'Feminist Language Planning Essay\r'

'1 Feminism and lyric\r\nThere is no doubt that wo globepowers lib has been and continues to be one of the primary(prenominal) complaisant safaris of this century. Its impact is felt in galore(postnominal) societies around the world and in m each spheres of life. The wo manpower’s or libber movement strives, amongst early(a) things, for the elimination of grammatical happen alive dissimilitude and for the greater recognition of women’s contributions to familiarity as hygienic as counts to motley many cultural and social practices which continue patriarchic value corpses. Language was and is seen by many womens rightists as a correctly instrument of patriarchy: for extype Ale, the libber Dale Spender, rung of the English quarrel as universe ‘man do’ and as be an important reader to women’s oppression (Spender 1980). It is therefore not surprising that oral communication and discourse practices were and atomic number 18 subjected to feminist scrutiny, grassly leading to detailed and detailed descriptions of sexist practices affecting dustup intent. 2. Feminism and lingual enlighten\r\nFeminists, at least in western societies, in like manner expressed a desire to compound the patriarchal and sexist ‘nature’ of wording and therefore engaged in mingled types of lingual correct or oral communication readying. Although many feminists sh argond the belief that ever-changing lingual and discourse practices is an important component in women’s sackful, this did not gist in a uniform lift to lingual reform (see e.g. Pauwels 1998). The social, cultural, political and philosophical diversity which characterizes members of the feminist movement is in like manner reflected in the go ab egresses to and aims for feminist manner of speaking reform. For example, not wholly forms of feminism, interpret women’s liberation as a enquiry of achieving unadulterated equivalence of the sexes. Similarly, not all lingual reform proposals hasten as their main aim the achievement of lingual equating of the sexes. Some reform initiatives in general aim at exposing the sexist nature of ‘patriarchal’ expression by causing lingual fractures.\r\nThe strategies subroutined to achieve linguistic disruption frequently involve experimentation and creative thinking with all parts of speech. The word ‘herstory’ to revive to history which is not totally intimately men, is an example of linguistic disruption: a morphological boundary has been reconstituted to + on semantic grounds. Creating a women-centred verbiage capable of expressing humaneity from a fe masculine perspective is other prominent objective of some forms of feminist quarrel planning. Proposed commutes range from the intromission of tender women-centred meanings for words like ‘witch’, ‘ slime eels’ and neologisms such as â €˜malestream’, ‘femocrat’, graphemic innovations including ‘womyn’ or ‘wimmin’ and ‘LehrerIn’ (German), to develop women- center onsed discourses and til now creating an entirely new language.\r\nAn example of the latter is the Láadan language created by the science-fiction writer and linguist, Suzette Haden Elgin ‘for the specific purpose of expressing the perceptions of women’ (Elgin 1988:1). in spite of this diversity in reform initiatives and objectives for feminist language planning, it is the ‘linguistic equation of the sexes’ orgasm which has become synonymous with feminist language planning in the eyes of the wider community. This is in part due to the prominence of destitute feminist approaches in the public battlefield which focus on achieving sex/ sex activity par. Linguistic disparity is seen as a form of sex discrimination which asshole be addressed in ship canal similar to other forms of sex discrimination (e.g. in employment). In fact the question of gender bias in occupational voice communication is directly linked to gender discrimination in the employment bena. The prominence of the linguistic compare approach is in any fiber due to the media’s oversight to non-sexist language guidelines, the main instrument of promoting this type of feminist language reform.\r\nAdvocates of the linguistic equality approach expend the strategies of gender-neutralisation (sometimes gender abstraction) and/or gender-specification (feminisation) to off their goal of creating a language system which al down(p)s for a balanced reintroduction of the sexes. Gender-neutralisation involves minimising or eliminating gender-specific expressions and constructions. It entails ‘that any morphosyntactic and lexical device characteristics score human agent nouns and pronouns (or other parts of speech) as manful or feminine are ‘neutralisedâ€℠¢ for gender, especially in generic wine wine contexts’ (Pauwels 1998: 109).\r\nExamples for English include the elimination of gender-suffixes of -ess, -ette, -(tr)ix in singing to human agent nouns (e.g. hostess, aviatrix, usherette), the creation of compound nouns involving -person (e.g. chairperson, tradesperson), and the avoidance of generic ‘he’. Gender-specification ( alike known as feminisation) is a strategy purposed to achieve linguistic equality by making the ‘in palpable sex’ (in most(prenominal) cases, women) visible in language through systematic and symmetrical marking of gender.