Key Question: In what ways does language-choice shape our understanding of gender? Starter

1. Key Question: In what ways does language-choice shape our understanding of gender? Starter Think back to yesterday’s lesson: How many gender-specific and generic (neither male nor female) nouns can you think of? Can you think of any female-specific collective nouns? H/W: • Terminology test next week. • Find two articles which have a gender specific audience – one male, the other female (e.g., articles from Vogue and GQ); annotate for evidence of intended, gender-specific audience, and for attitudes towards gender.

2. In what ways does language-choice shape our understanding of gender? Semantic Marking • Semantic marking: when the semantic range of a word is limited or specified (“stallion” = male horse; “mare” = female horse) • Unmarked form: the assumed “norm”, or “standard”; something not limited or specified (e.g., “horse”, rather than “stallion” or “mare”) • Marked form: Suggests deviation from the norm – e.g., male nurse. • Overt marking: marking that takes place through suffixes or modification Sometimes marks number (e.g. “S” for plurals – egg/eggs) Sometimes marks gender (e.g. “-ess” for female – lioness) • Covert marking: marking that is (tacitly) understood: e.g., in certain contexts, “young” is the marked, “old” the unmarked form (we ask “how old are you?”, not “how young”...)

3. In what ways does language-choice shape our conception of gender? In what ways does language-choice shape our understanding of gender? Police Regulations 2003 Regulation 6 SCHEDULE 1RESTRICTIONS ON THE PRIVATE LIFE OF MEMBERS OF POLICE FORCES 1.  A member of a police force shall at all times abstain from any activity which is likely to interfere with the impartial discharge of his duties or which is likely to give rise to the impression amongst members of the public that it may so interfere; and in particular a member of a police force shall not take any active part in politics. What gender-neutral pronoun choices might you use in place of “his”? Coin some new gender-neutral pronouns.

4. In what ways does language-choice shape our conception of gender? In what ways does language-choice shape our understanding of gender? … • Who wrote this (woman/man)? • Which sex/gender is the narrator? • Which gender is the narrator?

5. In what ways does language-choice shape our conception of gender? Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer’s men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning — fresh as if issued to children on a beach. What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her, when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air. How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then was) solemn, feeling as she did, standing there at the open window, that something awful was about to happen; looking at the flowers, at the trees with the smoke winding off them and the rooks rising, falling; standing and looking until Peter Walsh said, “Musing among the vegetables?”— was that it?—“I prefer men to cauliflowers”— was that it? He must have said it at breakfast one morning when she had gone out on to the terrace — Peter Walsh. He would be back from India one of these days, June or July, she forgot which, for his letters were awfully dull; it was his sayings one remembered; his eyes, his pocket-knife, his smile, his grumpiness and, when millions of things had utterly vanished — how strange it was!— a few sayings like this about cabbages. What can you say about the language choices in this extract? (Think, particularly, about verb processes; also, about noun and adjective choices.) Is the lang. particularly or essentially female/feminine/feminist? • Stative verbs/participles • Free indirect discourse/stream of consciousness (temporal experience rather than “movement” of plot...)

6. Is the Daily Mail article sexist? • Are its comments – sexist or not – directed at women, or just Louise Mensch? • What language choices/techniques can you point to as evidence? Don't judge us on looks, says MP Louise: Tory condemns 'trivialisation' of women politicians in magazine interview These are the photos included in the Mail article, taken of Mensch during the GQ shoot and interview; the headline above is from the Mail article. Point of interest: What does “mensch” mean in English?