Language and Gender Ideology

This book exposes ideologies in the autobiographies of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Living History and ‘Folake Solanke’s Reaching for the Stars to substantiate the assumption that language is a tool for identity formation. To portray the existing societal gender ideological power relations in their respective societies, Norman Fairclough and van Dijk’s Model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Deborah Tannen’s Difference Theory were adopted. These three-tier framework provided the theoretical ground to analyze how gender ideologies are enacted through language.The two autobiographies were chosen because they reveal the ways of life and culture peculiar to each society. In addition, both women have played an active role in their nation’s history by being symbols of change in the perception of women. The author concluded that the autobiographies have hidden gender ideological meanings divided along two distinctive themes: Global gender ideology at the macro and micro societal levels and the authorial gender ideologies. This book will be useful in any language and literary class at the undergraduate and postgraduate level, and for researchers interested in CDA