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Ann Coady, Sat 21st May, 10.30am, Room 2401

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Ideologies of language and gender:

Sexist grammar in French
Introduction:
The aim of my presentation is to:
*1) trace how the masculine generic became conventionalised over time its transition to norm
(which fits in nicely with the time and transition theme of this conf). I'm using the framework of
ideologies of language, and specifically Irvine & Gal's concepts of iconization, fractal recursivity &
rrasure. In order to answer the following questions:
What kinds of ideologies of language, and ideologies of gender underpin discourses about the
masculine generic?
*2) the 2nd aim is to revisit the 2nd wave debate on sexist language from a Queer perspective not to
say whether a particular word or structure is sexist, but to question the whole system of grammatical
gender, and the hierarchies it produces. I'm using French as an eg but what I'm going to say is
probably valid for most European languages.
*The context: In English-speaking countries sexism in language could seem a bit outdated, a pb
which was resolved a long time ago generic he is much less frequent, and gender neutral terms are
generally preferred (fireman firefighter).
But for grammatically-gendered languages, it's still a highly contentious subject with regular
articles in the mainstream press, reactions from official language bodies, and government
involvement.
*Theoretical framework: Ideologies of language & Queer Linguistics
What are ideologies of language?
*Language ideologies are basically what people think about language. But they go deeper that that they expose the connections between what we think about language (i.e. how it should be used,
what it represents) and the larger social and cultural systems they are a part of. LI illustrate how
these beliefs are informed by and rooted in cultural systems.
*The debates around sexist language are not just 'concerns about proper language [but] are
ultimately refractions of a deeper need or desire to impose order on other social issues.' (Milani,
2010)
So, basically, when we talk about whether the masculine is generic or not, we're not just talking
about grammar, we're also talking about social gender, wider cultural ideologies, and power.
*A language ideology framework uses Irvine and Gal's (Irvine, et al., 2000) concepts of
'iconization', 'erasure', and 'fractal recursivity'. As far as I'm aware, the framework of LI hasn't been
used before to analyse the emergence of sexism in language. It's usually used in situations of
language conflict, e.g. English vs French in Quebec, or the language situation in Belgium.
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I've slightly modified 2 of these 3 concepts and what I'm hoping to achieve by this is a fine-grained
analysis of the intersection of social and grammatical gender, and the exact processes involved in
how the masculine generic became conventionalised (Milani, 2010). In standard French, the
masculine is generic but this is only because of an 'elaborate sociohistorical processes of
normalization and codification' (Bloomaert, & Brown, 2006). So, I want to find out what those
processes are.
The 2nd theoretical anchor is Queer Linguistics
*The main objective of which is:
is to counter linguistic manifestations of heteronormativity []. One such mechanism is the linguistic
construction of essentialist, binary [grammatical] gender categories. (Motschenbacher, 2014)

QL not only critically questions gender relations, but also the very existence of gender, and its
binary nature. In order to do this, we need to look at how grammatical gender and binary
grammatical categories were created, and how one part of the binary (the masc) became more
prestigious.

*What is iconization, Fractal Recursivity & Erasure & how am I using them?
I'm not using iconization & FR in their original format. I've had to modify them slightly so that they
can be used to analyse the emergence of sexism in language.

Iconization
How it's usually used:
*Iconization is a process of differentiating groups of people on the basis of a linguistic feature, or a
language e.g. some people say [b] (bath) with a short 'a', and some people say [b:] with a long
'a'. On the basis of this pronunciation two groups are created people from the north of England
[b] and people from the south [b:]. So, northerns and southerns are dichotomised, or
partitioned, on the basis of this linguistic difference.
*Iconization is also a essentialising process because it makes any differences within these groups
invisible e.g. not all northerns say [b] and not all southerns say [b:], but we tend to ignore any
intra-group differences.
*A more pertinent e.g. for us is the 'gay lisp'. Some people say [s], some people say [s ]1 (i.e. with a
high-frequency whistling or hissing sound) (Munson, 2015). On the basis of this linguistic feature,
we separate those who say [s] from those who say [s ]. Then, this difference is projected onto some
other level, in this case male sexuality (this projection is an e.g. of fractal recursivity, which we'll
get to in a min).
*So, the pronunciation of [s ] is reflected onto male homosexuality, and becomes iconic of gay men,
and is then perceived as a 'natural' opposition (Milani, 2010) between gay & straight men, even tho
as far as I know there is no link between somebody's physical phonetic apparatus and their
1 The phonetic symbol should be an [s] with a little upward pointing arrow underneath, but I can't work out how to do it on my computer!

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sexuality.
Obviously not all gay men say [s ] and not all straight men say [s], so again, we see that iconization
highlights the differences (real or perceived) between gay and straight men, and minimises any
differences within each particular group.
*The fact that iconization is an essentialising process, is interesting for me because deessentialisation [is] a mechanism at the heart of Queer Linguistics. (Motschenbacher, & Stegu,
2013). In other words, QL tries to reverse the process of iconization.
*How I'm using iconization:
*In my modified version of iconization it's not on the basis of linguistic features that individuals are
'othered', but on the basis of social gender. I theorise that men and women are essentialised as
homogenous groups i.e. they are dichotomised and partitioned (not because they use diff linguistic
features, but because of our binary conceptions of sex / gender).
Men (not some linguistic feature particular to men) underwent a process of iconization & came to
represent the whole of humanity.
*This is also known as prototypicality:
'where one prototypical member of a group, comes to represent the rest of the group, in the same way
that, 'Tissues are Kleenex; petroleum jelly, Vaseline; bleach, Clorex, etc. to the economic detriment of
those brands that are ignored by this terminology.' (Moulton, & Vetterling-Braggin, 1981) cited in
(Curzan, 2003)

*Basically men are like Coke & women are like Pepsi :-)
So, that's iconization.
*Before we look at fractal recursivity, let's take a closer look at binarity which is a result of
iconisation.
Many Indo-European languages are divided into masculine and feminine (or masc, fem & neuter).
*However, this division is far from being universal. According to Corbett (2011) (World Atlas of
Language Structures) 56% of languages have no system of noun classification i.e. they have no
grammatical gender. *And languages that do have grammatical gender, don't necessarily divide
nouns up into masc & fem e.g. some languages divide the nouns up into animate & inanimate (like
in Proto-Indo European), or human & non-human, and some go even further and divide nouns up
into humans, big things, small things, collectives, & liquids (Supyire spoken in Mali) (Deutscher,
2011).
So, a masculine-feminine divide is just one system among many. In the same way that our Western
notions of binary social gender are cultural rather than universal, and historically situated. Not all
societies have only 2 genders.
How does Queer Linguistics theorise binary grammatical gender?
*As unstable, fluid and normative like social gender.
Gender binarity is seen as a form of normativity which forces individuals to fall onto one side of the
binary and marginalizes those who don't. Grammatical gender can be seen as the linguistic
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reflection & reinforcement of binary social gender.

