CHAPTER I
Introduction
In this paper, we are examining styles and registers, the way language is used,
and linguistic attitudes, the relationship between languages, thought and culture, the
issue of “woman’s language” is one which illustrates all these concepts. Is women’s
language a distinct style or register of a language? Are women more polite than men?
Are there any differences in the way women and men interact? How is language used
to refer to women and men? What message does the language used about women
convey about their status in the community?
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CHAPTER II
DISCUSSION
A. Women’s Language and Confidence
While some social dialectologist suggested that women were status conscious,
and that this was reflected in their use of standard speech forms, Robin Lakoff, an
American Linguist, suggested almost the opposite. She argued that women were using
language which reinforced their subordinate status; they were ‘colluding in their own
subordination’ by the way they spoke.
Robin Lakoff shifted the focus of research on gender differences to syntax,
semantics and style. She suggested that women’s subordinate social status in
American society is reflected in the language women use, as well as in the language
used about them. She identified a number of linguistic features which she claimed
were used more often by women than by men, and which in her opinion expressed
uncertainty and lack of confidence.
1) Features of ‘Women’s Language’
Lakoff suggested that women’s speech was characterized by linguistic features
such as the following:
a. Lexical hedges or fillers, e. g. you know, sort of, well, you see.
Hedging is an aspect of women’s insecurity. According to Lakoff, one would
expect ‘you know’ to be randomly scattered through out women’s speech since it
usage is supposed to reflect the general insecurity of the speaker. The use of
hedges is also the manifestation of women’s lack of self-confidence. Lakoff
considered that “pause fillers” are also categorized as ‘hedges’, because of their
function which is expressing lack of confidence or uncertainty.
b. Tag Question, e. g. she is very pretty, isn’t she?
A tag question is used when is the speaker is stating a claim, but the speaker is not
totally sure about the truth of that claim, for example: Juan is leaving, isn’t he?
As Lakoff says, ‘a tag question is midway between an outright statement and a
yes-no question: it is less assertive than the former, but more confident than the
later’. (pp. 104)
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c. Rising intonation on declaratives: e. g. it’s really good.
Women show non-assertive behavior by using question intonation in conjunction
with declarative sentences. That is, rather than making direct statements, they
suggest or request agreement for their addressee (s). Lakoff says that in answering
a question like “when will lunch be ready?” women will respond not with a
statement but with a question intonation response, such as “oh, about twelve
o’clock?”
d. “Empty” adjectives: meaningless, can be omitted or changed into another word, e.
g. divine, charming, cute.
According to Lakoff, certain words are used almost exclusively by women. Lakoff
claims that women use “empty” adjectives such as divine and cute, these
adjectives are said to be not only meaningless, but also lacked of connotation of
power if contrasted with “men’s adjectives“such as great, terrific.
e. Precise color terms, e. g. magenta, aquamarine.
Lakoff suggested that there are some colors that are less common and used by
women only, such as mauve and chartreuse. Because women like details more
than women do. Therefore, women have more vocabulary in colors than men
have.
f. Intensifiers such as just and so, e. g. I like him so much.
Female often use intensifiers as so, such, quite, and vastly. E.g. I hate her so
much. Lakoff claimed that if women use hedging to express uncertainty, on the
other hand women use intensifying devices to persuade their addressee to take
them seriously and also to strengthen the meaning.
g. “Hypercorrect” grammar, e. g. consistent use of standard verb forms.
According to Lakofff, women tend to use more formal syntax than men, to use
forms of pronunciation which are closer to the prestige norm, and in general to
speak more formally than men do in similar situations.
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h. “Super polite” forms, e. g. indirect request, euphemisms.
Women are said to frame request and other sorts of utterances with excessively
polite form such as “Would you please open the door, if you don’t mind”. These
forms are often used by women than men.
i. Avoidance of strong swears words, e. g. fudge, my goodness.
Taboo language or non-standard words, have considered on strong swear words.
In language taboo is a prohibition forces the substitution of another word for one.
