Yarmouk University

Faculty of Art

Department of English Language and Literature

Thesis

Arabic Feminist Discourse: Insights from Wedding Invitation Cards in

Jordan

Submitted by

Husam Nusair 2017300052

Supervised by

Prof. Fawwaz Al-Abed Al-Haq

 Chapter One

Introduction

1.1 Preliminary

Since the beginning of humankind, humans sought a way to exchange information and

communicate with each other. The process began gradually by using signs, drawings,

sounds, words, then sentences. It took thousands of years for languages to reach the final

edition that we are using today. Nowadays, languages are considered as an indispensable

medium to convey messages and express thoughts. No one can imagine how our life would

be without having a language (i.e., written, spoken, or even by gesture). People use language

to request and provide information. This language not only enables people to share their

thoughts and ideas, but it gives them the chance to establish social, economic, and cultural

relationships. Furthermore, languages have an expressive function that enables users to

express their feelings, emotions, and attitudes.

The features mentioned above are some of the shining aspects of language. Several

centuries ago, people began to use other patterns of language that enable users to show

power, discrimination, and inequality between each other according to ethnicity, social class,

economic status, or level of education. These practices are not only confined to the spoken

language, but they also applied to the written language. Nowadays, the quality of spoken or

written language should be assessed by being free from discrimination or inequality.

However, gender inequality is one of the global issues that appear in many disciplines (e.g.,

education, work, and language). In the middle of the 80s, ​Tove Skutnabb-Kangas (a Finnish

linguist) coined the new term “languagism” which refers to discrimination based on
language. This kind of discrimination happened due to many reasons, such as social

customs, traditions, and cultures.

The Islamic and the Jordanian culture play a vital role in shaping the linguistic and

non-linguistic features of most Muslims official dealings. Hudson (2007) describes the term

culture "as the kind of knowledge which we learn from other people, either by direct

instruction or by watching their behavior" (78). It means that culture is created by the help of

every person who lives in a particular society. Over the years, people sanctify these cultures,

and they become the first legislator for people's everyday life activities. Nowadays, people

continue to follow these cultures regardless of their incompatibility with our religion. A

widespread practice inherent in the Jordanian culture is masking the women's names in

different situations. The main focus of this study is on the wedding invitation cards.

A wedding invitation card is a way in which linguistic discrimination between genders is

expressed. This written piece shows people's attitudes toward this phenomenon. An

invitation is a way to ask a person or a group of people to join a particular ceremony or

activity. Al-Ali (2006) defines invitation as "a commemorative social action having the

function of informing and requesting the presence or participation of a person(s) kindly and

courteously to someplace, gathering, entertainment, etc., or to do something" (691). In the

past, people used to invite each other for different ceremonies verbally, but with the

evolving demands of life, people tend to use written invitations for weddings and other

parties. Sawalmeh (2018) states that the WICs "is typically written in a formal, third-person

language and sent out one or two weeks before the finalized wedding date" (106). This

written piece facilitates the spread of invitations to reach many people as long it contains all

the information needed for the intended ceremony.

1.2 Background of the Study

Since ancient times, men regarded women as an essential member of any society. Women

shared men most of their daily life events and participated in many social activities. Despite

that, gender bias still occurs in every society. Every day, women suffer f​rom injustice,

discrimination, and oppression in many fields of their lives. For instance, women face

discrimination in social life, in education, in work, and even in their homes. One hundred

years ago, suffrage, driving a car, equal pay, and maternity leave were just dreams. They

may also suffer from domestic violence, sexual violence, workplace issues, or sometimes

forced not to leave home. The reason is not that women do not have sufficient abilities, but

because men believe they have the power and privilege over women.

In many Arab countries, women are still deprived of some of their basic rights. One of

the most elementary rights is calling or mentioning them by their names. Nowadays, males

are feeling ashamed of using and mentioning the names of their mother, sister, wife, or

daughter within their speech community. In her article, Badawad (2008) tried to find the

answer to the pressing question of what is wrong in mentioning the woman's name. She

believes that this social practice occurs due to the instinctive principle, which dominates the

mindset of males in our region. Moreover, Badawad (2008) claims that this social practice

has nothing to do with religious reservations. She adds that when males' thoughts are

restricted to the instinctive beliefs about women, everything else related to women will be

shameful and considered a flaw in males' perspective. Finally, she observed that there are

many female writers forced by their families to write nicknames instead of their real names.

A recurring phenomenon that is considered as a form of gender inequality manifests

itself in masking the bride's name on the wedding invitation cards. Al-Ali (2006) reveals that
 40% of Jordanian wedding invitations that he examined replaced the bride's name by the

honorific attribute, ​kariimatuh (his honorable). Many people append the reason either due to

religion or due to some old customs and traditions. Sawalmeh (2014) reports that nearly half

of the Jordanian Muslim participants on a questionnaire selected religious contentment as a

reason to avoid mentioning the bride's name. About 32% of his participants choose social

contentment, while 20% of them agreed with the personal contentment choice.

