Document Type : Original Research
Author
Associate Professor, Department of Persian Language and Literature, Farhangian University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Feminist or feminine writing is widely recognized by linguists and literary critics, and examining feminine writing constitutes an important aspect of feminist literary criticism. In this study, the researcher seeks to find, examine and explain examples of female writing in a literary work. Based on this, with the aim of finding and explaining the examples of women’s writing, this article analyzes Sardar Maryam Bakhtiari’s memoirs using content analysis (descriptive-analytical approach). It was finally determined that at the level of tone and music, the tones are suitable for a variety of questions. The text features rhetorical, emotional, and occasionally instructive sentences. In the lexical layer, the author has reached a kind of lexical marking by bringing a variety of intensifying and reducing adverbs, curses, prayers, insults, and special words. At the syntactical level, the frequency of simple, short, and equivalent sentences (equal with punctuation marks) is high, and the author has used the element of formality and the closeness of written language to spoken language, and of course, in some places, syntactical tolerances, improper prepositions and delays, and grammatical errors can be seen. In terms of content, Sardar Maryam’s memoirs are clear examples of women’s writing, as she (as a woman) narrates her problems and troubles during her marriage, pregnancy, and so on, and challenges patriarchal culture
Statement of the Problem
The study of women's writing style or women's writing is one of the aspects of feminist criticism of literary works. In this study, the researcher, accepting that there are differences between women's writing and men's writing, seeks to find, study, and explain examples of those differences in a literary work. (Payandeh, 2019, Vol. 2: 100)
With the explanation that the category of women's language; that is, a language specific to women, is not real (Taheri, 2019: 87) because language in itself has no connection with gender (Futohi, 2012: 396) However, women's writing style or women's writing is a category that most linguists and critics have accepted and have written books and articles about it. Lakoff believes that women use more expressive linguistic forms (adjectives and adverbs) than men, and the frequency of euphemisms and politeness, indirect, ambiguous, emotional and questioning forms in their writings is high. (Lakoff, 1990: 204)
Regarding examples of feminine writing or stylistic features of women's writing, using the research of others and her own research, in the five layers of phonetic, lexical, syntactic, rhetorical and functional language, Futohi has listed features that are usually seen more in women's writings. (Futohi, 2012: 404-412) In this regard, the author intends to examine the feminine writing style in the memoirs of Sardar Maryam Bakhtiari in order to answer the following questions:
a) Can Sardar Maryam Bakhtiari's memoirs be considered one of the prominent examples of feminine writing style?
b) In the memoirs of Sardar Maryam Bakhtiari, at which level of language is feminine writing more prominent?
c) What are the examples of feminine writing in Sardar Maryam's memoirs?
Research Background
No research has been conducted on the stylistic or linguistic features of Sardar Maryam Bakhtiari's memoirs. Only one article has been written about her memoirs, titled "Critical Discourse Analysis of Sardar Maryam Bakhtiari's Memoirs." In this article, Abbasi and Khanipour, using Fairclough's critical discourse analysis theory, examined Sardar Maryam's memoirs and concluded that Bibi Maryam, as an opponent of traditional discourse, criticized patriarchal culture and challenged society's traditional view of women, and in her personal life, she herself tried to free herself from the clutches of purely gender roles and achieve a role equal to men. (Abbasi and Khanipour, 1401: 81-103) However, there are many articles about women's writing style or feminine writing in the works of other women. One of the articles that is most consistent with the author's article is the article "Women's Language Style in the Memoirs of Taj-ol-Saltaneh". This consistency is also due to the fact that Sardar Maryam Bakhtiari met Taj-ol-Saltaneh and spoke about this meeting in her memoirs (Maryam Bakhtiari, 1382: 174-175) and both of them had almost the same fate. In this article, Razavi and Salehinia have tried to show examples of feminine writing in the memoirs of Taj-ol-Saltaneh, the daughter of Nasser al-Din Shah. They have finally concluded that in Taj-ol-Saltaneh's memoirs, the frequency of features such as marked words, expressive forms, and intensifiers is high, and Taj-ol-Saltaneh paid attention to the simplicity of language and the proximity of written language to speech in her memoirs. (Razavi and Salehini, 2015: 65-90)
