Language and gender

APLNG 491Elise & Jingjing & Sherry

Size of the word: the strength of the correlation with genderColor: relative frequency of usageWords and phrases are in the centerTopics: represented as the 15 most prevalent words, surround.

Language and gender

Sex: biological differences, like chromosomes, hormonal profiles, internal and external sex organs

Gender: ‘the social condition of being a man/woman’; masculine/feminine characteristics

Language and gender

Do you think there are gender differences in L1/L2 Language Use ?

Prevailing arguments

Men referred more to object properties and impersonal topics (things and facts).

Men favor more competitive speech styles and genres.

Prevailing arguments

•

Women used more words related to psychological and social processes(feelings and relationship)

Women are more cooperative, empathetic, and nurturant

Women are innately endowed with superior verbal abilities and a greater predisposition towards verbal communication.

Prevailing arguments

Lakoff (1975) suggested that women speak a ‘powerless language’- uncertain, weak, excessively polite-and rely on hedges, tag questions, emphatic stress, and hypercorrect grammar. This language is forced on them as the price of social approval for being appropriately feminine.

Our argument..❖ Gender is not a set of traits, a variable or a role,

but is a social, historical and cultural product, constructed relations of power, produced and reproduced in interaction between and among men and women.

❖ Masculinities and femininities, as well as beliefs and ideas about relations between the sexes, may vary across cultures as well as over time within a culture.

Examine language and gender in a new light

❖ Power and inequality

❖ Gendered agency, motivation, and investment

❖ Socialization patterns

Power and Inequality ---Gendered access to linguistic resources

Gender as a system of social relations and practices structures differential opportunities for access to linguistic resources.

Power and Inequality ---Gendered access to linguistic resources

Example 1Goldstein’s (1995)

Culture context: Portuguese women, lack of family responsibilities, inappropriate in the same classroom with male strangers

Certain culture prevents women from accessing to second language resources

Power and Inequality ---Gendered access to linguistic resources

Example 2Harvey (1994)

Culture context: Indigenous women’s access to Spanish, South America

Ideal masculinity- high value of being bilingual Ideal femininity- firmly inside community

Inside world

Female transmitters of home languages

MaleMediator

Outside world

finance and knowledge

Power and Inequality ---Gendered access to linguistic resources

Example 3Pichette (2000)

Context: a number of male and female Westerners living in Japan comparing

contexts in which they use the language and their linguistic achievements.

Western men have many more chances to participate in formal interaction, as a result, acquire the language in a wider range of context than Western women.

Pedagogical Implication

• Understand students’ cultural constraints

• Offer varied resources

• Make wise pedagogical decision: grouping

• Do not treat students as undifferentiated group, value individual differences

Gendered agency, motivation & investment

❖ Influence the decision-making process

❖ Influence the outcomes of second language learning and language shift

Gendered agency, motivation & investment Example 1

Piller & Takahashi’s study (2006)

Self-interested motives of women

A group of Japanese women who had invested significant resources in acquiring English because of their desire to contract relationships with Anglophone men.

Gendered agency, motivation & investment

Japan men

Higher level of

job-security

lower rates of divorce

Anglo-saxon men

More glamorouslooking

less traditional in their attitudes to women

Gendered agency, motivation & investment

Example 2Herbert (1992)

Self-interested motives of men

Thonga people in South Africa Men lead the language and culture shift to Zulu.

Gendered agency, motivation & investment

Gendered agency, motivation & investment

Women

Higher prestige More power

Men

Gendered agency, motivation & investment

Example 3Aikio (1992)

Women from Sami community, Finland

World War II refuse to learn shift to FinnishFinnish

Gendered agency, motivation & investment

Sami women

Higher social & economic status

Freedom to travel

Finnish women Economically disadvantaged

Dependent on their husbands

Forced to stay in one spot

Pedagogical implication

● Make ongoing assessment

● Do ongoing adjustment

● Encourage learners’ investment

● Provide varied opportunities and resources accordingly

Socialization patterns

❖ Gendered peer networks influence the patterns of language use

❖ Socialization agents influence second language learning outcomes (textbook, social media)

Socialization patternsExample 1 Marjorie Harness Goodwin (2006)

Interactions among a group of pre-adolescent girls in Los Angeles

Girl's speech styles contest the generalization that girls acquire a more supportive, cooperative style.

Socialization patterns

● Internal hierarchy

● Issue of orders:leaders, followers

● Tag-along girl, subjected to bullying

● Argue about rules

● Engage in boasting: skills, possession, wealth of families

Socialization patternsExample 2 Woodlard (1997) case study

Gendered friendship circles in high school in Barcelona area

Gendered friendship practices can affect the use of bilingual repertoire.

Boys: ethnically mixed and linguistically diverse (mixed Catalan and Castilian boys)

Girls: ethnic and linguistic homogeneous group

Socialization patterns

Example 3

McGregor, 1998; Siegal & Okamoto, 1996

EFL textbooks revealed stereotyped male and female in texts and illustrations

❏ Chairman v.s Chair leader

❏ man v.s human

❏ man-made v.s manufactured

❏ policeman/policewomen v.s police officer

❏ Pronoun he v.s male and female

Why avoid sexism in language?

● Some people feel insulted by sexist language

● Sexist language creates an image of a society where women have lower social and economic status than men.

● Using nonsexist language may change the way that users of English think about gender roles

Pedagogical implication

• Understand individual differences and

socialization background might affect learning

progress

• Do not treat students as undifferentiated group

• Provide varied opportunities and resources

accordingly

• Raise awareness of gender issues

• Avoid language use conflicts

Teaching gender-sensitive language

PronounsTheyIf students want to learn more about gender inequality, they should take Intro to

Women’s Studies.

She or he (she/he)Each student who majors in Women’s Studies major must take a course in Feminist

Theory. She or he may also get course credit for completing an internship at a local organization that benefits women.

Reference: University of North Carolina, writing centerhttp://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/gender-sensitive-language/

Gender-sensitive languages

Alternate genders and pronouns

Respond as a reader, explaining what and how you were/are thinking as you read her texts so that she can discover where a reader might struggle with her writing.Ask him to outline the draft to reveal the organization of the paper.Ask her to describe her purpose and audience and show how she has taken them into account in her writing.

Eliminate the pronoun altogether

Allan Johnson is a contemporary feminist theorist. This writer and professor gave a speech at UNC in the fall of 2007.

Reference: University of North Carolina, writing centerhttp://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/gender-sensitive-language/

power

resourcesmotivation

socialization agents

social interactionsinvestment

context

timespace

Culture

agency