Gender ideologies and representations in some sermons of selected Nigerian female preachers

Abstract

The study of gender is significant in the understanding of human relationships, especially in relation to the society and the roles performed by men and women. Previous linguistic studies on sermon discourse have investigated the linguistic strategies of sermons but have not adequately studied gender ideology inherent in sermons of Nigerian female preachers. This study was, therefore, designed to investigate gender ideologies and the representations of men and women in selected sermons of Nigerian female preachers. Guided by van Dijk's socio-cognitive model of critical discourse analysis, with insights from Halliday's systemic functional linguistics, the study discovered that two major ideologies were portrayed: Patriarchist and Womanist ideology. The patriarchist ideology projected three ideologies: Supremacist ideology, Subjugationist ideology and Submissionist ideology, while the womanist ideology also projected two other ideologies: sacrificialist ideology and survivalist ideology. Men were given three representations: head, instructors and lovers, while women were given four representations: subordinates, emotional beings, weak beings and home builders.