Sexist Language Flashcards
What are the ways that the English Language could be considered sexist?
- Generic man (MAN made)
- Gendered job titles (chair MAN)
- Lexical asymmetry
- Generic he in legalese
- Miss –> Mrs (doesn’t gain maturity until marriage)
- Promiscuous terms
- Metaphors (chicks/birds)
- Pronouns he/she (male firstness)
What are the collocations associated with gender terms?
Single mum= irresponsible, failing, immature
Single father= well respected, taking on a hard job
Where is semantic delegation present in gender terms?
Batchelor vs spinster
Batchelor has collocations of rich, successful, good looking
Spinster has collocations of a poor woman who does not have much to her name
What can be added to male titles to make them female?
- Derivational bound morphemes/ suffixes ‘ette’ and ‘ess’ (marked terms)
- Ette means something smaller/lesser
- E.g. actress, batcherlorette, smurfette, waitress
What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and who created it?
- Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf
- The idea that an individual’s thoughts and actions are influenced by the language the individual speaks
What are the 2 parts of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?
- Linguistic determinism
- Linguistic relevatism
What is linguistic determinism and what theory is it apart of?
- Sapir Whorf Hypothesis
- Concept of people’s thoughts and actions being determined by their language
What is linguistic relevatism and what theory is it apart of?
- Sapir Whorf Hypothesis
- People’s thoughts and actions being only somewhat shaped by their language; existing relative to language
What is linguistic reflectionism?
People’s language reflects their way of thinking; use of sexist language reflects a sexist viewpoint
What is markedness?
- The dominant term is known as the ‘unmarked’ being neutral or reflecting a norm
- Additions to the unmarked form, such as affixing a bound morpheme or pre modifying, suggest a less frequent notion (male nurse)
What did Sara Mills put forward?
Direct and indirect sexism
What is direct sexism and who defined it this way?
- Sara Mills
- Can be straightforwardly identified through the use of linguistic markers associated with the expression of discriminatory opinions about women who are seen as an inferior group in relation to males
What is indirect sexism and who defined it this way?
- Sara Mills
- When a speaker/writer’s discourse expresses sexism whilst simultaneously denying responsibility for it
What is gatekeeping and who proposed this?
- Deborah Cameron
- A gatekeeper devises which information will go forward and enter the system
- Cameron argues language is regularised by gatekeeping institutions such as education, publishing, media which are largely male and sexist language is a consequence
What is the dominate and muted group theory and who proposed it?
- Ardener and Ardener
- In any culture there are more and less powerful groups
- The more powerful social groups control the means of education (broadcast media) and therefore reflect the views of this dominant group
- Other groups are excluded from using or are ignored by these means of communication so they become muted groups as they’re denied means of expressing themselves
What is negative semantic space and who proposed it?
- Julia Stanley
- Marked forms (lady doctor/actress) push women into a ‘space’ where connotations are negative
What is semantic derogation/lexical asymmetry and who suggested it?
- Mariel Schultz
- There are more negative connotations on words for women
- Represents patriarchal order and is rule governed
- Words that are ‘marked’ for females become pejorated whereas male gendered synonyms don’t
What is androcentric language and who proposed it?
- Anne Bodine
- Bias in the English Language in favour of males
What is the euphemism treadmill and who suggested it?
- Stephen Pinker
- The process whereby words introduced to replace an offensive word become offensive themselves over time
What is feminism and linguistic reform and who suggested it?
- Anne Pauwels
- Reforms have taken place at institutional level to achieve linguistic equality
- Non sexist guidelines adopted by the media have been the main instrument of promoting feminist language reform
What are criticisms of The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?
If each language had a completely distinct reality encoded within it, how could a work be translated from one language to another?
