Language and Gender

Constructing gender - Conclusion

• Gender is learned
• It is not only learned but taught and enforced
• Gender is collaborative
• We can not accomplish on our own
• Gender is not something we have, but something we do
• Children often do gender quite consciously, later their gendered performances become second nature
• Gender is asymmetrical
• Inequality is built into gender at a very basic level

Linking the linguistic to the social - Introduction (1)

• Dominant ideology and linguistic conventions are not static
• They are rather constructed, maintained, elaborated, and changed in action and talk
• Change happens in the accumulation of action throughout the social fabric
• e.g. “Sir“ – not female aquivalent

Linking the linguistic to the social - Introduction (2)

• Embedded in history are not only the things said and done, but also:
• identities and status of the people who have said and done them
• Individual act enters into a broader discourse
• Our contributions can be seen as an offer to a market

Linking the linguistic to the social - Social locus of change

• Change comes in subtle ways
• Gender order and linguistic conventions exercise a constraint on our thoughts and actions
• Change = interruption of patterns
• Change can be intentional or unintentional
• We perform gender in our minutest acts
• Accumulation of those acts leads to maintaining gender order

Linking the linguistic to the social - The speech community

• Def.: a community sharing rules for the conduct and interpretation of speech, and rules for the interpretation of at least one linguistic variety
• Speaker of the same language may have difficulty communicating if they do not share norms for the use of that language in interaction
• e.g. English and Pakistani speakers of English in London