A critical discourse analysis on gender-biased language in the guardian.com = Phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán về ngôn ngữ có sự kỳ thị về giới trên tờ báo The Guardian.com. M.A. Thesis Linguistics: 82202

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ KIM THOA A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ON GENDER-BIASED LANGUAGE IN THE GUARDIAN.COM PHÂN TÍCH DIỄN NGƠN PHÊ PHÁN VỀ NGƠN NGỮ CĨ SỰ KỲ THỊ VỀ GIỚI TRÊN TỜ BÁO THE GUARDIAN.COM M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01 HANOI – 2017 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ KIM THOA A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ON GENDER-BIASED LANGUAGE IN THE GUARDIAN.COM PHÂN TÍCH DIỄN NGƠN PHÊ PHÁN VỀ NGƠN NGỮ CĨ SỰ KỲ THỊ VỀ GIỚI TRÊN TỜ BÁO THE GUARDIAN.COM M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01 Supervisor: Dr Huỳnh Anh Tuấn HANOI - 2017 DECLARATION I hereby declare that the thesis, entitled “A critical discourse analysis on genderbiased language in theguardian.com) has been carried out in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Art at the University of Languages and International Studies This work is original and all the sources that I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references Hanoi – 2017 Nguyễn Thị Kim Thoa i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS During the period of completing the Master thesis, the author has received the support of a great number of people First and foremost, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Dr Huynh Anh Tuan, my supervisor, who has generously given me insightful guidance and valuable feedback during the process of carrying out the thesis, without which this thesis would be far from completed I would also like to give my sincere gratitude to all of the lecturers at ULIS –VNU, Hanoi for their scholarly knowledge and enthusiasm in their lectures My profound thanks are also to all my friends and classmates in the cohort 23, who have always stayed by my side, given me constructive comments and perked me up every time I need Last but not least, my heartfelt thanks go to my family for their immeasurable support and continual encouragement The Master thesis could not have been fulfilled without them ii ABSTRACT The study examines gender-biased language in the Olympic Games 2012 in theguardian.com From the perspective of critical discourse analysis, the article explores how the news coverage of male and female athletes of the Olympic Games 2012 consistently perpetuates an ideology of gender inequality in language The research approach is critical discourse analysis and the research method is qualitative method Fairclough‟s (2001) three-dimensional model was selected and adopted as the model of analysis Specifically, the sports news from theguardian.com of the Olympic Games 2012 were explored through two linguistic levels: morphemes and words & phrases At morphemes level, -man element and personal titles were investigated; whereas, at words & phrases level, gender-marked modifiers, gendermarking, overestimation and underestimation of Olympians were examined The analysis reveals that the existence of gender inequality was embedded in sports news at both morphemes and lexemes level There exist certain differences between the demonstration of male and female athletes While male Olympians are portrayed in terms which identify athletic achievement with masculinity, female Olympians are depicted as less competent than male Olympians This study contributes to knowledge in the field of language and gender, especially language use in the online newspaper and can be followed up by similar studies in other topics such as politics, fashion, business and advertisement iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the research Scope of the research 3 Aims and objectives of the research 4 Research questions Significance of the research Research methodology Organization of the research PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) 1.1.1 Definition 1.1.2 Fairclough‟s three-dimensional framework 1.2 Language and gender 1.3 Sexism 1.4 Linguistics markers of gender bias 1.4.1 Morphemes 1.4.1.1 -man element 1.4.1.2 Personal titles 1.4.2 Words and phrases 1.4.2.1 Gender-marked modifiers 1.4.2.2 Gender marking 10 1.4.2.3 Underestimation and overestimation 11 1.4.2.3.1 Underestimation 11 1.4.2.3.2 Overestimation 11 1.5 Related studies 11 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 13 2.1 Research questions 13 2.2 Research approach 13 2.3 Research method 13 2.4 Setting of the research 14 2.5 Data collection 14 2.6 Data collection procedure 14 2.7 Data analytical framework 14 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 16 3.1 Morphemes 16 3.1.1 –man elements 16 3.1.1.1 Sportsman/ sportsperson 16 3.1.1.2 Sportsmanship / sportspersonship 17 3.1.2 Personal titles 18 3.2 Words and phrases 18 3.2.1 Gender-marked modifiers 19 3.2.2 Gender marking 20 3.2.3 Underestimation and overestimation 20 3.2.3.1 Underestimation 20 3.2.3.1.1 Emphasizing the appearance of female Olympians 20 3.2.3.1.2 Suspecting the great female Olympians‟ potential and outstanding performance 21 3.2.3.2 Overestimation 22 PART C: CONCLUSION 23 A summary of findings 23 Limitation and