Process Type Selection in the Discourse of Op-ed Articles: The Effect of Gender and Political Ideology

Abstract

In this study, it is aimed to find out whether the process type selection of the female and male columnists differ in conveying their mental representations relating reality to the language system and whether political ideology is a factor in this selection by analyzing op-ed articles, a type of media discourse. In line with this objective, the op-ed articles have been analyzed in terms of transitivity system belonging to the experiential metafunction which is the subcategory of ideational metafunction of language in Systemic Functional Grammar and the effects of the columnist’s gender and the political ideology adopted by the newspaper in the process choice have been investigated. The findings of the study show that female and male columnists have constructed the reality via different processes, and the female columnists have mostly used mental, relational and behavioral process types, while male columnists have frequently used the material process type. Additionally, it has been determined that the political ideology of the newspaper has affected the selection of process types by female and male columnists. Relating to this, in secular and liberal ideology female columnists, and in Islamic ideology male columnists have more frequently used the relational processes.

Keywords

• gender
• Systemic Functional Grammar
• transitivity
• discourse of op-ed articles
• Critical Discourse Analysis