These words are rarely used and even avoided by women.
j. Emphatic stress, e. g. it was a brilliant performance.
Women use modifiers so, such, and very to emphasize their utterances much more
frequently than men do and they combined this usage with an intensity of
intonation out proportion with the topic of the phrase. Expressions like “It’s so
beautiful!” are seen as feminine.
Features which may serve as:
Hedging devices Boosting devices
Lexical hedges
Tag questions
Question intonation
Super polite forms
Euphemisms
Intensifiers
Emphatic stress
The hedging devices can be used to weaken the strength of an assertion while
the boosting devices can be used to strengthen it. For example, it’s a good film can be
strengthened by adding the intensifier really (it’s really good film) or weakened by
adding the lexical hedge sort of (it’s sort of a good film). However, some of these
devices serve other functions too, as we will see below.
Lakoff claimed both kinds of modifiers were evidence of an unconfident
speaker. Hedging devices explicitly signal lack of confidence, while boosting devices
reflect the speaker’s anticipation that the addressee may remain unconvinced and
therefore supply extra reassurance. So, she claimed, women use hedging devices to
express uncertainty, and they use intensifying devices to persuade their addressee to
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take them seriously. Women boost the force of their utterances because they think that
otherwise they will not be heard or paid attention to. So, according to Lakof, both
hedges and boosters reflect women’s lack of confidence.
2) Lakoff's Linguistic Features as Politeness Devices
The tag question is syntactic device listed by Lakoff which my express some
expression such as:
1. Expressing uncertainty (rising intonation)
Example:
(Bella is a student. She is telling her friends about the event in her school)
Prom night was held in the last July, was it?
From the example above, Bella is uncertain about the time and she indicates
with rising tag which signal doubt about what she is asserting. This tag focuses on
the referential meaning of Bella's assertion in giving the accuracy of information
that she is giving.
2. Expressing affective meaning (falling intonation)
The tags question in this point may have a function as facilitative or positive
politeness devices, providing and addressee with an easy entrée into a
conversation.
Example:
(Bella has new friend named Andy. When she is eating in the cafeteria with her
friend, Dina she meets Andy and she introduces him to Dina)
Bella: Dina, this is my new friend, Andy. Dina has met you twice in the school,
haven’t you?
Dina: Well, actually three times. I met you when you were playing basket ball.
Example:
Mrs. Short : here's pretty one what's this one called Simon?
Simon : Mm, erm (pause)
Mrs. Short : See its tail, look as its tail. It's a fantail, isn’t it?
Simon : Mm.. a fantail. I see one of them
3. Expressing criticism (falling intonation)
A tag may also soften a directive or a criticism.
Example:
5
(Bella has new shoes but her sister wears it without asking to her first)
Bella: It's good shoes, wasn’t it?
4. Tags may also be used as confrontational and coercive devices. This tag is
used to force feedback from an uncooperative addressee.
Example:
A: You'll probably find yourself um before the chief constable, okay?
B: Yes, sir yes understood.
A: Now you er fully understand that, don’t you?
B: Yes, sir, indeed, yeah.
Distribution of tag questions by function and sex speaker
Function of tag Women (%) Men (%)
Expressing uncertainty
Facilitative
Softening
Confrontational
Total
N
35
59
6
-
100
51
61
26
13
-
100
39
The table shows that the women used more tags than the men, as Lakoff
predicted. Women put more emphasis then men on the polite or affective functions of
tags, using them as facilitative positive politeness devices. On the other hand, men
used more tags for the expression of uncertainty.
B. Interaction
There are many futures of interaction which differentiate the talk of women
and men. Mrs Fleming’s distinction reflection of them. In this section I will discuss
two others: interrupting behavior and conversational feedback.
1) Interruptions
Example
Wanda : Did you see here that two sociologists have just proved that men
interrupt women all the time?
They –
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Ralph : Who says?
