| Keywords [eng] |
metaphor, metaphor analysis, critical metaphor analysis, conceptual metaphor theory, humour theory, mipvu, gender representation, metafora, metaforos analizė, kritinė metaforos analizė, lyčių vaizdavimas |
| Abstract [eng] |
Gender is one of the most prominent issues discussed in various studies. Many scholars try to find out similarities and differences between men and women, why they are perceived in certain ways and why there are gender stereotypes. However, these are not the only issues or questions that cause curiosity in scholars all around the world. For example, some scholars are interested in how figurative language participates in representing gender and issues related to it. Therefore, the present thesis is an attempt to analyse how gender representation changed over more than two decades in the sitcoms Married…with Children (1987) and Modern Family (2009). The present research aims to identify metaphors related to gender and to determine how gender is presented by two similar sitcoms. Another objective of the analysis is to find out how figuratively expressed humour contributes to disclosing gender issues. Critical Metaphor Analysis (Charteris-Black 2014, Koller 2019) and Humour Theory (see Brone et al. 2015) were employed in the research. The analysis showed that the target domains of CHILD, WOMAN and MAN were mostly expressed via such source domain as FOOD, OBJECT and ANIMAL. The representation of men and women contained some similarities, however, there were some significant differences too. In the sitcom Married…with Children women and men saw each other more negatively. Women were represented as torturers and money-seekers while men were perceived as lazy beings having animalistic qualities. In addition, irony was used to show how toxic marital life can be. On the other hand, Modern Family was the opposite, as it was not concerned with presenting stereotypical assumptions about genders. Instead, women were shown as confident, intelligent and hard-working while men attained some vulnerability, which was something that was not common in the 80s sitcoms. |
