Expert answer:Using the reading to write a paper about language
Expert answer:QUESTION The linguist Robin Lakoff writes that “language uses us as much as we use language”. She illustrates this point by focusing on the particular case of women. She argues “that women experience linguistic discrimination in two ways: in the way they are taught to use language, and in the way general language use treats them”. Respond by: a) explaining what Lakoff means by this b) arguing whether you agree or disagree with Lakoff and by comparing her ideas about language and representation with other authors we have seen in the course Requirment 1.- LENGTH Your essay must be min.1000 words and max.1500 words (excluding bibliography). 2.- READINGS: – You must use at least 3 of the main readings and 3 sections readings. 3.- CITATION STYLE Be sure to use quotation marks when quoting directly from an author. a) In text citations must include author’s surname, year, and page number i) Example when citing verbatim: According to Bourdieu (1991:45) “blablabla” ii) Example when paraphrasing an author: Bourdieu argues that language is a site of power (1991:45) b) Bibliography: Your essay must include a bibliography at the end including all the references cited in the text. If you are citing from the syllabus, just copy the reference from the syllabus. If you are using other sources, following the same format. Example: Bourdieu, Pierre (1991) “The production and reproduction of legitimate language” from Language and Symbolic Power EVALUATION CRITERIA We will assess your essay against the following two criteria: 1) Your ability to demonstrate that you have fully read and understood the texts that you cite. IMPORTANT!!! Citing one line from a text does NOT count as showing that you have read and understood a text. 2) The ability to develop a coherent, well-argued, and original critical argument.Please use simple grammar and words.
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butler_performative_acts.pdf
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fannon_the_negro_and_language.pdf
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Language and Woman’s Place
Author(s): Robin Lakoff
Source: Language in Society, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Apr., 1973), pp. 45-80
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4166707
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Lang. Soc.
2,
45-80. Printed in Great Britain
Language and woman’s place
ROBIN
LAKOFF
Department of Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley
ABSTRACT
Our use of language embodies attitudes as well as referential meanings.
‘Woman’s language’ has as foundation the attitude that women are marginal
to the serious concerns of life, which are pre-empted by men. The marginality and powerlessness of women is reflected in both the ways women
are expected to speak, and the ways in which women are spoken of. In
appropriate women’s speech, strong expression of feeling is avoided,
expression of uncertainty is favored, and means of expression in regard to
subject-matter deemed ‘trivial’ to the ‘real’ world are elaborated. Speech
about women implies an object, whose sexual nature requires euphemism,
and whose social roles are derivative and dependent in relation to men.
The personal identity of women thus is linguistically submerged; the
language works against treatment of women, as serious persons with
individual views.
These aspects of English are explored with regard to lexicon (color terms,
particles, evaluative adjectives), and syntax (tag-questions, and related
aspects of intonation in answers to requests, and of requests and orders),
as concerns speech by women. Speech about women is analyzed with
regard to lady :woman, master: mistress, widow: widower, and Mr:
Mrs., Miss, with notice of differential use of role terms not explicitly marked
for sex (e.g. professional) as well.
Some suggestions and conclusions are offered for those working in the
women’s liberation movement and other kinds of social reform; second
language teaching; and theoretical linguistics. Relevant generalizations in
linguistics require study of social mores as well as of purely linguistic data.
I.
INTRODUCTION
Languages uses us as much as we use language. As much as our choice of forms
of expression is guided by the thoughts we want to express, to the same extent
the way we feel about the things in the real world governs the way we express
ourselves about these things. Two words can be synonymous in their denotative
sense, but one will be used in case a speaker feels favorably toward the object
the word denotes, the other if he is unfavorably disposed. Similar situations are
legion, involving unexpectedness, interest, and other emotional reactions on the
part of the speaker to what he is talking about. Thus, while two speakers may
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IN
SOCIETY
be talking about the same thing or real-worldsituation their descriptionsmay
end up sounding utterly unrelated.The following well-known paradigmwill be
illustrative.
(i) (a) I am strong-minded.
(b) You are obstinate.
(c) He is pigheaded.
