A Critical Discourse Analysis of Gendered Lyrics in Gor Mahia FC Fandom Songs

Abstract

Football fandom songs have become platforms through which fans and supporters of football teams express their identity, emotions, loyalty and social values. Gor Mahia fans and supporters, in particular, have used these songs to communicate their perceptions on gender. Fans have used these songs to linguistically express their perception on men and women. Images of men and women have been constructed in these songs through metaphorical expressions, thematic representations and lexical choices. Existing literature on Gor Mahia FC songs focuses on community identity and belonging, cultural identification. However, there is limited studies on how Gor Mahia FC songs linguistically portray masculinity and femininity. This study is, therefore, set to establish how masculinity and femininity are linguistically embedded in Gor Mahia FC songs. Data analysis was done using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). CDA views linguistic choices as a way of constructing how socio-cultural structures, identities, social power relations and gender relations are portrayed in texts. Through random sampling technique, thirty songs were audio-recorded. It is from the audio-recordings that twenty songs were purposively selected guided by song content of gendered and sexist Dholuo language. The selected songs were then descriptively analysed within the CDA framework. The finding of this study is that contents of Gor Mahic FC fandom songs are dominated by patriarchy and male chauvinism with women contemptuously displayed. Theoretically, this study contributes to the field of gender and linguistics by linking linguistic and discourse-analytic approaches to unveil the function of language as a tool of control and empowerment in gender-related contexts.