“A Woman Turned into a Man” A Sociolinguistic Analysis of a Georgian Fairy Tale
Sopio Totibadze

A fairy tale, as a sociolinguistic phenomenon,proves to be a perfect tool for the reconstructionof social problems faced by societies at thetime of their creation. Among the issuesthat may attract a contemporary reader’sattention are those of gender bias, prejudiceand gender inequality shining through the plotdevelopment, verbal portraits of heroes andheroines and language strategies used by theauthors of the tale to convey meaning directlyor indirectly.One can observe many gender stereotypes intraditional fairy tales depicting the gender rolespractised in society. Specifically, females aretraditionally confined to household space and aremore passive and subdued compared to their malecounterparts who travel widely around the worldin search of adventure.This paper discusses an old Georgian fairytale“A Woman Turned into a Man”and itsimplications for gender studies. The topics oftransgenderism or lesbianism are extremelyrare or non-existent in old or modern Georgianfairy tales. Still, the existence of such a tale issignificant for the research from the point ofview of the social context and linguistic peculiarities serving to convey and pass on the meaning indirectly ina disguised manner.