Wanda : Candace west of Florida State and Don Zimmerman of the University of
California at Santa Barbara. They taped a bunch of private
conversations, and guess what they found. When two out three women
are talking, interruptions are about equal. But when a man talks to a
woman, he makes 96 per cent of the interruptions. They think it’s a
dominance trick men aren’t event a were of. But –
Ralph : These people have nothing better to do than eavesdrop on
interruptions?
Wanda : - but woman make ‘retrievals’ about one third of the time. You know,
they pick up where they left off after the man –
Ralph : Surely not all men are like that Wanda?
Wanda : - cuts in on what they were saying. Doesn’t that-
Ralph : speaking as a staunch supporter of feminism, I deplore it Wanda.
Wanda : (sign) I know, dear.
Ralph here illustrated a pattern for which there is a great deal of research
evidence. The most widely quoted study, and the one referred to by Wanda in
example 11, collected examples of students’ exchanges in coffee bars, shops and other
public places on tape-recorder carried by one of the researches. The results were
dramatic, as table 12.2 illustrates. In same-gender interactions, interruptions were
pretty evenly distributed between speakers. In cross-gender interactions almost all the
interruptions were from males.
Table 12.2 Average number of interruptions per interaction
Interrruption
%
Same – sex interaction
Speaker 1 43
Speaker 2 57
Cross sex interaction
Woman 4
Man 96
Source: from Zimmerman and west 1975: 116
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These researches followed up this study with one which recorded interactions
in sound-proof booths in a laboratory. The percentage of male interruptions decreased
to 75 per cent in this less natural setting, but there was no doubt that men were still
doing most of the interrupting. In other contexts too, it has been found that men
interrupt others more than woman do. In department meetings and doctor-patient
interaction, for instance, the pattern holds. Woman gets interrupted more than man,
regardless of whether they were the doctors or the patients. In exchanges between
parents and children, father did most of the interrupting, and daughters were
interrupted most-booth by their mothers and their fathers. And study pre-scholars
found that some boys start practicing this strategy for dominating the talk at very early
age. Women are evidently socialized from early childhood to expect to be interrupted.
Consequently, they generally give up the floor with little or no protest, as example 12
illustrated.
2) Feedback
Example
Marry : I worked in that hotel for- ah eleven years and I found the patrons
were really you know good
Jill : Mm.
Mary : You had the odd one or two ruffian’d come in and cause a fight but
they were soon dealt with.
Jill : Right, really just takes one eh? To start trouble.
Marry : Yeah, and and it was mostly the younger ones.
Jill : Mm.
Marry : that would start you know.
Jill : Yeah.
Marry : the younger – younger ones couldn’t handle their booze.
Jill : Mm.
Another aspect of the pictures of woman as cooperative conversationalists is
the evidence that woman provide more encouraging feedback to their conversational
partners than men do.
One New Zealand study which examined the distribution of positive feedback
(noises such as mm and mhm) in casual relaxed interaction between young people
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found that woman gave over four times as much on this type of supporting feedback
as men. American studies of informal speech as well as talk in classrooms and under
laboratory condition have also demonstrated that women provide significantly more
encouraging and positive feedback to their addressees than men do. One researches
noted that women students were also more likely than men to enlarge on and develop
the ideas of a previous speaker rather than challenge them.
In general then, research on conversational interaction reveals women as
cooperative conversationalists, whereas men tend to be more competitive and less
supportive of others.
3) Explanation
In an interesting range of this research, it is quite clearly gender rather than
occupational status, social class, or some other social factor, which most adequately
accounts for the interactional patterns described. Women doctors were consistently
interrupted by their patient, while male doctors most of the interrupting in their
consultations. A study of women in business organizations showed that women bosses
did not dominate the interactions. Male dominated regardless of whether they were
boss or subordinate. The societally subordinate position of women reflected in these
patterns has more to do whit gender that role or occupation. For this data at least,
women’s subordinate position in male-dominated society seems the most obvious
explanatory factor.
