Gender and Language

1. Gender and Language The ideology of gender categories is typically enacted in linguistic practices; indeed, it is through language that the individual cultural understandings of gender categories are learned and the coordination of gender roles achieved (Foley 2001: 289)

2. LANGUAGE AND GENDER • Sex versus Gender • Sexual differences: masculine and feminine • Gender categorization: Social construct • Daily practices: social interaction • Habitus

3. Habitus • A concept by Pierre Bourdieu (with roots going back to Marcel Mauss), denoting the totality of learned, bodily skills, habits, styles, tastes, etc. • Culture inscribed in the body • Gender: habitus

4. Anthropology of Gender • Rosaldo, 1974 • Leacock 1978 • Moore 1988 • Study of the asymmetry of between the sexes: universal • exceptions

5. Main Question • Why it is widespread? • Publicrealm and privaterealm hypothesis • Women (work practices): private, viewed inferior • Men: Public, risky activities, economic and social capital, politics

6. Socialization • Perpetuation of asymmetrical patterns between the sexes • Learning gender categories and rules in the childhood

7. The Asymmetry of the Sexes is not Universal • Errington and Gewertz (1987) • Gender can be complementary: Separate but equal • Western versus Chambri (New Guinea) • Western: Separation of the private and public: Exclusion • Chambri: person define by his/her relations

8. What is the connection between Gender and Language? • Gender as Ideology: • Language as a tool for learning gender categorization • Commonly highly valued ways of speaking association • Example: Malagasy speech norms: Indirectness in speech: male activities • Kabary Speech

9. Gender Styles in English Alternatives: pronunciation, word selection, grammatical construction. “You’re driving rather fast, aren’t you? “Well, I guess it’s approximately four feet high.”

10. Why? • Socialization • Gender roles and cultural values • Social norms: construct and reinforce gender attitudes

11. Gender Roles Are Reflected In Language Styles • Pronunciation: tone, intonation, volume • Grammatical forms • Choices of vocabulary

12. Phonological variations: pronunciation • Conversational interactions • Tendencies in language use • Example: New England study: “-ing”; the progressive suffix of verbs

13. Fischer’s study(1958) • prefer –ing prefer –in • Boys 5 7 • Girls 10 2

14. Social Meaning in language use: • -ing: Formality, symbolizing female speaker • -in Informality, symbolizing male speaker Style of speech is connected to a u unified cultural structure of behavior

15. Intonation • Rhythm. Volume, pitch • Different intonation in English: • Women: wide range of pitches, rapid shift in volume and velocity (more emotional) • Men: Atonal (control, restrain) • Cultural interpretation: cultural valued behavior

16. Grammatical Variants • Standard versus non-standard grammar • Cheshire (1982) in Reading, England

17. Present tense –s with non-singular subjects:“We goes shopping on Saturdays.”2. Has with first-and second-person subjects:“We has a little fire keeps us warm.”

18. Tag Questions • sentences in which the speaker makes a declarative statement and add on a tag in the form of a question about the assertion • Louise and Lucille didn’t leave together last night, did they? • Bill took Luke to the park last night, didn’t he?

19. Robin Lakoff: • --are reluctant to make direct assertions • --thus avoiding coming into conflict with the addressee • --uncertainty lack of definite opinion

20. Choice of Vocabulary • Different social and cultural domains: --assumption of expertise --profanity

21. Gender interactions • Different styles • Introduction to topics • Topic control

22. Gender Bias in English • Nouns, adjectives, and verbs • English covertly and overtly degrades females • normative roles and secondary roles • Creating a context for interaction of genders ---term opposite sex ---covert and overt inequality

23. The child caught the ball.The ball was caught by the child.

24. Conversational Styles • Assumptions about conversational domination • McConnell-Ginet (1988) ---Men: 12 min --Women: 3.17 • Edelky (1981) --25 to 400% longer

25. Cross-cultural analysis • Ideology of gender enacted in language: • Example: English • Gender specific ways of comm… • Universality of gender asymmetry • Highly valued speech and men • Three cross-cultural examples: Malagasy, Javanese, Kuna

26. Malagasy (Madagascar) • Speech norms: indirectness in speech • Articulated in public: Kabary ceremony • Through use of proverbs, allusions and innuendo • Kabary speech and male activities

27. Women and Exclusion • Encourage to violate norms • Women’s style of speech; secondary • Indirect speech = public = male = prestige • Direct speech= domestic = female = secondary

28. Javanese Language • Importance of politeness for both sexes • Status of addressee and speaker reflected in speech • Highly stratified • Weak distinctions along gender lines • Strong ideology of gender equality • Differences of speech in public and private

29. Private and Public Spheres (Javanese) Private • Women: mas or “older brother” • Men: dkik or “younger sibling” • Difference in seniority Public • Women: Less skillful • Men: Greater art of polite speech

30. Kuna (Panama) • Egalitarian society • economic, political. Labor • Complementary separate but equal • Private and public contexts: speech styles • Public: --equally accessible to both genders --Generally the domain of men • Private: ---Exclusive for women

31. What do these examples tell us about the asymmetry in the cultural evaluation of the sexes? • Malagasy and Kuna: Egalitarian • Javanese stratified • Malagasy and Javanese: marked linguistic behavior • Kuna: no great differences

32. Languages with “Gender-Preference” Patterns • Gender exclusive: alternatives appropriate to their gender • Gender preference: language style a social or cultural choice • Japan: class, seniority, gender • Men: less polite and more assertive • Women: more polite and less assertive

33. Summary • Language reflect the way we construct gender: pronunciation, grammar structure, etc. • Women’s domestic sphere -- less value • Cultures evaluate gender styles in a similar way • Example: Malagasy, Javanese and Kuna Languages • Ways of evaluating lang and gender relationship ----Gender exclusive ---- and gender-preference patterns

34. Discussion Question • In what ways are the relationship between language and gender cross-culturally similar or different to the relationship between language and race?