recommendation for further studies 24 REFERENCES 25 PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the research On elucidating language used in newspapers, it came to the researcher‟s notice that sports commentaries on both male and female sportspeople could be a representative source of gender inequality which has been existing in a field which used to be dominated by men First of all, regarding the relationship between sports and newspapers, like every other subject in the modern society, sports and newspaper are linked directly as newspapers spread updated news/ reports/ commentaries about sports to interested readers During the spotlight of mass media, sports have changed dramatically It is important to study how the media represent male athletes, female athletes and sporting events because the media help shape society‟s beliefs about them (Duncan, Jensen, & Messner, 1993) The topic as to how gender inequality is presented in sports news is still a persistent problem It is because gender is more than a role assigned or assumed to men and women, and more than an individual characteristic of males and females Gender identity is a social construct that is formed as individuals go through socialization process in their society and culture There were a number of studies on gendered language, however, few attempts have so far been made in analyzing language and gender in online newspaper related to sports Therefore, this study attempts to explore how gender are represented on sports in London Olympic Games 2012 in the light of critical discourse analysis (CDA) Scope of the research In this study, I would give spotlight on investigating gender-biased language on the online news of The guardian in the Olympic Games 2012 from July 27, 2012 to August 12, 2012 Gender-biased language in sports news can be examined in different units of meaning of linguistic expressions ranging from morphemes, lexemes and sentences Due to the constraint of time and the limited length of a minor thesis, this paper focuses on two main aspects that may show evidence of gender-biased language which are morphemes and words & phrases Aims and objectives of the research The study primarily aims to identify whether there exists gender biased language in The Guardian newspaper on reporting male and female athletes participating in the Olympic Games 2012 To achieve this aim, the study sought to achieve the following objectives: - to identify how genders are linguistically represented by the media - to investigate whether these representations construct gender inequality Research questions In order to address two objectives, the study is intended to answer two corresponding research questions as follow: (i) How are female athletes and male athletes presented at the linguistic levels in Theguardian.com in the Olympic Games 2012? (ii) To what extent these gender representations construct the gender inequality in sports? Significance of the research This study is expected to provide both theoretical and practical significance In terms of theatrical benefit, the findings of this study are expected to enrich the knowledge about critical discourse analysis In terms of practical benefits, this study is intended to identify whether or not gender-biased language exists in an English newspaper Raising awareness of, minimizing and generally eliminating gender-biased language for a more equal community are the reasons of conducting the paper Research methodology In terms of research method, the study employs qualitative method to arrive at a thorough analysis of the data collected Data collected are synthesized and analyzed using the framework of CDA CDA will be applied as an approach in the process of text analysis to uncover hidden ideologies regarding the use of language to express gender equality Three phases of CDA given by Fairclough (2001), which will be presented in the paper, are used as the framework in analyzing the language in the news This study exploits data from news reports in English on The Guardian online newspaper All the news reports in the study are selected during the time period from July 27, 2012 to August 12, 2012 Organization of the research The study consists of three parts Part A: Introduction Part B: Development Chapter 1: Literature Review Chapter 2: Methodology Chapter 3: Data analysis and discussion Part C: Conclusion CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY The aim of this chapter is to explain various procedures and techniques that were used to yield answers to the research questions in Chapter The methodology used in the study will be reviewed and data collection will be presented This chapter discusses two main levels of linguistic expressions which are morphemes and words & phrases and gives description of their importance The data analytical framework is constructed and then presented 2.1 Research questions To accommodate the methodology for the research, it is necessary to refer back to the two research questions posed in the first chapter, which are: (i) How are female athletes and male athletes presented at the linguistic levels in Theguardian.com in the Olympic Games 2012? (ii) To what extent these gender representations construct the gender inequality in sports? To come up with the answers