Women’s cooperative conversational strategies, however, may be explained
better by looking at the influence of context and patterns of socialization. The norms
for women’s talk may be the norms for small group interaction in private context,
where the goals of the interaction are solidarity stressing-maintaining good social
relations. Agreement is sought and disagreement avoided. By contrast, the norms for
male interaction seem to be those of public referentially oriented interaction. The
public model is more likely than agreement and confirmation of the statement of
others. Speakers compete for the floor and for attention, and wittiness, even at other’
expense is highly valued. These patterns seem to characterize men’s talk even in
private contexts, as will be illustrated bellow.
The differences between women and men in ways of interacting may be the
result of different socialization and acculturation patterns. If we learn ways of talking
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mainly in single sex peer groups, then the patterns we learn likely to be sex-specific.
And the kids of miscommunication which undoubtedly occurs between women and
men may well attributable to the different expectations each sex has of the function of
the interaction, and the ways it is appropriately conducted. Some of these differences
will be illustrated in the next section.
C. Gossip
A gossip is someone who reveals personal information about others. Gossip
means to tell secret information to another person. Gossip is idle talk or rumors,
especially about the personal or private affairs of others, It is one of the oldest and
most common means of sharing facts and views, The term can also imply that the idle
chat or rumors is of personal or trivial nature, as opposed to normal conversation.
Gossip describes the kind of relaxed in group-talk that goes on between people
in informal contexts. In western society, gossip is defined as ‘idle talk’ and considered
particularly characteristic of women’s interaction. Its overall function for women is to
affirm solidarity and maintain the social relationships between the women involved.
Women’s gossip focuses predominantly on personal experiences and personal
relationship, on personal problems and feelings.
Gossip is not a trivial pastime: it is essential to human social, psychological
and even physical well-being. Women are more skilled than men at making gossip
entertaining – three factors are involved: highly animated tone, plenty of detail and
enthusiastic 'feedback'. Specifically referring to a woman's close female friends at the
birth of a child (those she would choose to be godparents to her child, her 'god-sisters',
if you like). The word later came to mean more generally a close (female) friend or
companion, and then the kind of talk characteristic of intimate friends, i.e. chatty talk
about the details of personal matters and relationships, the sharing of secrets – more
or less what we currently mean by gossip.
Regardless of whether it is just an advanced form of grooming, gossip can
play a lot of different roles in social interactions. When gossiping, people:
Entertain each other
Influence one another's opinions
Exchange important information
Point out and enforce social rules
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Learn from others' mistakes
Women agreed that a particular tone of voice – high and quick, or sometimes a
stage whisper, but always highly animated – was important in generating a sense of
excitement.
"Gossip's got to start with something like [quick, high-pitched, excited] "Oooh –
Guess what? Guess what?" or [quick, urgent, stage whisper] "Hey, listen, listen – you
know what I heard?""
"You have to make it sound surprising or scandalous, even when it isn't really. You'll
go "well, don't tell anyone, but." even when it's not really that big of a secret."
That the men in our groups found the lack of body-language signals in
telephone communication a bigger problem than the women. Both sexes commented
on this problem, and both tended to use 'emoticons'(symbols representing emotions –
such as smiles, sad faces – normally expressed in body language) in text messages,
but the men seemed to find talking to 'a disembodied voice' more of a handicap. It
may be that men are not only less verbally skilled than women, as noted earlier, but
also less 'vocally' skilled – less adept at conveying mood and emotion through
variations in tone, pitch and volume.
Not surprisingly women’s gossip is characterized by a number of the linguistic
features of women’s language described above. Proposition which express feelings
are often attenuate and qualified. Women complete each other’s utterances, agree
frequently, and provide supportive feedback. The following example of shared from a
gossip session between women who worked together at a bakery illustrates the
cooperative and positive nature of their talk.
Example 1:
Jill : Perhaps next time I see Brian I’ll pump him for information. Brian tells me
all.
Fran : the gossip.
Jill : I know it’s about 6 years old but,
Fran : (laugh) it doesn’t matter.
Jill : it doesn’t matter at all.
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Fran : true, true, it’s the thought that counts.
