The Implications of Decentration Theory for Gender Ideologies: A Case Study of the folktale of Stubborn Husband, Stubborn Wife

This aim of this paper is to explore the implications of decentration theory (vacillation between centration decentration) for gender ideologies in the folktale of “Stubborn Husband, Stubborn Wife” selected from Sobhi’s collected folktales. Using a descriptive analytic approach and critical discourse analysis method (CDA) the implications of this theory for gender ideologies are investigated demonstrating how the character’s cognioemotion interacts with cognioemotional and social dimensions of ideology. Finally it examines the ways the character empathizes with the narrative. It is argued that cognitive mechanism of vacillation between centration decentration is subject to simultaneous induction and neutralizing of ideologies. It also indicated that in the light of the cognitive process of vacillation between centration and decentration, cognition and emotion are so inseparable, interwoven, integrated and interdependent that the coined term “cognioemotion” is preferable. The interactions of “cognioemotion” and ideology are in such a way that being keenly aware of underlying motivational assumptions of gender ideologies elicit the emotion appropriate to the situation, and decentralization of both as a holistic phenomenon achieves the goals with manipulations of ideology. Finally, there is not a fixed pre-assigned reader, but a flowing reader who is in vacillation between empathy with ideological characteristics of discourse and distancing from it. Such vacillating movements are subject to ambiguity of empathy in reader’s mind leading to critical reading. So, vacillation between centration decentration can be deemed as a consciousness-raising method in critical reading.