Linguistics Encyclopedia.pdf

The linguistics encyclopedia 350
and females; sexual vigour is seen as deviant in females; it is the male who is supposed to
dominate in this field as in every other. The theory of maleness includes features such as
courage, strength, toughness, vigour, rationality, while the theory of femaleness includes
tenderness and emotionality. Consequently, it is not unusual to hear surprised statements
to the effect that a female professional is able to combine her professional standing and
ability with an undeniable femininity (it would be unlikely that anyone would remark on
a man’s ability to combine professionalism with masculinity). The language also still
bears traces of the cultural norm of women as housewives and men as workers outside the
home; thus working wife and working mother are, to say the least, more likely to occur
than working husband and working father.
Finally, it is easy to dig up linguistic evidence to support the argument that those
qualities which are assigned to males are held in higher esteem than those assigned to
females. Thus it can be complementary to call a girl a tomboy, but it can never be
complementary to call a boy a sissy (derivative of sister).
All this demonstrates the ways in which males and females are stereotyped within the
culture, and the way in which language use can highlight stereotypical features. For those
in favour of altering the status quo, the question then arises as to the degree to which a
change in language use can assist in this endeavour. The answer one gives will depend on
how one views the relationship between language and culture in general, but it is unlikely
that either of two possible extremist answers are correct. One such answer is that altering
language use will achieve nothing, because any alternative terms will simply be
infiltrated with the prejudices inherent in the old terms. At the other extreme, the answer
would be that a change in language use alone would result in a change in the culture’s
beliefs about men and women respectively.
What cannot be doubted is that a heightened awareness of how language works for
men and women as it is used by them and about them cannot but help aid an awareness of
how they are viewed by the culture, including, of course, by themselves. It cannot be
denied, either, that newsreaders and newspaper reporters in the 1990s are less likely to
use male pronouns and more likely to use they as a singular term than they were in the
1960s. Refer to the entries on CRITICAL LINGUISTICS and METAPHOR for help in
making up your own mind about the degree to which this may be a result of changes in
attitude and of deliberate attempts to change language use.
K.M.
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
Coates, J. (1986), Women, Men and Language, London and New York, Longman.
Smith, P.M. (1985), Language, the Sexes and Society, Oxford, Basil Blackwell.