From Gender to Adjectival English Constructions: A Stylistic Lexical Analysis of The House of Broken Angels

Abstract

The study reported in this paper investigates how potentially gender has operated in adjectival English constructions side by side with its cultural bond and decodes linguistic features of lexical categories sampled from Urrea’s ‘The House of Broken Angel’. Two aims of the study are (1) to construe gender operating in adjectival language of text; (2) to interpret cultural association of adjectives with gender. Purposive sampling of thirty lexical items on adjectival language alluding to gender moves was designed and axial coding was affixed to analyse significant features in data. Leech & Short (2007) model has been opted and lexical features have particularly been interpreted on the basis of their contextual occurrence carefully engraved by the author in text. A motif throughout the study has been to discover gender moves in adjectival language used in text. Findings evinced the choice and function of adjectives coalesced in text and this bonding also projected a light on life, culture, gender roles, social settings, and love explicated in lexical items. Qualitative paradigm has been laid down to explore gender moves in adjectives illustrating the naturalized male & female identities. The usefulness of study is demonstrated by initiating a journey to interpret linguistic characteristics of literary text and evidence contribute adequately to pedagogical implications.