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International
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International Journal of English Literature and Culture Vol. 3(6), pp. 183-189, June, 2015 ISSN: 2360-7831 DOI: 10.14662/IJELC2015.052 Research Paper The Portrayal of Women in Tigrigna Proverbs and Proverbial Expressions: the Stereotypical Beliefs and Behavioral Tendencies
Solomon Berhane Hagos
College of Social Sciences and Languages, Aksum University, Ethiopia. E-mail: solberhane@gmail.com . Tel: +251913681662
Accepted 30 June 2015
Proverbs are
the most widely and commonly used in the people’s long-standing
tradition of oral arts. They have been enabling the transmission of
knowledge, culture and communal beliefs from generation to generation.
Thus, in this study a rigorous attempt has been made to examine the
portrayal of Women in glance of Tigrigna proverbs and proverbial
expressions. A field work evolving ethnographic study was applied to
gather proverbs from the selected sites of the research area. Having
identified potential informants via snow ball and purposive sampling
techniques, data were collected through interview and document analysis.
Then, the collected proverbs were first transcribed in the source
language i.e. Tigrigna and then translated into English. Finally, after
in-depth reading, thirteen proverbs were selected and arranged for
analysis using thematic coding. In the analysis, in addition to the
textual sources, attention has also been paid to the contextual data to
reflect the real images of women portrayed in the proverbs with respect
to the social and psychological context. Thus, the findings of the study
illustrated both favorable and unfavorable images of women. Despite this
fact, the proverbs and proverbial expressions of Tigrigna lacks balance
between the negative and positive attitudes towards women. Contrary to
men, Women are portrayed positively only in a very few proverbs. Most
proverbs and proverbial expressions of Tigrigna indicated that women are
dependent, evil, lazy and inferior in both their self-esteem and
intelligence. In addition, the findings showed that women are considered
as irrational, talkative, jealous and, unfaithful sub-species of
humanity. Thus, based on the findings of the study, recommendations were
made as to how to change the biased and largely prejudice attitudes of
the society towards women. Cite This Article As: Hagos SB (2015). The Portrayal of Women in Tigrigna Proverbs and Proverbial Expressions: the Stereotypical Beliefs and Behavioral Tendencies. Inter. J. Eng. Lit. Cult. 3(6): 183-189
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