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Unit 99 Language and gender
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Unit 99 Language and gender - Форум
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Unit 99 Language and gender
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| readeralexey | Дата: Среда, 16.03.2022, 14:22 | Сообщение # 1 |
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| Would you agree that there exists gender-bias in English and other languages, i.e. that using gender-specific language affects people’s attitudes to men and women’s roles in society (by making men "dominant" and women "subjugated or invisible)?
How do you feel about imposing language changes of different kinds (e.g. gender-neutral nouns and pronouns)?
Do you think it is better if terms of address indicate marital status or not? Why?
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| salomiagudova | Дата: Понедельник, 21.03.2022, 21:05 | Сообщение # 2 |
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| How do you feel about imposing language changes of different kinds (e.g. gender-neutral nouns and pronouns)?
To be honest, I don’t think that people can impose language changes, not really. Let me explain. Imposing something means artificial changes. So, in terms of any language, it would mean making it change its natural course. Imposing language changes would mean that if we don’t impose these changes, that language just stays the same. But the thing is, language never stays the same. It grows and changes along with our society. Right now, the most visible change in many languages is the emergence of gender-neutral nouns and pronouns. But that’s exactly what’s happening. These new nouns and pronouns are emerging, they aren’t being imposed. One can argue that in some spheres the use of sexually neutral language has become a legal requirement. But for me that’s more of a by-product of any language that is being actively used. These changes have started because our society has changed. They would’ve come about even without active “imposing” of them, it would’ve just been a slower process.
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Sentences:
Nowadays SEXUALLY NEUTRAL LANGUAGE is replacing “male” words. For example, instead of “chairman” one should say “CHAIRPERSON” or just “CHAIR”, and “SALES ASSISTANT” instead of “salesman”. It’s advisable to say “FIREFIGHTER” and “POLICE OFFICER” instead of “fireman” and “policeman”, and “SUPERVISER” instead of “foreman”. Many of “female” words are also being replaced with GENDER-NEUTRAL words. For example, one should say “FLIGHT ATTENDANT” instead of “air hostess”, and “CLEANER” instead of “cleaning lady”. And one can refer to both men and women with “GUYS” as in the phrase “you guys”.
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Сообщение отредактировал readeralexey - Пятница, 29.04.2022, 12:47 |
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| valpet251 | Дата: Вторник, 22.03.2022, 00:09 | Сообщение # 3 |
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| How do you feel about imposing language changes of different kinds (e.g. gender-neutral nouns and pronouns)?
Nowadays sexually neutral words are becoming more and more popular. Of course language changes every day and I believe it is normal. Nowadays waiters and waitresses have now become servers. Stewards and stewardesses are now flight attendants. And policemen and policewomen are now just officers. I think it's great that the language is developing. As the world develops itself, people change and the language changes too. But on the other hand it causes difficulties with determining gender. It turns out that this is some kind of depersonalization, generalization. In the past society was patriarchal and the language too, and now for a long time society has been evolving, and with it the language. However, I don't really like the use of feminitives, because it has nothing to do with the history of the language, but simply the popular movement of feminists, they are trying to artificially stretch words to the equivalent.
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Nowadays gender-neutral words are becoming more and more popular and the language is changing . Instead of spokesman now we say SPOKESPERSON, instead of air hostess we say FLIGHT ATTENDANT. Some words that used to be MALE or FEMALE now are gender-neutral. For example, cleaning lady - CLEANER, foreman - SUPERVISOR, policeman - POLICE OFFICER and so on. But there are many words referring to men or women. For example, there are GUY, BLOKE, LAD, MACHO for men or boys. GIRLFRIEND, GIRLIE, FEMININE are for women and girls.
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Сообщение отредактировал valpet251 - Пятница, 29.04.2022, 15:12 |
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| tukova0306 | Дата: Среда, 06.04.2022, 14:06 | Сообщение # 4 |
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| Would you agree that there exists gender-bias in English and other languages, i.e. that using gender-specific language affects people’s attitudes to men and women’s roles in society (by making men "dominant" and women "subjugated or invisible)?
