Abstract
Proverbs generally reflect a nation’s social values, norms and attitudes. Several studies have looked into the representation of women in proverbs. However, such research on women’s portrayal in Arabic proverbs is scarce. The aim of this research is to explore the representations of women in Hijazi proverbs in Saudi Arabia. Twenty-five proverbs portraying women were selected from several authentic books of Hijazi using the Feminist critical discourse analysis approach. On one hand, the findings showed women were represented negatively as lacking intellectual maturity, failures, incapable of carrying out their tasks, bad-decision makers, inclined to bias, and the source of temptation for men. On the other hand, women were praised in a number of proverbs that confine them to particular restricted gender roles, such as mothers, wives and daughters. We argue that some of the Hijazi proverbs on women may represent negative images of women and that should not be encouraged, or perhaps that would be advisable not to encourage their use in Hijazi society or to refrain from using them when communicating with women.
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Notes
Lit. Tr. and Fig. M. are abbreviations for ‘Literal Translation’, and ‘Figurative Meaning’ respectively. In addition, the phonetic symbols and the sounds of the Arabic words used in the transcription of the collected data are included in Appendix A.
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Appendix
Appendix
Phonetic transcription
List of PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION representing the Saudi-Arabic data throughout the present study, (adopted from Abdul Raof, 1998, pp. 13–14)
A | The consonants | Phonological description | Arabic letters |
/’/ | Glottal stop | أ | |
/b/ | Voiceless bilabial stop | ب | |
/t/ | Voiceless alveolar stop | ت | |
/θ/ | Voiceless dental fricative | ث | |
/j/ | Voiced palatal affricate | ج | |
/H/ | Voiceless pharyngeal fricative | ح | |
/x/ | Voiceless uvular fricative | خ | |
/d/ | Voiced alveolar stop | د | |
/ḍ/ | Voiced Dental fricative | ذ | |
/r/ | Voiced alveolar flap | ر | |
/z/ | Voiced alveolar fricative | ز | |
/s/ | Voiceless alveolar fricative | س | |
/š/ | Voiceless palate-alveolar fricative | ش | |
/S/ | Voiceless velarized alveolar fricative | ص | |
/D/ | Voiced velarized alveolar stop | ض | |
/T/ | Voiceless velarized alveolar stop | ط | |
/Ḍ/ | Voiceless velarized alveolar stop | ظ | |
/9/ | Voiced pharyngealized fricative | ع | |
/ġ/ | Voiced uvular fricative | غ | |
/f/ | Voiceless labiodental fricative | ف | |
/q/ | Voiceless uvular stop | ق | |
/k/ | Voiceless velar stop | ك | |
/l/ | Voiced (or Voiceless) alveolar lateral | ل | |
/m/ | Voiced bilabial nasal | م | |
/n/ | Voiced alveolar nasal | ن | |
/h/ | Voiceless glottal fricative | هـ | |
/w/ | Voiced bilabial semi-vowel | و | |
/y/ | Voiced palatal semi-vowel | ي |
B. | The vowels | |
Monophthongs | Phonological description | |
/a/ | Short half-open unrounded | |
/a:/ | Long open-front unrounded | |
/e/ | Mid-front unrounded | |
/i/ | Short half-close front unrounded | |
/i:/ | Long close-front unrounded | |
/u/ | Short half-close back rounded | |
/u:/ | Long close-back rounded | |
/o:/ | Long half-close rounded | |
/aw/ | Open front unrounded vowel moving towards a close back round vowel | |
/ay/ | Open front unrounded vowel moving towards a close front unrounded vowel |
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Ghafoori, M., Elyas, T. Power and Gender in Saudi Hijazi Proverbs: An Ideological-Cultural Study. J Psycholinguist Res 52, 887–904 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-022-09924-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-022-09924-1