Research Method
The research method in this article is a type of text analysis with a descriptive-analytical approach. In this article, the author, with the help of theorists' theories and existing models, designed the following model to examine the female writing style and examined Sardar Maryam's memoirs based on this model at six levels:
1. Phonetic Level
Examination of tone (emotional: polite, shy, passive, excited, emotional); Examination of tone-forming factors: phonological processes and rough chain processes of writing such as emphasis, pause, and extension; Inner music: repetition and symmetry
2. Lexical level
Type of words: marked or unmarked (beautiful, mellow, pretty, hair, hair, arm, nail, embrace; to give birth, sweep, do makeup, pull hair, pull hair, make jealous); Frequency of first-person pronouns and self-reference; Frequency of intensifiers: adverbial clauses, adverbial clauses; Frequency of synonyms; Type of curses, swear words and adverbs
3. Syntactic level
Frequency of cognate sentences; Frequency of incomplete sentences; Frequency of sentences with the imperative mood (modality); Negligent grammatical structures; Proximity to spoken language
4. Rhetorical level
Textuality; Frequency of allusions, digressions and humor; Type of metaphors
5. Content and thought level
Writing about oneself and from one's own body: married life, pregnancy, miscarriage and illness, etc.; Describing one's man or husband; Expression of feminine behaviors: dressing up, crying, being jealous
6. Structural level
Chronic atrophy; cyclical structure
Conclusion
The study of feminine writing style or feminine writing is one of the aspects of feminist criticism of literary works. In this study, the researcher seeks to find, examine, and explain examples of feminine writing in a text written by women. With this perspective, in this article, with the aim of finding and explaining examples of feminine writing, the memoirs of Sardar Maryam Bakhtiari are examined and it is determined that at the level of tone and rhythm, she has created an emotional and gentle feminine tone with a variety of rhetorical questions, emotional sentences, and sometimes admonitions. At the lexical level, the author has achieved a kind of lexical marking by introducing various types of intensifying and reducing adverbs, such as "very", "to some extent" and curses, prayers, curses and special emphasis words. Of course, influenced by women's care for language, she has repeatedly used "is" instead of "is" and "appearance" instead of "did", etc. At the syntactic level, like most women, the frequency of simple, short, and coherent sentences in her memoirs is high; especially sentences that are connected with punctuation marks (periods and semicolons, etc.) instead of conjunctions. At this same level, the author uses the element The mood; that is, the emotional sentences used with verbs with the imperative mood, and his writing is a clear example of a writing in which the written language is close to the spoken language; of course, in some places it also suffers from some syntactic tolerances, incorrect prepositions and delays, and grammatical errors, and for example, it has left a gap between the components of a compound verb or used the verbs incompletely or made compound sentences that do not comply with the principles of grammar. In the content layer, the memoirs of Sardar Maryam are a clear example of a feminine writing, because in it she is repeatedly spoken of as a woman, her problems and troubles during her marriage, pregnancy, etc., and of course, the women of the Bakhtiari community and Iranian women are also addressed many times, and the patriarchal culture that is indifferent to women is condemned.
References
Payandeh, Hossein. (2019). Literary Theory and Criticism (an interdisciplinary textbook), second edition, Tehran: Samt. Razavi,
Taheri, Qodratollah. (2009). "Women's Language and Writing; Reality or Illusion?", Literary Textual Studies Journal, Issue 42, pp. 87-108.
Abassi, Somayeh and Somayeh Khanipour. (2001). "Critical Discourse Analysis of Maryam Bakhtiari's Memoirs", Iranian History after Islam, Issue 33, pp. 81-103.
Futouhi Roudmoejni, Mahmoud. (2012). Stylistics: Theories, Approaches and Methods, Tehran: Sokhan.
Fatemeh and Maryam Salehini. (2015). "Women's Language Style in the Memoirs of Taj-ol-Saltaneh", Literary Textual Studies Journal, Issue 31, pp. 65-91.
Maryam Bakhtiari. (2003). Memoirs of Sardar Maryam, edited by Gholam Abbas Norouzi Bakhtiari, Tehran: Anzan.
Lakoff, R. T. (1990). Talking power: The politics of language in our lives. New York: Basic
.
Keywords
Subjects
Literary Criticism