for these two research questions, a research approach has been adopted 2.2 Research approach The study adopts the critical discourse analysis approach By applying suitable linguistic tools, CDA aims to reveal ideology that is normally hidden through the habitualization of discourse In this study, the gender representations are examined thoroughly to uncover the hidden gender inequality 2.3 Research method Qualitative method is used to conduct the paper Qualitative method is the collection and analysis examples for the sake of revealing the hidden meaning under those written words and understanding the implication of the discourse With the purpose of answering how questions, qualitative approach serves as the most relevant research method to this paper 13 2.4 Setting of the research The Olympic Games or Olympics are leading sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competitions The Olympic Games are held every four years, with the Summer and Winter Games alternating by occurring every four years but two years apart 2.5 Data collection The research uses data obtained from the online The guardian newspaper In this study, the daily Guardian was monitored in the period from July 27, 2012 to August 12, 2012 – when London The Olympic Games 2012 took place The target population for the study include items of the online the guardian newspaper captured during a period of these 17 days 2.6 Data collection procedure The procedure has several phases First of all, Google was chosen as a tool for searching the data Secondly, the Advanced search was utilized to take data from The guardian newspaper only in the specific period of time By using the formula site: www.theguardian.com/sport and choosing the period between 27 July and 12 August, all the newspapers needed were shown 2.7 Data analytical framework As the research focuses on gender-biased language in sports news, the sentences that contain gender-biased language are selected for analytical purpose The analysis is implemented on the basis of Fairclough‟s three-dimensional framework for studying discourse Data analysis follows three-phases process: description, interpretation and explanation 14 Personal Titles Morphemes -man element Gender biased language Gender-marked modifiers Words & phrases Gender-marking Overestimation & underestimation Description Interpretation Explanation Figure 1: Data analytical framework In the phase of description, the research would particularly emphasize the use of such semantic units as morphemes and words and phrases in the sentences showing genderbias At the morpheme level, the research would examine the -man element and personal titles At the words and phrases level, gender-marked modifiers, gender marking and overestimation & underestimation are explored In the phase of interpretation, critical discourse analysts are concerned with how texts are produced as a process of meaning construction Therefore, by analyzing the semantic meanings different language units, such as morphemes and words & phrases, we are able to identify how the ideology of gender inequality in this news report is being produced Last but not least, in the stage of explanation, a critical discourse analyst accounts for the influence of socio-cultural contexts such as situational contexts affecting the way gender-bias language are represented in sports news Grounding on the description and interpretation of the news texts, we will finally find out the answer to what extent these gender representations construct gender inequality in The Olympic Games 2012 15 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION This chapter focuses on presenting the research findings generated from the process of synthesizing and analyzing texts in The Guardian online newspaper in terms of morphemes and lexemes as presented in the previous chapter Discussion on how gender bias is presented through language and implications will be made in triangulating with previous papers in the same field 3.1 Morphemes There are a variety of approaches to studying languages and genders, and one of them is to investigate how men and women are referred to and talked about (Lindquist, 2009) Upon studying how female athletes and male athletes are presented at the morpheme level, the use of -man words or its plural form as –men and personal titles including Mr., Sir, Miss, Ms and Mrs in the articles written during The Olympic Games 2012 is generated and presented as below 3.1.1 –man elements A number of –man elements have often been considered as generic terms and widely used in English language, regularly without the user‟s awareness of its gender indication In other words, words including -man have been used for a long time to address either a male or a female 3.1.1.1 Sportsman/ sportsperson Today, the use of “-man” ending in the era where advocates have been fighting for gender equality should be avoided where possible Clearly, to avoid gender bias, -man words can be avoided by using neutral terms with –person morpheme, exemplified by sportsperson The study examines whether gender-neutral occupational titles have fact increased in usage and whom they tend to be used for However, the researched articles suggested otherwise Specifically, sportsman was used in articles in