For Queer Linguists the reason that gender binarism exists is to establish & stabilise a
heteronormative system, in which women and men are supposed to be different from one another,
and in which opposites attract. In fact, Heiko Motschenbacher argues that we probably wouldn't
even have notions such as 'heterosexuality', 'homosexuality', 'transsexuality', or 'bisexuality' if there
was no concept of female-male difference. And says that *'every time speakers or writers use
binarily gendered forms, they reinstantiate the discursive formation of the heteronormative system.'
(Motschenbacher, 2014).
In formal linguistics there is an 'assumption of binarity' e.g. syntactic trees which must always
branch into two parts (rather than three or four), and phonological theory, which is founded upon
binary distinctive features (e.g., voiced ([b] [z]) or unvoiced ([p] [s]) consonants). Rusty Barrett
argues that *rather than accepting patterns of linguistic diversity, anything which does not fit into a
binary framework is abstracted and shoehorned to the point of being able to fit into a binary
framework (Barrett, et al., 2014).
The assumption of linguistic binarity works in the same way as the assumption of social gender
binarity i.e. as a normative mechanism (Barrett, et al., 2014).
An example of how grammatical gender can work as a normative mechanism is *when
grammatical gender and referential gender clash.
Concerning animate nouns, in French, and most other Indo-European languages, a man is usually
referred to with a masc noun and a woman with a fem noun.
There are a few exceptions like une vigie, or une sentinelle which are grammatically feminine but
usually refer to men.
*But apart form these cases, when there is a clash between grammatical and referential gender, it is
often to insult e.g. tapette, fiotte, pdale, tantouze and tarlouze are all grammatically fem nouns
used to insult gay men.
A couple of studies in Queer linguistics (Coutant, 2014) for French; (Motschenbacher, 2010) for
German) have found that insulting terms for gay men are often grammatically feminine. However,
it's not the same for lesbians. Insulting terms for lesbians are generally feminine, not masculine.
This clearly shows the social hierarchy of man at the top reflected in grammatical gender with the
masc as more prestigious. You can't use the masc to insult a man because it's the most prestigious
form, but you can use the fem to downgrade him to the status of woman because that's a step down
on the grammatical hierarchy. *Historical linguist, Anne Curzan, has shown how words that
originally referred to women, tend to descend the semantic slope, becoming terms for women
servants, then prostitutes, finally ending up as insults for gay men 'who seem to be regarded as
somehow similar to, if not lower than, prostitutes by a hostile heterosexual community' e.g. maiden,
tart, queen/quean2, faggot (Curzan, 2003). In fact, in the 16th century. faggot was a term of abuse
for women.
*There is also a fascinating example from German regarding Mdchen meaning 'girl'. Technically
2 The words queen and quean, now homonyms differentiated only by spelling and sometimes used interchangeably in contemptuous reference to
homosexuals, stem from two different Old English words: as defined by the OED, cwen a (kings) wife or consort; and cwene a woman, a female;
from early ME. a term of disparagement or abuse, hence: a bold, impudent, or ill-behaved woman. (Curzan, 2003)

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it's a neuter noun because of the suffix -chen, and so should take the neuter pronoun es [it]. But the
older the girl is, the more likely it is that the feminine pronoun sie will be used. Referring to
children with a neuter noun is a quite common in Indo-European languages (McConnell-Ginet, &
Corbett, 2014), for example, in Old English cild [child] was also grammatically neutral (Curzan,
2003).
*Here is McConnell-Ginet's astute anaylsis of this phenomenon:
'Now age does not make someone who is straightforwardly a biological female on all counts (genetic or
chromosomal, hormonal, genital) any more a female. As a girl matures and moves towards menarche and
potential fertility, however, the sociocultural significance of her female sex certainly does increase. Sex
is not what matters here but sociolcultural gender considerations are coming into play in (variably)
conditioning the form of the personal pronoun' (McConnell-Ginet, & Corbett, 2014).

