‘ Sister you’re not supposed to be wearing tight jeans with that

scarf’’: Examining discourse, identity and

young Muslim women in UK society

Bróna MurphyUniversity of Edinburgh

Objective

To investigate a corpus of young Muslim women discourse in order to discover if their use of language reveals insights into the identity of the modern-day young Muslim woman

Muslim Culture in the UK

Large Muslim presence has existed in Britain since the beginning of the 19th century: seamen and traders from the Middle East settled

in Liverpool, South Shields post-war saw Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and

Indians arrive to fill the labour shortage in industrial cities (Abbas, 2005: 18-9)

Christians accounted for 71.6 per cent of the UK population followed in second place by Muslims (Abbas, 2005)

Representation of Muslims

Muslims in the UK have become a focus of national concern and debate – ‘an alien other’ (Saaed, 2007)

They have found themselves at the centre of a new wave of suspicion and hostility as a result of the terrorist attacks and their aftermath

Britain has been seen to develop agendas of equality and multiculturalism (Modood, 2005)

Representation of Muslims

Representation of Muslims/Islam in UK and American press (McEnery, 2008; Baker, 2010) Muslims: victims or villains Women as victims, arranged marriages,

wearing hijaab

Representations of Muslims/Muslim Women in BBC News Reporting (Al-Hejin, 2009) Women: hijaab, should, allowed to

Language and Identity

Identity is ‘who we are’ (Joseph, 2004) ‘how people understand their relationship

to the world, and...how that relationship is constructed (Norton, 1997: 410)

non-fixed, non-rigid and always being co-constructed by individuals of themselves or by people who share certain core values or perceive another group as having such values (Omoniyi and White, 2006)

The Muslim Women Corpus (MWC)

20, 933 word spoken corpus consisting of Muslim women group committee meetings/discussion groups : 20-35 year olds 35-52 year olds

Participants belong to the Muslim Women’s Association of Edinburgh (MWAE) Association set up in 2005 by a group of Muslim

women who found a lack of educational and social activities for Muslim women in Edinburgh

The Muslim Women Corpus (MWC)

Meeting 1

Age Birthplace

Nationality

Education

Living Years

Aisha 25 Edinburgh

British Third Edinburgh

25

Nuha 22 Singapore

Singaporean

Third Edinburgh

3

Nasim 27 Edinburgh

British Third Edinburgh

27

Meeting 2

Age Birthplace

Nationality

Education

Living Years

Amira 27 Libya Libyan Third Edinburgh

3

Nahid 26 Libya Libyan Third Edinburgh

3

Analysis of the MWC

Exploration of the corpus using Wordsmith Tools 5 (Scott, 2008):

Keyword analysis of the MWC Collocational and concordance analysis

Expanded concordance extracts

Top 40 Keywords in MWC

Yeah, Muslim, mmh, like, mosque, Islam, women, wear, hijaab, wearing, Edinburgh, pray, prayer, married, husband, woman, feel, scarf, Koran, halal, drink, prophet, stupid, really, community, marriage, friends, Pakistan, veil, young, Jewish, wedding, family, men, he, teenagers, touch, allowed, interrogated, Ramadan

Top 40 Keywords in MWC

Yeah, Muslim, mmh, like, mosque, Islam, women, wear, hijaab, wearing, Edinburgh, pray, prayer, married, husband, woman, feel, scarf, Koran, halal, drink, prophet, stupid, really, community, marriage, friends, Pakistan, veil, young, Jewish, wedding, family, men, he, teenagers, touch, allowed, interrogated, Ramadan

Top 40 Keywords in MWC - Classification

Religion Muslim, Islam, Koran, pray, prayer, mosque, prophet, Ramadan, halal, Jewish

Gender Men, woman, women

Dress hijaab, veil, scarf, wear, wearing

Relationships friends, husband, family, married, marriage,

Celebration Wedding

Emotion/Feel verbs Stupid, touch, feel

Society/ community, drink

Authority Interrogated, allowed

Places Edinburgh, Pakistan

Age Young, teenagers

Features of conversation

yeah, mmh, like, really, he

Keywords in the MWC

Religion – Muslim

N 3-Word Cluster Freq.1 a good Muslim 82 you are Muslim 73 a real Muslim 64 real Muslim A 5

Religion - Muslim

as much as I can I want to be a good

Muslim not just a Muslim

for women to be real Muslim a good

Muslim so you have to wear hijaab

as my friend says part of being a good

Muslim as well is

is no bad eh completely there is a good

Muslim bad Muslim

it or not but you have to be a real

Muslim from inside

about Islam you have to go to a real

Muslim who believes in god and in

they should come to a real Muslim and ask him about Islam

is not is not a real is not a good Muslim I’m saying you can you can

Drink sometimes this is not a good

Muslim but still Muslim

it depends they think that’s real Muslim is very very extremist

Religion - Real Muslim

Nahid: You see when they look at me I feel that in my point of view I feel that when they look at me wearing the long ah coat they say she’s very real Muslim she’s very very extremist because it depends they think that’s real Muslim is a very very extremist that’s why I’m trying to be more ah more you know more fashion to be <laughing> show them I’m not extremist like a baby trying to fit in

Religion – Real Muslim

Nahid: If we are real Muslim we are following something not real it’s just we are stupid because we are following this guy...we are not enjoying the life like the others we are stupid

Religion- Good Muslim

Nahid: Because I don’t blame them ah to be frank I don’t blame them and yeah because of the media <laughing> yeah yeah actually because of the media when you see am ah a shop has been exploded by Muslim ah ah ah a plane has been exploded by Muslim they are looking at Muslims as terrorists <friend laughs> yeah I don’t actually I don’t blame them because this is what Muslims doing is not is not a real is not a good Muslim

