INTRODUCTION
Is our language sexist? and if so, we as people are the ones to blame for our language being sexist? Within the society in which we live, gender violence is one of the main problems. Nowadays we have laws before which men and women are equal and have the same rights and obligations, although unfortunately, the reality is, even today, very different and women are still at a clear disadvantage compared to men. One of the most notable manifestations of this inequality is the concealment of women in language, and it is precisely language that has the greatest influence on the formation of a society's thinking.
ABOUT US...
Carlos Manuel Lanza
My name is Carlos Manuel Lanza Valladares I'm 18 years old. I'm studying Foreign Languages I like watching anime but I'm not a big fan of watching movies. I'm learning French, I would love to go France to teach spanish like an assistant in spanish. I would like to learn Persian because I'd want to go Tabriz, Iran.
Xochil Ortíz
Hello! I am Xochil Ortíz. I am 20 years old and I am a foreign language student at UNAH. I am studying English and French and I would also like to learn Korean and Japanese and have a master degree in translation.
I love music, I really enjoy singing, dancing, and practicing guitar, also I would like to learn to play the piano. I also like to watch anime and k-dramas, and currently I also enjoy reading webtoons and cooking.
Yensy Perez
Hello, my name is Yensy and I am 20 years old, I am from the city of Tegucigalpa and I like languages, that's why I am studying foreign languages. In my free time I like to watch series on Netflix and bake cakes, also on weekends with my friends we like to watch movies and distract us for a while.
Lisbeth Lopez
Hi!! my name is Lisbeth Lopez, I am 22 years old, I am a student, I work for part time and some months I study a little about the veterinary field.
I really like animals. I have two cats. In my spare time I like to read manhwas and mangas or bake desserts. I would like to learn German and Swedish. I would like to travel and go to Australia.
POWER POINT PRESENTATION
EXAMPLES OF SEXISM LANGUAGE
Occupations
In the case of professions and occupations, women in certain jobs face the problem of not being referred to with a feminine adjective. They are still referred to as "lawyer", "doctor", "architect" or "policeman".
Politics
In certain contexts it is common to see some professions referred to in the feminine and others in the masculine, because they are mostly occupied by one gender or the other. For example, we talk about "pilots" and "stewardesses", or "nurses" and "doctors". However, nowadays, although women can be in public positions, in most cases they will be referred to in male form as governor, deputy, president, prosecutor, lawyer, etc.
Family
In the family, the same patterns can be observed to describe family members, in the case of children, Son is masculine and Daughter is feminine but the plural for both is masculine, parents, the same applies to children, Mother (feminine) and Father (masculine), however, the plural parents is used to refer to both and in grandparents as well, grandfather is for him and grandmother is for her, and the plural to include both is grandparents which is in maculine.
School
It is very common to use the masculine plural to refer to a collective or group of people. At school there are boys (masculine) and girls (feminine), but it is very common to hear expressions such as "the children" to refer to a group of children or even as a generic adjective to refer to a specific age group.
Other examples of the use of the masculine form as a generic can be teachers or students.
Treatment of people
It is common for a man to be addressed as "Mr". However, in the case of women, a distinction is made between "madam", which refers to married women, and "miss", which is applied to those who are single. Doing so is considered discrimination against the female gender, as it is not information that is asked of men to refer to them.
SUMMARY
Language and Sexism
Sexism in language takes many forms, though these may be reduced to three types: language ignores, it defines and it deprecates women. As a result, women and girls are hurt both psychologically and materially by it. In addition, such usages as the generic masculine do not deserve their intended linguistic function and are often ambiguous.
Language and usage reflect and help maintain women's secondary status by defining them and their place. Whereas men are often referred to in occupational terms, women are more often referred to in relational terms.
Marked and unmarked forms
Similar to this is an asymmetry between male and female terms in many languages in which there are male/female pairs of words. The male form is generally unmarked and the female term is created by adding a bound morpheme many of the marked female forms have been replaced by the male forms, which are used to refer to either sex. Likewise, the fact that nouns require special affixes to make them feminine forces people to think in terms of male and female, with the female somehow more derivative because of affixing. Finally, the preponderance of words denigrating females in English and in many other languages may create a climate that is more tolerant of sexist behavior. Nevertheless, although people can undoubtedly be sexist and even cultures can be sexist,
When referring in general to the profession of acting, or flying, or riding horseback, the unmarked terms actor, aviator, and equestrian are used. The marked terms are used to emphasize the female gender. (A rare exception to this is the unmarked word widow for a woman with a deceased husband but widower for a man with a deceased wife.) Moreover, the unmarked third person pronoun in English is male (he, him, and his).
Male Female
Heir heiress
Major majorette
Hero heroine
Robert Roberta
Equestrian equestrienne
Aviator aviatrix
Differences and similarities between male and female language
In order to have an overall and objective explanation to the relationship between males and females, similarities between them should be concerned about for the reason that similarities between them play the same important part. Many scholars hold males and females come from different cultures, R. A. Borker and Tannen etc. have tried to probe the reasons for the language differences between male and female from the aspect of culture. They have conducted comprehensive researches on this topic based on social, cultural and psychological factors. In their research, they pointed out that males and females come from different cultural background; here “culture” refers to a sub-culture. These transcultural differences lead to the different characteristics of their language and behavior.
Gender difference is a popular research in many fields, such as in psychology, in sociolinguistics, and in female study. In these fields, the differences between male and female in many aspects have been studied from different angles with different methodologies
Example: Males speak directly and take transferring information as the first thing. Females speak indirectly, implicitly and mildly. For both, expressing feelings is very important.
SEMANTIC MAP
QUESTIONS
1.What is sexism language?
R// It is discrimination in language based on a person's sex that benefits one sex over the other.
