BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

LANGUAGE, GENDER
AND CULTURE

JESSICA I. LAXAMANA
LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
 BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY

What is Language?
Language cannot be disassociated
from society.

The way people use language

creates and reflects inequalities in
societies through what Bourdieu
calls ‘habitus’.
LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
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INTRODUCTION
Socialized norms and thinking are
produced through the interplay of past
events and current structures (Bourdieu 1977).

The characterizations of men and women

extend not only to their behaviour but
also to their language.

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

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INTRODUCTION
relationship between language and gender
is that the characteristics of men and
women can be ‘constructed’,
‘maintained’, and ‘reinforced’ together
with the concepts of ‘femininity’ and
‘masculinity’ and that they can be
manipulated by a heteronormative
ideology (Butler 1990).
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DIFFERENT APPROACHES
Research on language, gender, and culture
takes three broad approaches.

1. text analysis
2. linguistic features
3. conversation or oral communication

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DIFFERENT APPROACHES
• text analysis of linguistic resources such as
the use of metaphors that reflect how men
and women are portrayed (e.g. Hegstrom and
McCarl-Nielsen 2002).

• It includes the study of, for example, terms of

address, professions, and metaphors that
show gender stereotypes.
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DIFFERENT APPROACHES
• focused on the linguistic features of many languages in
the world that have designated semantic, pragmatic, or
lexical elements for the exclusive use of female or male
speakers.

• These languages include Japanese, Thai, Atayal, a

number of Australian Aboriginal languages and some
American languages, e.g. Karajá–Macro-Je language
family, Coasati (Sherzer 1987).

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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
One of the first published reports available
on the English language and gender is that of
Jespersen (1922) who wrote that women
‘talk too much’ and that their sentences are
unfinished, thus reinforcing the stereotype of
women’s language and behaviour as illogical
and gossipy

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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Lakoff’s (1975) seminal paper,
based on observations, which
characterizes the language used by
women as consultative and
cooperative.
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CRITICAL ISSUES & TOPICS

One of the main issues in the present research on
language and gender is distribution of power.

The focus on gender differences in society

originated because of the fact that, almost
universally, women have been and are socially
disadvantaged.

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CRITICAL ISSUES & TOPICS

Another central issue besides power
in the research on language, gender
and culture, is that language is used
to ‘construct’ and ‘reinforce’ a
hegemonic femininity and
masculinity.
LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
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CRITICAL ISSUES & TOPICS

Most languages exhibit gender
differences in the lexicon,
particularly in the use of
metaphors and sayings

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CRITICAL ISSUES & TOPICS

In languages as diverse as French, Thai, and Chinese,
many sayings and metaphors present women in a
negative light (Fan 1996; Hiraga 1991).

For example, in Thai and Japanese women are usually

referred to negatively, in particular, when talking about
their unmarried status (‘unsetting star’ in Thai, ‘old miss’
in Japanese), or related to virtue and modesty (Horie
1994).

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LANGUAGES WITH GENDER DIFFERENCES

Many countries in the world possess lexical,
semantic, and pragmatic linguistic choices for
men and women.

Although some features such as the complex

pronominal and honorific systems(Japanese,
Javanese, Korean, etc.) might be similar across
many Asian languages
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LANGUAGES WITH GENDER DIFFERENCES

For example, one of the most famous and most studied
languages is Japanese where lexical, grammatical, and
semantic choices are determined by the speaker’s
gender.

Speakers can choose personal pronouns, verb ending,

sentence final particles, and lexicon according to
whether they denote ‘masculinity’ or ‘femininity’ (see e.g.
Shibamoto 1985).

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LANGUAGES WITH GENDER DIFFERENCES

Scholars such as Tannen (1990), Holmes (1995), and
Coates (1996) have argued that women and men belong
to ‘different’ cultures and their communication styles
are not the same.

Therefore, how men and women interpret particular

speech acts such as compliments or interruptions or the
use of backchannels, for example, are quite different.

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Difference or dominance or ‘the third wave’

The ‘dominance’ theory

was represented by Cameron (1992, 1996) and
Spender (1980) disagrees with the ‘difference’
theory which argues that men and women belong
to ‘different’ cultures, and instead, explains
language as projecting social inequalities along
gender lines.

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Difference or dominance or ‘the third wave’

many researchers have disputed both theories

(dominance and difference) on the grounds
that first, there are many other variables
than gender that affect language use and
that second, there is a problem in trying to
transpose Anglo-centric concepts to other
cultures.

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Difference or dominance or ‘the third wave’

the ‘third wave’ theory has introduced the

concept of ‘communities of practice’.

It also challenges the dichotomous concept

of gender, arguing that differences cannot
be captured in simple binary terms

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CURRENT CONTRIBUTIONS AND RESEARCH

Japanese, characterized by clear gender

differences, women in rural areas, where many
dialects do not have honorifics, speak quite
differently when compared to those who speak
the official national language and therefore they
do not follow the prescriptive model of
‘women’s language’
(Sunaoshi 2004; Kumagai 2011).

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CURRENT CONTRIBUTIONS AND RESEARCH

Winter (1993) and Kottoff (1997) suggest that

women’s stance is more cooperative on Australian
television (Winter 1993) and that the dominance of males
in debates on German television reinforce the
asymmetry of power (Kottoff 1997). On the other hand,
Johnson’s (1996) study on New Zealand television and
Tanaka’s (2004, 2006) on Japanese television suggest that
women’s interviewing styles cannot always be
automatically associated with a particular stance.

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CURRENT CONTRIBUTIONS AND RESEARCH

Holmes and her associates (Holmesand Meyerhoff
2003; Holmes and Stubbe 2003;
Holmes and Marra (2004) have looked at the
language used in New Zealand workplaces focusing on
what they call relational practice, a way of
communication that looks for the ‘face’ needs of
participants, serves to achieve workplace goals, and
is regarded as dispensable..

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE