The Deconstruction Of Gender Bias: Algerian Myths In The Light Of Greek Mythology (a Study Or Power Relations, Language And Gender Functions In Algerian Mythology)

Résumé: Gender in mythical narratives mirrors various social manifestations embedded in language and manifested through individuals’ social realizations. These manifestations are exemplified in the narratives invokers summon to realize social aims and functions. These narratives also determine individuals’ social statuses and affect their gender according to their summoning purposes. This work is the disjecta membra of hermeneutic and practical components. It scrutinizes gender changes in Algerian mythological narratives using two main methods ‘Charter myth’ and ‘Mythodology’. On the one hand, it attempts to uncover the sociological mechanisms and bias which determine individuals’ reality. Per contra, it focuses on mythological functions, and how they affect individuals’ roles and statuses in society. Thence, this work was divided into two sections. The first section consists of three interrelated chapters, while section two includes a separate didactic chapter, which in turn focuses on learners and teachers’ attitudes toward the implementations of myths in EFL classrooms. Chapter One represents the grandiose theoretical debate. It deals with previous and contemporary theories, debates and issues in relation to mythical studies. It also deals with mythical approaches, functions, and language in popular mythologies, such as ‘Greek mythology’. Chapter Two exposes a mixture of qualitative and quantitative part, and focuses on the various gender dimensions in Algerian mythology. Moreover, it constitutes of ‘Profiling Informants’, corpus collection, and extends to ‘Typology of Characters’. It also includes the researcher’s critical standpoints for the various narrative functions, and gender affiliations. Chapter Three evinces the quantitative part of this work. Thus, it mentions the methodology and the assessment of gender empowerments from different angles. More importantly, it sheds the light on the various mechanisms and attitudes individuals go through when invoking a mythological narrative. It also describes how functions determine the type of the narrative in terms of empowerments and bias. Accordingly, it attempts to summarize the sociological and the functional characteristics of the various Algerian narratives. Chapter Four focuses on the fourth function of mythology or what Campbell labeled as ‘Educational mythology’. In this sense, it ponders mythological implications in the Algerian EFL classroom. Partially, it tries to assess learners and teachers’ attitudes when using mythical narratives with multiple EFL modules including the module of Gender studies. This work unfolds to project various intricacies of gender changes in Algerian myths. It goes beyond the classical model of Campbell to set new boundaries of functions distinguishing the Algerian narratives as a perpetual discourse of conflict and power in both oral and written contexts.

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