AQA English Language A-Level; Language and Gender
PROJECTIONS IN LANGUAGE AND GENDER
Is language a direct reflection of the world around us, or do we project our own ideas
onto the language we use?
TECHNICAL TERMS
LINGUISTIC DETERMINISM: LANGUAGE DETERMINES THE
Created by:
WAY PEOPLE THINK AND FEEL.
❖ Edward Sapir
➢ A linguist in the 1920s LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY: LANGUAGE AFFECTS THE WAY
❖ Benjamin Lee Whorf PEOPLE PERCIEVE AND EXPERIENCE THE WORLD AROUND
➢ A psychologist in the 1950s THEM.
the structure of a
language determines / greatly influences the modes of thought and behaviour
characteristic of the culture in which it is spoken.
❖ When we acquire language, we acquire ways of thinking, which we don’t notice
consciously because they feel natural.
➢ It’s like viewing the world through a particular pair of glasses.
EXAMPLES:
❖ In Russia, there are no words to distinguish ‘hand’ or ‘foot’ as being separate from
‘arm’ or ‘leg’.
❖ English has 11 basic words for colours, whereas speakers of some New Guinea
Highland languages only use 2 terms: ‘light’ and ‘dark’.
➢ Metaphorical references to colour also vary on a language basis.
▪ There is no apparent logic in any of these relationships between the colour
terms and the ideas that they all call up for any group of speakers.
• If we have associations, it is because we put them there, not because they
somehow occur naturally.
If they did, then every language would have the same system.
➢ We impose our view of the world on our language.
giving something a human shape.
For some reason, human beings feel the need to project ideas of humanness onto the
inanimate world, and also onto animals.
EXAMPLES:
- Fox = male: seductive – female: sly
- Rat = male: disgusting, snitch
- Pussycat = fear, cowardice, sometimes associated with women
- Dog = male / female – derogatory, gendered insult
- Pig = male: pervert, stubborn – female: fat – also a nickname for the police
,❖ EXAMPLE: we traditionally refer to boats and cars as ‘she’.
➢ According to the Oxford English Dictionary, ships have been female since at least
1375.
▪ 2002: Lloyd’s List announced it was to change it’s practice of using the
pronouns ‘she’ and ‘her’ to refer to ships.
Dale Spender (1980) suggested that cars and boats are seen as female because they are
objects of status.
❖ EXAMPLE: We often refer to countries as ‘she’.
➢ HOWEVER, countries do not always appear as ‘she’.
▪ EXAMPLE: the period of Nazi rule in Germany, leading to the Second World
War – Germany was often referred to as the ‘Fatherland’
• This was meant to suggest Germany’s militaristic strength rather than
showing the country as a nurturing place that feeds it’s people.
Academics in different subject areas researching ideas about sexual experiences all claim
that our language, as it exists at present, gives men and women very different stories
about sexual behaviour and about the importance of their sexual experiences.
❖ There is no term for normal sexual power in women to match the terms ‘virile’ or
‘potent’ for men.
➢ There are only the extremes of ‘frigid’ or ‘nymphomaniac’.
❖ Terms for sex, such as ‘penetration’, are invariably male oriented.
❖ Many medical textbooks link female genitals with reproduction, but male genitals
with sex and pleasure.
➢ EXAMPLE: Dorling Kindersley’s Children’s Dictionary:
▪ Penis: The part of a man’s body that he uses to urinate or to have sex.
• Vagina: The passage that connects the outside of a woman’s body to her
womb.
❖ Initially denigrating and condescending.
❖ The movement was not considered to be real, and was described as something lesser
through the suffix ‘-ette’.
➢ Kitchen = kitchenette.
➢ Suffrage = suffragette.
➢ ‘Suffragette’ often appeared in scare quotes / sneer quotes.
RELEVANT ARTICLES:
Everything You Need to Know About the Word ‘Suffragette’ by Katy Steinmetz: Suffragette: A
Brief History of a Loaded Word | Time
Eight words that reveal the sexism at the heart of the English language by David Shariatmadari:
Eight words that reveal the sexism at the heart of the English language | David Shariatmadari | The
Guardian
, Male: Mr.
Female: Miss or Mrs.
Females have to declare marital status, males don’t.
❖ Some stage performers can be exempt from this:
➢ EXAMPLE: Dame Judy Dench is not known as Mrs. Williams (husband’s name =
Michael Williams).
In some European countries, women are known by their father’s name rather than that
of their husband:
❖ EXAMPLE: Anna Karenina in Russia.
➢ Is this better than the UK convention, or is it just a different kind of sexism?
❖ In Iceland, a recent law allows any Icelander to use his or her mother’s first name as
the root of their last name, followed by ‘-son’ or ‘-dóttir’.
❖ In Russia and Iceland, men are also known by their father’s name.
Sweden has the following terms:
- Sambo: a partner you are living with but are not married to.
- Sarbo: a partner who does not live with the speaker.
- Narbo: a partner who lives close to the speaker.
- Delsbo: a partner who has a house of their own, but with whom the speaker lives
for part of the time.
Language is subject to change. As our social situations change, we need to create new
words to recognise and validate them.
TECHNICAL TERMS
DENOTATION: THE DICTIONARY DEFINITION OF A WORD.
‘Childless’ implies something
negative about not having CONNOTATION: ALL THE ASSOCIATED IDEAS WE CONNECT
children, and is often associated WITH A TERM.
with females. ‘Childfree’ implies
something positive about not having children, and is often associated with males.
❖ The suffixes give the words completely different connotations, even though they
mean the same thing.
‘Bachelor’ and ‘spinster’ mean the same thing, but over time they have developed
connotations that mean very different things.
❖ ‘Bachelor’ typically implies positivity, while ‘spinster’ typically implies negativity.
Terms such as men ‘playing the field’ and women being ‘left on the shelf’ further reveal
society’s ideas about gender.
Men Women Either
Handsome Pretty Independent
Athletic Graceful Slim
Muscular Emotional Ambitious
Aggressive Nurturing Neurotic
