INGUISTIC REPRESENTATION OF MāORI WOMEN’S ETHNIC IDENTITY IN NEW ZEALAND MEDIA DISCOURSE: SEMANTIC MACRO-AREAS AND DISCURSIVE STRATEGIES

The study examines the representation and construction of indigenous Māori women’s ethnic identity in contemporary New Zealand media, focusing on the main semantic macro-areas related to the discursive construction of aboriginal women’s ethnic identity and discursive strategies employed in 100 media texts from three New Zealand online media: The New Zealand Herald, E-Tangata, and Woman Magazine New Zealand. The study identifies two key semantic macro-areas related to the discursive construction of Māori women’s ethnic identity: the topic of the implications of Māori people colonisation and the topic of the revival of the traditional Māori culture. Two main groups of discursive strategies used for representation and construction of Māori women’s ethnic identity are identified and described: constructive and perpetuation strategies aimed at forming and maintaining a specific ethnic identity, and transformation strategies that facilitate changes in an ethnic identity.