There is no doubt that the GENDER BIAS exists in every aspect of society. To be honest, I don't see a big problem in gender bias in different languages. I believe that a woman should be WOMANLY, and a man should be MASCULINE, not EFFEMINATE. And everyone should clearly understand their role and responsibilities. It is natural that a man is "dominant" and a woman is "subjugated" and I think that such a position is quite natural not only for life but also for a language.
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My BOYFRIEND is having a night out with some of the LADS tonight. These BLOKES are all trying to keep a MACHO IMAGE. And their MALE PRIDE doesn't allow them to be just a NICE GUY. I can't stand that kind of LADDISH BEHAVIOR. So my friend and I decided to have a GIRLIE evening at home tonight. My friend has a FEMININE CHARM so everyone is drawn to her. She's an SUPERVISOR in a large company and her boss says she's a great SPOKESPERSON. I'm sure we'll have a great time with her and we'll be able to discuss GIRLY issues.
MANHANDLING the women is unworthy of a male.
POLICE OFFICERS, FIREFIGHTERS and FLIGHT ATTENDANTS must have good health to cope with their work.
Humanity needs to preserve GENDER differences.
The CLEANER went into the STAFF room, changed his clothes and went home.
It is said that some people are trying to create an ARTIFICIAL food crisis in our country.
We use the words MALE and FEMALE to denote the gender of animals.
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Сообщение отредактировал tukova0306 - Понедельник, 02.05.2022, 15:13 |
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| zhovtyak1441 | Дата: Среда, 06.04.2022, 23:31 | Сообщение # 5 |
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| How do you feel about imposing language changes of different kinds (e.g. gender-neutral nouns and pronouns)?
If such innovations do not offend in any way, but on the contrary are pleasant to certain categories of people, then this is wonderful.
I think that the use of sexually neutral language is a great innovation. Thanks to such things our language develops, enriches and becomes more vivid and filled effective.
(corrected)
If such innovations do not offend in any way, but on the contrary are pleasant to certain categories of people, then this is wonderful.
I think that the use of sexually neutral language is a great innovation. Thanks to such things our language develops, enriches and becomes more vivid and effective.
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Modern people are very interesting and unlike the rest each other. Today there are many movements in support of certain groups of people. So many feminitives appeared and lots of NEUTRAL ITEMS. So today we can find SPOKESPERSON instead of a SPOKESMAN or SUPERVISOR instead of FOREMAN. Attention has been focused on the replacement of MALE words. And we have lots of words tht referring to men and woman. F.e. E.g., words male and FEMALE now use are used for gender biological classification. If you find the word GUY or BLOKE, be sure it's about a man. LAD is also about a man but a young one.
(corrected)
Modern people are very interesting and unlike each other. Today there are many movements in support of certain groups of people. So many feminitives appeared and lots of NEUTRAL ITEMS. So today we can find SPOKESPERSON instead of a SPOKESMAN or SUPERVISOR instead of FOREMAN. Attention has been focused on the replacement of MALE words. And we have lots of words tht referring to men and woman. E.g., words male and FEMALE now are used for gender biological classification. If you find the word GUY or BLOKE, be sure it's about a man. LAD is also about a man but a young one.
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Сообщение отредактировал zhovtyak1441 - Пятница, 29.04.2022, 23:21 |
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| 7109633 | Дата: Четверг, 07.04.2022, 17:23 | Сообщение # 6 |
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| How do you feel about imposing language changes of different kinds (e.g. gender-neutral nouns and pronouns)?
I feel rather awkward and odd about some changes in language. I understand this tendency to be tolerant and respectful to everyone, in order not to offend someone’s feelings but something makes me stuck in my reflections. According to the etymology dictionary 'man' as a word came from Old English and initially meant human being, person (male or female), as time passed 'man' gained its association with only males. So what’s wrong if we change spokemen to spokesperson, mankind to the human race? It seems nothing, but leaves the feeling that everything gets generalized and depersonalized. The vocabulary of any language has its history and a touch of some semantic contents it has and used to have, so throwing it away feels wrong and even ignorantly inappropriate. Yes it may contain something offensive but the real thing that erase the sharp edges is time. So making everything neutral but dull doesn't seem right to me.
