REPRESENTATION OF OLYMPIC ATHLETES IN

A MALAYSIAN ONLINE NEWSPAPER

WARDAH HAJISAMA

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS

UNIVERSITY OF MALAYA
KUALA LUMPUR
2012

REPRESENTATION OF OLYMPIC ATHLETES IN

A MALAYSIAN ONLINE NEWSPAPER

WARDAH HAJISAMA

DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF

THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF LINGUISTICS

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS

UNIVERSITY OF MALAYA
KUALA LUMPUR
2012

UNIVERSITI MALAYA
ORIGINAL LITERARY WORK DECLARATION

Name of Candidate: Wardah Hajisama

(I.C/Passport No: H957802)

Registration/Matric No: TGC060027

Name of Degree: Master of Linguistics
Title of Project Paper/Research Report/Dissertation/Thesis (this Work):
Representation of Olympic Athletes in a Malaysian Online Newspaper
Field of Study: Discourse Analysis
I do solemnly and sincerely declare that:
(1)
(2)
(3)

(4)
(5)

(6)

I am the sole author/writer of this Work;

This Work is original;
Any use of any work in which copyright exists was done by way of fair dealing
and for permitted purposes and any excerpt or extract from, or reference to or
reproduction of any copyright work has been disclosed expressly and
sufficiently and the title of the
Work and its authorship have been acknowledged in this Work;
I do not have any actual knowledge nor do I ought reasonably to know that the
making of this work constitutes an infringement of any copyright work;
I hereby assign all and every rights in the copyright to this Work to the
University of Malaya (UM), who henceforth shall be owner of the copyright
in this Work and that any reproduction or use in any form or by any means
whatsoever is prohibited without the written consent of UM having been first
had and obtained;
I am fully aware that if in the course of making this Work I have infringed any
copyright whether intentionally or otherwise, I may be subject to legal action or
any other action as may be determined by UM.

Candidates Signature

Date

Subscribed and solemnly declared before,

Witnesss Signature
Name: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Faridah Noor Mohd Noor
Designation: Supervisor

Date

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to investigate how genders are represented in selected
sports news during the 2008 Olympics. The sports news of the 2008 Olympics from The
Star online newspaper were selected as the corpus of the study, focusing on reports of
selected female-appropraite sports. These female-appropriate sports were classified by
Vincent et al. (2002) based on categories proposed by Metheny (1965) and Kane
(1988). A discourse analysis was conducted to investigate how gender is portrayed in
todays sports media. A concordance software was used to study the data to obtain
terms referring to male and female athletes. Visual images were also analysed to
examine how the media portray male and female athletes on the selected articles.
Results indicate that female athletes were under-represented in terms of word and
photograph count. Although women were competing in the so-called femaleappropriate sports, they were negatively portrayed compared to their male counterparts.
Some of the terms used for women tend to focus on appearance rather than their
achievement and skills. Interestingly, the photographs attributed to male athletes were
more likely to be featured as being competitive compared to the female counterparts.
This study tends to support the notion that gender bias and stereotyping still exist in
todays newspapers reporting of sports.

iii

ABSTRAK

Tujuan kajian ini adalah untuk selidik bagai mana gender di gambarkan dalam berita
sukan yang terpilih ketika sukan Olympics 2008. Berita sukan tentang sukan Olympics
2008 dari akhbar atas talian The Star telah dipilih sebagai corpus. Kajian ini memberi
tumpuan kepada sukan yang sesuai untuk wanita. Sukan yang sesuai untuk wanita telah
diklasifikasi oleh Vincent et al. (2002) berdasarkan kategori yang dicadangkan oleh
Metheny (1965) dan Kane (1988). Satu analisis wacana telah dijalankan yang melihat
bagaimana gender digambarkan dalam media sukan hari ini. Satu perisian concordance
telah digunakan untuk mengkaji data bagi memperolehi terma-terma yang merujuk
kepada atlet-atlet lelaki dan wanita. Gambar-gambar juga dianalisa untuk memeriksa
bagaimana media menggambarkan atlet lelaki dan wanita dalam artikel-artikel terpilih.
Dapatan menunjukkan bahawa atlet-atlet wanita kurang ditonjolkan dari segi bilangan
perkataan dan gambar. Walaupun wanita bersaing di dalam sukan yang dilihat sebagai
bersesuaian untuk merika, namun mereka masih dipandang negatif jika dibandingkan
dengan keupayaan atlet-atlet lelaki. Seterusnya, ada terma yang digunakan untuk wanita
yang lebih menumpukan kepada penampilan dan rupa mereka berbanding dengan
kejayaan dan kemahiran mereka. Gambar-gambar yang menonjolkan atlet-atlet lelaki
menunjukkan mereka sebagai lebih berdaya saing daripada rakan-rakan wanita merika.
Kajian ini menjuru kepada menyokong wujudnya bias dan stereotaip wanita dalam
laporan sukan oleh akhbar hari ini.

