Gender, Stereotypes, and Language Mackenzie Malkinski Course: Language Matters Professor: Ellen C. Frye Student: Mackenzie Malkinski Essay: Gender, Stereotypes, and Language
Assignment: For this assignment, students were asked to write a research paper about any aspect of Linguistics (morphology, semantics, etc.), particularly
Anthropological Linguistics, connected to the course’s central concept, “Language Matters.”
Have you ever wondered what effects language? First what is language. Language is defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings”. Language is not only an oral act but could be hand gestures, facial expressions, pictures, etc. Language is a key component in a society. Some societies have their own languages, use their own pictures, own gestures, etc. These differences in language use create unique aspects of a societies shared structure of language. There is another factor that can create differences in language, that being gender or societies stereotypes of gender. This area of study is called sociolinguistics. This is the study of social factors that affect language. The idea of gender differences in language has caused some discussion between researchers because of biological sex and gender. This paper is referring to
gender based on societies bias and stereotypes of gender. Society places certain traits or stereotypes on women and men. Some being that women need to be more feminine and sensitive than men. Men are aggressive and dominate. Women who are assertive and speak their opinion are bossy while when men speak their opinion it is expected. These stereotypes play a huge part in the ways someone presents themselves, whether they are trying to fit into it or go against it. Some of these stereotypes also relates to language use between men and women. Is this a stereotype or is there a true difference between how these genders use language? In certain cultures, native languages can be gendered or genderless. A gendered language being Spanish. In Spanish speaking countries they have nouns and pronouns that are based off the gender it is referring to. An example being “o” is put at the end of words for 79
