Metaphorical Analysis of Discourse on Early Saudi Attempts to Include Women in Unconventional Work Environments

Objective - This paper examines empirically the discourse on social change as represented in gender-related posts on English blogs written by Saudi bloggers. Slightly more than a decade ago, Saudi women were allowed and encouraged by the government to work in unconventional work environments (outside the fields of education and health care); this stirred controversy across the country.Methodology/Technique - This analysis is based on an understanding of discourse as both shaping and being shaped by social and cognitive contexts. In so doing, it approaches the data from a socio-cognitive perspective with a focus on the mental models underlying the discursive representations at hand. The adopted methodology is based on metaphor analysis due to the inherently cognitive nature of metaphors. Consequently, an eclectic approach combining insights from conceptual metaphor theory and critical theory analysis is used.Finding - Data analysis reveals two main findings. First, change is constructed cognitively as challenging and demanding for both women aspiring to work in unconventional professions and their supporters on authoritative and non-authoritative levels. This, however, clashes with the second finding, as in these blogs women are metaphorically constructed in an objectifying and victimizing manner.Novelty - Such a mismatch calls for a careful examination of some gender constraining cognitive constructions as they are, surprisingly, constructed and reproduced even within discourse attempting to empower women.Type of Paper - Empirical