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Some examples of old vocabulary which is not gender-neutral happen to exist along with those which are claimed to be tolerant. For instance, there is not much difference for me between POLICEMAN and POLICE OFFICER as I myself and many other people use them equally. The other case is such words that aren’t the most common ones like an air hostess whom I believe is more often addressed as stewardess. Even FLIGHT ATTENDANT is more common than that old word. Also it is not so rare when people use some words referring to men or women as gender-neutral. Of those I’ve come across were LADS, GUYS (especially in other languages as loaned word), dudes. One more case of the shift of a meaning is GIRLY or GIRLIE which I’ve heard in an informal speech as a noun referring to a woman in a flirtatious way. According to an etymology dictionary the only word which is really based on a strong pointing to a MASCULINE gender is ‘TO MAN’ which initially was supposed to mean “to play man’s part”.
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Шебалкина Е.И.
Сообщение отредактировал 7109633 - Суббота, 30.04.2022, 16:15 |
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| danil_naydenov | Дата: Пятница, 08.04.2022, 13:13 | Сообщение # 7 |
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| Would you agree that there exists gender-bias in English and other languages, i.e. that using gender-specific language affects people’s attitudes to men and women’s roles in society (by making men "dominant" and women "subjugated or invisible)?
Of course, there is gender-bias in our world. But why should we try and force the languages to change, if they are but indicators of the people’s thought paradigms. It’s like trying to put off the fire by sucking smoke with a vacuum cleaner. If we want to get rid of gender roles (though I don’t necessarily see roles as a bad thing), we must reform not our language, but our society. And then, looking at the language, we will truly see if we succeed or not. Although I personally have nothing against such words as FLIGHT ATTENDANT, FIREFIGHTER or POLICE OFFICER, since they just sound familiar and not defiant, the tendency of impose gender-neutral pronouns seems completely wild to me. It just creates a mess, since many people, especially in the West, perceive the refusal of referring to them by their fancy fictional word as an insult to their identity, which in turn generates nothing but hatred. Everything is bad if taken to the extreme, and that is exactly what we see today in such countries as US.
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Сообщение отредактировал danil_naydenov - Пятница, 08.04.2022, 13:14 |
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| dolysovacom | Дата: Суббота, 09.04.2022, 13:06 | Сообщение # 8 |
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| How do you feel about imposing language changes of different kinds (e.g. gender-neutral nouns and pronouns)?
Modern society stands for equality of all people regardless of gender and strives to get rid of gender discrimination. But the language does not always keep up with the changes. In many languages there are still words that refer to the male gender. For example, in Russian, the names of many professions refer to the masculine gender. But there are more changes in English. Personally, I am on the side of change. Life changes, people change, their attitudes change and language changes along with people. Women are no longer the weaker gender; they are now equal to men. These changes affect the language and, in my opinion, this is a very good trend. But there are also those who cross the line. Women activists demand that the word «man» be banned even as a component of any other construction. They say it puts women on the back burner. I truly wonder if such people have many followers.
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My sister always dresses in a FEMININE way.
Will your GIRLFRIEND join us at the party?
That place was full of LADDISH young men.
Your brother looks like a tough MACHO man.
This is the great step for the HUMAN RACE.
The flowers in this wreath are ARTIFICIAL.
SALES ASSISTANTS can be very persuasive.
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Сообщение отредактировал dolysovacom - Суббота, 09.04.2022, 13:08 |
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| zhuravleva369 | Дата: Воскресенье, 10.04.2022, 21:28 | Сообщение # 9 |
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| How do you feel about imposing language changes of different kinds (e.g. gender-neutral nouns and pronouns)?
I think that these changes are not natural. To my mind, it is better if they do not appear in language. Although I understand why it happened. Women have been an oppressed social group for a very long period of time. Today feminist movements are trying to achieve equality. I can understand their position. However, abrupt changes, including those in the language, can cause dissatisfaction of other social groups. It seems to me that language always reflects modern reality. For me, the reality is that men and women are different and it's bad to try artificially hide these differences. However, this does not negate respect between men and women and equal social rights for all genders.
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