Insult Terms against Women in Nollywood Movies

Abstract

This descriptive study tries to explore insult terms against women to investigate how these insultterms represent women in the selected Nollywood movies using Sara Mills’ Feminist Stylistics(1995) approach. The objective of the study is to investigate the characteristics of insult termsused by the characters, what the components of these insult terms are and their effects on thefemale characters. It used qualitative methodology to investigate the phenomenon and data werecollected by observing and taking note of insult terms in the selected Nollywood movies betweenthe year 2017 and 2020 by purposive sampling technique. The movies are Intervention, Sex andLove, Isoken, Jenna, Sophia’s Heart, Gold Statue and Love You Two. The findings revealed thatinsult terms against women are common in Nollywood movies. The study concluded based onthe findings that the users of language should be made conscious and aware of the dangers ofinsult terms which can lead to negative results. It recommended among other things the need tochange these representational practices in order to bring about a change in the thinking of thepeople.