Browsing by Author "Ammour Melissa"

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    A semiotic Analysis of the Representation of Women in Kabyle and Western Song Lyrics
    (Mouloud Mammeri University, 2024-06) Ammour Melissa; Ait Abdesselam Fazia
    The present dissertation adopts a multidisciplinary approach incorporating, Media Studies, Music Studies, and Gender Studies. It offers an in-depth comparative analysis of the ways women are represented in Kabyle and English song lyrics. The objectives of this study are twofold. First, it aims to inspect and explore the presence of women’s empowerment in western and Kabyle music. Second, it intends to investigate the extent to which these representations reflect or challenge societal views in both musical contexts. To answer these research questions, a qualitative approach is adopted. Twenty songs, equally divided between English and Kabyle music, were selected within this context. The research draws upon Charles Sanders Peirce’s triadic theory of signs to lay the foundation for uncovering the underlying meanings within the lyrics involving the interplay between the sign, the object, and the interpretant, in addition to the adoption of a second theory, Max Weber’s Verstehen theory, as a means to interpret the songs. The findings reveal that female empowerment is manifested in both western and Kabyle musical contexts through communicating empowered messages to embolden girls and women to break the traditional gender roles. The study reveals that women’s representation indeed deconstructs societal expectations to an extent while perpetuating them in certain ways within the western perspective. However, the Kabyle context, for its part, concerns itself with challenging these social norms to a greater extent.