Feminine Imagery in Contemporary American Pop Songs: A Contrastive Analysis
Feminine Imagery in Contemporary American Pop Songs: A Contrastive Analysis

Summary/Abstract: For over a decade, metaphor analysis has been postulated as a powerful means of unveiling human experience encoded in various spheres of language use. Proposing a hypothesis that even within a single culture, the views of a particular social group may alter significantly within a relatively short period of time with pop songs being an immediate reflection of the change, the present study explores feminine imagery as constructed in American pop songs by leading female pop singers in two ten-year periods: from 1985 to 1995 and from 2005 to 2015. Set within the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the study employs the Metaphor Identification Procedure developed by Pragglejaz Group and P.A.N., a poetry analysis software, in order to identify and conduct qualitative analysis of conceptual metaphors that construe feminine imagery. The findings are drawn on the basis of 522 conceptual metaphors whose most common targets are love, life, and time. It is shown that, while in both periods the contemporary woman construes her image as a strong, persistent and self-dependent leader, the earlier period is characterized by more positive views on love while in latest times woman’s relationships are characterized by a greater dynamism: the woman of today conceives life as both competitive and risky and yet is able to adapt seeking to take up a leading role in relationships. There is also evidence that most recently, woman has developed a more aggressive attitude toward love in particular and a more pragmatic attitude toward life in general.

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