Is our vocabulary sexist?

1. Learning Objectives: • To be able to discuss the representation of gender in language. • To be able to recognise and use linguistic terminology. Language and Representation: Gender Is our vocabulary sexist?

2. Quick recap... • Some key terms to re-visit: • Diminutive suffix A suffix is an “ending” that can be added to the end of a word, like: jumpjumped; hathats. Diminutive means you make something sound smaller or less important, like: bookbooklet; microwave • Morphology When words change or “morph” in some way to reflect a change of meaning or grammatical function e.g. the examples above, which have changed to show past tense and plurality. • Connotation Implied or suggested meanings; associations. • Denotation Basic dictionary definition of a word.

3. Morph of Morphology Fame

4. Accidentally Sexist? • Why might some people argue these nouns are sexist, or more accurately, suggest unequal or prejudiced attitudes towards men and women? • Heroine • Bachelor • Widower • Queen • Bridegroom • Waitress

5. Remember this cautionary tale? A father and his son were seriously injured in a car accident. On the way to the hospital in the ambulance, the father died. The boy was taken to the emergency operating room and the surgeon called. On seeing the boy, however, the surgeon said “I can’t operate on this boy: he’s my son”. Why does this story often confuse people the first time they hear it?

6. Default Assumptions • Think of “default settings” on a computer. In the same way, a culture, language or society’s default assumptions make predictions or assumptions about what it “thinks” is “usual” or “normal”. • For example, which gender comes to mind when I say... • Nurse • Farmer • President • Professor • Receptionist • ...So you see, YOUhave default assumptions programmed into YOU and YOUR LANGUAGE too... • Where do you think they come from though?

7. Reading • Now read the two texts on your sheet, the first an example cited in Dennis Freeborn et al, Varieties of Englishand the second, from Deborah Cameron’s Feminism and Linguistic Theory. • Can you think of any other nouns that may be interpreted as being male or female...even though they can actually apply to either or both?

8. Male and female ROLES • How the denotations and connotations of these verbs differ? • To mother? • To father? • N.B. These are nouns which have been converted to verbs!

9. Man, you’re such a GIRL! • We’ve talked about insults and terms of address, which can often be pretty confusing...as above! • Male and female identities blur in language (and indeed, life) and are not as clear cut as their Biology may suggest. • Take a look at these adjectives, for example – what are their denotations and connotations? When might they be used? • Manly • Virile • Feminine • Masculine • Womanish • Boyish • Girly/girlish • Effeminate

10. Are any of these words/phrases sexist? If so, which one(s)? • Manipulate • History • To master / a master copy • Milkman • She • Manual • Human • Woman

11. Womanipulating Language • Some female writers, linguists and some feminists (do they have to be women?) have developed strategies to highlight this point: • Using “she” in contexts in which it used to be conventional to say “he”. • Womanipulating language to make us think about how (or if) language encodes an essentially male viewpoint. These new words often reveal a female view of the world...don’t they? For example, neologisms from Mary Daly’s book, Gyn/Ecology: • Herstory • Wimmin • Malefunction • Stag-nation

12. What do you think...erm...guys? How do you react to the following opinion? Remember to draw on all we have discussed today and in previous lessons, as well as examples from your own language experiences. “The vocabulary of the English language is intrinsically totally sexist and encourages us to see women as inferior to men.”