If it is indeed true that our feelings about the world color our expression of
our thoughts, then we can use our linguistic behavior as a diagnostic of our
hidden feelings about things. For often – as anyonewith even a noddingacquaintance with modern psychoanalyticwriting knows too well – we can interpretour
overt actions, or our perceptions,in accordancewith our desires, distortingthem
as we see fit. But the linguistic data are there, in black and white, or on tape,
unambiguousand unavoidable.Hence, while in the ideal world other kinds of
evidence for sociologicalphenomenawould be desirablealongwith, or in addition
to, linguistic evidence, sometimes at least the latter is all we can get with certainty. This is especially likely in emotionally-chargedareas like that of sexism
and other forms of discriminatorybehavior.This paper, then, is an attempt to
provide diagnostic evidence from languageuse for one type of inequity that has
been claimed to exist in our society: that between the roles of men and women.
I will attempt to discover what language use can tell us about the nature and
extent of any inequity; and finallyto ask whetheranythingcan be done, from the
linguistic end of the problem: does one correct a social inequity by changing
linguistic disparities?We will find, I think, that women experience linguistic
discriminationin two ways: in the way they are taughtto use language,and in the
way general language use treats them. Both tend, as we shall see, to relegate
women to certainsubservientfunctions: that of sex-object, or servant; and that
thereforecertainlexical items mean one thing appliedto man, anotherto women,
a differencethat cannot be predictedexcept with referenceto the differentroles
the sexes play in society.
The data on which I am basing my claims have been gathered mainly by
introspection: I have examined my own speech and that of my acquaintances,
and have used my own intuitions in analyzingit. I have also made use of the
media: in some ways, the speech heard,e.g., in commercialsor situationcomedies
on television mirrors the speech of the television-watchingcommunity: if it
did not (not necessarilyas an exact replica,but perhapsas a reflectionof how the
audience sees itself or wishes it were) it would not succeed. The sociologist,
anthropologist or ethnomethodologist familar with what seem to him more
error-proofdata-gatheringtechniques, such as the recordingof randomconversation, may object that these introspective methods may produce dubious
results. But first, it should be noted that any procedureis at some point introspective: the gatherermust analyzehis data,afterall. Then, one necessariiyselects
46
LANGUAGE AND WOMAN IS PLACE
a subgroup of the populationto work with: is the educated, white, middle-class
group that the writer of the paper identifies with less worthy of study than any
other? And finally, there is the purely pragmatic issue: random conversation
must go on for quite some time, and the recorder must be exceedingly lucky
anyway, in order to produce evidence of any particular hypothesis, e.g. that
there is sexism in language, that there is not sexism in language. If we are to
have a good sample of data to analyze, this will have to be elicited artificially
from someone; I submit I am as good an artificialsource of data as anyone.
These defenses are not meant to suggest that either the methodology or the
results are final, or perfect. This paperis meant to suggest one possible approach
to the problem, one set of facts. I do feel that the majorityof the claims I make
will hold for the majority of speakers of English; that, in fact, much may,
mutatis mutandis,be universal. But grantingthat this paper does in itself represent the speech of only a small subpart of the community, it is still of use in
indicating directions for further research in this area: in providing a basis for
comparison,a taking-offpoint for furtherstudies, a means of discoveringwhat is
universal in the data and what is not, and why. That is to say, I present what
follows less as the final word on the subject of sexism in language- anythingbut
that! – than as a goad to further research.
If a little girl ‘talks rough’ like a boy, she will normallybe ostracized,scolded,
or made fun of. In this way society, in the form of a child’s parentsand friends,
keeps her in line, in her place. This socializingprocess is, in most of its aspects,
harmless and often necessary, but in this particularinstance- the teaching of
special linguistic uses to little girls – it raises serious problems, though the
teachersmay well be unawareof this. If the little girl learns her lesson well, she
is not rewardedwith unquestionedacceptanceon the part of society; rather,the
acquisitionof this special style of speechwill later be an excuse others use to keep
her in a demeaning position, to refuse to take her seriously as a human being.
Because of the way she speaks, the little girl – now grown to womanhood- will
be accused of being unable to speak precisely or to express herself forcefully.’
am sure that this paragraph contains an oversimplified description of the languagelearning process in U.S. society. Rather than saying that little boys and little girls,
from the very start, learn two different ways of speaking, I think, from observation and
reports by others, that the process is more complicated. Since the mother and other
women are the dominant influences in the lives of most children under the age of five
probably both boys and girls first learn ‘women’s language’, as their first language.
