Communications in Humanities Research ISSN: 2753-7072
Home> Volumes> Volume CHR Vol.3> Article
Research Article

Exploring the Relationship Between Linguistics Gender and Social Gender

Yue YangFaculty of Languages and Translation, Macao Polytechnic University, Macao, 999078, China*

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract

The diversity of social gender has been growing recently, and gender is the hot social issue that has the public concerned. Language is a communication tool people use every day, and meanwhile, which also subtly influences a person’s mind. This paper discusses social gender issues from a linguistic point of view, trying to figure out if there are any relations between them. People use language to express their thoughts about social and gender issues, so it is important to explore the relationship. To explore the relationship, this paper discusses gender bias in language, the possible reason for this phenomenon, and the effect of linguistic gender binary on non-binary gender. There are lots of papers which discuss these related issues that have greatly inspired and provided strong help to the author. There are some findings from the study: 1) Gender bias is more serious in grammatical gender languages; 2) Linguistic gender subtly influences people’s minds by shaping their hobbits and making their cognitive world in a more gender-related way. 3) The linguistic gender binary causes problems for transgender people. It has been discovered that linguistic gender has an adverse effect on social gender equality. This paper may help improve the gender equality situation in society and transgender people's self-expression problems. This paper also provides a way to think about grammatical gender in languages.

Keywords: Linguistic gender; Social gender; Grammatical gender language; Gender equality; Transgender
Published: May 17, 2023
DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/3/2022639
Volume: CHR Vol.3
pp. 992-997
Download PDF

References

  1. Stahlberg, D., Braun, F., Irmen, L., & Sczesny, S. (2007). Representation of the sexes in language. Social communication, 163-187.
  2. Prewitt-Freilino, J. L., Caswell, T. A., & Laakso, E. K. (2012). The gendering of language: A comparison of gender equality in countries with gendered, natural gender, and genderless languages. Sex roles, 66(3), 268-281.
  3. Hellinger, M., & Bussmann, H. (2001). Gender across languages. Gender across Languages: The Linguistic Representation of Women and Men, 1, 1-27.
  4. Menegatti, M., & Rubini, M. (2017). Gender bias and sexism in language. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication.
  5. Heilman, M. E., & Eagly, A. H. (2008). Gender stereotypes are alive, well, and busy producing workplace discrimination. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1(4), 393-398.
  6. Gaucher, D., Friesen, J., & Kay, A. C. (2011). Evidence that gendered wording in job advertisements exists and sustains gender inequality. Journal of personality and social psychology, 101(1), 109.
  7. Hamilton, M. C. (1991). Masculine bias in the attribution of personhood: People= male, male= people. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 15(3), 393-402.
  8. Ng, S. H. (2007). Language-based discrimination: Blatant and subtle forms. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 26(2), 106-122.
  9. Stahlberg, D., Braun, F., Irmen, L., & Sczesny, S. (2007). Representation of the sexes in language. Social communication, 163-187.
  10. Bull, T., & Swan, T. (2002). The representation of gender in Norwegian. Gender across languages. The linguistic representation of women and men, 2, 219-249.
  11. Liu, A. H., Shair-Rosenfield, S., Vance, L. R., & Csata, Z. (2018). Linguistic origins of gender equality and women’s rights. Gender & Society, 32(1), 82-108.
  12. Pérez, E. O., & Tavits, M. (2019). Language influences public attitudes toward gender equality. The Journal of Politics, 81(1), 81-93.
  13. Hamilton, M. C., Hunter, B., & Stuart-Smith, S. (1992). Jury instructions worded in the masculine generic: Can a woman claim self-defense when “he” is threatened?. na.
  14. Wasserman, B. D., & Weseley, A. J. (2009). ¿ Qué? Quoi? Do languages with grammatical gender promote sexist attitudes?. Sex Roles, 61(9), 634-643.
  15. Boroditsky, L., Schmidt, L. A., & Phillips, W. (2003). Sex, syntax, and semantics. Language in mind: Advances in the study of language and thought, 22, 61-79.
  16. Konishi, T. (1993). The semantics of grammatical gender: A cross-cultural study. Journal of psycholinguistic research, 22(5), 519-534.
  17. Chen, J. Y., & Su, J. J. (2011). Differential sensitivity to the gender of a person by English and Chinese speakers. Journal of psycholinguistic research, 40(3), 195-203.
  18. Pérez, E. O., & Tavits, M. (2019). Language influences public attitudes toward gender equality. The Journal of Politics, 81(1), 81-93.
  19. Cubelli, R., Paolieri, D., Lotto, L., & Job, R. (2011). The effect of grammatical gender on object categorization. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 37(2), 449.
  20. Phillips, W., & Boroditsky, L. (2003). Can quirks of grammar affect the way you think? Grammatical gender and object concepts. In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (Vol. 25, No. 25).
  21. Sera, M. D., Berge, C. A., & del Castillo Pintado, J. (1994). Grammatical and conceptual forces in the attribution of gender by English and Spanish speakers. Cognitive Development, 9(3), 261-292.
  22. Jakobson, R. (2013). On linguistic aspects of translation. In On translation (pp. 232-239). Harvard University Press.
  23. Whorf, B. L. (1956). Language, thought, and reality: selected writings of….(Edited by John B. Carroll.).
  24. Boroditsky, L. (2001). Does language shape thought?: Mandarin and English speakers' conceptions of time. Cognitive psychology, 43(1), 1-22.
  25. Stryker, S. (2017). Transgender history: The roots of today's revolution. Hachette UK.
  26. Josephson, J., & Einarsdóttir, Þ. (2016). Language Purism and Gender: Icelandic Trans* Activists and the Icelandic Linguistic Gender Binary. Transgender Studies Quarterly, 3(3-4), 376-387.
  27. Hord, L. C. (2016). Bucking the linguistic binary: Gender neutral language in English, Swedish, French, and German. Western Papers in Linguistics, 3(1).
  28. Knisely, K. A. (2020). Le français non-binaire: linguistic forms used by non-binary speakers of French. Foreign Language Annals, 53(4), 850-876.
  29. Swamy, V., & Mackenzie, L. (2019). Legitimizing ‘iel’? Language and Trans communities in Francophone and Anglophone spaces. H-France Salon, 11(14).