Saudi women's discourse before and after 9/11: has it become a freedom movement?

Abstract

This study attempts to answer the following question: Has Saudi women's discourse become more self-oriented and a mere representation of the 'self' and the 'other' after 9/11? Has is become a battlefield in its own to initiate and hasten, what is so-called in the West, "women's movement"? This is a comparative study intends to explore the Saudi women's discourse before and after 9/11 in major Saudi newspapers. The analysis examines three different structures of discourse levels: topic selection, lexicalisation, and overall interaction strategies. The analysis aims at realizing the attitude and the ideology that suggest the self/other-representations that are implied on these three levels. The study adopts qualitative descriptive method to describe the discourse of the Saudi female writers.