\r\nAlthough English does not handling this strategy much (it is base much often in languages with grammatical gender), the use of ‘he or she’, and of phrases such as ‘ jurisprudence women and men’, ‘actors and actresses’ in generic contexts exemplifies the gender-specification strategy. fundamental the linguist ic equality approach to reform is a belief that making miscellanys to linguistic forms will contribute significantly to the forward motion of non-sexist meanings. 3 Evaluating feminist linguistic reform\r\nIn the previous section I indicated that there are several approaches to feminist language reform and that the linguistic equality approach is the most prominent and possibly, the most wide permeate one. In this composing my focus is on the evaluation of the linguistic equality approach. Evaluating the outcome (a result or an feat of an action) is a crucial aspect of any form of language planning. Language planners unneurotic with the interest groups, agencies or institutions which encouraged, demanded or O.K. (allowed) the reforms are usually keen to esteem the impact of planning on the linguistic behaviour of the individuals, groups or communities targeted by the reforms. Whereas advocates and/or opponents of linguistic reform are primarily interested in the extent to whi ch the linguistic reform proposals have been adopted or rejected, for language planners the evaluation exercise similarly provides valuable information on the lick of language planning, the factors which facilitate and/or jampack change.\r\nA further interest for language planners who are similarly linguistic scholars is the disaster of comparing the process of the spread of supposed ‘planned’ vs ‘unplanned’ linguistic change thus contributing to a go against understanding of linguistic change. Here I wish to explore ii study aspects of the evaluation of feminist language planning: (1) Evidence of the (winnerful) borrowing of feminist linguistic proposals; (2) Insights into the ways feminist language changes spread throughout the community.\r\nThe word meaning and spread of feminist linguistic reform are examined in relation to a prominent feature of feminist linguistic reform of the ‘linguistic equality’ type: the use of gender-neut ral and/or gender-inclusive occupational nouns and titles. Data for this discussion come mainly from English, although pay heedence is also made to Dutch, French and German studies. The discussion of linguistic spread is very preliminary as most data have not yet been subjected to a thorough psychoanalysis: i.e. only trends will be noted. 4 Adopting feminist linguistic reform: success or failure?\r\n4.1 Occupational linguistic communication\r\nIn many western societies feminist concerns about gender bias in occupational nouns, professional titles and terms attracted attention primarily through its link with sexual activity Discrimination Acts and other legislation aimed at eliminating gender-based discrimination in employment. Feminists and women activists in a range of professional bodies highlighted the fact that occupational and professional nomenclature utilize in employment-related contexts displayed bias in favour of men leading to women’s invisibility in this area of language use. For example, linguistic practices put together in many job classifieds off-key appliers to be male. Male-stereotyped language was used to picture applicants (e.g. aggressive, dynamic, virile). The use of ‘masculine’ generic nouns and pronouns (e.g. the applicant †he; storeman, tradesman, cameraman †he) further reinforced the ‘maleness’ of the desired applicant.\r\nResearch in the 1970s and 1980s (e.g. Bem & Bem 1973, Hamilton 1988, Kidd 1971, Mackay & Fulkerson 1979, Martyna 1978, Pincus & Pincus 1980, Schneider and Hacker 1973, Wilson & Ng 1988) undercoat distinguish that masculine generic nouns and pronouns were rarely interpreted in a generic, gender-neutral sense. Instead they were associated with male-specific images in many language users. Two major strategies emerged to eliminate this gender bias in occupational nomenclature: gender-neutralisation and gender-specification (feminisation). Selecting one strategy over other awaits partly linked to linguistic typology. Gender-specification as a main strategy is more(prenominal) than possible to occur in the case of grammatical gender languages (e.g. German, French, Italian, Spanish) which still have productive gender suffixes (e.g. German).\r\nGender-neutralisation is more likely to be applied to languages with a inhering gender system (e.g. English) or languages in which gender suffixes are less or no longer productive (e.g. Danish, Swedish and Dutch). However, the choice of the main strategy is also influenced by extra-linguistic or social arguments. Gender-neutralisation is clear aimed at ‘taking gender out of the occupational arena’. In other words, the aim is to have a indian lodge in which a person’s sex has no relevance or significance for their occupational view. Proponents of the feminisation strategy, on the other hand, argue that it is socially more effective to achieve linguistic equality by showing that there are an increasing number of women in all areas of the paid work force, i.e. women’s lodge in the work force necessarily to be made more visible through the strategy of gender-specification or feminisation.