Grammatical gender is used as a normative force to police the boundaries of social gender &
sexuality.
*FRACTAL RECURSIVITY
= a term from geometry. A fractal is a pattern which is the same across different scales (show a pic),
it is driven by recursion (repetition) of itself.
*It describes how the dichotomies created from iconization are reflected onto some other level (e.g.
gender, sexuality, ethnicity, social class...) and repeated (Irvine, et al., 2000). Remember the e.g. of
the high-frequency pronunciation [s ] being projected onto sexuality. *FR a process of 'othering'
which naturally follows from iconization. Once you have a dichotomy, one group is always
perceived as normal, or standard, the other as abnormal.
*Milani describes FR as: 'create[ing] a chain of entwined binary oppositions man vs. woman,
[straight vs gay, standard vs non-standard...] in which the poles of each dyad are not mutually
equal in terms of power and value [...].' (Milani, 2010)
How I'm using it
*Rather than a linguistic features being projected onto other semiotic tiers (e.g. the [s ] being
projected onto sexuality) , I have reversed the process for my study i.e. it is social gender which is
projected onto language. In other words, we find *the division of humans into men and women
(iconization) reflected onto language e.g. the very existence of grammatical gender.
*Some scholars believe that the basic function of the feminine grammatical gender was to
linguistically mark women, a way to 'other' them.
*Let me explain: in fact, Proto Indo-European had 2 genders * x lotsanimate and inanimate, and
at some point a separate feminine gender emerged as an offshoot of the animate category. The
animate category basically became the masculine, and there was a new feminine gender.
*Some scholars believe that the only possible motivation this was human sex (Luraghi, 2011) i.e.
the feminine grammatical gender was a way to linguistically mark women, as a way to 'other' them.
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coded), while the animate gender, on the other hand remained unmarked (or zero-coded)
What does markedness mean?
*The term 'markedness' is a commonly used (but controversial) term used to account for aspects of
grammar that are more complex or difficult than usual (whether phonetically or conceptually); or
which are simply seen as abnormal, in the sense of statistically rare (Barrett, et al., 2014).
How does QL view markedness?
*Markedness is basically about distinguishing what is normal (unmarked), from what is abnormal
(marked) (Barrett, et al., 2014), and so is intrinsically linked to norms. And when we talk about
norms we talk about values e.g. the standard form of any language is the most valued one, it's the
one we find in dictionaries, taught in schools, backed up by official powers It's often thought of
as the purest form, or the neutral form, when in fact, all varieties of a language are linguistically
equal. *Queer linguistics sees markedness as a tool for establishing normative ideologies
(Motschenbacher, 2010), and that norms are *the means of promoting certain values (Klinkenberg,
et al., 2006). In other words, the grammar system is a means of reinforcing (or challenging!)
dominant social values.
*'The pattern in formal linguistics has been to interpret marked forms in relation to their unmarked
counterparts much in the way that alternative expressions of gender and sexuality have traditionally been
ideologically viewed in relation to their statistically more common heteronormative counterparts
precisely the ideology that queer theory seeks to challenge, not to uphold.' (Barrett, et al., 2014)

***In French, the masculine is used as the unmarked. However, there has been much debate in
recent years over this, especially when referring to a specific woman e.g. in October 2014 a
representative in the French parliament was fined for referring to a female president as Madame le
prsident after she had repeatedly asked him to use the feminine Madame la prsidente. In his
defence, he said that the 'Madame la prsidente' referred to a president's wife, not a female
president, and that he was simply following the rules cited by the Acadmie Franaise (the official
French language authority):
*If, indeed, French has two genders, called masculine and feminine, it would be more accurate to called
them the marked gender and the unmarked gender. Only the masculine, the unmarked gender, can
represent masculine as well as feminine elements. (Acadmie franaise, 2014)

*However, this is not strictly true, the feminine is not necessarily always the marked form in
relation to the masculine e.g. in it the feminine term vache [cow] which is used to refer to cattle in
general, not the masculine boeuf. Other feminine unmarked terms include poule [hen] compared to
poulet [cock/rooster], oie [goose] compared to jars [gander]:
*'The main reason for this would seem to be that males of the species are normally kept in smaller
numbers by farmers than females, and purely for breeding: the main stock is female, and this is treated
[...] as the unmarked norm.' (Lyons, 1977).

