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Title A CRITICAL ECO-LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF ONLINE COSMETIC SURGERY DISCOURSE

Author(s) BUSHRA

Abstract Eco-linguistics holds the belief that the endangerment of the world and its species is partly caused by language, so the fight against the dangers starts with the revolt against the language use. Thus, the current study subjected cosmetic surgery discourse to eco-linguistic scrutiny since individuals go to considerable lengths and consent to incur serious risks to alter their appearance. The research combined the methods from CDA and eco-linguistics to evaluate the discourse and its respective ideologies. For the said purpose, the study selected the cosmetic surgery discourse from the websites of 20 cosmetic surgery clinics and analyzed the lexical items and metaphors to identify the ideologies that are propagated. The study found that the cosmetic surgery discourse represents surgically unaltered bodies as deficient, inadequate, undesirable, embarrassing, and diseased. The variations or deviations from the set beauty standard are represented as problems for which cosmetic surgery is declared as the best practical solution. Surprisingly, cosmetic surgery clients are referred to as “patients” that means that the deviations are not just seen as problems, but they are akin to disease. This ideology necessitates medical intervention for cosmetic reasons. Furthermore, cosmetic surgery discourse also stigmatizes the changes in appearance brought by time and reinforces the idea of subjecting such bodies to cosmetic surgery. Cosmetic surgery is declared as safe and free of age restriction. Moreover, cosmetic surgery is claimed to be capable of transforming, creating, rejuvenating, improving, enhancing, fixing, and sculpting bodies. Furthermore, cosmetic surgery claims social, emotional, and psychological benefits. The study concluded that the discourse and ideologies of cosmetic surgery are destructive since other than health risks there are chances that surgical alterations may become a norm and need for social acceptance thus posing various social and psychological challenges to those who fail to modify their bodies according to cosmetic surgery ideals.

Type Thesis/Dissertation MS

Faculty Languages

Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2021-03-18

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