Key concepts Chapter 12 – Language, Gender and Sexuality
Sex/ Sex Category Based on biological distinction- not always completely clear-
between male and female, there may additionally be some
additional culturally specific categories that define ppl who do not
fall easily into these first two categories
Gender Although based on sex categories, is culturally constructed (what is
considered to be masculine/feminine)
Continuum: can be more or less feminine/masculine
Gender = cultural traits and behaviours deemed appropriate for men
and women by a particular society
Sexuality =individuals identity in terms of his or her sexual activities-
Sexual identity not just about being bisexual, queer, straight,..
includes asexual, promiscuous, being available, fetishizing, types of
partners
Cisgender People whose sex category matches their gender
Transgender In US: people who are transitioning or have transitioned from on e
sex catetory into another, or have biological attributes of a sex
category which does not match their gender or of both sexes
Discourse of Pervasive, requires an assumption of heterosexuality and the
heteronormativity stigmatizing of gay and lesbian identities
Hegemony of heteronormativity: what is seen as heterosexual
behaviour is normative in matters of having nothing to do with sex,
strong in highschool, privileges heterolexuals and certain gender
roles within heterosexuality – value of woman measured by
appearance – women with good communication skills downplayed,
bc seen as normal
Discourse =ways of representing facets of the world: processes,
relations, structures, feelings, thoughts and beliefs about the social
world = conventional way of talking which creates and is created by
a conventional way of thinking – constitutes to ideology - discourse
has linguistic and ideological aspects
The deficit model (w.r.t. Women’s language can reflect their place in society as inferior to
gender) men deficit model. Because the features picture women as deficit
to men less confident (rising intonation), less able to participate
(empty adjectives).
However, this isn’t always the case. In courtrooms it wasn’t women
who used this language, but people with less institutional power
(men and women) Women speech associated with less power.-
theme power encoded and created through language use has wide
application
Sexist Use of language excluding women eg. mankind, words that encode
sex categories eg. fireman, jobs historically done by females (nurse)
or male (president)= gender assymetries – solution: gender-neutral
terms: eg. firefighter, language can also encode heterosexist
attitudes – it is the people not the language who are or are not
sexist
Grammatical Gender Grammatical gender marking more extensive in other language than
English: eg. Spanish and French where plural is often regarded to for
men and women eg. chicos, sexism around the he-she-it natural
gender system of English – many possible connections of
grammatical gender systems (masculine, feminine, neuter) and sex
, categories (male, female, neither), - problems in finding the right
pronouns (they) – gender distinctions can often he avoided so it
probably doesn’t follow that langugaes with gender distinction must
be sexist, which would clearly support the Whorfian hypothesis – it
is the people who use languages who are (not) sexist
Intersectional(ity) A speaker’s identification involves a variety of social categories, not
just gender/sexuality.
(Gender) identities are intersectional (Person doesn’t just identify as
women, but as women + mother + bilingual etc.).
Identity must be performed, but gender isn’t always at the forefront
of performance (everything a man does isn’t to assert masculinity).
There is a multiplicity of gender identities (different types of
masculinity/femininity).
(Gender exclusive Gender exclusive language: where men and women have different
language) ways of speaking (different languages or dialects) vs.
(Gender preferential Gender preferential language: a way of speaking may be preferred
language) by one gender, or is stereotypically associated with being feminine
Dominance and difference Dominance approach addresses power relations between sexes.
approaches to womens Context is important in speech. Someone who interrupts one
and mens language use conversation a lot, may backchannel in another. In addition, not all
man are in a position to dominate all women.
The difference or two cultures approach focusses on the
assumption that men learn to speak like men and women learn to
speak like women, because society subjects them to different life
experiences. The main claim is that men/women have different
conversational goals may say the same things but mean
differently may lead to misunderstandings between genders.
(mmhmm for women = “I am listening”, mmhmm for men = “I am
agreeing” it’s impossible to know what a women thinks because
she always agrees and men never listen).
People evaluate others based on how they speak, same with
gendered ways of speaking and regional varieties. However, the
similarities between male and female speech patterns outweigh the
differences.
To understand the mechanisms involved in acquiring and using a
language, we must understand the various communities of practice
that people participate in.