So, the unmarked form is really just the socially more valued form, or simply the more frequently
encountered form, rather than for any intrinsically linguistic reason.
Gender ideology = Adam & Eve
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The ideology of the feminine as marked can be directly correlated with the biblical story of Genesis.
The idea that Eve was created from Adam's rib is fundamental for the generic status of the
masculine, and has been used over the centuries as a logical justification for using the masculine to
talk about both sexes. Elisabeth Burr claims that the socially contrived view of masculine as more
inclusive, and therefore better able to serve as the generic,
'does nothing more than take the theorem of Eve's creation from Adam's rib, affirm the superiority of the
male over the female, and contribute to the exclusion and the invisibility of women in discourse'. Burr,
2012

*ERASURE
The 3rd concept related to ideologies of language is erasure, which is the process in which ideology,
in simplifying the sociolinguistic field, renders some people, activities or sociolinguistic phenomena
invisible.
Facts which are inconsistent with the ideological scheme either go unnoticed or get explained away
or are ignored (Irvine, et al., 2000) e.g. all the arguments that we're going to look at which question
the validity of the masculine generic in French.
I'm don't need to modify this concept, so am using it in the same way as the original concept.
We have just seen that the masculine is seen as the unmarked form in French, and thus able to fulfil
the role of generic. One of the reasons cited for this is its Latin heritage.
Latin Heritage
The Acadmie franaise claims that:
*One of the constraints particular to the French language is that it only has two genders: in
order to designate the qualities that are common to both sexes, one of the two genders had to be
attributed a generic value so that it was able to neutralise the difference between the sexes.
Because of our Latin heritage, the masculine was chosen. (Acadmie franaise 2014)

When they talk about 'Latin heritage' they are referring to the fact that the neuter gender in
Latin was absorbed by the masculine when Vulgar Latin transitioned into French. By the
way, notice the use of the passive voice 'had to be attributed' another way of making
linguistic authority invisible.
Just a fact of grammar?
Before we look more closely at the transition from neuter to masc, I'd like to highlight the
word 'constraints'. By implying that this is simply a fact of grammar, the Acadmie franaise
is effectively erasing the role of language authorities in shaping the language: Deborah
Cameron describes this tactic as 'mystification' when she says that:
'to deny that authority could be at work (by saying, for instance, that such and such a usage is
'just a fact about the grammar of x') is a mystification.' (Cameron, 1995).

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*We can find the same kinds of arguments in English regarding generic he eg Silverstein claims that
he is a structurally dictated indexical usage (Silverstein, 1985). But it is people (esp people with
linguistic power eg language academies / the makers of dictionaries & grammar books) who
organise & classify the language, and as Irvine & Gall remind us, 'There is no view from
nowhere, no gaze that is not positioned.' (Irvine, et al., 2000).
Contrary to the idea that grammarians simply describe the language in an objective, scientific,
neutral manner, French linguist Edwige Khaznadar, claims that, 'French grammatical discourse on
[linguistic] gender is a fundamentally ideological discourse' (Khaznadar, 2002). The problem is not
so much the fact that it is a fundamentally ideologically discourse, because no discourse is neutral,
but that grammarians claim objectivity (Cameron, 1995).
The ideology of language revealed here is linguistics as a scientifically neutral field, that science
is and should be neutral, and that neutrality is an achievable goal. Whereas a Queer perspective, and
post structuralist perspectives in general, hold that neutrality is simply not possible, that we need to
accept our own biases as inevitable, and be aware of them.
*To come back to the transition from neuter to Latin
Khaznadar claims that, 'saying that the French masculine is the heir of the neuter in Latin is an
untruth' (Khaznadar, et al., 2007). There are four main issues that need to be addressed with regard
to the Latin neuter:
*i) some neuter nouns became feminine
*ii) the etymology of neuter is ambiguous
*iii) almost all neuter nouns in Latin were inanimate, and finally
*iv) there is a (perhaps deliberate) confusion between the terms neuter and generic
*i) The first point is that although the masculine did absorb most neuter nouns in Latin, a certain
number became feminine, rather than masculine, in French e.g.
mare neuter sg [sea] la mer fem sg
gaudia neuter pl [joys, delights] la joie fem sg
folia neuter pl [leaves] la feuille fem sg3
(Solodow, 2010).
*ii) Secondly, the etymology of neuter does not necessarily support the claim that it has a generic
value. *Neuter (ne- + -uter) literally means 'not either' (Kennedy, 1906). So, if neuter means neither
masculine nor feminine, it logically excludes both of these noun classes, defies logic and 'is literally
nonsense' Khaznadar (Khaznadar, 2006). *One of the first Latin grammars4, translates the Greek
distinction between masculine-feminine-inanimate as virilismuliebrisneutrum (Burr, 2012).
Greek (Protagoras, approx. 490-420 Latin (M. Terentius Varro, 116-27 BCE)
BCE)
(males)

