Language and Gender in Nigerian Nollywood Films: A Discourse Analysis of Selected Yoruba Films

This study analyses the relationship between language use and gender representation in selected Yoruba-language Nollywood films produced between 2019 and 2023, examining how linguistic choices in film dialogue construct, reinforce, or challenge prevailing gender ideologies in South West Nigeria. Nollywood is among the world's most productive film industries and a powerful mediator of social norms, including those governing gender roles and relations, making it a rich site for discourse analysis of popular culture. The study employs a critical discourse analysis framework, drawing on a corpus of dialogue transcriptions from five widely distributed Yoruba films selected through purposive sampling to ensure representation of domestic, romantic, and community narrative settings. Analytical attention is directed at address terms, speech act distribution between male and female characters, use of directives and politeness strategies, and instances of language that subordinate, silence, or empower female characters. Findings indicate that female characters in the sampled films are more frequently subjected to directive speech acts from male characters and are given fewer speaking turns in scenes involving decision-making. However, comic and market woman characters deploy Yoruba proverbial language with notable assertiveness, suggesting that the films negotiate rather than simply reproduce patriarchal discourse. The study argues for a more nuanced reading of gender in popular cinema that attends to character type and genre conventions. Recommendations include the use of Nollywood films as critical literacy texts in South West Nigerian secondary school language classrooms. Keywords: critical discourse analysis, Nollywood, Yoruba film, gender representation, language and power.