According to Sawalmeh (2014) and Al-Ali (2006) results, a significant share of the

Jordanian people has a misconception about the reason for hiding the women's names and

not mentioning it anywhere. Due to this misconception, people connected hiding the

women's names to religion. Others believe that the name of his wife, mother, or sister must

be unknown by his community (i.e., his friends, colleagues, classmates, let alone strange) for

social norms. Garrison (2017) stated that "[t]his suppression is done ​in the name of Islamic

Law, known as Sharia. [h]owever, the current suppression of women is shaped by culture

and history" (1).

1.3 Theoretical Framework

The researcher believes that this topic is multidisciplinary, which needs many disciplines

and approaches to be connected to make this research possible. Therefore, this research

follows the new relatively approach of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and the

variationist approach, which both fall in the area of sociolinguistics. This section begins with

a general overview of the field of Sociolinguistics. Secondly, the researcher discusses the

CDA and the variationist approach, respectively. Then, the researcher provides a brief
 history of the feminist throughout three cultures. Finally, the researcher tries to illustrate the

relation between feminist and linguistics and how they work together.

1.3.1 Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics is a term coined in 1952 by Cuerie and consists of two entities: society (i.e.,

the people who live in a specific region and share some characteristics) and linguistics (i.e.,

studying a language in a scientific way). The combination of these two entities creates a

field concerned in studying the relationship between language and society. Cameron (1992)

defines sociolinguistics as “the study of linguistic variation in space (both social and

geographical) and time” (30). Spolsky (1998) defines sociolinguistics as “the field that

studies the relation between language and society, between the uses of language and the

social structures in which the users of language live” (3). In other words, sociolinguists tend

to link sociologists' work with linguists’ to interpret issues related to language in society.

With the study of the language in everyday use, sociolinguistics sheds light on the

relation between language and society. Therefore, sociolinguists draw their conclusions

based on empirical evidence (i.e., evidence-based observations about the social, linguistic

behavior of a speech community). According to Romaine (2000), sociolinguistics concludes,

"its data from real-life speakers in actual speech situations" (240). This interaction between

language and society aims to illustrate how people in a specific society use the language,

how the use of language reflects their social culture and identity, and why people speak

differently in different situations. Again, this field of study is not associated only with the

spoken language of a specific society, but it gives much attention to the written language

used by them.
 Sociolinguistics studies the interplay between linguistic and social variables that are

responsible for language variation. Fasold (1990) asserts that ​"[t]he choices among the

variants of a linguistic variable are influenced by both social and linguistic forces" (272)​.

Some of these social variables are age, culture, ethnicity, religion, social class, gender,

marital status, occupation, and level of education. Ifechelobi and Ifechelobi (2017) explain

that "[l]anguage is a social phenomenon, so social factors like gender, class, education and

wealth affect the way we use language" (23). The linguistic variables could be phonological,

morphological, lexical, or syntactic. The variation in these variables may depend on the

social variables like region, age, gender, etc.

Language and society rely significantly and clearly on each other. Many language

phenomena showed that societies play a significant role in shaping the language used by

people. An obvious example of this relation (i.e., between language and society) manifests in

the use of French pronouns. The choice one makes of a subject pronoun reflects the

relationship between the user and the other person. The ​Tu form sometimes describes

familiarity and solidarity with the addressee. Besides expressing plural, ​Vous form expresses

politeness that the speaker should offer to the addressee or expresses the power that the

addressee has over the speaker. Therefore, this illustrates how a social factor (in this, social

class) influences the use of language by people. Ifechelobi and Ifechelobi (2017) state that

“[l]anguage choices are made bearing in mind social meanings like age, gender, situation,

class, status, accommodation theory, politeness and so on” (23).

1.3.2 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

In the early 1990s, a group of Dutch scholars, including Teunn van Dijk, Norman

Fairclough, Gunther Kress, Theo van Leeuwen, and Ruth Wodak, gathered at the University
of Amsterdam to discuss some methods and theories related to discourse analysis. They

were meeting to formulate a new approach called Critical Discourse Analysis (Wodak and

Meyer, 2009a). All of the above prominent figures left their mark on CDA through articles,

researches, and books. Each one introduced new methods and principles in CDA, seeking to

develop it as a linguistic framework. Before we dig deeper into this approach, it is necessary

to differentiate between the two terms CDA and DA (Discourse Analysis).to understand

their idea.

Firstly, Fairclough (1993) defined CDA as a branch of discourse analysis, which is found

to explore the relationship between discourse and society. It is concerned with analyzing the

relationships of dominance, discrimination, power, and control as manifested in language

discourse analysis which aims to systematically explore often opaque

relationships of causality and determination between (a) discursive
practices, events and texts, and (b) wider social and cultural structures,
relations and processes; to investigate how such practices, events, and
texts arise out of and are ideologically shaped by relations of power and
struggles over power; and to explore how the opacity of these
relationships between discourse and society is itself a factor securing
power and hegemony. (135)

According to van Dijk (2001), CDA “focuses on social problems, and especially on the role

of discourse in the production and reproduction of power abuse or domination” (96).

