GENDER LINGUISTICS

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 444.

Ø Basic opinion on gender differentiation emerged in prehistoric times and was connected with labor division between men and women in primitive communities. In Europe first observations can be traced back to Ancient Greece theatre where both male and female roles were played by male actors. When first female actors appeared on the stage the difference in behaving and speaking became evident (Mautner) First facts about gender differences in speech were registered in written records by European explorers who noticed those differences in remote places of the globe while discovering terra incognita.First linguistic data about feminine and masculine discourse can be traced back as far as 1664. Those fact were analyzed much later & gave impetus to gender studies on the material of English and other European languages.

Ø Otto Jespersen made conclusions about women remaining primarily monolinguals, but it is doubted and objected nowadays, as immigrants' communication & speech skills prove that women assimilate better. Jespersen believed that women's vocabulary is not as diverse as men's but more precise.

Ø In modern linguistics George Lakoff published some fundamental works on anthropological factors in language, on androcentricity in language and claimed that women are presented in linguistic works & literature in improper and distorted way. George Lakoff claimed women are given secondary roles an still suffer form institutional inferiority ( tealady, nurse, maiden, call girl, cleaning lady, hostess). Inferior position of women is predetermined by less prestigious genres in literature & communication they are involved in such as service-encounter, mother-child interaction, classroom interaction. Women write about everyday life, issues. It is the result of labor division at book market: men write books, women buy & read books.

Ø Biased attitude to women in English is registered in numerous proverbs and sayings like

A woman's tongue wags like a lamb's tail

Foxes are all tail and women are all tongue

Where woman is silence is not

A whistling sailor, a crowling hen and a swearing woman ought all three to go to hell together

Much later, gender stereotypes became regulators of society life and were fixed in books on good manners and etiquette

Ø Male –female stereotypes are deeply rooted in the mentality, as a result doctoring is viewed as male job, while nursing as a female job. Women as language users are stereotyped as talkative creatures: Gossips, chatterboxes, nags, scolds, scandal-mongers, fussers (All the Daddies on the bus go read, read, read… All the Mummies on the bus go chatter, chatter, chatter (British children's song)

Gender Linguistics & Job stereotypes

Ø The problem of gender differences in speech became evident due to stereotyping, job stereotypes in particular as we see doctoring as a male job, nursing as a female job. But collocations such as male nurse, male cleaner, male secretary, male exotic dancer, male stripper prove breaking of job stereotypes: Female Lady lawyer, Girl reporter

Gender stereotypes in English Word-Formation and combinability

Ø Ladette – a young woman who likes to do things that young men usually do like drinking alcohol in pubs and talking sex and sports

Ø Highwaywoman – a woman who holds up and robs passengers in road vehicles

Ø Twofer - a Black woman appointed to a post, the appointment is viewed as evidence of racial and gender equality of opportunity

Ø Airwoman – a female member of the British airforce, esp. one below the rank of an officer

Ø Rich bachelor, nice fellow, noble lord

Ø Difficult woman, strong-minded woman, single mother, famous movie icon,

dollish girl, foxy

Professional / educated/ academic male

Successful, charismatic man

Solvent, independent, financially secure man,

Tanned & handsome man, slender & attractive young man

Athletic, powerfully –built, weatheredman

Pig-headed man

Girlie man

Narcissistic, commitment-phobic boys

Warm, loving, cheerful, passionate, slimmish woman

Professional, intelligent, confident, active, confident man

Loving and caring mother & wife

Faithful wife, dedicated mother

Demanding & capricious wife

Messy, sweaty housewife

Beautiful trophy wife

Miserable spinster

Ø There are some stereotyped reasons for this correlation, for example experimental and psychological evidence proves that the word chairman is perceived as a male word not because of the man component but because men in this position are more visible.

GENDER LINGUISTICS & FEMINISM

Ø Until Feminism there was no focus on the difference between social notion of gender & biological notion of sex, the word sexist did not exist. Biological sex (male & female) are distinguished from social gender (masculine & feminine)

Ø Key issue of Feminism is Women are still being silenced. The history of silencing women and their attempts to gain power is one of major topics within feminism.