(I am told that in Japanese, children of both sexes use the particles proper for women
until the age of five or so; then the little boy starts to be ridiculed if he uses them, and
so soon learns to desist.) As they grow older, boys especially go through a stage of
rough talk, as described by Spock and others; this is probably discouraged in little
girls more strongly than in little boys, in whom parents may often find it more amusing
than shocking. By the time children are ten or so, and split up into same-sex peer
groups, the two languages are already present, according to my recollections and
observations. But it seems that what has happened is that the boys have unlearned
their original form of expression, and adopted new forms of expression, while the girls
[I] I
47
LANGUAGE
IN
SOCIETY
So a girl is damned if she does, damnedif she doesn’t. If she refusesto talk like
a lady, she is ridiculedand subjectedto criticismas unfeminine;if she does learn,
she is ridiculed as unable to think clearly, unable to take part in a serious discussion: in some sense, as less than fully human. These two choices which a
woman has – to be less than a woman or less than a person- are highly painful.2
It will be found that the overall effect of ‘women’s language’- meaning both
languagerestrictedin use to women and languagedescriptiveof women alone is this: it submerges a woman’s personal identity, by denying her the means of
expressing herself strongly, on the one hand, and encouragingexpressions that
suggest trivialityin subject-matterand uncertaintyabout it; and, when a woman
is being discussed, by treating her as an object – sexual or otherwise- but never
a serious person with individualviews. Of course, other forms of behaviorin this
society have the same purpose; but the phenomenaseem especially clear linguistically.
The ultimate effect of these discrepanciesis that women are systematically
denied access to power, on the grounds that they are not capableof holding it as
demonstrated by their linguistic behavior along with other aspects of their
behavior; and the irony here is that women are made to feel that they deserve
such treatment, because of inadequacies in their own intelligence and/or education. But in fact it is precisely because women have learned their lessons so
well that they later suffer such discrimination.(This situation is of course true
to some extent for all disadvantagedgroups: white males of Anglo-Saxon descent
set the standardsand seem to expect othergroupsto be respectfulof them but not
to adopt them – they are to ‘keep in their place’.)
retain their old ways of speech. (One wonders whether this is relatedin any way to the
often-noticed fact that little boys innovate, in their play, much more than little girls.)
The ultimate result is the same, of course, whatever the interpretation.
[2] An objection may be raised there that I am overstating the case against women’s
language, since most women who get as far as college learn to switch from women’s
to neutral language under appropriate situations (in class, talking to professors, at job
interviews, etc.). But I think this objection overlooks a number of problems. First, if a
girl must learn two dialects, she becomes in effect a bilingual. Like many bilinguals,
she may never really be master of either language, though her command of both is
adequate enough for most purposes, she may never feel really comfortable using either,
and never be certain that she is using the right one in the right place to the right person.
Shifting from one language to another requires special awareness to the nuances of
social situations, special alertness to possible disapproval. It may be that the extra
energy that must be (subconsciously or otherwise) expended in this game is energy
sapped from more creative work, and hinders women from expressing themselves as
well as they might otherwise, or as fully or freely as they might otherwise. Thus, if a
girl knows that a professor will be receptive to comments that sound scholarly, objective,
unemotional, she will of course be tempted to use neutral language in class or in conference. But if she knows that, as a man, he will respond more approvingly to her at
other levels if she uses women’s language, and sounds frilly and feminine, won’t she be
confused as well as sorely tempted in two directions at once? It is often noticed that
women participate less in class discussion than men – perhaps this linguistic indecisiveness is one reason why. Incidentally, I don’t find this true in my classes.
48
LANGUAGE
AND
WOMAN
S PLACE
I should like now to talk at length about some specific examples of linguistic
phenomenaI have describedin generalterms above. I want to talk first about the
ways in which women’s speech differsfrom men’s speech; and then, to discuss a
number of cases in which it seems clear that women are discriminatedagainst
(usually unconsciously) by the language everyone uses. I think it will become
evident from this discussion that both types of phenomena reflect a deep bias
on the part of our culture (and, indeed, of every culture I have ever heard of)
againstwomen being accordedfull status as rationalcreaturesand individualsin
their own right; and finally, I would like to talk briefly about what might be
done, and perhaps what should not be done, to remedy things.