The male equivalent of women’s gossip is difficult to identify. In parallel
situations the topics men discuss tend to focus on things and activities, rather than
personal experiences and feelings. Topics like sport, cars and possessions turn up
regularly. The focus is on information and facts rather than on feelings and reaction.
In study of a parallel group of men working at bakery, the linguistic features
of the interaction were also quite different. Long pauses were tolerated and were
apparently not interpreted as discouraging following a contribution, even one which
seemed to invite a response. The men provided conflicting accounts of the same
event, argued about a range of topics. Their strategies for amusing each other were
often to cap the previous speaker’s utterance or to put them down. In other words,
their talk constructed completely with the cooperation, agreeing, and supportive,
topically coherent talk of the women in exactly the same context-working in the
bakery-on a different night.
The following excerpt illustrates the competitive verbal abuse which was
typical of the male interaction in the bakery.
Example 2:
Greg : create!
Jim : case!
Greg : what?
Jim : they come in cases Greg not creates.
Greg : oh same thing if you must be picky over every one thing.
Jim : just shut your fucking head Greg!
Greg : don’t tell me to fuck off fuck (…)
Jim : I’ll come over and shut you.
Allan : (laughingly using a thick-sounding voice) yeah I’ll have a create of apple
thanks.
Greg : no fuck off Allan.
Allan : a dozen.
Con : (amused tone) shitpicker!
Evidence of this kind makes it easier to understand why some researchers have
suggested that women and men belong to different cultural groups. It also helps
explain why women and men sometimes miscommunication.
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Gossip can:
Reinforce – or punish the lack of – morality and accountability;
Reveal passive aggression, isolating and harming others;
Serve as a process of social grooming, building a sense of community with shared
interests, information, and values;
Begin a courtship that helps one find their desired mate, by counseling others; or,
Provide a peer-to-peer mechanism for disseminating information in organization
1) The Characteristics of Gossip:
The conversation takes place in private.
The people talking are transmitting information as though it were fact, but they
have not confirmed the information as factual.
The people gossiping and the person being gossiped about know each other in real
life. By this definition, celebrity gossip is not really gossip unless the speaker and
the listener are friends with the celebrity in question.
Something in the speaker's body language or tone of voice suggests a moral
judgment about the information being relayed. For example, the sentence "Clara
got a puppy" sounds pretty neutral. But if Clara lives in a college dorm that
doesn't allow pets and the person speaking sounds scandalized, the sentence
becomes gossip.
The people gossiping compare themselves in some way to the person being
gossiped about, usually considering them to be superior to the subject.
2) Gossip’s Benefits:
Gossiping is enjoyable. Many people gossip just for fun or to blow off steam.
When you gossip with someone, you and the person you're talking to are
displaying reciprocal trust. The people you chose to gossip with are people you
trust not to use the information that you're sharing against you.
Gossip encourages social bonding. The people you gossip with become part of a
group -- everyone else is outside of your group.
3) Some Negative Consequences of Gossip:
Lost productivity and wasted time,
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Erosion of trust and morale,
Increased anxiety among employees as rumors circulate without any clear
information as to what is fact and what isn’t,
Growing divisiveness among employees as people “take sides,"
Hurt feelings and reputations,
Jeopardized chances for the gossipers' advancement as they are perceived as
unprofessional, and
Attrition as good employees leave the company due to the unhealthy work
atmosphere.
D. The Construction of Gender
In generally gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between
males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and
feminine attributes assigned to them. But, however, these assumptions are challenged
and we have to re-think. Look at the example:
Ed: he’s I mean he’s like a real artsy farsty fag he’s like (indecipherable) he’s so gay
he’s got this like really high voice and wire rim glasses
In this example, Ed criticises a man who fail to fit the established masculine
norms, but ironically, Ed’s criticism uses features associated wit more ‘feminine’
speech styles, such as freguent use of the practile like, hedges such as I mean, and
intesifiers, such as real, so, and really. Yet Ed is talking in a male-only context. This
example clearly challanges some of the generalisations in aerlier sections, and
encourages a more dynamic analysis.
