The Discursive Representation of Women in the Algerian Family Code “The Case of Marriage and its Dissolution” CDA Approach

Abstract

The present research analyses the discursive representation of women in the Algerian family code of 2005. It draws on critical discourse analysis (henceforth CDA) framework in an effort to shed light on the way women are discursively represented in the amended Algerian family code. For this particular purpose, the aforementioned legal text is linguistically examined following a CDA framework with a special emphasis on Van Leewen’s(1996,2008) sociosemantic model of analysis. The latter is employed to explore how women as ‘social actors’ are represented aiming to uncover the way power, dominance, bias, and ideologies are maintained in the target discourse. The analyses of this study reveal that the Algerian family code maintains and perpetuates women’s inferior position. These findings indicate that gender bias and asymmetrical power relations are enacted in the Algerian Family code in relation to marriage and its dissolution.