This paper examines the discourse on social change in women-related posts on Saudi English-language blogs. These posts negotiate many reforming measures proposed by the Saudi government to facilitate more women's empowerment. An eclectic approach to intertextuality is adopted to explore the virtual community and the connections created on such platforms. The methodology adopted is based on Koller's (2012) work on analyzing collective identities and draws primarily on Reisigl & Wodak's (2009, 90) view of Intertextuality. It also examines more direct and explicit instances of the recontextualization of other texts or discourses through hyperlinked clauses on such blogs. The findings of the analysis reveal that the community at hand is quite closed, exhibiting an example of what has been identified in psychology as confirmation bias (Nickerson 1998, 175), which jeopardizes the potential of blogging for promoting change. A supporter/opponent struggle is vigorously expressed in these posts, to the point that it overlooks the bigger picture, i.e. women's empowerment. Women who are expected to be at the centre of these topics are sidelined by such struggles.

Objective - This paper examines empirically the discourse on social change as represented in gender-related posts on English blogs written by Saudi bloggers. Slightly more than a decade ago, Saudi women were allowed and encouraged by the government to work in unconventional work environments (outside the fields of education and health care); this stirred controversy across the country. Methodology/Technique – This analysis is based on an understanding of discourse as both shaping and being shaped by social and cognitive contexts. In so doing, it approaches the data from a socio-cognitive perspective with a focus on the mental models underlying the discursive representations at hand. The adopted methodology is based on metaphor analysis due to the inherently cognitive nature of metaphors. Consequently, an eclectic approach combining insights from conceptual metaphor theory and critical theory analysis is used. Finding – Data analysis reveals two main findings. First, change is constructed cognitively as challenging and demanding for both women aspiring to work in unconventional professions and their supporters on authoritative and non-authoritative levels. This, however, clashes with the second finding, as in these blogs women are metaphorically constructed in an objectifying and victimizing manner. Novelty – Such a mismatch calls for a careful examination of some gender constraining cognitive constructions as they are, surprisingly, constructed and reproduced even within discourse attempting to empower women. Type of Paper: Empirical. JEL Classification: M14, Q56 Keywords: Social Change; Critical Discourse Analysis; Women’s Empowerment; Metaphor Analysis Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Maghlouth, S.A. (2021). Metaphorical Analysis of Discourse on Early Saudi Attempts to Include Women in Unconventional Work Environments, GATR Global J. Bus. Soc. Sci. Review, 9(1): 01 – 09. https://doi.org/10.35609/gjbssr.2021.9.1(1)

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In recent years, Saudi women have been empowered on plenty of levels which were not easily available at the dawn of this century. In the last two decades, social change has been initiated, constructed and distributed discursively on both governmental and non-governmental circles; with the topic of women's inclusion in unconventional work environments provoking controversial positions between the heterogenous society of Saudi Arabia. The current paper offers a critical discourse analysis on how these diverse positions are reported metaphorically in blog posts written by bloggers presenting themselves as supporters of change and women empowerment. Such posts were written between 2009 and 2011; thus, documenting the very early support and opposition to this topic, which has also intensified drastically after King Salman -the current Saudi monarch- ascended to throne in 2015, following the death of the late King Abdullah. Keywords: social change, critical discourse analysis, women empowerment, Saudi Arabia

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