total, sportsmen was used in articles, while there is only one 16 attempt of using sportsperson was recorded in any articles Here are some quotes from the articles where sportsman, sportsmen and sportsperson was used It is important to note that, the use of sportsman or sportsmen are both for male referents, which, in these articles, is excluded from gender bias due to the fact that the people mentioned in the articles are all males However, in the context using sportsmen to refer to the West Indies cricket team, which might be hard to be distinguished in terms of genders by international readers In that case, sportsmen not only show the position/ status of the referent but also carries gender implication and helps readers know that they are men Overall, there are no cases in which a woman is mentioned in this use of –man morpheme Therefore, it can be concluded that –man words in these articles are merely used to show the status/ job title rather than implying about the gender In cases when readers fail to recognize whether the name is for men or women, they may misunderstand or take it for granted that sportsmen is referring to men, say, that is men‟s name The number of “sportsperson” used in the collected data is less than that of “sportsman” In all, there are not many news using sportsperson or sportman/sportsmen Instead, the term “athletes” are used in the news more frequently 3.1.1.2 Sportsmanship / sportspersonship The term sportsmanship was used in articles versus zero usage of the term sportspersonship The habitude of using term sportsmanship maintained in the news in The Olympic Games 2012 An expected development of substituting the previously mentioned term with the term sportspersonship, i.e one that does not contain the generic man element and is nowadays oftentimes applied, did not happen Term sportspersonship has not once been used in any news of the Olympic Games 2012 The term sportsman and sportsmanship, gender-marked nouns, are still used in this event to refer to male, female athletes and the conduct of them The usage of non17 gender-marked terms like sportsperson have been used but not on a large scale while there is no case using sportspersonship 3.1.2 Personal titles The newspaper also perpetuates gender differences by way of personal titles Personal titles are opposed to professional titles in that while that latter in most cases apply to both sexes, such as Doctor, Professor as in Dr James or Professor Kim, the former makes clear distinction between men and women In some cases, no titles are attached to a named personality The author aims to present the personality as a neutral figure, with no emphasis on gender or sex when using zero titles, whereas the use of a personal titles might put emphasis on the sex or marital status of the individual With the help of the neutral Ms., the personalities in (11) and (12) are presented as females and without emphasis on their marital status There is no data on using Miss to refer to the unmarried woman “Miss” only appears in Miss World and Miss Chinese Taipei, which is the title given for a woman who wins a beauty contest The use of Mrs in (15) and (16) identifies the referent who is married and puts emphasis on her dependence on a man This does not happen to men because Mr has no connotation of marital status Overall, the use of personal titles in the media present cases of gender-neutrality and gender-bias In the case of gender-bias, woman prove to be victims in instances when their marital status is exposed as in the title Mrs In other examples, they are dependent on the male in the way of adopting the name of their spouses 3.2 Words and phrases In the Olympic Games 2012, the journalists sometimes direct negative demonstrations of emotion to female athletes and positive demonstration to male athletes through lexemes The negative demonstrations are the underestimation of women; meanwhile, men receive the overestimation 18 3.2.1 Gender-marked modifiers Sometimes we modify nouns that refer to jobs or position to denote the gender of the person holding that position In sports, modifying the word “athlete” or any profession with a feminine adjective “suggest that a woman holding that position is marked – in some way unnatural and that it is natural for men to hold it” (Lakoff) The study examines whether “female athlete(s)” is used in sports news in Olympic Games 2012 In total, female athlete or female athletes were used in 27 articles, while male athlete and male athletes were found in articles Some of these example of female athlete(s) (examples 19-23) mentions the first time those sportswomen attending the Olympic Games 2012 The reason is that the 2012 Games had more female competitors than previous Games and were the first Games where every national team had at least one female athlete These examples are excluded from gender bias Besides, there are also some cases excluded from gender bias because of mentioning both sexes like the examples (24) & (25) as follow It is believed that people who are successful in life are supposed to be males, not females The neutral words like athlete(s), player(s), Olympian are supposed to refer to male When the male athletes gained the great achievement, there appear these expressions such as “all-time greatest