virilis (masculine)

3 The singular Latin gaudium neuter sg [joy, delight] and folium neuter pl [leaf] were more widely used in their plural forms gaudia neuter pl and folia neuter pl in Vulgar
Latin which, because they ended in -a, were mistaken for the feminine singular, and so became feminine in French.
4 De lingua latina by M. Terentius Varro (116-27 BCE)

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(females)

muliebris (feminine)

(things)

Neutrum (neuter)

Other Latin works also confirm this perspective:

*a later Latin grammar book5 noted that the communis (common gender) referred to both males and
females, as opposed to the neuter, which signified neither male nor female (Burr, 2012). Basically
neuter = inanimate.
*iii) The vast majority of neuter nouns in Latin, as well as in Proto-Indo-European (Luraghi, 2011),
had *inanimate referents (Khaznadar, et al., 2007), apart from a few exceptions such as vulgus neuter sg
[the common people] (Kennedy, 1906) or scortum neuter sg and prostibulum neuter sg [prostitute] (Pitavy,
2014).
*Bearing in mind that the great majority of neuter nouns were inanimate, it is difficult to defend the
idea that the very small handful of animate neuter nouns like 'the common people' or 'prostitute',
which became masculine, transmitted their unmarked quality to the thousands of existing masculine
nouns, thus giving these masculine nouns a kind of double identity marked when used with a male
referent, and unmarked when employed in a non-specific context. It could also be argued that the
fact that the masculine absorbed the neuter simply increased simple made it a bigger noun class,
rather than modifying the value or quality of the nouns already there.
*iv) The underlying problem here seems to be a conflation of the terms neuter and generic, which
are not synonymous. *Neuter refers to a specific noun class, which in Latin was composed almost
entirely of inanimate nouns. *Generic, on the other hand, refers to the capacity of a noun to refer to
a whole class or group of things e.g. fruit is a generic term referring to bananas, apples, oranges,
kiwis etc. Neuter nouns do not therefore necessarily have a generic value. However, according to
traditional French grammar, the masculine has an inherent generic value when referring to animate
nouns thanks in great part, to its absorption of lots of inanimate nouns *Neuter generic
The use of Latin is also a way of imposing authority & and shutting down arguments from nonlinguists (Khaznadar, 2006).
In addition, why should this particular trait of Latin (the idea of a neuter) survive in French, when
many other traits haven't? In fact, Klinkenberg thinks that the masc/neuter = expresses the scientific
ideal of stabilisation, and neutrality which I mentioned previously. He:
'[] hypotheses that the neuter neutralisation expresses the ideal of stabilisation found in
scientific discourse [...]' (Klinkenberg, et al., 2006)

The 4 arguments that I have mentioned are often simply ignored by language authorities, who
continue to use the ideology of the Latin origins of French as an argument for the masculine
generic.

