Neslihan Yetkiner & Gisela Redeker Blood, Shame, Fear: Language & Identity Practices
in Turkish Women's Narration on Menstruation, Nuptial Night and Sex Life

University of Groningen
Department of Language and Communication
P.O. Box 716
9700 AS Groningen
THE NETHERLANDS
yetkiner@let.rug.nl

Abstract

Reflections of ideologies and social norms on linguistic behaviours have been absorbed into gender and discourse studies over the past two decades (Bucholtz 1996, Bergvall 1996, Crawford, 1995, Gee 1992, Hall & Bucholtz 1995, van Dijk 1993, 1998; among others). This research posits the fact that identity claims are originated, sustained, transformed and undermined through the communicative practices (Burr 1995, Howard & Hollander 1997). Similarly, sexual practices and gender identity take their meaning from particular cultures and their beliefs about the self and the world (Caplan 1987, Foucault 1978).

In this paper, we want to build on this prior researching by examining language use of 50 Turkish women with little or no formal education to create, construct and reinforce culturally predetermined social identities in their talk on sexual and health issues. With this purpose, different discursive strategies through which Turkish women express themselves in their narration on menstruation, nuptial night and sex life are analyzed through the dramaturgical frame of Goffman (1959). In this analysis, a "back stage" containing the cultural, social and linguistic knowledge that guides symbolic interactions, is distinguished from the "front stage", that is, the communicative practices through which social identities are constructed, exhibited, and managed. We further focus on the question of how and why uneducated Turkish women formulate, admit and support certain (esp. defensive and protective) styles of self-presentations by which they index themselves as subordinate, incapable, inexperienced, insecure, and unaware of sexuality through indirect, evasive and ambiguous language use. We propose that cultural construct of "women" affects the organization and content of discourse especially in critical/taboo topics and produces an additional conversational burden for the women participating in these topics.

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