Motaleat-e-zaban-e-farsi

Motaleat-e-zaban-e-farsi

An Analysis of Feminine Style in Story Collection “Unaccustomed Earth” by Jhumpa Lahiri

Document Type : Original Article

Author
Latifeh Salamatbavil
Associate Professor, Department of Persian Language and Literature, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
10.22034/jmzf.2025.560881.1262
Abstract
 
 
1.      Introduction
Examining the gendered dimensions of language is one of the research concerns of contemporary studies. The relationship between language and gender has attracted attention because, according to sociolinguistic research, women use language differently from men. The effect of gender on language can be observed both at the level of vocabulary and at the level of linguistic structure. In feminist stylistics, what is important is, first, the issue of language and gender, and second, women’s writing. Gender is one of the components of individual and social identity, and the relationship between language and gender is a subset of the relationship between language and identity. The role that society assigns to men and women creates different behavioral patterns for them. “Language is not merely words; rather, it reveals our inner selves to the world. In Chomsky’s words, language is a window into the mind” (Lakoff, 2020: 195). The aim of the present research is to examine how feminine style is employed in story collection “Unaccustomed Earth” by Jhumpa Lahiri.
 
2.       Research Method
This study, using a descriptive–analytical method, examines feminine style in Unaccustomed Earth from two dimensions: language and gender, and women’s writing. In this research, while analyzing each of the syntactic and lexical components, examples from the text of the stories are cited.
 
3.      Discussion
Women’s engagement with language as a form of social behavior differs greatly from men’s engagement with language. “Women’s writing means writing about issues, problems, states, and emotional characteristics specific to women, with the aim of introducing the consciousness and sensitivities of the female gender. Women’s specific issues consist of conditions and experiences that, from a psychological and physiological perspective, exist only in women; men lack these issues and, due to the absence of lived experience, cannot match women in writing about them” (Fotouhi, 2011: 402). “At the beginning of the twentieth century, numerous issues that had developed since the Middle Ages found a place within feminist thought; for example, the idea that differences between men and women are not the result of their nature but rather the consequence of the different education of the two genders” (Michel, 2003: 95). Themes that belong exclusively to women’s literature are experiences that only women are capable of articulating in writing. Therefore, the form and content of the works they create differ markedly from what men write. The layers of feminine style can be divided into five layers: the phonological layer, the lexical layer, the syntactic layer, the rhetorical layer, and the pragmatic layer (Fotouhi, 2012). The present study focuses on analyzing the lexical and syntactic layers.
 
4.       Conclusion
Jhumpa Lahiri is among contemporary writers in whose works women’s writing and the experience of a feminine perspective can be clearly perceived in the distinctive form, voice, and content she creates. The use of words, expressions, and specific syntactic forms—characteristic features of women’s discourse—can be found with high frequency in the linguistic structures of her works. The particular emotional traits of women, their issues and problems, and experiences that, from a psychological and physiological standpoint, belong exclusively to women, are evident. At the lexical layer, the words used in her stories revolve around the family and the concerns and preoccupations of women. At the syntactic layer, what stands out is her use of short sentences, description, and simplicity of expression. One can arrive at the general conclusion that men and women employ different language to describe the world around them. Linguistic variables dependent on social classes and culture-centered modes of thought are more prominently manifested in women’s writing, and the influence of culture on gendered language can be perceived more clearly in women’s works. The level of vocabulary employed by Lahiri reflects her culture and social thought, as well as the environment in which she was raised, and the characters of her stories are migrants who strive for a better life—migrants who, although they themselves did not migrate, are considered migrants because they were born into or grew up in immigrant families.
 
 
Keywords
Jumpa Lahiri
unaccustamed Earth
language and gender
women&‌‌‌rsquo
s writing
کتاب شناسی
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  • Receive Date 06 September 2025
  • Revise Date 27 October 2025
  • Accept Date 08 December 2025