2.Provide an example of sexist language?
R// For example, an ad that says, "Nurse wanted," but men can't be nurses? Or an ad that says: "Engineer wanted", but women can't be engineers?
3.Why is it important to use inclusive language?
R// Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect to all people, is sensitive to differences, and promotes equitable opportunities. It is more important to apply inclusive language principles rather than learning specific appropriate phrases, as these may change in meaning over time.
4. Provide 4 words where there is sexism language.
President
Parents
Children
Lawyer
5. Provide 4 words where there is a word for both female and male.
Host - Hostess
Prince - Princess
Widow - Widower
Waiter - Waitress
6. As a society, do you think we would find it difficult to adapt to an egalitarian language?
R// The language itself is not exclusive, it is the use that society has given it that makes it see it that way, but just as the world changes constantly, the language also changes, and it is here where we can begin to change our way of expressing and make use of inclusive language.
7. With what actions would you begin to change sexism language?
R// While it may often seem that avoiding sexist language can lead a person to use awkward or irritating constructions, you can start using gender-neutral language with grace and discretion.
A example:
Change singular nouns to plurals and use a gender neutral pronoun, or try to avoid the pronoun entirely:
Instead of: Each student must have his notebook with him in class.
Use: All students must have notebooks with them in class.
8. What is marked and unmarked forms?
R// The male form is generally unmarked and the female term is created by adding a bound morpheme.many of the marked female forms have been replaced by the male forms, which are used to refer to either sex.
9. What are the ifferences and similarities between male and female language?
R// Similarities between them should be concerned about for the reason that similarities between them play the same important part. Many scholars hold males and females come from different cultures, R. A. Borker and Tannen etc. have tried to probe the reasons for the language differences between male and female from the aspect of culture. They have conducted comprehensive researches on this topic based on social, cultural and psychological factors.
10. What is The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?
R// The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, proposes that the way a language encodes—puts into words—different categories like male and female subtly affects the way speakers of the language think about those categories. Thus, it may be argued that because English speakers are often taught to choose he as the unmarked pronoun (Everyone should respect himself), and to choose she only when the referent is overtly female, they tend to think of the male sex as predominant.
LINKS TO PROVIDE MORE INFORMATION ABOUT IT
1. Self-concept and sexism in
language.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4899-1525-2_8
https://oxfordre.com/communication/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228613-e-470
2. Gender Bias and Sexism in Language.
3. Understanding subtle sexism: detecing and using sexist languaje.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/B%3ASERS.0000037757.73192.06
4. Sexism and Attitudes Toward Gender-Neutral Language.
https://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/full/10.1024/1421-0185/a000078
5. This new species that seeks a new language: on sexism in language and language changes.
REFLECTIONS
- This is a topic that I liked to investigate, because it shows not only the inequality in the social and labor environment, it also shows us how unequal our language is, since it not only reflects but also transmits and reinforces the stereotypes and roles historically considered appropriate for women and men in a society. I believe that bad language practices can change thanks to our educational action, where we can influence and create awareness from the classroom, we can tell a girl who works part time in a restaurant she will be a waitress and not a waiter, or if she studies a medium career she will be a nurse or a doctor, in fact it is a cultural change of social order more than linguistic, since we must learn to accept change and evolve as people, not only help to recognize that women do the same as men, with the same success, although they are totally different, we will also improve the language to such an extent that no one will have to feel discriminated against because of their sex.
- What I liked about this topic is that we understand that each language has its own gender, that is to say as in Spanish we have articles, pronouns and objects to indicate if it is masculine or feminine, in the same way in English we have prefixes that show if it is masculine or feminine with which we are talking, a clear example is the word actors we are talking about male but actress we are talking about feminine. What I liked about this activity was that we were able to use all the tools we learned for the assignments, we used them again and I like that so we continue discovering what else we can do in each one.What I didn't like was that it is a very complex topic and to do something small you need a lot of patience and to understand if the other classmates could fully understand the topic.
- The topic was interesting I liked to know some things in what was totally unknown to me, in how the language was adapted even more generated, like other languages for example Japanese, in pronouns do not specify the gender of the other person.
You: Anaya
Not to be: Dewa ariamsen.
I think Italian is one of the ones that has more consideration for the genre of words. I didn’t like that the information was so short. It’s a little hard to find information on the subject in relation to language.
- Well, language and sexism is an issue that I think is receiving more attention nowadays, we see that there is even gender discrimination in language, but in my opinion it is not the language itself that is discriminatory, but the people who do not make good use of language since language is quite extensive and gives us the freedom to express ourselves at our convenience, but it is society that has determined which words correspond to a specific sex. Even when we speak in general, we tend to use masculine pronouns and it is something that we must change, since the world is changing day by day, both men and women can perform different jobs, and it is something we all know, we just need to update our language and adapt it to this society.
REFERENCES:
Gu, L.(2013).Language and Gender: Differences and Similarities. Retrieved
November 23, 2021, from
file:///C:/Users/Dell%20Latitude%203440/Downloads/10624.pdf
Menegatti, M., & Rubini, M.(2017).Gender Bias and Sexism in Language.
Retrieved November 22, 2021, from https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.470
BOSMAJIAN,
H. A.(1972).THE LANGUAGE OF SEXISM. ETC:A Review of General Semantics,
from http://www.jstor.org/stable/42576459
UKEssays. (November 2018). Sexism In English Language English Language Essay. Retrieved from https://www.ukessays.com/essays/english-language/sexism-in-english-language-english-language-essay.php?vref=1
Vera, C.(November 2019). Positions on sexism in language https://www.clubensayos.com/Espa%C3%B1ol/Posiciones-sobre-el-sexismo-en-el-lenguaje/4876817.html
