“The knife again”: Women’s role as victims and victimizers in the Yellow press of The Chilian Times (1882-1890)

Abstract

In the field of cultural paradigm studies, researches have been done on the relevance of the British immigrants in Chile (Pinochet-Valdivieso, 2012); however, there seems to be a gap in the studies of not only the perception British immigrants in Valparaiso had about females residing in Chile, but also on the effects this sexist male-dominated cultural agenda had on the portrayal of women. We, therefore, focus on the portrayal of women in the crime news of The Chilian Times of the last part of the 19th century. The framework used to achieve these objectives is Martin and Rose’s (2007) appraisal theory, Litosseliti and Sunderland’s gender identity and discourse analysis studies (2002), and Kamaluddin et. al. (2014) and other authors criminalistic approach. A mixed research methodology was implemented for the analysis of a random sample of news ranging from 1882 to 1890 with the aim of studying the perception of the English immigrants in Valparaiso had about women residing in Chile. The analysis of Appraisal revealed that the British community in Chile saw themselves as independent from the Chilean society and that women’s role was judged on the basis of the moral patterns of the English. Both Chilean and foreign women were not considered in the same way as they were expected to fit the moral pattern of the English.