athlete”, “the greatest runner”, “the greatest Olympian”, “the greatest ever player” There was no “male athlete(s)”, “male runner(s)” or “male Olympian(s)” Whereas, when female athletes also received similar achievement, there appears the use of “female” as a modifier before the head noun of the occupation words For instance, “the greatest female distance runners”, “the greatest all-round female athlete”, "the best woman's fighter", “the best female boxer” These examples show that the word female or woman used as a modifier, which not only clarifies the gender of the group of people being mentioned (runner, athlete, fighter, boxer), but also considers female as a second category 19 When the number of female athletes participating, the Olympic Games increase regularly, it assumes that people get more comfortable with the changes that both genders took part in sports However, the fact does not support this assumption The society‟s perception of men and women occupying what were traditionally seen as female jobs and vice versa is hard to change This usage should be discouraged as much as possible, as it draws attention to gender 3.2.2 Gender marking Women‟s events were gender marked numerous times, such as referring to a football game as the “women‟s Olympic football final”, while men‟s events were rarely gender marked This gender marking presented men‟s events as the norm, while women‟s events were marked as other and implied as inferior Sports Men‟s football Men‟s soccer Men‟s basketball Men‟s boxing Men‟s hockey Men‟s judo Men‟s tennis Times 24 31 14 Sports Times Women‟s football Women‟s soccer Women‟s basketball Women‟s boxing Women‟s hockey Women‟s judo Women‟s tennis 44 27 20 24 32 Table 1: Gender marking in news from The Guardian 3.2.3 Underestimation and overestimation 3.2.3.1 Underestimation In English online news reports, the underestimation of women can be expressed through words and phrases which have never been used for men 3.2.3.1.1 Emphasizing the appearance of female Olympians While women‟s equality socially and professionally has changed for the better over the years, the Olympic media coverage of women‟s sports show that women are viewed and valued more for their physical appearance than for their strength and their accomplishments out on the track, court, or field 20 First of all, the coverage of female athletes has focused on athlete‟s appearances rather than their accomplishments in the following examples: In example (31), instead of portraying the female Olympian‟s achievement, the journalist describes Franklin‟s appearance in detail Secondly, other feature coverage highlighted female athletes‟ nail polish choices or hair styles, while male coverage, largely lacked these kinds of pieces To illustrate, we may examine the following instances Instead of representing the female Olympian‟s outstanding performances, the women‟s coverage on newspaper focus on the style of the Olympian‟s nail or their choice of tattoo Thirdly, news reports largely focus on the outfits that female athletes select to wear, instead of their athletic aspects 3.2.3.1.2 Suspecting the great female Olympians’ potential and outstanding performance In depicting female Olympians, the news reports communicate a strong denial of the Olympians‟ great athletic potential and outstanding performance Female Olympians‟ performance was compared and evaluated against males‟ as if male Olympians are standard In example (46) (47) and (48), Ye‟s performance was compared to male‟s performance by the clause quicker than the winner of the men's race, 0.17 quicker over the final 50m of freestyle than the man, as fast as a male It communicates an assumption that it is always man who are faster than woman in the 400-individual medley and it was a big surprise if woman can better It seems to exist the ideology that woman is born to be incompatible to man This ideology is illustrated clearly through the title of the news China's Ye Shiwen staggered the world – even Ryan Lochte By this expression, male Olympians are the criteria of assessing the female‟s performance The use of “unbelievable” “raise a lot of question” “one of "a whole bunch of other questions” reveals the ideology that it is out of people‟s expectation that woman has ability to 21 break the records It also communicates the strong suspicion of the female Olympian outstanding performance In example (49), Carmelita Jeter – a female athletic was also questioned about her performance After finishing third in the 200m, Jeter became the first USA woman to win Olympic medals in both sprints at the same Games since Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988 It raised a lot of question about her performance because Block – her husband was banned from athletics for 10 years in 2011 because of his connections to the Balco doping scandal 3.2.3.2 Overestimation It is easy to find the sportswriters‟ overestimation of men in commentaries and newspapers This overestimation can be expressed through a number of ways of overstatements, similes and metaphors, or the description of male Olympians as heavenly-beings or the invincible In Olympics Sports newspaper, men are portrayed as stronger, faster, and overall superior to women and men is considered as the stereotypical images