Generally speaking, this approach examines the textual and the spoken discourse by

observing and analyzing it from a perspective of social equality. Jaffer Sheyholislami (2001)

clearly put it this way "CDA aims at making transparent the connections between discourse

practices, social practices, and social structures, connections that might be opaque to the

layperson" (1)
 By considering discourse as social practice, Fairclough (1989) illustrated that language is

a part of society; it is a social process, and it is a socially conditioned process (i.e.,

conditioned by other, non-linguistic, parts of society). In terms of language is a part of

society, he said that “[l]inguistic phenomena are social in the sense that whenever people

speak or listen or write or read, they do so in ways which are determined socially and have

social effects” (23). He argues that all linguistic phenomena are social but not the vice versa.

To put it another way, discourse shapes and shaped by social settings​. Hence, the CDA's role

is to examine the interplay between both society and the discourse.

CDA differs from other methods of discourse analysis since it includes not only a

contextual description and interpretation of discourse but also an explanation of why and

how discourse works. Wodak (2009) described the term ‘critical’ as being misunderstood,

and people connected it to the negative meaning, whereas ‘critical’ here means to make

more attention and not take things for granted. Corson (2000) stated that the term 'critical' is

used in this approach to "explore hidden power relations between a piece of discourse and

wider social and cultural formation" and it aims to "uncovering inequality, power

relationships, injustices, discrimination, bias, etc" (95).

van Dijk (2015) summarized some of the general CDA attributes: firstly, it basically

concentrates on social and political issues, and the studies conducted in these two fields are

usually multidisciplinary (i.e., this study connects three disciplines: sociology, linguistics,

and feminist). Many fields of study come under the umbrella of CDA, such as anthropology,

sociology, psychology, and linguistics. Also, the role of CDA is not limited to describing the

discourse structures (i.e., spoken languages such as news broadcast, interviews or

conversations, and written languages such as textbooks, academic articles, or newspapers).

 However, it attempts to explain these structures in terms of the attributes of social structure

(i.e., social class, religion, education, family, etc..). Finally, CDA concentrates on the

authority abuse in societies (e.g., patriarchy power). Wodak (2001) previously said that

“CDA takes a particular interest in the relation between language and power” (2).

CDA is created to deal with matters related to social injustice, power abuse, and gender

inequality. It is considered the best to deal with a phenomenon like masking women’s names

verbally in public and written in wedding invitation cards. Some people would argue that

masking the woman's name is not that a big deal, and it does not need that much attention.

Fairclough (1989) states that “[j]ust as even a single sentence has traditionally been seen to

imply a whole language, so a single discourse implies a whole society” (152). Therefore, a

simple discourse like the practice appears on WICs may demonstrate the people’s attitude

toward this phenomenon.

1.3.3 The History of Feminism

Discrimination against women is one of the major societal issues over time. Since antiquity,

men believed that women are born to serve them and to satisfy their desires. This view has

not changed dramatically in our time, especially in some Arab countries. Many educated

men still believe that women should not be treated equally as men. In his dictionary, Sohoni

(2006) defines feminism as “a belief or movement advocating the cause of women’s rights

and opportunities, particularly equal rights with men, by challenging inequalities between

the sexes in society​." ​The core of feminist thought lies in the abolition of the idea of male

dominance and the patriarchy power in the social structure. In the following sections, the

researcher is going to review the women's status over a while in different cultures and
 ideologies. For this purpose, the researcher touches upon three cultures: the Western

culture, Pre-Islamic and early Islamic culture, and modern Islamic culture.

1.3.3.1 Feminist Movements

In the late nineteenth century, there have been many social movements in parts of Europe

and the United States. One of these women-led movements, which continue to this day, ​is

called a feminist. It is calling for women's liberation and equality with men. A feminist is a

person who believes that women should enjoy the same political, social, and economic rights

as men. The feminist movement, which is also known as the women's movement or

feminism, sought to clarify the idea that nothing distinguishes between men and women.

Equal rights become an insistent demand for this movement.

The feminist movement has gone through three waves. The first wave started in the late

19th till the early 20th century in parts of Europe and the United States. Here, women

focused on legal inequalities like the right to vote more than the rights related to social life.

The second wave between the 1960s and 1970s came to posit the social inequalities that

were obvious during that time. The third wave that emerged in the 1990s was to complete

the unmet rights during the second wave.

The first wave in the late 19th century marked a starting point for women in their social,

political, and economic life. Lewis (2017) reported that women firstly announced a set of

demands such as education, religion, and the right to select any occupation. However,

because voting was the primary motive right to the feminist movement, women concentrated

on the suffrage right to achieve it. Nehere (2016) lists some accomplishments that women

gained after the first wave. In addition to voting rights, possession rights for married women,
 improvements on the divorce and child custody rights, and being able to access secondary

and higher education were the significant rights during that period. In her book Vindication

of the Rights of Women (1792), Mary Wollstonecraft argued that if women were given the

same education and opportunities as men, they would be equal to men in all respects (Code,

2000).

