Hijabi Muslim Women Representation in COHA between 1820 and 2019: A Diachronic Corpus-Based Study

Document Type : Original Article

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Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt

Abstract

Abstract
This is a diachronic corpus-based study that aimed to explore how hijabi Muslim women were represented in The Corpus of Historical American English (COHA) between 1820 and 2019. The loan word hijab used in American texts was analyzed diachronically to find out whether there was bias against the religion of Islam in the use of language. Therefore, the frequency of the word, its context, prosody and sense are examined. The study found that hijab experienced semantic change, namely specialization, giving the meaning of a head scarf. The frequency of hijab increased over the period the corpus spans. Different genres featured the word hijab with negative, neutral and positive prosodies, but positive representation of hijabi women gradually grew towards the end of the time period. The study concludes that while the negative representation of Muslim women wearing the hijab indicated prejudice in language use, the loan word carried with it its positive prosodies that were boosted with the passage of time in the corpus.

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