Approaching gender identity as a construction, rather than as a fixed category,
is also useful in accounting for examples where women adapt to ‘masculine’ contexts,
and men adapt to ‘feminine’ contexts. Women in the police force, for instance, are
sometimes advised to portray a masculine image - to wear bulky sweaters suggesting
upper-body strength, and wellworn boots to suggest they are used to hard work. They
also adopt a cool distant style; they don’t smile much, and they talk ‘tough’. Men who
work in clothing shops and hairdressing salons, on the other hand, often construct a
more ‘feminine’ identity in these contexts than when they are in the pub or the sports
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club changing room. They use features of the more cooperative discourse style
associated with ‘gossip’, avoiding swear words, using respectful or sometimes
affectionate terms of address, and encouraging the addressee to talk.
E. Sexist Language
Sexist language is language that expresses bias in favor of one sex and thus
treats the other sex in a discriminatory manner. In most cases, the bias is in favor of
men and against women. In the past, women are supposed to stay at home, remaining
powerless and generally subordinate to man, whereas men are considered as the
center both in the family and society. In a word, for a long time women have been
looked on as “the weaker sex” in society. Even in English-speaking countries, which
hold the claim that “every one is created equal”, discrimination against women exists.
Language simply reflects this social fact. However, because of their greater status-
consciousness, the movement amongst feminists to reduce sexual discrimination and
sex-role stereotyping has led to a number of conscious attempts to influence and
change languages and linguistic behavior.
1) Sexism in English
In society, men are considered the norm for the human species: their
characteristics, thoughts, beliefs and actions are viewed as fully representing those of
all humans, male and female. This practice can make women invisible in language or
altogether excludes them. It can also lead to their portrayal as deviations from this
'male = human' norm. Women's linguistic status is often dependent on or derives from
that of men, which is represented as autonomous. By relegating women to a
dependent, subordinate position, sexist language prevents the portrayal of women and
men as different but equal human beings.
1. Common forms of sexism in English include the use of 'man' and 'he / him / his' as
generics—that is, nouns and pronouns referring to both men and women—the use
of suffixes -man, -ette, -ess, -trix in occupational nouns and job titles,
asymmetrical naming practices, and stereotyped images of women and men as
well as descriptions of (mainly) women which trivialise or denigrate them and
their status.
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a) English does not possess a third person singular pronoun which is
genderneutral. Instead the 'masculine' pronouns 'he', 'him' and 'his' are
generally used to refer to both men and women. This is confusing and
inaccurate and, as well, makes women invisible. Consider the following
examples:
All men are mortal,
Julia is a man
Therefore, Julia is mortal.
Like other animals, man nourishes his baby with milk.
We want to hire the best men we can get for the job.
In example 1), the underlined sentence sounds absurd, since everybody knows
Julia is a girl’s name. In example 2), the underlined part sounds more ridiculous and
it’s obviously contradictory to the common sense. In example 3), the problem is that
we can’t know the exact sex of the persons they want to hire. They may want only
girls, or both sexes, but they simply use “man” here.
b) In English language, there are many words, which are clearly male-orientated
in that they contain the element “—man” while they can in fact apply to both
sexes, For example:
Chairman congressman councilman
newsman foreman freshman
Policeman salesman mailman
c) Sexism in language is also showed in that the noun of feminine gender can
only be obtained by adding a certain bound morpheme to the noun. For
example:
MALE FEMALE MALE FEMALE
Man Woman Manager Manageress
Prince Princess God Goddess
Author Authoress Mayor Mayoress
ount Countess Shepherd Shepherdess
host Hostess Steward Stewardess
poet Poetess Usher Usherette
heir Heiress Sailor Sailorette
hero Heroine Conduct Conductette
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2. Some English words, especially the name of some professions, are basically of
common gender, namely, they can be applied to both sexes. However, people
usually will habitually associate them only with male. Consequently, we have to
add “woman” before those names if we want to refer to female of those
professions. For example:
COMMON GENDER FEMALE
Doctor Woman doctor
Professor Woman professor
Engineer Woman engineer
Lawyer Lady lawyer
Reporter Girl reporter
The above examples obviously reflect people’s deep-rooted discrimination
against women, that is, women have to be dependent on men and are even just some
appendages of man.
