Discourse analysis of male and female representatives of selected countries at the United Nations general
debates
AbdulazizAlshahrani
Al-Baha University
Abstract
The aim of this paper was to evaluate gender differences in the language used in United Nations (UN) General
Assembly debates by one male and one female representative each from India, China, the USA, and Indonesia. The critical discourse
analysis (CDA) framework of van Dijk (2015) was used along with the 25 discursive
devices in this framework. The data on frequencies of variables were analysed statistically. No significant differences were
observed between positive comments about oneself, negative comments about others, length of speech (in words), and the various
devices by the gender of the speaker at the 0.05 level of significance. However, gender differences in terms of higher levels for
males than for females were observed for populism (t(6) = 2.354, p = .057), norm expression
(t(6) = 2.171, p = 0.073), and positive comments about oneself
(t(6) = 2.224, p = .068). The correlation coefficients were significant between genders for
positive-self, norm expression, and national self-glorification only. These results could be attributed to the small size of four
male and four female speeches, leading to high values of standard error, which reflects the significance of differences. Also,
there could be overlapping and mixing of gender characteristics in connection with different contexts and occasions due to
emergent identities. These political identities were created in particular situations or contexts, and it was not clear how much
they could be a result of female or male politicians’ styles. This explanation by Sivrić and
Jurčić (2014) seems to be valid for this research as well. Small samples could be a limitation of this study. However,
many other works used even smaller samples. The generalisability of these findings needs to be tested using other similar
studies.
The United Nations is the most important global platform for promoting world peace. When peace is threatened by conflicts
between nations, such as the current Russia-Ukraine war, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) discusses methods for resolving the conflict
and establishing peace. Additionally, the UNGA holds sessions on important international issues, during which heads of various
governments debate these issues.
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