Disabled Iraqi Women Between Rights And Marginalization: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

In Iraq, women with disabilities have faced many difficult circumstances, including different types of discrimination based on sex, property, age, and culture. The present study investigates the linguistic devices of the UNAMI\OHCHAR report (2016) and unravels them. Fairclough's (1992-1995) model of critical discourse analysis is adopted as a theoretical framework to analyze the selected data. The report has shown that Iraqi women are discriminated by the power practices of men, traditions, and gender expectations. The disabled women in Iraq are less power than men and of less living and education opportunities. These ideologies are reflected in discourse through negative lexicalization, stating the discriminatory acts in the rheme positions as new information, constitutive intertextuality, and factive and lexical presupposition. These linguistic devices have reflected the evidenced discrimination, men power and hegemony against disabled women in Iraq.