Gay intolerance in the language of Stellenbosch students : a critical discourse analysis of Campus News Media

[摘要] This thesis has been written in partial fulfillment of the requirements of a mastersprogramme in intercultural communication. The study focuses on aspects of linguisticcommunication, specifically in media discourse, where 'cultural boundaries aredetermined by sexual difference and where much misunderstanding appears to befounded in different conceptions of homosexuality. I have investigated the theoreticalframeworks within which discursive reflection on homosexuality can be studied froman interdisciplinary perspective. The research examines reports in a studentnewspaper that topicalise homosexuality; it also considers reports that are part of adiscourse in which communication takes place between a heterosexual majority and ahomosexual minority. Reports that were published across a period of five years wereexamined, in order to determine whether there has been any development in thediscourse.This investigation of a particular kind of intercultural media discourse has beenaugmented by investigating attitudes towards the minority group by means of aquestionnaire, designed by Kite and Deaux (1986: 137). This questionnaire wasdistributed among 240 students in an attempt to determine whether their reportedattitudes coincide with those reported in the media. Despite the fact thathomosexuality was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of MentalDisorders (DSM) more than 30 years ago, reports of homophobic violence andattitudes in news media reveal that a significant percentage of the population stillviews homosexuality as an illness, a psychological disorder or as sin.The aim of this thesis was to examine the possible (re)enforcement of suchhomophobic ideologies in news media, as well as the possible (re)enforcement ofincreasingly tolerant ideologies, by making use of frameworks developed withinCritical Discourse Analysis, by van Dijk (1998) and Gelber (2002). While the resultsof the media analysis indicate a growing acceptance of homosexuality, the surveyresults reveal that the majority of the heterosexual students surveyed still maintain homophobic attitudes. Furthermore, discrepancies in the survey results reveal thecomplex nature of such attitudes.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University