II.
TALKING
LIKE
A LADY
‘Women’s language’shows up in all levels of the grammarof English. We find
differences in the choice and frequency of lexical items; in the situations in
which certain syntactic rules are performed; in intonational and other supersegmental patterns. As an example of lexical differences,imagine a man and a
woman both looking at the same wall, painted a pinkish shade of purple. The
womanmaysay (2):
(2)
The wall is mauve,
with no one consequently forming any special impression of her as a result of
the words alone; but if the man should say (2), one might well conclude he was
either imitatinga woman sarcastically,or a homosexual,or an interiordecorator.
Women, then, make far more precise discriminationsin naming colors than do
men; words like beige,ecru,aquamarine,lavender,and so on, are unremarkable
in a women’s active vocabulary,but absent from that of most men. I have seen a
man helpless with suppressedlaughterat a discussion between two other people
as to whether a book-jacketwas to be described as ‘lavender’or ‘mauve’. Men
find such discussion amusing because they consider such a question trivial,
irrelevantto the real world.
We might ask why fine discriminationof color is relevantfor women, but not
for men. A clue is contained in the way many men in our society view other
‘unworldly’ topics, e.g. high culture and the Church, as outside the world of
men’s work, relegatedto women and men whose masculinityis not unquestionable. Men tend to relegateto women things that are not of concern to them, or
do not involve their egos. Among these are problems of fine color discrimination. We might rephrasethis point by saying that since women are not expected
to make decisions on importantmatters, like what kind of job to hold, they are
relegatedthe non-crucial decisions as a sop. Deciding whether to name a color
‘lavender’ or ‘mauve’ is one such sop.
If it is agreedthat this lexical disparityreflectsa social inequity in the position
of women, one may ask how to remedy it. Obviously, no one could seriously
D
49
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IN
SOCIETY
recommend legislating against the use of the terms ‘mauve’ and ‘lavender’by
women, or forcing men to learn to use them. All we can do is give women the
opportunityto participatein the real decisions of life.
Aside from specific lexical items like color-names,we find differencesbetween
the speech of women and that of men in the use of particles that grammarians
often describeas ‘meaningless’.There may be no referentfor them, but they are
far from meaningless:they define the social context of an utterance,indicate the
relationshipthe speakerfeels between himself and his addressee,between himself and what he is talking about.
As an experiment, one might present native speakersof standardAmerican
English with pairsof sentences, identicalsyntactically,and in terms of referential
lexical items, and differing merely in the choice of ‘meaningless’particle, and
ask them which was spoken by a man, which a woman. Consider:
(3) (a) Oh dear, you’ve put the peanut butter in the refrigeratoragain.
(b) Shit, you’ve put the peanut butter in the refrigeratoragain.
It is safe to predict that people would classify the first sentence as part of
‘women’s language’, the second as ‘men’s language’. It is true that many selfrespectingwomen are becomingable to use sentenceslike (3) (b) publiclywithout
flinching, but this is a relatively recent development, and while perhaps the
majorityof Middle America might condone the use of (b) for men, they would
still disapproveof its use by women. (It is of interest, by the way, to note that
men’s language is increasinglybeing used by women, but women’s languageis
not being adopted by men, apartfrom those who rejectthe Americanmasculine
image (e.g. homosexuals).This is analogousto the fact that men’sjobs are being
sought by women, but few men are rushingto become housewivesor secretaries.
The languageof the favored group, the group that holds the power, along with
its non-linguistic behavior, is generally adopted by the other group, not viceversa. In any event, it is a truismto statethat the ‘stronger’expletivesarereserved
for men, and the ‘weaker’ones for women.)
Now we may ask what we mean by ‘stronger’ and ‘weaker’ expletives. (If
these particleswere indeed meaningless,none would be strongerthan any other.)
The difference between using ‘shit’ (or ‘damn’, or one of many others) as
opposed to ‘oh dear’,or ‘goodness’,or ‘oh fudge’ lies in how forcefullyone says
how one feels – perhaps, one might say, choice of particle is a function of how
strongly one allows oneself to feel about something, so that the strength of an
emotion conveyed in a sentence corresponds to the strength of the particle.
Hence in a really serious situation, the use of ‘trivializing'(that is, ‘women’ …
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