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Title: CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: SEXISM IN CONTEMPORARY POPULAR ENGLISH MUSIC OF 2015 IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Authors: Celeste Chin, Edna Leong, Joan Yee, Mira Dewan & Nicole Nair
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Celeste Chin, Edna Leong, Joan Yee, Mira Dewan & Nicole Nair Raffles Girls' School, Singapore
MLA 8 Chin, Celeste, et al. "CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: SEXISM IN CONTEMPORARY POPULAR ENGLISH MUSIC OF 2015 IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA." Int. j. of Social Science and Economic Research, vol. 4, no. 5, May 2019, pp. 3704-3725, ijsser.org/more2019.php?id=282. Accessed May 2019. APA Chin, C., Leong, E., Yee, J., Dewan, M., & Nair, N. (2019, May). CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: SEXISM IN CONTEMPORARY POPULAR ENGLISH MUSIC OF 2015 IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Int. j. of Social Science and Economic Research, 4(5), 3704-3725. Retrieved from ijsser.org/more2019.php?id=282 Chicago Chin, Celeste, Edna Leong, Joan Yee, Mira Dewan, and Nicole Nair. "CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: SEXISM IN CONTEMPORARY POPULAR ENGLISH MUSIC OF 2015 IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA." Int. j. of Social Science and Economic Research 4, no. 5 (May 2019), 3704-3725. Accessed May, 2019. ijsser.org/more2019.php?id=282.
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Abstract: The objective of the study is to explore sexism in music through analysis of language used, themes present, and grammatical power distributions evident in English contemporary pop songs from 2015. It aims to look into the types of gender ideologies and power relations reproduced and resisted in the musical aspect of pop culture. The study hypothesizes that the songs analysed contain significantly more language and sexist themes that is derogatory to women as opposed to that which is sexist against men, and that grammatical power distribution trends observed will be greatly skewed toward male characters. The study selected a corpus of 20 songs from the Hot 100 Songs 2015 Year-End Chart by Billboard that revolved around relationships between male and female characters. This was followed by an analysis which comprised of two stages, identifying sexist themes in lyrics and comparing grammatical power allocation to male and female characters with reference to Systemic Functional Linguistics. The majority of the songs we analysed, which were performed by both male and female artists, favoured male characters over females in terms of grammatical power allocation, which mirrors the power imbalances in the real world. From the analysis of themes, it was evident that sexism in music exists against both genders, and the prevalence of different biases that influence our thinking was demonstrated. As a whole, results indicated that gender ideologies present in the corpus were in favour of males and more prejudiced against females. We concluded that the gender ideologies present in English Contemporary popular music of 2015 are more sexist toward women, but that sexism against males also exist in great amounts, as power is distributed in favor of males, but sexist themes biased against both sexes were highly prevalent.

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