الفهرس 
Literature Review and Theoretical FrameworkOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The study under discussion investigates how discursive strategies are used in selected sitcoms to express social discrimination against women. It also aims to show how stereotypes are predominant in the genre of sitcoms, as men are represented as powerful and dominant figures in society, whereas women are represented negatively. Through examining the effects of linguistic sexism in sitcoms, the theoretical framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is found to be one suitable means to investigate the effects of TV drama, more specifically, sitcoms as a way to disseminate ideologies and introduce the negative effect of sexist humor.
Sitcoms prove to be one of the most successful types of television entertainment produced for all family members. Therefore, they serve as significant tools for spreading social ideologies. Thus, the sitcoms chosen for this study aim at emphasizing social relationships among the family members and depicting negative images of women, as well as expressing the linguistic injustice carried against women. In addition, they enhance the existing stereotypical image of male superiority and show how women are subjected to gender inequality.
The analysis of the selected Egyptian and American sitcoms takes place within the theoretical framework of Linguistic Sexism through adopting Mills’ (1995) feminist model for textual analysis to identify gender representation at the level of word and discourse. The analysis of this thesis employs various linguistic tools such as naming and lexical words; surnames and titles; generic pronouns and nouns; semantic derogation of women; jokes and humor; stereotyping and presumption.
In addition, Halliday’s transitivity analysis (2004) is used in this study to investigate the processes through which women are represented in their relationships with their husbands. Kress & van Leeuwen (2006) approach is also deployed in this study to better understand women-men relationships using visual grammar and ideational metafunction.