of athletic icons The male Olympians‟ achievements are represented by highlighting their power, strength and dominance These representations solidify the dominance and control that males exert in the realm of sport To demonstrate the priority sportswriters‟ language put on male Olympians, the following examples from the articles are studied In short, the study found out that female athletes are often portrayed in overly sexualized images, passive rather than active, and in sports that are considered genderappropriate Meanwhile, the male characters are described with lexical terms that connote leadership, masculinity and strength The use of language which connotes underestimation towards women and overestimation towards men in the same field of sports entails gender inequality in terms of orienting public‟s perception of the game 22 PART C: CONCLUSION This part summarizes the finding of the study in accordance with the research questions The limitation of the study and some suggestions for further studies will also be mentioned A summary of findings In the light of critical discourse analysis, the research has yielded some findings The findings revealed that the manifestation of female and male athletes in The Olympic Games 2012 was not fair via language the sportswriters used at two linguistic levels: morpheme and words & phrases Firstly, at the morpheme level, there exist gender-biased terminologies presented in the media through the use of the generic –man element such as sportsman and sportsmanship The tendencies of the media to prefer sportsman/sportsmen which refer to male(s) rather than to those that refer to female(s) To conclude, the general observation has been that the news in The Olympic Games 2012 uses “-man” element words more to the advantage of men than that of women Besides, the gender-fair language “sportspersonship” has not been used in all news The usage of genderrelated language in news seems to vary Secondly, at the morpheme level, the use of personal titles in news in the Olympic Games 2012 present cases of gender-neutrality and gender-bias In the cases of gender bias, women prove to be victims in instances when their marital status is exposed as in the tilte “Mrs.” Thirdly, gender inequality can be seen easily at the words and phrases level when examining gender-marked modifiers The usage of gender-marked modifiers present both gender neutral and gender inequality The gender-marked modifiers present gender discrimination when female athletes received the great achievement but the use of female or woman as a modifier which not only refer to the gender but also considers 23 female as a second category Whereas, when male athletes gain any excellent achievement, the male or man modifiers not appear Fourthly, the research also investigates gender marking in news The study on women‟s and men‟s sport coverage indicated that sportswriters today are less likely than their predecessors to trivialize woman athletes overtly However, the language used by sportswriter tends to mark women‟s sports as other Last but not least, female athletes are often portrayed as passive rather than active, and in sports that are considered gender-appropriate The language tends to frame their accomplishments negatively or ambivalently Female athletes are described with words signifying passivity, softness and femininity Meanwhile, the male characters are described with lexical terms that connote leadership, masculinity and strength The use of language which connotes underestimation towards women and overestimation towards men in the same field of sports entails gender inequality in terms of orienting public‟s perception of the game These types of portrayals can perpetuate gender bias and stereotypes, undermine the true athletic ability of female athletes, and give the audience the idea that male athletes are more important than female athletes Limitation and recommendation for further studies The study examines the gender-biased language in Olympic Games 2012 in the Guardian newspaper and obviously, it carries some limitations First, the database of this study is small The study collected the data from only one sports event so that the study cannot be generalized as the characteristics of English news coverage Moreover, due to the researcher‟s limited time and ability, the study has focused on some features of language at two different linguistic level From the limitations mentioned above, some suggestions for further study relating to this topic may be offered as follow It is suggested that further studies can be conducted on the news discourse at the sentence level: active and passive voice, or some other aspects such as word order and metaphor 24 REFERENCES Fairclough, N (1989), Language and Power London: Longman Fairclough, N (2001), Language and power (2nd ed) London: Longman Fairclough, N (2003), Analysing Discourse: Textual analysis for social research, Routledge, London Fiske, J (1994), 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Association) and WNBA (Women‟s National Basketball Association)... called the Final Four Similarly, the NBA refers to National Basketball Association) for the male athlete while the female‟s is called WNBA (Women‟s National Basketball Association) The female athletes