Feminism in the second wave concentrated on patriarchy domination and gender

inequality in all areas of life. This focus involved issues such as sexuality, family,

workplace, rights of reproduction, and many more. This modern form also concentrated on

fighting violence with the emergence of rape crisis and women's shelters as well as

legislation on custody and divorce. This wave was aimed at pursuing gender equality and

protecting women's rights. Women struggled to ensure equal pay for equal work and equal

opportunities for work. As a result, in June 1963, the Equal Pay Act was signed into law.

Then, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 issued to prevent discrimination based on gender among

workers. Napikoski (2019) discusses some points like abortion rights, education, promoting

political participation, and the representation in popular culture.

1.3.3.2 Women in pre-Islamic and early Islamic culture

The Time of Ignorance (or ​Al-Jahiliyah)​ in the Peninsula was a period before Islam in which

people worshiped statues and idols. Arabia before Islam (2013) illustrates some reasons of

why it is called the time of ignorance. Firstly, a few people in this area were able to read and

write. Therefore, a significant share of society was illiterate and not exposed to the

surrounding civilizations. The other strange thing is the absence of governments or political

powers. There were no laws or regulations, and the only legislation was the chiefs of their
tribes. Finally, in a male-dominance society, women were neglected and were used only as

servants or for entertainment purposes such as sex and dance.

After the birth of Islam, the Qur'an is considered the first legislation and reference for all

Muslims. It is God's words that were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. The Sunnah,

which is the subordinate legislation, came to clarify some points related to religion and

social life. Al-Hegelan (1980) argues that the status of women before and after Islam. Before

Islam, women were in thrall to their masters and treated as slaves or servants. Also, many

men were burying newborn girls due to mainstream thinking that girls bring shame. Islam

appeared to refute and abolish such behaviors, so God explicitly stated in the Quran about

the prohibition of infanticide "And when the girl [who was] buried alive is asked, for what

sin she was killed." [Surah 81: 8, 9] This shows that the girls have the right to live like

males.

Islam came with the idea of ​women's liberation by giving them their rights and dignity.

Islam, led by Prophet Muhammad, was the first religion to pay much attention to women.

Garrison (2017) posits that "Muhammad was easily the most radical and empowering in his

treatment of women. Arguably he was history's first feminist" (1). She lists some advantages

that Islam provides to women. First of all, the woman has given the right to choose her

husband or to leave him by divorce. Islam insisted that the dowry must go to the wife

herself. While during the ignorance era, dowry was paid by the man to the bride's father or

brother as if she was a commodity.

Garrison (2017) adds that the pre-Islamic culture deprived women of their right to inherit

from their family members. Besides, if her husband died, one of her husband's brothers

would take her without her will. While in Islam, women share a portion of inheritance with
 men in all properties and assets. Al-Hegelan (1980) stated that women were given the right

to manage their own business and be financially independent of their husbands. Sulaimani

(1986) says that in most wars and raids, Arabs were overweighting the capture of women as

hostages over cattle, although cattle were more profitable than women during that time.

Women captives from these wars were being married without dowry or used as servants.

1.3.3.3 Women in the Islamic culture nowadays

As mentioned earlier, Islam came with the idea that women should be treated appropriately

and must be held in a particular place. Islam raised women's status by setting clear

guidelines that contribute to save her dignity and enhance her life quality. Unfortunately, this

idea was ​distorted by an inadequate understanding of Sharia laws and destructive thoughts

from foes. With time, these thoughts became a genuine belief in most Arab men's minds.

Nowadays, we can find many examples of women's oppression in many Arab countries in

the name of religion.

Fisher (2012) discussed that women's right in Arab countries is one of the worst in the

world. He mentioned some examples like Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen. In his opinion,

the reasons for this refer neither to Islam nor to race. He believes that the successive colonies

such as Ottoman, British, and French wanted to twist our societies and cultures to suit their

domination. Their first choice to dominate women was by giving males full authority over

them, whereas these colonies were the first to ingrain the seed of misogyny in the Middle

East, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia. They encouraged religious leaders who wanted to

make this deal and suppressed those who objected, and this is an essential component of the

widespread misogynistic practice in the Muslim world.

 Al-Khatib 2014 criticizes the way of how Saudi's men call their women in public. He felt

shocked by the nicknames males use to hide their women's names. They used expressions

like Albayt, Al'ahl, Um al'awlad, Um almu’amanin, or wzarat aldaakhilia. A while ago,

women were not allowed to drive a car or to work in public places like Malls and Markets in

Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government made a significant move toward empowering women

and promotes their rights. Women now are being able to work, drive, and hold critical posts.

