2023

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Linguistic Investigation of Gendered Practices A Case of ViolenceHarassment Complaints Registered in Lahore
(UMT, Lahore, 2023) Umara Shaheen
The study investigates the lexico-grammatical choices made in harassment and domestic violence complaints submitted to the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women and four police stations in Lahore in 2017-2018. The study draws on Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (Lazar, 2007) to reveal sociocultural ideologies and the victimization of women. It examines the complex interplay of gender and power relations articulated through linguistic choices in the form of culturally informed metaphors, extended metaphors, similes, adjectives, and adverbs. These linguistic features are embedded in the grammatical structures and analyzed through transitivity, mood, and modality. The research also examines move structure (Al-Momani, 2014) and the persuasive strategies (Al Momani, 2014; McCreaddie et al. (2018) used to legitimize complaints. The results illustrate how the complaints reflected asymmetric gendered practices which are endemic in a deeply entrenched patriarchal society such as Pakistan's, where violence against women is often rationalized and normalized, discouraging women from reporting it.