Date of Award

1-1-2001

Document Type

Thesis

Publisher

Edith Cowan University

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Faculty

Faculty of Community Services, Education and Social Sciences

First Supervisor

Professor Ian Malcolm

Abstract

This research will focus on the issue of power and gender in the language of Japanese comics (manga). Comics in Japan are enormously popular and are read by a wide audience. They are aimed at specific audiences and it is my argument that the language of manga helps to reinforce certain social stereotypes - particularly the inferiority of women and the dominance of males. The language of children's manga will be analyzed using the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which concerns itself with the relation between ideology and power in discourse. The analysis will be at various levels including lexica-semantic, pragmatic, textual and ideological. The texts to be analyzed will be Japanese manga in the original Japanese language. Manga aimed at specific audiences, i.e. young boys and girls, will be analyzed to determine the presence of male-dominant ideology in the text. I argue that an interpretation of the text under the framework of GOA supports the hypothesis that the ideology of male dominance is present in manga and that it has become normalized in Japan.

Download

Share

 
COinS