Text B Analysis - Gender and Language Analysis

Text B is a romantic novel extract which has the purpose to entertain; the source is not displayed. The target audience would typically be older women aged 25+ who like to read romantic stories in the style of Mills and Boon.  This extract shows the stereotypical roles of gender, which are suggested as the man being a hero and masculine, and the woman being vulnerable. I will be explaining in more detail how the author has portrayed this through the use of English language features.

 Robin Lakoff, in 1975, published the book ‘Language and Woman's Place’. This book supports assumptions of the language women use and one of English language examples that are typically used are intensifiers. Within the extract the women says, “I’m very grateful.” This intensifier exaggerates the cliché role of the man being a heroic and saving the day by rescuing the woman from danger and in this case he rescued her from being stuck in the cobbled lane. This relates to the purpose of this text being a romance novel, this typical scene is ideal for the target audience of women aged 25+ who want to read romantic novels such as Mills and Boon.

The use of material, active verbs to describe the male actions such as “swept” “whisked” and “stepped” displayed the man as being active and powerful as he is doing all the action within the extract. This links to the stereotypical role of men being strong and capable of being independent. In contrast, the woman is shown as passive and weak as she has inactive verbs. For example, “lay” “struggled” “stared”. These verbs represent the women in this novel as being very weak and capable as she is not being active and she is staying still. Women are represented as inferior to the male gender, as they are represented as less capable within the extract. This could appeal to the target audience as women want to read a romantic novel where a woman needs protection from the cliché ‘knight in shining armour’.

The male gender is represented as attractive and desirable in this novel. This is shown through the use of adjectives to describe the man’s physical features within this extract are very desirable and attractive.  “Strong arms” and “chiselled mouth” appeal to the target audience as athletic and attractive and this is desirable for a typical fairy tale story, which women may want to read which has the perfect man as a hero. If the man was not described or if he was described as unattractive to the women in the novel then the story would not be as effective for the target audience, as they want to read a perfect story, as it is more romantic.

The lexical field of vulnerability such as “struggled” “slipped” and “unsteadily” suggests the women in the novel being weak and incapable of being independent. It also suggests the need of a hero or man to protect her as she is too feeble to do anything by herself without putting herself in danger. Therefore the gender of women is again represented as weak and the man is suggested as having a role as a hero.

In conclusion, the novel has a romantic sense of the attractive man saving the day by helping the women escape from being stuck in cobble. The man is described as very attractive and desirable which is appealing to the target audience of older women. The woman is described as weak through the use of words which show her being incapable. The active and inactive verbs also represent the roles carried out by both genders.