So, any efforts that help Muslim women gain their rights should be encouraged. Every effort

to pressure these governments to change unjust laws should be supported.

1.4 Statement of the Problem

Even though we are living in the twenty-first century, a large segment of Muslim men in

Arab countries believes that women's names must be hidden. Most studies assumed that

religion is the dominating factor in masking the brides' names. Men believe that Allah

created males and females to complete each other regardless of the differences in their

psychology, way of thinking, and behavior. However, men misinterpret their authority over

women, which have led to women's exploitation and the denial of their rights. As a

consequence, a significant share of the Jordanian society still believes that mentioning the

woman's name (i.e., as a wife, mother, or sister) in public is contrary to Islamic culture or

social customs.
1.5 Questions of the Study

The proposed study is intended to address the following research questions. The first two

questions are about the actual practice by the marrying couple, while the last two questions

are about the attitudes of members of the Jordanian community.

1. Is masking brides’ names still a prevailing social practice in the Jordanian community? If

yes, to what extent?

2. Does the practice of masking brides' names correlate with the region, age, and level of

education of the marrying couple?

3. To what extent do the members of the Jordanian community agree with the social

practice of masking the bride’s name on the wedding invitation cards?

4. Does the attitude towards masking the brides’ names correlate with the gender, age,

region level of education, and marital status of the respondents?

1.6 Significant of the Study

To the best of the researcher’s knowledge, no previous published studies investigate the

practice of concealing the female’s names. Therefore, the proposed thesis attempts to

examine whether religion is genuinely the trigger factor for masking the women's names on

the wedding invitation cards. It aims to promote the awareness that there is nothing wrong

with mentioning or calling a woman by her name in public. This quantitative study gives

updated data about the practice of masking the brides' names in the Jordanian community. It

reveals the opinions of the Jordanian community members about this practice.
 Chapter Two

Literature Review

Most of the studies conducted on wedding invitation cards (WICs) are concerned with the

generic analysis structure. Most researchers were concerned in analyzing all components and

moves on the WICs (e.g., Clynes 2004, Al-Ali 2006, Momani & Al-Refaei 2010, Gomaa

2010, Sharif & Yarmohammadi 2013, Sawalmeh 2014, Sawalmeh 2015, Faramarzi, Elekeai

& Tabrizi 2015, Al-Zubaidi 2017, Thani & Hei 2017, Sawalmeh 2018 and Yasmin, Naseem

& Sohail 2019). Besides analyzing the style of WICs in different countries, researchers often

have tried to figure out the motivating factors for selecting a particular format. Our main

concentration in this research is on the couple’s names component, which is considered as an

obligatory move in all WICs worldwide. The role of this part is identifying the bride’s and

the groom’s information.

In the context of the Jordanian community, some researchers (e.g., Al-Ali 2006;

Momani & Al-Refaei 2010; Sawalmeh 2014 and Sawalmeh 2015) examine the generic style

of WICs. Al-Ali (2006) was the first to investigate how male dominance and religiosity

affect the style of WICs. He collected 200 JWICs from different Jordanian regions. He

analyzed the data through genre analysis and critical discourse analysis approaches. Al-Ali's

data revealed that religiosity and patriarchy power played a significant role in shaping the

components of the JWICs. He said that “I found at least two interrelated aspects of culture,

which are of direct importance to wedding discourse: religion and kinship (in particular,

paternal authority)” (710). One of the components governed by religion and patriarchy

power is identifying the bride and the groom's name. 80 out of 200 JWICs that Al-Ali
investigated replaced the bride's names with the honorific attributes "He sakariimatut." He

asserts that the deletion of the bride's name "emphasizing the paternal power and gender

discrimination" (708) depending on either religious or personal preferences.

Momani & Al-Refaei (2010) & Sawalmeh's (2014) researches showed some

contradictory data about the groom’s and bride’s name on the JWICs. Momani & Al-Refaei

(2010) had adopted the analysis of JWICs collected from the researchers’ local area,

whereas Sawalmeh (2014) had adopted the attitude of the Jarash population to this

phenomenon based on a questionnaire. Momani & Al-Refaei (2010) stated that masking

females’ names, in general, became an old fashioned practice “[t]his was very common in

the past when mentioning the name of the female relative was considered taboo” (77). Their

results revealed that 80% of the examined JWICs stated both the groom’s and the bride’s

names. They added that “recently it has been very common to mention the bride’s names”

(77).

However, according to his questionnaire, Sawalmeh (2014) showed the contrary to what

Momani & Al-Refaei (2010) revealed. The questionnaire demonstrated that a significant

share of the Jordanian Muslims with 73% (i.e., 177 out of 242) concealed the bride’s name

on their WICs. Whereas 100% of the Jordanian Christians sample (i.e., 183 out of 183)

mentioned the bride’s name on their WICs. Sawalmeh (2014) states that Jordanian “Muslims

don’t mention the bride’s name because of either their social, religious or personal

preferences” (452). Although we share the same socio-cultural environment, Christians

believe that the reasons mentioned above are not rational for masking the bride's name, so

they are always mentioning the bride's name. Momani & Al-Refaei’s (2010) results

compared with Sawalmeh (2014) were not representative. The sample of JWICs analyzed
was only 55 wedding invitations, and they covered a widespread period between (1979 –

2006).

