Language, Intertextuality and Subjectivity: Voices in the Construction of Consumer Femininity

Women in industrialized societies have a lifelong relationship with consumerism. They are caught up in a 'consumer femininity', since a feminine identity involves, among other things, a particular mode of consumption. This study, presented in full for the first time in this volume, aims to stimulate critical awareness of consumer femininity. It culminates in sample analysis of a type of discourse that contributes to the formation of women as feminine subjects: the teen magazine. The book proposes an approach to doing critical discourse analysis that focuses on the constitution of a language user's subjectivity in the act of reading. Influenced by the early work of Norman Fairclough, it locates points of focus for taking up a critical (and specifically feminist) reading position in discourse analysis. In doing so, it seeks to provide theoretical and analytical grounding for a critical pedagogy that will take into the classroom attention to language and construction of language users' subjectivities.