Language and Gender

Question 1

Sex

Answer 1

Biological differences

Question 2

Gender

Answer 2

Socially expected characteristics

Question 3

Male of the norm syndrome

Answer 3

Julia Stanley (1973)
-English language creates power imbalance between men and women
-nouns referring to humans, “man/mankind”
-women occupy negative semantic space

Question 4

Dale Spender (1960s)

Answer 4

-Most primary school teachers are female
-marking and hidden norms:
“working mother” “step mother” “foster mother”
These modifiers tell us that the norms for motherhood is someone who does not work, is married and biologically related to their child

Question 5

Sex discrimination act

Answer 5

1975
Illegal to write a job advertisement in a way that implies people of only 1 sex could apply
Exception: if there was a particular type of recruitment required

Question 6

Gender and Address terms (work)

Answer 6

The diminative ette or ess would be added eg: waitress
Signals they are “not the real thing”

Question 7

Gender and address terms (marriage)

Answer 7

More linguistically compromising for a woman than a man
Miss/Mrs
A man is always Mr

Question 8

Terms of Endearment

Answer 8

Goddard (1983)
Wide range of informal address (vocatives without proper nouns)
Eg: “mate” “boss” “duck” “love” “bro”
Some are used for just 1 sex but also vary regionally

Question 9

Collocations and Gender

Answer 9

Words that belong together eg: “fish and chips”
Words like “slender” associated with women “ripped”= men

Question 10

Perceptions of gender

Answer 10

Goldberg (1974)
Still a pay inequality even though women make up 40% of the workforce
Even women do not show as much respect to women as they do men
Experiment: women students given 2 books. 1 said to be a female author, the other male.
They found the males writing to be superior to the females even though the text was actually by the same author.

Question 11

Gender and Grammar~ Wilson

Answer 11

1533- a man should proceed the woman in pairs eg: Male/female, Son/Daughter, Husband/Wife
Nobody disagreed

Question 12

Gender and Grammar - Joshua Poole

Answer 12

1646
Male should proceed the female as it was proper and males where the worthier sex
Men were happy to agree

Question 13

Gender and Grammar - Joshua Poole

Answer 13

1646
Male should proceed the female as it was proper and males where the worthier sex
Men were happy to agree