Understanding Feminist Rhetoric: A Socio-Cognitive Study of Women’s March Slogans

Abstract

This research work has studied the Feminist slogans being used in Aurat March. The slogans are analyzed through the socio-cognitive approach presented by Van Dijk. The devised theoretical framework which is consists of five points given by SCA to get to know the influence of personal mental models and group-associated mental representations on contextual and interpretational phenomena of slogans. In-depth textual and visual analysis is made. The slogans are analyzed concerning the mainstream social ideologies regarding gender roles and religious gender representations and how these acceptable contextual boundaries are being resisted by this slogan text. 15 slogans have been analyzedthoroughlyto describe and explain their contextual and interpretational phenomena. This research work is beneficial for people related to all fields as it discusses the very crucial social issue of feminism in the form of Aurat March and the textual effects of it on society and its people due to the unparalleled nature of text with the social and religious discursive Contexts. The slogans also explain the personal mental model in the production of the slogan text and the possibility of misinterpretation of the actual context by replacing it with any other possible contexts which might have been considered as actual by the interpreter due to the influence of his mental cognition. Thus, positive and negative feelings in people or audiences are aroused regarding the slogan text.