Habiba Chafai

Gender and the Language of Advertising: a Sociolinguistic Analysis of Women?s Representation in British and Moroccan Magazine Advertisements Habiba Chafai

Gender portrayals have known significant changes in print advertising over the last decades, but gender stereotypes remain widely controversial in the world of advertising nowadays. The verbal and visual language of advertising may reflect a nation?s culture, customs and the ways in which men and women think and interact. Therefore, one of the main objectives of this study is to understand how advertisements affect and influence the culturally gendered stereotypes so as to satisfy the norms of a society. More specifically, it seeks to analyse how England and Morocco portray women in the media as compared to men. Besides, it aims at showing how advertisements have an impact on women?s decisions and choices, and how this impact is mirrored in the social, cultural and economic life. To achieve these purposes, it will be necessary to analyse women?s position in relation to the religious, social, cultural and economic contexts in both societies, and also discuss the language of gender and how women and men are addressed and use language.