Gendered Power Dynamics in What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky: A Corpus-Based Verb Analysis

Abstract

The primary focus of this study is to investigate the gender roles present in Lesley Nneka Arimah's (2017) collection of short stories titled as What it Means When a Man Falls from the Sky, analytically focusing on the use of mental and material verbs. Generally, it is acknowledged by the scholarship that it is society that moulds and upholds the power structures associated with gender roles, using Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA) combined with Corpus Tools, particularly AntConc (2019). The study analyses how linguistic choices either preserve or challenge gender ideology. Furthermore, the analyses bring to light how the material verbs linked with male characters often assert dominance and control, while the mental verbs are frequently linked with female characters, portraying them as emotional and obedient beings. These language patterns not only repeat traditional gender bias but also show how society's norms get quietly blended into stories. In the end, these results help us understand how language, power, and gender connect in today's narratives and how they give a powerful lens to look at how literature either keeps gender roles going or pushes back against them.