Gender and Emotional Language in Children's TV Series. An Analysis of Avatar

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics grade: 23 University of Augsburg language: English abstract: As TV series can have a big impact on children's development it is the purpose of this term paper to examine whether gender-specific stereotypes in regard to emotions can actually be found or whether the claim that TV series are stereotyped is a prejudice itself. Therefore the characters' emotional language in Avatar: The Last Airbender will be analyzed. It will be closely looked at whether both genders are associated with differing types and amounts of emotion talk.Due to the results of several researchers it was expected that female and male characters display emotions considered appropriate for their sex in order to provide children with idealized gender role models to imitate. As research sees a relationship between showing gender-conform emotions and popularity among peers it was furthermore anticipated that fans of the series would vote those characters most popular that show emotions considered appropriate for their sex.