Ø Feminism began with linguistic criticism of title words - Mr, Mrs, Miss , usage of which depends on marital status of a woman and are irrelevant to a marital status of a man. Women are often treated as an inherent part of a man's personality. (Miss – Mrs). Lack of a symmetry is identified purely in terms of woman's relationship to a male Another favorite item of feminist criticism is the use of masculine pronoun he in reference to any animate object in generalised meaning. Feminists offered he – *heesh, him –* hiser, *Herm - him + her

Ø Emancipation, egalitarian tendencies in modern world, feminism propelled the problem of gender equality. Feminism focuses on the struggle of women for equal rights. Feminists claim that despite drastic changes in modern societies women are deprived of the opportunity to establish or affect social and cultural rules: Bachelor provokes more positive associations than spinster, Roles of women are limited to the roles of mother, wife, nurse and governess. Wedding ring is still considered to be the best business card, the best voucher for a woman. Feminists claim women are created by men as all famous fashion designers are males creating icons of world fashion. In modern advertising men exploit the image of a woman.

*Feminist suggestions in English Word-Formation

Feminist discourse
Language of Feminism

Gender Linguistics, Linguistic Genderology, Genderism ( Goffman)

Oracy ( in line with literacy) politically correct language without sexist words and phrases

English = Menglish ( masculine English) → VS bias-free language, non-sexist language

It's time to change I-would-if-I-could to I-can-and-I-am!

English is described by feminists as androcentric, masculanised, phallocentric. The society is presented as patriarch culture (phallocratic, phallocracy, sexploitation)

Revolutionary linguism = break-up with patriarch society dictatorship. Feminist perspective/ impact on language.Feminist Dictionary. Encyclopaedia of Feminism

Gender-based descrimination,

Gender détente/ conflict

Trans gender

Gender blender

Gender troubled

Gender equals

to regender, to genderise

Feminizing the language

Gender-free state

transgenderdom

Genderist

Gender-blind

Language-mad women

Nonarticulated words and terms

Fe-mail, womyn, herstory, herstorian,

Feminist

Femalist

Womanist

Post feminist

Feminazi

Live-in lover, mate,

posslq = person of opposite sex sharing living quarters

Cyberfeminists, cybermom, supermom, latch-key children

Womanism

Wifedom

White feminism

Single-girldom

Herstory

Gynaffection –political associations of women

Sispeak - sister speak – feminist

Libspeak – liberation speak

(lib, libbie, bra burner)

Breastism

Momism

The Cinderella complex – dreams about happy marriage to a knight in shining armors riding a white horse

Please disease –women's difficulty to say ‘no' to others

Non-registered words:

Bitching – pretty girl

Seductress – one who makes a career thanks to close connections with opposite sex

Mommy – leader

Leaderette = leaderene

Iron maiden

Gender linguistics. Genderlects/sexolects

Ø One of the first fundamental works on gender factor in language and communication was produced by E.Borneman. Other works also proved that all languages are sexist / androcentric; gender asymmetry is found in any language. The analysis of languages and dictionaries proved that correlation of so called men's and women's words is 3:1. This correlation does not cover slangy and vulgar words which describe availability of women and their sexual exploitation. Negative aspects of the correlation will increase if these facts are taken into account.

Ø Men are supposed to speak a standard language, women practice deviation from the standard. Men are better educated therefore women just copy their models. There are no female or male dialects but different ways of realization of the same language. It is different mind configuration. Biologists claim that specific mind configuration was predetermined by evolution process as males were chasing and hunting beast in forests while women speaking with other women and children

GENDER-MARKED CONCEPTS

Ø Some concepts are associated with gender category in English. Mackay & Konish (1980) revealed that HE is associated with the words strong, active, brave, wise, clever ; SHE with weak, passive, foolish.

Ideological pattern of women inferiorisation presupposes that

Men Women

Rational Irrational

Logical Illogical

Reasonable Unreasonable

Ø The Concept of Femininity

Womanhood

Women's rights

Virginity

Unmarried state (highly undesirable)

Young motherhood

Motherhood

Working women/ mothers (househusband)

Prostitution

Woman as a goddess ( beautiful & untouchable)

Government of women ( at best viewed uneasily

Verbal aggression

Ladies' voice sounds erotic

Some women have bitter/ acid tongues

Tears are regarded as powerful weapons of women

Ø The Concept of Masculinity

Macho

Machismo

Family man ( negatively if he is too much con trolled by his wife)

Men are socialized to be successful so they are castigated for failures (bludger, no-hoper, drongo, dope, fuck-wit, oaf).

Men are supposed to be heroes and knights