Sawalmeh (2015) conducted another study about WICs and obituary announcements

among the Jordanian community. ​To reach an adequate representative sample, he collected

500 JWICs from different Jordanian regions (i.e., Amman, Zarqa, Irbid, Ajloun, Mafraq,

Karak, Ma'an, Aqaba, and Jarash). The results of the bride’s and the groom’s component

indicated that almost 47% of Jordanian Muslims WICs concealed the bride’s name. The

reasons for this practice are refereed again to religious and socio-cultural influences.

Another obvious genre that showed paternal masculine authority r​ elated to this component is

the placement of the groom’s name. Al-Ali (2006) found that all JWICs users placed the

groom’s name (in addition to his father’s name) before the bride’s name. Sawalmeh (2015)

findings showed a slight change to this tendency since the bride’s name has appeared in 39

out of 500 JWICs before that of the groom.

Other researchers conducted studies on WICs in different Muslims countries such as

Eygpt (e.g., Gomaa and ​Abdel-Malak 2010 who studied the WICs genre); Iran (e.g.,

Faramarzi, Elekaei and Tabrizi 2015, Sharif and Yarmohammadi 2013 and Mehdipour,

Eslami and Allami who study the WICs within the Iranian society); Iraq (e.g., Al-Zubaidi

2017 who studied the genre of WICs in the Iraqi society) and finally Pakistan (e.g., Yasmin,

Naseem and Sohail 2019 who study the religious and socio-cultural influences on the

Pakistani wedding invitation)

Gomaa & ​Abdel-Malak (2010) collected 300 EWIs from all provinces to indicate the

generic moves of the Egyptian written wedding invitation. They used the genre analysis
approach, which shows that EWIs have seven obligatory moves and only one optional move.

According to identifying the couple component, the results were scarce. They just mention

that "the brides' names are sometimes not mentioned in the invitations" (28), and it is

substituted by the expression ​kariimatuh (​ his honorable daughter). They added that religion

and personal preferences play a significant role in the naming practice “[t]his practice is

often witnessed at rural wedding parties and in conservative urban circles as well as among

religiously-minded men” (29).

Faramarzi, Elekaei, and Tabrizi (2015) randomly collected 200 of Iranian wedding

invitations for investigating the Iranians’ behavior in designing the wedding invitation. They

found a similar manner to the JWICs and EWIs with seven obligatory component moves and

one optional component. Their data revealed that masking the bride’s name on WICs is still

practice on conventional IWICs “[t]he name of the bride was not almost written in

traditional wedding invitation cards and the word "lady" was stated instead” (664). Sharif

and Yarmohammadi (2013) stated that when the bride's name is not mentioned: "the brides

are identified by the title ​“dooshizeh” (Miss) plus last name” (4). ​They observed this

practice, "especially among religious middle-class families” (4). Faramarzi, Elekaei, and

Tabrizi (2015) attributed the reason for masking the bride’s name to religion and family

preferences because most Iranians' families believe that the female's name must be known

only by family members. Furthermore, Mehdipour, Eslami, and Allami portrayed the same

idea by stating that "traditional and religious couple rarely used the couple’s first name

whereas modern and couples with low levels of religiosity used the first name prevalently"

(70).
 Also, a commendable practice found within IWICs, which represented in stating the

name of the bride before the groom. It becomes a popular practice within the Iranian

community. In Faramarzi, Elekaei, and Tabrizi's (2015) study, 134 invitations’ owners

placed the bride’s name firstly. Mehdipour, Eslami, and Allami revealed that 28/50 of

IWICs placed the bride’s name before the groom. However, Sharif and Yarmohammadi

(2013) stated that this practice was found only in high-class people. Faramarzi, Elekaei, and

Tabrizi (2015) agreed that religion is the motivating factor to this practice “[t]he reason

refers to the religion of Muslims, Islam, in which the equality of men and women has been

mentioned” (664). Whereas, Sharif and Yarmohammadi (2013) believe that this practice

ingrains the idea of equality between males and females “the bride's name before that of the

groom might express the very fact that the position of the Iranian wife is one of the equality

with her husband” (4).

Al-Zubaidi (2017) adopted three analytic approaches to investigate the Iraqi WICs: genre

analysis, semiotic analysis, and critical discourse analysis. He randomly collected 400 WICs,

but his analysis relied on 250, which were collected with the assistance of the researcher’s

undergraduate students, colleagues, relatives, and friends and from some printing houses in

Baghdad. The results were divided according to the linguistic and non-linguistic features of

WICs. The non-linguistic features revealed that the Iraqi WICs are different in shape (i.e.,

rectangular and square) design, color, calligraphy, and the material used. Whereas the

linguistic features showed seven components, only one was optional (the notification move

was selected 20 times out of 250).