In performance of gender, speakers draw on ideologies of what it
means to be a woman/man
Women: give compliments on appearance, seek solidarity
Men: exchange ritual insults, construct hierarchy in conversation
Key concepts chapter 9: Ethnographic approaches to sociolinguistics (p. 227-243)
Qualitative Ethnographic research: qualitative – best explanation of human
behaviour are particular and culturally relative rather than
universal = studies which do not look at quantitative data; can
involve a variety of methodologies, types of data and
Sex/ Sex Category Based on biological distinction- not always completely clear-
between male and female, there may additionally be some
additional culturally specific categories that define ppl who do not
fall easily into these first two categories
Gender Although based on sex categories, is culturally constructed (what is
considered to be masculine/feminine)
Continuum: can be more or less feminine/masculine
Gender = cultural traits and behaviours deemed appropriate for men
and women by a particular society
Sexuality =individuals identity in terms of his or her sexual activities-
Sexual identity not just about being bisexual, queer, straight,..
includes asexual, promiscuous, being available, fetishizing, types of
partners
Cisgender People whose sex category matches their gender
Transgender In US: people who are transitioning or have transitioned from on e
sex catetory into another, or have biological attributes of a sex
category which does not match their gender or of both sexes
Discourse of Pervasive, requires an assumption of heterosexuality and the
heteronormativity stigmatizing of gay and lesbian identities
Hegemony of heteronormativity: what is seen as heterosexual
behaviour is normative in matters of having nothing to do with sex,
strong in highschool, privileges heterolexuals and certain gender
roles within heterosexuality – value of woman measured by
appearance – women with good communication skills downplayed,
bc seen as normal
Discourse =ways of representing facets of the world: processes,
relations, structures, feelings, thoughts and beliefs about the social
world = conventional way of talking which creates and is created by
a conventional way of thinking – constitutes to ideology - discourse
has linguistic and ideological aspects
The deficit model (w.r.t. Women’s language can reflect their place in society as inferior to
gender) men deficit model. Because the features picture women as deficit
to men less confident (rising intonation), less able to participate
(empty adjectives).
However, this isn’t always the case. In courtrooms it wasn’t women
who used this language, but people with less institutional power
(men and women) Women speech associated with less power.-
theme power encoded and created through language use has wide
application
Sexist Use of language excluding women eg. mankind, words that encode
sex categories eg. fireman, jobs historically done by females (nurse)
or male (president)= gender assymetries – solution: gender-neutral
terms: eg. firefighter, language can also encode heterosexist
attitudes – it is the people not the language who are or are not
sexist
Grammatical Gender Grammatical gender marking more extensive in other language than
English: eg. Spanish and French where plural is often regarded to for
men and women eg. chicos, sexism around the he-she-it natural
gender system of English – many possible connections of
grammatical gender systems (masculine, feminine, neuter) and sex
, categories (male, female, neither), - problems in finding the right
pronouns (they) – gender distinctions can often he avoided so it
probably doesn’t follow that langugaes with gender distinction must
be sexist, which would clearly support the Whorfian hypothesis – it
is the people who use languages who are (not) sexist
Intersectional(ity) A speaker’s identification involves a variety of social categories, not
just gender/sexuality.
(Gender) identities are intersectional (Person doesn’t just identify as
women, but as women + mother + bilingual etc.).
Identity must be performed, but gender isn’t always at the forefront
of performance (everything a man does isn’t to assert masculinity).
There is a multiplicity of gender identities (different types of
masculinity/femininity).
(Gender exclusive Gender exclusive language: where men and women have different
language) ways of speaking (different languages or dialects) vs.
(Gender preferential Gender preferential language: a way of speaking may be preferred
language) by one gender, or is stereotypically associated with being feminine
Dominance and difference Dominance approach addresses power relations between sexes.
approaches to womens Context is important in speech. Someone who interrupts one
and mens language use conversation a lot, may backchannel in another. In addition, not all
man are in a position to dominate all women.
The difference or two cultures approach focusses on the
assumption that men learn to speak like men and women learn to
speak like women, because society subjects them to different life
experiences. The main claim is that men/women have different
conversational goals may say the same things but mean
differently may lead to misunderstandings between genders.
(mmhmm for women = “I am listening”, mmhmm for men = “I am
agreeing” it’s impossible to know what a women thinks because
she always agrees and men never listen).
People evaluate others based on how they speak, same with
gendered ways of speaking and regional varieties. However, the
similarities between male and female speech patterns outweigh the
differences.
To understand the mechanisms involved in acquiring and using a
language, we must understand the various communities of practice
that people participate in.
In performance of gender, speakers draw on ideologies of what it
means to be a woman/man
Women: give compliments on appearance, seek solidarity
Men: exchange ritual insults, construct hierarchy in conversation
Key concepts chapter 9: Ethnographic approaches to sociolinguistics (p. 227-243)
Qualitative Ethnographic research: qualitative – best explanation of human
behaviour are particular and culturally relative rather than
universal = studies which do not look at quantitative data; can
involve a variety of methodologies, types of data and