5 Institutiones grammaticae, by Priscianus (5th century CE)

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**An ideology which I have termed the ideology of the 'Tower of Babel'.
The ideology of language that this Latin argument reveals is one which is common in language in
general the idea that at some point in the past there was a Golden Age of language, where it was
perfect, and that we're constantly moving further and further away from this ideal (Deutscher,
2006).
However, the use of Latin forces us to ask the question of how far back are we going to look? Why
stop at Latin? Why not go back to Proto Indo-European which had two genders animate and
inanimate (Luraghi, 2011). They stop at Latin because it suits them cherry picking what will
support their ideologies. This is also known as a *Malinowskian charter myth. Bronisaw
Malinowski was an anthropologist who said that myths tended to advance the agendas of the storytellers, and of the people in power. Looking back to our linguistic origins is a way of legitimating
contemporary power relations - we look back and cherry pick what will support our present day
ideologies:
'representations of the history of languages often function as Malinowskian charter myths,
projecting from the present to an originary past a legitimation of contemporary power
relations and interested positions. (Or, we might prefer to say, projecting from the past a
legitimating selection of one from among contending centers of power in the present).'
(Woolard, 2004).

Related to The Tower of Babel ideology is the common linguistic ideology that a word's true or
central meaning is in its etymological origins (Silverstein, et al., 1979) e.g. some argue that Man is
generic because it was in Old English. Curzan terms this an etymological fallacy (Curzan, 2003).
In fact by the 1400s, it was no longer common to refer to a woman as a man (Curzan, 2003). Today,
Man no longer means woman, in the same way that 'hussy' no longer means housewife, and 'girl' no
longer means child of any sex.
If we have time, here is a summary of ideologies identified, and how they all inform one another:
Ideologies of language

Ideologies of gender

Wider social ideologies

Languages are based on binary systems The human race is divided into two sexes Duality: Yin & yang, good & evil, black &
of classification (e.g. phonetics, syntax, and two gender, which correspond:
white, light & dark...
semantics)
male man / female woman.
Male active / female passive (e.g.
definition of sex = penetration of the
female by the male)
assumption of stability
Gender as a
- of grammatical gender (one noun = one determinism
gender), and
- of meaning (a word's true meaning is
in its etymological origins)
- gender is an innate property of a noun;
Tower of Babel

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fixed

trait;

biological Biology determines who we are (e.g.

genetic tests for criminal genes, gene
editing for intelligence), whereas the
environment is extremely important & our
neurons etc are more like plastic than
cement (Fausto-Sterling, 1992)

Traditional family values, glorification of Everything is going to the dogs! When I

traditional roles for women
was young, we never
Glorification of / nostalgia for the past
(popularity of BBC period dramas)

IGALA9 City University, Hong Kong

Ann Coady, Sat 21st May, 10.30am, Room 2401
link to prezi: http://prezi.com/m6ff-cnxni0w/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share
* = next slide
The masculine is unmarked / neutral

The study of language is scientifically

neutral; just a question of grammar

Man is the default member of the human Social hierarchy - class system, racism,
race, woman as abnormal, man absorbs human superior to all other animals.
woman (e.g. in names after marriage
Mrs Joe Blogs), Eve derived from Adam's
rib
Scientific ideal of neutrality

*CONCLUSION
This presentation was an attempt to bring attention back to the study of sexism in language. It may
been seen as a bit pass in the English-speaking world, but it's still a big pb in France (& other
languages with grammatical gender).
QL permits us to revisit sexist language from a much more nuanced perspective than a 2nd wave
perspective (avoiding a simplistic analysis of whether a particular word is sexist or not, but at the
same time, keeping a political dimension) + unravel grammatical norms, and reveal ideologies
which underpin them.
Using the framework of language ideologies allows us to see that how grammar is described, is
related to gender ideologies, and wider social ideologies, and how all these different ideologies
inform one another. And the 3 concepts of *iconization, fractal recursivity and erasure give us the
means to see exactly how language ideologies come about.
Although whether a word is understood as sexist or not is highly contextual, tracing the
development of sexism in language, and the ideologies that this is based on, is important in order to
analyse current attitudes to feminist linguistic reforms. *Many current opinions are based on what
people think is correct usage, i.e. what we were taught at school, and what we were taught at school
is based on official grammar books, and language bodies etc which have not always been
particularly neutral in their description of grammar.
Thank you for your attention!

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