The fourth move of Iraqi WICs concerned with the groom's and the bride's name.

Al-Zubaidi's (2017) investigation of this component showed that 75 cards did not mention
the bride's name. The names were substituted with honorific expressions like Kariimatuh

(i.e., his venerated daughter) or shaqiiqatuh almassoon (i.e., his honorable sister). He merely

referred the reason to the people's belief about the bride's name being considered a taboo. He

added that women's names are preferably held secret in public and used only within the

family domain. Al-Zubaidi (2017) drew attention to another practice manifested in masking

the names of the bride's father. The corpus revealed that the father's names were hidden in

50 cards. He said that this practice asserts "the unequal distribution of power in this

ceremonial context" (140). Finally, unlike Jordanian and Iranian new practice, which placed

the bride's name before the groom's name in some cases (i.e., on the right-hand side), the

whole corpus of the Iraqi community did not show any tendency toward this practice. The

researcher assumed that this practice “show the paternal dominance and authority” (140).

In Pakistan, Yasmin, Naseem, and Sohail (2019) followed the genre analysis approach to

investigate the generic structure of Pakistan wedding invitation (PWI) and discourse analysis

to investigate how religious and cultural practices play a vital role on the textual selection

(e.g., wedding invitations). They investigated 50 PWIs written in Urdu and English

languages collected randomly during the first six months in 2018. The genre analysis results

showed that WIs written in Urdu have eight components (one is optional), whereas WIs

written in English have seven components (one is optional). The data of Urdu WIs also

revealed that all brides’ names are substituted by words like “Beti” (daughter) or “Noor

Chashmi” (the sight of eyes-daughter), while the brides' names are mentioned in all PWIs

written in English. They rely on Al-Ali's (2006) findings that this tendency appears in rural

towns, some conservative urban cities, and among religiously-minded men.

 Chapter Three

Methods and procedures

As mentioned earlier, the goal of this research is to study the Jordanian people's attitude

toward the phenomenon of masking the females' names, particularly on JWICs. It also aims

to investigate whether religion is the main reason for masking the bride's name on WICs, as

mentioned in the literature review. In this part, the student researcher tries to illustrate the

methodology adopted for this research. This chapter introduces the readers with the overall

research design, the sample included in this study, the instrument used to collect the data, the

data collection procedure, and finally, how the statistical data were analyzed.

3.1 Research Design

This quantitative study was a cross-sectional, descriptive, correlational survey design to

investigate the practice of masking the bride's names on WICs in the Jordanian community.

This study included two phases to develop a research instrument used to collect the data.

Phase I included reviewing the relevant literature to formulate the scale items. The student

researcher designed a new Electronic Questionnaire that helped to answer the research

questions by using the Google Docs Forms. It is an online platform that enables collecting

data and information from participants via an online survey. The first step in setting up the

scale items was formulating the demographic questions that considered the backbone of this

study. Then, the student researcher started devising questions and statements to serve the

search questions. The first draft contained seven questions, eight statements, and one

scenario.
 During Phase II, the questionnaire was handed out to a group of doctors to help in the

developing process and to assess the validity of the content. They offered invaluable

comments and suggestions by adding and modifying some questions. The modifying process

contained editing the structure of some questions, the order of questions, and the spelling.

The adding process included some questions and statements related to the Jordanian culture,

customs, and traditions (e.g., items number 13 and 21). Eventually, we settled on 23

questions and statements. We reached a consensus to name this scale as Arabic Feminist

Discourse Scale (AFDS). The committee suggested dividing the questionnaire into two

separate questionnaires, one for males and the other for females. Both questionnaires

contained the same set of questions and were in the same order. The only difference between

them was the form (i.e., one in masculine form and the other in feminine form).

In addition to the Electronic Questionnaire, the researcher collected 400 JWICs from

Irbid (200) and Amman (100 from East and 100 from West) to compare the actual practice

of masking the bride's name with the Jordanian people's attitude toward this phenomenon.

The samples covered the period between the beginnings of September 2019 to February

2020. The data had been collected from the archive of nine printing houses (i.e., three from

Irbid, three from East Amman and three from West Amman). The researcher took some of

these samples printed on A4 papers; others were sent to the researcher's WhatsApp.

However, two printing houses from West Amman refused to give samples using previous

ways to maintain their clients' privacy. They provided the student researcher with statistical

data for 63 WICs. 8

3.2 Sample of the Study

A convenience snowball sampling method was used to recruit the eligible participants for

this study. This method allowed the student researcher to share the questionnaire with a

group of participants who, in turn, nominate others for the study. Then, those respondents

recommended additional participants, and so forth. The student researcher used social media

like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger to share the link with the participants. The student

researcher connected the inclusion criteria with the demographic characteristics such as age

(≥ 18), gender (males and females), level of education (elementary, secondary, graduate or

postgraduate), marital status (single, engaged or married), the provenance (Irbid, Jarash,

Amman, etc.) residency (rural or urban) and all participants were to be Muslims. Since the

inclusion criteria of the study were wide enough, except for age, this allowed the participants

to share the questionnaire link freely to reach a large number of participants. This sampling

method gave the student researcher a privilege to approach samples that were hard to reach.

