Aging is a natural phenomenon that every living being experiences; however, stereotypes against the process of aging and the elderly have been present in the media. These stereotypes may lead to ageist assumptions that marginalize seniority. As such, as a starting point to examine ageism in the Philippine context, an in-depth textual analysis was done to examine 30 online news articles using Fairclough’s (1995a) Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework. In describing the language used in Philippine news discourse on elderly people, van Leeuwen’s (1996; 2008) role allocation and C.H. Chen’s (2015) referential strategies were employed. Results revealed that the Filipino elderly occupied roles that were both passive and active. Moreover, all referential strategies, broadly generization and identification, were present in the news articles. However, findings further revealed that othering, a referential strategy exclusive in the Philippine context, emerged. Consequently, the linguistic analysis implied five characteristics ascribed to the Filipino elderly: (1) physically and mentally weak; (2) vulnerable and susceptible to be victims of crimes and accidents; (3) incompetent; (4) dependent; and (5) impoverished. Finally, to broaden the knowledge on Philippine ageism, this study encourages future research to expand the corpus and to examine ageless discourse and its connection to Filipinos’ perception on aging and ageism.
Keywords: Ageism, critical discourse analysis, the elderly, Philippine news discourse, referential strategies, role allocationAge UK (2014). The Care Act 2014. Retrieved from https://www.ageuk.org.uk/informationadvice/care/the-care-act/
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