Religion - Muslim

They feel that we are very very very tough tough people

Praying together we are hearing the special words

I’m going to the mosque

we are praying together

No we have been here we are tested we have problems like the others

Yeah we are we make mistakes as well

Because we are human

They can’t understand why

we are wearing hijaab

Is just like a test we are here everything is open to us

I think also though because

we are coloured in a sense

Dress – wear/wearing

That’s why I’m trying to

wear

it like this back home I’d wear it longer

there is a kind of pressure to

wear

it mmh

I thought I would wear

it to remind me that I should kind of

be judged on whether I wear

the hijaab or not

You will not get it unless you

wear

a scarf

no way I’m just going to

wear

a scarf to win it

then I realised I wanted to

wear

it

a way it’s like easier to just to

wear

it just to get by in life

Like I want to wear

it so then I wanted to wear it yeah

Very white and when they

wear

it they get a lot more abuse

Dress – hijaab, scarf, veil

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Hijaab Scarf Veil

Dress- hijaab

And no muslim is wearing

hijaab

which one should you ask about Islam

You an look at me without

hijaab

she was very so why

Covering your hair with hijaab

this is this is the main question

in that city they liked the

hijaab

Yeah

discovered they liked the

hijaab

Yeah

Can take off your hijaab

no no no

If I take off my hijaab

I will not be comfortable

Why are you wearing hijaab

because I am Muslim

Dress – veil...

Aisha: Well when I started wearing a veil about like four years ago or something I have to say that at that time a lot of my friends had started wearing it as well and that is why I started <laughing> no people would say oh you know you should kind of start wearing it now and I think that is an issue as well that people are are not not forced but there is a kind of pressure to wear it... But then after a while then and then I stopped wearing it for a bit and then I realised that I wanted to wear it ...

...Dress - veil

Aisha: I just felt it was the right thing to do and I dunno I just kind of missed it I think it just makes me feel like it does give me an identity cos I I dunno I kind of want to be part of a group or something like that...I did feel it in myself that you know I really have a need that I want I feel like I need to wear it

Dress - hijaab

Nuha: It was quite honestly my own decision it was quite like I was quite angry at a lot of things actually I thought I would wear it to remind me that I should kind of focus on God ...It reminds me to be a more independent Muslim woman cos it’s a choice I made by myself

Dress - hijaab

Nahid: I said you are not Muslim but you are woman <laughing> we share the same so you can look at me without hijaab she was very so why you are covering your hair with hijaab this is this is the main questions always we have we just like a stupid we are covering a beauty we have we are not enjoying the life like the others we are stupid <laughing> this is I’m not laughing at them I’m not ah I’m really worrying about them because they don’t know the reasons the real reason that makes me do these things in these tempting situations

Dress - hijaab

Nahid: Yeah I can remember the first time I went to Brighton the taxi driver told me “you are Muslim” “yeah” I said “yeah” he said, “yeah but are you coming alone” I said “yes nobody here with me I I’m alone no no not with my family” he said “so why you are wearing hijaab?” I said “because I’m Muslim I have to” he said “no no nobody can see you here” he said “because you are alone” <laughing> I told him <laughing> “this is not the issue” I said I can’t believe how and why they can’t understand why we are wearing hijaab even if you told him that this is the reason they never convinced you can’t convince them let them know how to it’s just aam

Dress – scarf...

Nuha: I decided not to wear it and you know I won so I was like <laughing> so I honestly started wearing it after I finished my term cos ...what example would i be if I like gave in to what other people thought I should wear but it was kinda funny cos the week after I started wearing the scarf some like random person in the supermarket came up to me and went ‘Sister you’re not supposed to be wearing tight jeans with that scarf’ <laughing>

...Dress- scarf

Nasim: <laughing> And you’re like <laughing> Nuha: I was like what <laughing> and I

honestly had no idea who I like who this person was <laughing> and I was like okay <laughing>

Nasim: So you just said okay <laughing> Nuha: It was genuine as like you know I I

presume his intentions were genuine like <laughing> genuine trying to make me a better Muslim I I say okay thank you very much <laughing> it was really strange <laughing>

Observations - Identity

Important traditional Muslim values e.g. hijaab, sense of community

How Muslims think non-Muslims perceive them e.g. stupid, extremists

A desire to be seen as ‘normal’, as human beings

A sense of realism which provides a contemporary insight e.g. clothing, fitting in

Reference List

Abbas, T. 2005. Muslim Britain: communities under pressure. Zed Books.

Al-Heijin, B. 2009. ‘What matters about Muslim women? A comparison of BBC news and Arab news 1997-2008’. ICAME 30, Lancaster, May 2009.

Baker, P. 2010. ‘Representations of Islam in British broadsheet and tabloid newspapers 1999-2005’. Language and Politics. Forthcoming.

Joseph, J. 2004. Language and Identity: National, Ethnic, Religious. Palgrave Macmillan.

Reference List

McEnery, T. 2008. ‘Moral Panic? Representations of Islam in the British and American Press 1999-2005. ICAME 29, Ascona, Switzerland

Modood, 2005. Foreword in Abbas, T. Muslim Britain: communities under pressure. Zed Books

Omoniyi, T and White, G. 2006. The Sociolinguistics of Identity. Continuum.

Saaed, A. 2007. Media, Racism and Islamophobia: The representation of Islam and Muslims in the Media. Sociology Compass 1 (2): 443-462