The overall sample size in this questionnaire for both genders was 1646.

Since the target sample of this social research was human participants, a set of rules took

into account to preserve the participants' rights. Firstly, the student researcher provided an

introductory paragraph to have informed consent from participants. This paragraph

presented some information about the researcher, the purpose of the study, the time needed

to complete the questionnaire, and the participation process. The student researcher affirmed

that it was voluntary, and the participants were given a choice to quit from the questionnaire

at any time they wish without submitting their answers. Except for the demographic

information, the participants were asked to feel free to skip any item that they do not want to

answer. In terms of privacy, the questionnaire had applied the strictest form of privacy
 through the anonymity principle. The participants were not asked to give their names, phone

number, or personal email, therefore, not even the student researcher knows whose

responses for such a questionnaire belongs to.

3.4 The instrument

Since it is one of the helpful tools used in quantitative research, a questionnaire instrument

was used to collect the data needed for this research. By using Google Docs Forms, the

student researcher designed two electronic questionnaires, one that targets the Jordanian

males and the other for Jordanian females. Some advantages of using an electronic survey

are to cover a large number of participants in different regions, provide quantifiable answers,

and the ease of data transfer for data analysis purposes.

This questionnaire was aimed at examining the role of gender, age, region, level of

education, and marital status in masking the bride's name phenomenon. Therefore, the first

part of the questionnaire contained six questions about the demographic information of the

participants (the gender, the age, the marital status, the level of education, the residency).

Despite that the questionnaires were separate (i.e., for males and females), the student

researcher added the gender component to avert unintended responses from the opposite

gender. The age component was a scrolled down option that gave a list of ages starting from

18 to over 60. The fixed period between 18 and 39 was three years (e.g., 18-20/ 21-23), but

the researcher extended this period to five years after forty (e.g., 40-45/ 46/50). In the

residency component, the respondents were asked to select their provenance and to choose

between urban or rural regions.

 In contrast, the second part contained 23 self-report items that measured the Jordanian

people's attitude about the practice of masking the bride's name. These questions and

statements were formulated through two scales: Likert scale and dichotomous scale. A

Likert-type response scale used for the 14 statements were participants being able to show

their agreement and disagreement on a range from 5 (strongly agree) to 1 (strongly

disagree). On the other five questions, the respondents were asked to choose just one item

from a predetermined list. A dichotomous scale was used for four questions were

respondents asked to choose one item between Yes or No. This scale was used due to the

clear distinction between the respondent's opinions in these questions.

3.5 Data Collection Procedure

The data collection process was web-based questionnaires using the Google Doc Forms.

This platform enabled the student researcher to collect all the data online via different

modes. Initially, the student researcher committed to notifying the participants with

voluntary participation in the questionnaire and assured that their data would be used only

for academic purposes. The process of collecting the data for the electronic surveys had

taken 30 days. First of all, the student researcher shared and received the female's

questionnaire, and it had lasted for ten days. For the next 20 days, the male's questionnaire

was spread and received.

To have a representative number of female and male participants, the student researcher

shared the male's questionnaire on a private group on Facebook specialized only for

Jordanian males called Dadsters. This private group has 163,000 members, and its link is

https://web.facebook.com/groups/2402538230059614/. The researcher did the same for the

female's questionnaire. The questionnaire shared on a private Facebook group specialized

 only for Jordanian females called sisters of Jordan, which has 31,000 members, and its link

is​ ​https://www.facebook.com/groups/Sistersofjordan/​.

In terms of reliability of the research instrument, four specialized doctors in the

Department of English at Yarmouk University reviewed the content of the scale to check the

accuracy of the items in gauging the core goal and to ensure its relevance with the research

topic.

3.6 Statistical Analysis

The collected data were transferred from the Google Docs Forms platform to excel sheet.

The statistical analysis was conducted using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences

software (SPSS ​Version 21.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp​). The following statistical methods

and tools were used to analyze the quantitative data of the study:

-​ Descriptive Statistic Measures, including frequency distributions and percentages.

​

-​ Central Tendency Measures; arithmetic averages and standard deviations.

​

-​ Pearson's correlation coefficient

​

-​ Stability coefficients using Cronbach's Alpha coefficient​.

​

- ANOVA to detect the presence of statistically significant differences according to the

​

variables.

- Column and bar charts to portray the percentages and frequencies distribution to show the

relation between the dependent and independent variables.

 Chapter Four

Findings of the Study

The study samples were all Muslim Jordanian of both genders aged over 18. The sample

included 545 male and 1101 female participants.

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