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, praise is due to almighty ALLAH with His compassion and mercifulness to
allow me finalizing this M.A. dissertation.
I would like to express my sincere and deepest gratitude to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Faridah
Noor Mohd Noor, my supervisor. I appreciate her extensive commitment of time and
insightful suggestions and comments throughout the writing of this dissertation. I would
also like to acknowledge the Faculty of Humanities and Social sciences, Prince of
Songkla University Pattani and the IPPP, University of Malaya for giving me
opportunity and financial support to obtain the M.A. I am grateful to the Western
Languages department, PSU to give me time extension in order to achieve my goal.
I would like to express thanks to all my lecturers and colleagues in the English section,
who provided me with helpful input and support throughout these years. I am greatly
indebted to Mrs. Arin Sa-idi, Mrs. Tuanyamila Al-idrus, Ms. Nanthida Kulkuea and Mr.
Bordin Waelateh for their active guidance and encouragement from the beginning of my
Master. I would like to thank my beloved friends, Daruni Krairak, Fatimah Nadirah,
Noor Hafhizah, Fateemoh Yunu, Nurhuda Jehdo, Aminoh Yasalae, Mia Tharaphi and
Budianto Hamuddin who have provided me comments and great assistance during this
study.
I am very much indebted to my parents, Mr. Abdul Aziz and Mrs. Sapiyoh Hajisama,
and all the rest of my family including Mariya Mudbinson for their valuable support and
great understanding throughout this journey. Especially, I deeply appreciate my beloved
husband, Abdulhamid Sadeeyamu, and the dearest daughter, Silmee, for being my
strength. Without their unconditional love, encouragement, and dedication, this
dissertation would have never been accomplished.
v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE

ORIGINAL LITERARY WORK DECLARATION

ii

ABSTRACT

iii

ABSTRAK

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

vi

LIST OF TABLES

viii

LIST OF FIGURES

ix

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the study

1.2 Statement of the problem
1.3 Objectives of the Research
1.4 Research Questions
1.5 Significant of the study
1.6 Scope and Limitation of the Study

1
2
4
4
5
6

CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

2.0 Introduction
2.1 Discourse
2.1.1 Text and Context in Discourse
2.1.2 Spoken and Written Discourse
2.2 Approaches to Discourse Analysis
2.2.1 Structural based Approach
2.2.2 Functional base Approach
2.2.3 Utterance Based Approach
2.3 Gender and Language
2.3.1 Feminist Theory
2.3.1.1 Deficit Framework
2.3.1.2 Dominance Framework
2.3.1.3 Difference Framework
2.4 Gender Stereotyping
2.5 Sexist Language
2.5.1 Forms of sexist language
2.5.2 Gender neutral language
2.6 Media Discourse
2.6.1 Gender portrayals in the media
2.6.2 Gender stereotyping in the media
2.6.3 Sexist language in the media
2.6.4 Gender and sport media
2.6.5 Sexism in sport media
2.6.5.1 Women participation in Olympic Games
2.6.5.2 Gender appropriate sports

7
7
8
10
10
11
12
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
27
29
30
32
33
35
37
39
40
vi

2.6.5.3 Visual images in the media

2.7 Summary

41
41

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

42

3.0 Introduction
3.1 Theoretical Frameworks
3.2 Research Design
3.3 Stage I: Data Collection
3.3.1 Source of Data Collection
3.3.2 Data Selection (Corpus)
3.4 Stage II: Categorization and Coding of Data
3.5 Stage III: Data Analysis
3.5.1 Level I: Word Level
3.5.2 Level II: Word Level
3.5.3 Level III: Sentence Level
3.5.4 Level IV:Visual Images
3.5.5 Level V: Comparison of Sportman vs Sportwoman of the year
3.6
Summary