Sexist language encourages discrimination and can discourage people from pursuing
their dreams. If engineers are always spoken of as male, a girl who aspires to be an
engineer may feel that she has no hope, since "all" engineers are men. Sexist language
also offends people when they find themselves excluded. This is not an issue that
violates your right to free speech; you are free to use offensive language, and also free
to decide that you do not agree with the aforementioned definition of what constitutes
sexist language. However, if you are using language that is offensive to half of your
audience, you will not get your message across. People will not be receptive to your
arguments if they are aggrieved by your use of exclusively masculine pronouns. There
are some reasons why we should avoid sexism in language:
a. Some people feel insulted by sexist language.
b. Sexist language creates an image of a society where women have lower social and
economic status than men.
c. Using nonsexist language may change the way that users of English think about
gender roles
Therefore, there are some ways to avoid the sexism in language, such as:
1) Avoid unnecessary male pronouns by using plural pronouns "they", "them", etc.
"Someone has left their briefcase behind."
"If anyone phones, tell them I am in a meeting."
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2) Replace male pronouns with combinations such as "she or he", "him or her", "her
or his".
*"A fashion model is usually obsessive about her or his diet."
"The journalist must be accurate when she or he reports interviews."
(* these combinations can sound rather awkward. They should not be repeated
often in a piece of writing or conversation. The written form s/he, he/she, her/him
is acceptable.)
3) Use other words when referring to both men and women.
"People are ..."
"Human beings must protect ..."
"Who's staffing the office?"
4) Use expressions or pronouns that do not support sexist assumptions about jobs.
"Teachers must not be late for their classes."
"A chairperson should be fair to all her or his colleagues."
5) Use job names that apply equally to men and women.
"The chairperson handed out notes of the last meeting."
"Mary is a very experienced camera operator."
"James is a nurse and Barbara is a doctor."
"We offer language courses for business people."
All in all, sexism in language is a social problem, since it is the reflection of
human beings’ thoughts. As we know, language is a comparatively stable system.
Much of its reduction in sexist language appears to be taking place as an unconscious
reflection of social and attitudinal changes. Therefore, to eliminate the sexist
language, we should above all eliminate the concept of prejudice in human beings
thoughts. Only by this way can we be free of sexism both in language and the society
forever.
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CHAPTER III
Conclusion
According to Lakoff, most women use reinforced language in their
subordinate status by the way they spoke. Furthermore, he says that the use of hedges
and boosters reflect women’s lack of confidence.
Studies showed that men, and even boys interrupt more, due to women's
gender rather than to their role or occupation. Besides, the studies also show that
women are more cooperative and give more feedback than men do. Therefore, women
tend to become more cooperative conversationalists than men.
Linguistically, it is claimed that women are more polite than men. Women use
more standard forms than men, because children and women are subordinate groups
and they must avoid offending men, therefore they must speak carefully and politely.
Gossip is a social not a referential function to affirm solidarity, and relieve
feelings. The equivalent activity for gossip to men is mock-insults and abuse, with the
function of expressing solidarity & maintaining social relationships.
Approaching gender identity as a construction is useful in accounting rather
than as a fixed category. One of the more obvious ways in which people construct
particular kinds of social identity is trough their narratives of personal experience.
Sexist language encodes stereotyped attitudes to women and men. Sexist
language is language that expresses bias in favor of one sex and thus treats the other
sex in a discriminatory manner. Therefore, to eliminate the sexist language, we should
above all eliminate the concept of prejudice in human beings thoughts.
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Access on: 5 December 2011. 10.35 am
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December 2011
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December 2011
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Access on: 5 December 2011. 10.30 am
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