A Comparative Study of Gender-Related Stereotypes Discourse in Turkish and Persian Proverbs: A Sociology of Language Perspective

Proverbs reflect different aspects and angles of people’s lives including social-cultural concepts as if they were linguistic texts being focused by sociolinguistics. The present research is a descriptive-analytic study investigating the gender-related stereotypes in Turkish and Persian proverbs from the viewpoint of sociology of language. In this essay, 100 Turkish and Persian proverbs having gender-related stereotypes were selected and investigated through purposive sampling. This research intends to answer these questions: what type of gender-related stereotypes have been much more observed in Turkish and Persian proverbs? Which gender is more impressed by the gender-related stereotypes in Turkish and Persian proverbs? From the viewpoint of sociology of language, how does the utilization of the special gender-related stereotypes in Turkish and Persian proverbs represent the social status of each era? The results obtained from this study indicate that the gender-related stereotypes have been more frequently used in the proverbs related to the women than men. Furthermore, the ethical characteristics have been stated and used more than other characteristics in the Turkish and Persian proverbs. The concepts stated in the proverbs indicate the gender bias (gender discrimination), and ignorance of women and women's low social status in popular culture in the past. Besides, there are a lot of similarities between the cultures of Turks and Iranians regarding the utilization of gender-related stereotypes in the society due to the proximity of cultures and the borders of Iran and Turkey.

Literature Review

Branch (2005) in a research entitled “Teaching the Old Testament Book of Proverbs” has investigated the Christians’ Old Testament Book in terms of the existence of proverb-like gender-related stereotypes. Beck (2005) in a research entitled “Proverb Speaks Louder than Words” is to investigate the specific communication characteristic of the proverbs playing an important role in the creation of the ambiguity (lie). Heydari (2013), in a research entitled “Investigating the Position of Women in Kurdish Popular Culture”, has investigated the position of woman in Kurdish popular culture (emphasizing the Kurdish proverbs and sayings). Aminolroaya et al. (2015), in a research entitled “Investigating the Characteristics Attributed to Women in Persian Proverbs”, has investigated, separated, and segregated the proverbs being somehow related to women through using the qualitative content analysis; then, they investigated the women’s psychological and physical characteristics, the emotional and ethical categories as well as the women’s social and family relationships.

Research Questions and Objectives

In the present study, the researcher is to investigate and analyze gender-related stereotypes in Istanbul Turkish and Persian proverbs from the viewpoint of sociology of language; besides, the study is to investigate the lexicons in Istanbul Turkish and Persian proverbs based on the viewpoints being discussed in linguistic. In addition, it aims to investigate and analyze Istanbul Turkish and Persian proverbs from the viewpoint of gender linguistics and the social status discourse analysis considering the usage of special vocabularies in Istanbul Turkish and Persian proverbs; it is to specify the similarities and differences between the proverbs’ social and cultural context in these two cultures in terms of language and gender.

Here, the study is to answer these questions: to what extent are the gender-related stereotypes utilized in Istanbul Turkish and Persian proverbs? What type of gender-related stereotypes have been much more observed in Istanbul Turkish and Persian proverbs? And, what gender has been impressed more by these proverbs?

Results

In the present research, we investigated 100 Persian proverbs as the research samples and the following results have been obtained regarding the utilization of gender-related stereotypes in the proverbs. Among the gender-related stereotypes investigated, the ethical characteristics with 52 usages have had the highest frequency to be utilized, and the economic characteristics with 13 usages have had the highest frequency; this indicates the greater importance of cultural and ethical issues among the Iranians and Persian culture. Besides, gender-related stereotypes were much more used for women than men with the frequency of 74. Therefore, gender-related stereotypes in Persian proverbs have much more focus on the women. However, among the 100 Istanbul Turkish proverbs investigated as the research samples, the ethical characteristics with 49 usages have had the highest frequency to be utilized, and the economic characteristics with 8 usages have had the highest frequency; this indicates the greater importance of cultural and ethical issues among the Turks. Besides, the gender-related stereotypes were much more used for women than men with the frequency of 68. Therefore, the gender-related stereotypes in Istanbul Turkish proverbs have much more focus on the women.

Discussion and Conclusion

Studies have shown that the physical characteristics were more described in the Istanbul Turkish and Persian proverbs with regards to women. In these proverbs, the physical characteristics have been considered very important for women so that these characteristics have been considered superior to other human characteristics. On the contrary, there have been fewer proverbs regarding men’s physical characteristics. Property and asset have been considered a positive feature in Istanbul Turkish and Persian proverbs and this property is just considered men’s rights; only men are authorized to utilize that property and only men must meet the women’s financial needs. Furthermore, in Persian culture, those women who have not financial potentiality, especially the ones not affording to buy dowry, are humiliated and considered worthless. Considering the studies performed by other researchers in the fields of gender linguistics, and the use and origins of proverbs, it has been specified that gender-related stereotypes state some exaggerated features for people with different gender, age, and occupation; besides, in Iranian and non-Iranian proverbs, the gender-related proverbs state the women’s low position in different societies. The present research has obtained some results similar to that of others being achieved in other studies.

References

Aminolroaya, P., Sharifi. Sh., & Elyasi, M. (2015). Investigating the characteristics attributed to women in Persian proverbs. Research in Persian Language & Literature, 34, 89-120


Beck, W. (2005). Proverb speaks louder than words: folk wisdom in art, culture, folklore, history, literature and mass media. Peter Lang Publications.


Beck, W. (2005). Proverb speaks louder than words: folk wisdom in art, culture, folklore, history, literature and mass media. Peter Lang Publications.

Heydari, S. (2013). Investigating the position of women in Kurdish popular culture. MA Thesis, Payam Noor University, West Tehran Center, Iran.