اللغة والقوة والأيديولوجيا في مسرحية 'ترايفلز' لسوزان غلاسبيل: دراسة في ضوء التحليل

Abstract

This research paper applies Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to Susan Glaspell's one-act play Trifles (1916) to reveal how power relations and gender ideology are linguistically constructed within the dramatic structure. The study stems from a primary problem: examining how linguistic and conversational patterns produce a patriarchal authority that reinforces gender hierarchy while simultaneously providing possibilities for resistance through feminist discursive practices. Drawing on Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA) frameworks, Fairclough’s three-dimensional model, and sociolinguistic approaches to gender, this study analyzes grammatical patterns, transitivity systems, modality markers, and evaluative lexical choices, as well as conversational dynamics and turn-taking organization, to uncover the mechanisms of ideological operation within dramatic interaction. The results demonstrate that Trifles embodies a discursive struggle between institutional male authority and an alternative female discourse. This conflict is manifested through patterns of masculine linguistic certainty, objective control over the conversational flow, and the evaluative dismissal of domestic knowledge as "trifles." In contrast, female characters’ employ indirect linguistic strategies, strategic silence, and cooperative communication to produce counter-knowledge that undermines male epistemic hegemony from within a marginalized space. The study concludes that patriarchal ideology in the play operates not only at the thematic level but is embodied within the linguistic structure itself, where power relations are reproduced through precise grammatical and interactive choices. These findings contribute to extending the applications of CDA to dramatic texts and highlighting the role of language in constructing dominance and resistance within the early twentieth-century American social context.