42
42
45
46
46
47
50
51
51
52
53
54
55
56

CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

57

4.0 Introduction
4.1 Portrayal of Male and Female Athletes Based on Word count
4.2 Portrayal of Male and Female Athletes at the Word Level
4.2.1 Adjective for Male and Female Athletes
4.2.2 Terms of references for Male and Female Athletes
4.3 Portrayal of Male and Female Athletes at the Sentence Level
4.3.1 The Use of Metaphors
4.3.2 Reporting Games of Male VS Female Athletes
4.4 Visual Portrayal of Male and Female Athletes
4.4.1 Photographs Count
4.4.2 Photographs Category Types
4.5 A Summary of Findings of Male VS Female Athletes
4.6 Comparison of Sportsman VS Sportswoman of the year
4.6.1 Word and Paragraph Counts
4.6.2 Word Level
4.6.3 Sentence Level
4.6.4 Visual Images
4.7 Summary

57
58
60
60
70
72
72
75
79
80
81
85
86
86
88
90
98
100

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION

102

5.0
5.1

102
102
103
103
105
106

Introduction
Research Questions Revisited
Research Questions 1
Research Questions 2
Research Question 3
5.2 Summary
BIBLIOGRAPHY
APPENDICES

vii

LIST OF TABLES

3.1

Female-Appropriate Sports in The Star Online

48

3.2

The Selected Female-Appropriate Sports as Corpus

49

3.3

Number of events of the Selected Female-Appropriate Sports

50

3.4

Numbers of Articles on Swimming after Coding

51

4.1

Article and Word Count of the Five Selected Sports

58

4.2

Article and Word Count of Male and Female

Athletes Portrayal

59

4.3

Adjectives Used to Describe Male and Female Athletes

61

4.4

Positive Adjectives Used to Describe Male

and Female Athletes

63

4.5

Negative Adjectives Used to Describe Male

and Female Athletes

64

4.6

Positive and Negative Connotation of Adjectives Used

66

4.7

Types of Adjectives Used to Describe Male Athletes

66

4.8

Top five Terms of Accolades and Description as Sports

Personality for Male Athlete

67

4.9

Types of Adjectives Used to Describe Female Athletes

68

4.10

Terms of Reference for Male and Female Athletes

70

4.11

War Metaphor Used for Male and Female Athletes

73

4.12

Photographs of Male and Female Athletes

80

4.13

Photograph Categories of Male and Female Athletes

82

4.14

Comparison of Male and Female Athletes Portrayal

85

4.15

Article and Word Count of the Sportsman and Sportswoman

of the Year

87

4.16

Terms of references for the Sportsman and Sportswoman

of the Year

89

4.17

First Name and Last Name Used to Refer to the Sportsman

and Sportswoman of the Year

90

viii

4.18

Personality Traits of the Sportsman of the Year

91

4.19

Personality Traits of the Sportswoman of the Year

92

4.20

Paragraph Categories of the Sportsman and Sportswoman

of the Year

93

4.21

Photograph Categories of the Sportsman and Sportswoman

of the Year

99

ix

LIST OF FIGURES

3.1

Research Design

45

3.2

Search Results from Key Word Greatest

describing male athletes

52

4.1

Types of Adjectives Used to Describe Male

and Female Athletes

68

4.2

Visual Images of Three Photographs Categories

81

4.3

Visual Images of Male and Female Swimmers in the Category

of Athletes in Competitive Context but not Competing

82

4.4

Visual Images of Male Swimmers in the Category of

Athletes in Competitive Context but Not Competing

83

4.5

Visual Images of Male and Female Swimmers in the Category

of Competing Athlete

83

4.6

Visual Images of Male and Female Gymnasts in the Category

of Competing Athlete

84

4.7

Visual Images of Male and Female Tennis Players in the

Category of Competing Athlete

84

4.8

Visual Images of Phelps in the category of

Competing athlete, Athlete in competitive context
but not competing and Head shot of athlete

99

4.9

Visual Images of Nastia Liukin in the category of

Competing athlete

100