Womanism in Perspectives: A Discourse Study of Selected WhatsApp Chats

Abstract

This paper is a womanist-discourse study of selected WhatsApp chats. In contemporary imaginative literature, Women Studies conveys women writers’ perspectives, identity, cultural and ideological inclinations via the major literary genres: drama, prose and poetry. Thus, communalism, complementarity and other gender-driven themes impinge on the narrative insights of women literary writers. Discourse is ‘language in action/use’. In this study, the analysis of selected WhatsApp chats as a body of discourse is an investigation of the ideological underpinnings of writers’ language and message. Like in WhatsApp chats, imaginative literature communicates gender-related themes. In the context of this study, WhatsApp chats can be construed as a form of genre for literary expression because the corpora of this study are possible micro structures from any work of imaginative literature; this is the rationale for examining the data within the purview of women studies. The writers are females, who like women literary writers, have experienced the issues they bring to the fore in the articulation of their identity. Ofure Odede Maria (2010) rightly notes that ‘… a discourse on women’s literary identity is only feasible on others who have the identical characteristics of ‘oppression’. Thus, identity entails the metonymic selection of such characteristics as race, gender, history and culture.’ Arguably therefore, the view of women studies as ‘being about women-related discourse’ is more encompassing and rewarding than viewing the notion as strictly ‘being about women-related literary discourse’. In terms of the former, this study is germane. Two theoretical frameworks anchor this study: Gynocriticism and Gender Mainstreaming. Propounded by Elaine Showalter, Gynocriticism is a theoretical framework for elucidating women literary writings from authorial cultural background. On the other hand, Gender Mainstreaming is a broader feminist perspective which targets different forms of gender bias, and agitates for cross-facet gender equality. This study concludes that in language and message, the writers of the analyzed corpora reveal their individual and collective experiences. In doing so, language essentially performs three main functions: it describes phenomena; it condemns societal practices; and it conveys writers ‘message.