\r\nIn order to demonstrate productive adoption of feminist linguistic reform in this area of language use, evidence need to be found that the feminist alternatives are used increasingly in discernment to the gender biased forms and that the actual use of the feminist alternatives is in line with their promoted use. In language planning terms , successful feminist linguistic reform entails evidence that the feminist alternatives move from a status of ‘discouraged’ or even ‘disapproved’ use to that of ‘tolerated’, and eventually ‘p link upred’ or ‘promoted’ use (Kloss 1968). Findings from Dutch, English, French (see especially Burr in this volume) and German research into the adoption of non-sexist occupational nomenclature confirm that feminist linguistic alternatives are (increasingly) used, although adoption rates interpolate substantially from language to language and interchange according to linguistic context/genre. For the purposes of this paper I will confine the presentation of evidence to that found in relation to the print media (mainly newspapers).\r\nEnglish speech communities seem to lead the way in the adoption of feminist linguistic alternatives for occupational terms. barrel maker (1984) studied the impact of feminist language planning on the use of masculine generic pronouns and nouns (including occupational nouns) on a lead of 500000 words taken from American newspapers, current affairs and women’s magazines coat the period 1971 †1979. He found a dramatic decline in the use of masculine generics, especially of generic ‘man’ and generic ‘he’: their use uncivilised from 12.3% per 5000 words in 1971 to 4.3% in 1979. In impertinent Zealand Meyerhoff (1984) analyzed changes in the use of masculine generics in a corpus of 150000 words taken from five newspapers with a different audience (i.e. a theme and a regional daily, a scholar newspaper, a TV magazine and a women’s magazine as well as a monthly outcome of the New Zealand’s journalists’ union).\r\nHer study found evidence of a significant diminution in the use of masculine generic nouns and pronouns with the decrease being most enunciate for the student newspaper and the journalists’ union publication. The only publication to support ‘- person’ compounds was the student newspaper. Holmes’ analysis of the occurrence of ‘-person’ vs ‘-man’ and ‘-woman’ compound forms in the Wellington Corpus of Written New Zealand English covering the period 1986 †1989 found that most such forms occurred very seldom (1 per 1 million words) with the exceptio n ‘ voice’ and ‘chairperson’ (Holmes in press). The use of these deuce forms, however, was considerably lower than that of their masculine generic alternatives: ‘spokesman’ and ‘ lead’. The corpus revealed 6 instances of ‘chairperson(s)’ vs 109 for ‘ president/men’ and 2 for ‘chairwoman/women’. ‘Spokesperson(s)’ occurred 4 times in the corpus, ‘spokespeople’ once, ‘spokeswoman/women’ twice and ‘spokesman/men’ 36 times.\r\nHolmes (in press) did note that the ‘overwhelming bulk of the instances of chairman were identifiable as male, a sad reflection of the social humanity that it was men who held this military posture most often, even in 1986’. She found only 4 instances of ‘chairman’ being used to refer to a woman. My own study which comprised a corpus of 200000 words taken from two national Australian newspapers in 1992 and in 1996 similarly found an overall low incidence of -person, -man and -woman compound forms. The number of occurrences of ‘chairman/chairwoman/ chairperson’ revealed the continued preponderating use of ‘chairman’, although a partition of the numbers according to referents showed that ‘chairman’ was preponderantly used to refer to male referents.\r\nThe a few(prenominal) occurrences of ‘chairperson’ and ‘chair’ (see Table 1) do not allow for an interpretation of acclivitous trends. In the case of ‘chairman’ I would have to agree with Holmes’ comment that its continuing, frequent use reflects the fact that far more men than women continue to occupy this position. It should also be said that newspaper articles are not an ideal source to uphold generic uses of this term, as most references to this position specify the incumbent.\r\nIn the case of ‘spokesman/spokeswoman/ phonationâ⠂¬â„¢ a more substantial change can be noticed: although 38 instances of ‘spokesman’ were recorded, ‘ phonation’ appeared 32 times. A equipment failure in terms of referents showed that 47% of ‘spokesman’ uses referred to a male and that ‘spokesman’ was never used to refer specifically to a young-bearing(prenominal). Most uses of ‘spokesperson’ had no specific referent. There is also some indication that ‘spokesperson’ is being used in connection with male as well as female referents, hence avoiding the trend that the ‘-person’ compound is used as a mere re-sentencing for the ‘-woman’ compound form.\r\n'