawn on research conducted by the Wellington Language in the Workplace Project (LWP)2 that showed how gender remains relevant at the workplace. In “Interaction 1: Tom and Linda” excerpt 6, Linda asks Tom why she has not yet been promoted to acting manager as her supervisor promised her. Linda begins the conversation with Tom by stating “I’ve been overlooked quite a few times // but \ I wanted to find out specifically how what I could do … to help myself be considered next time” [40]. Tom, Linda’s superior by two levels, simply interrupts Linda several times with utterances like “mm” and “can I just grab the—just grab the phone / sorry about that.” Holmes’ excerpt demonstrates that despite Linda’s superior articulateness and persistence (qualities typically exemplified by the tenor), Tom still remains the tenor because he never directly addresses what Linda is saying and hence keeps Linda in quest of his attention. Another interesting essay in Michelle M. Lazar’s text is Ruth Wodak’s “Gender Mainstreaming and European Union: Interdisciplinarity, Gender Studies and CDA” because it examines how academics structure letters of recommendations to favor male over female applicants. In February 1994, Charles Lewis MD, Chief Department of Medical Pharmacology at Northsouthern School of Medicine, was asked to compose two letters of reference—one for a male applicant William Harvey and the other for female applicant Sarah Gray. What Wodak noticed was that Dr. Lewis used subordinate verb phrases such as “her training” [93], “her teaching,” and “her application” in Sarah Gray’s letter of reference, and more authoritative verb usage like “his skills,” “his research” and “his career” to describe William Harvey. Such a difference in verb usage connotes that male applicants are depicted as powerful “researchers and professionals” while women applicants are portrayed as helpful “students and teachers.” What Wodak found was that male applicants are described in much more professional ways than women because most academics still favor male candidates over female ones. Although equal hiring measures have been forced upon employers, subtle sexism such as qualified verb usage in letters of references ensure that female applicants remain subordinate to male ones. The sexism remains covert because both applicants are never allowed to view what their referee mentioned in their letter. Mary Talbot’s essay “Choosing to Refuse to be a Victim: ‘Power Feminism’ and the Intertextuality of Victimhood and Choice” states that the feminist assertion that “[m]ale violence against women has always been a key concern of feminism” [167] has been adopted by the National Rifle Association (NRA) whose slogans stress that women must bear firearms to protect themselves. The NRA’s approach is what Naomi Wolff terms ‘power feminism’ or the “[r]ejection of victim status” [172]. In 1993 the NRA commenced its “Refuse to be a Victim Campaign” by advertising a woman walking with her child terrified through an underground garage. What the NRA sought was to increase its membership and the number of citizens who believe that carrying firearms should be legal by encouraging women to bear arms in order to defend themselves against possible male aggressors. Mary Talbot advances the same point that Michelle M. Lazar does: that discourse, even in the NRA’s application, always carries a male imperative given that it promotes that aggression is the only way to defend oneself. What is particularly interesting about the NRA’s stance is that they never draw any correlation between intellect and feminism. Instead the NRA argues that firearms are the only way to empower women in a dangerous world. A Convincing and well-argued book, Michelle M. Lazar’s Feminist Critical Discourse Analyses: Gender, Power, and Ideology in Discourse strongly advances that language still belongs to men given that men are still given more authority in everyday social interactions because discourse is a male created mode of communication. Lazar’s choice to make her study two parts with the first section dealing with the subtleties of sexism and part two invested largely in social citizenship and discourse is an interesting juxtaposition because the reader can draw a correlation with covert sexism and identification with the events of their daily lives and better comprehend their role in society. Lazar study is a valuable contribution to feminists and linguistic studies for the reason that it applies CDA globally while other texts simply apply it regionally. What Lazar’s application of CDA suggests is that there is a common international interest in CDA that exists in disciplines including sociology, journalism, popular culture, politics, and gay and lesbian studies. Although each group has their own assessment of how CDA applies within their own context, each group tends to agree that discourse is the primary mode of communication that decides which group has power and which remains subaltern.
2. The Wellington Language in the Workplace Project was started by Wellington University in 1996 conducts research in spoken communication in New Zealand workplaces. The LWP studies communication between people at the workplace; analyzes possible causes of miscommunication and investigates its findings in possible applications in the workplace. It is composed of researchers including university professors, research assistants, and volunteers who analyze taped daily conversations of people interacting at the workplace. For more information regarding the LWP log on to www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/lwp. back
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