Dr Aditi Ghosh

Department of
The Language Trouble:
Linguistics, Calcutta
University
Gender in Modern
aditi.gh@caluniv.ac.in Linguistics
• 1786 ~ 3rd Anniversary discourse by Sir William Jones
at the Asiatic Society Kolkata
• 1916 ~ Cours de Linguistique Générale by Ferdinande de Saussure
• 1921~ Language by Edward Sapir
• 1922 ~ Language by Otto Jespersen
• 1933~ Language by Leonard Bloomfield

• 1957~ Syntactic structures by Noam Chomsky

1/18/2019 The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University

 • Synchronic vs Diachronic
the study of static linguistics is generally much
more difficult than historical linguistics.
Evolutionary facts are much more concrete and
striking… but the linguistics that penetrates
values and co-existing relations present much
greater difficulties

• Langue vs Parole
Language (langue) exists in the form of sum of
expression in the deposit of brain of each member of
a community… … … speaking (parole) is thus not a
collective instrument; its manifestations are
individual and momentary … …
I shall only deal with the linguistics of language

1/18/2019
1/18/2019 The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University
• Rigorously scientific, in the light of his own mechanist,
interpretation of science, concentration on methodology and on
formal analysis ~ Robins
• Structural / descriptive linguistics
• Range widely through and around his subject, exploring its
relations with the literature, music anthropology and psychology.
• linguistic relativity
• There are tribes in which men and women speak totally different
languages

• Women’s dialect
 GENDER IN LANGUAGE
STRUCTURE

1/18/2019 The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University

 • “Japanese women show they are women when
they speak, for example, by the use of a
sentence-final particle ne or another particle
wa.
Women’s • “In Japanese, too, male speaker refers to
himself as boku or ore where as female uses
dialect watasi or atasi”
• Boku keaeru
• watasi kaeru wa “I will go back”
• Wardaugh, 2006, p 320
• Citing: Takahara. K. 1991. ‘Female
speech patterns in Japanese’.
International Journal of Sociology
of Language. 92: 61-85

The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta

1/18/2019
University
 Kurukh verb forms
Fasold 1990

Male Female Male speaker , Gloss

addressee speaker and female
addressee addressee
barday bardin bardi ‘you come’
barckay barckin arcki ‘ you came’

1/18/2019 The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Ling uistics, Calcutta University
 Language Speaker Form Gloss
Yana ( extinct Hokan Male yaa-na ‘person
language, North
California, USA) Female yaa ‘person’

Koasati (Muskogean Male ίίsks ‘you are saying’

language, Louisiana
and Texas, USA
Female ίίsk ‘you are saying’

Japanese Male boku ‘I’

Female atasi ‘I’

Data from Ethnologue. cited in Meyerhoff 2006:203

The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta

1/18/2019
University
Problems of (masculine) (feminine)
Books Shirt
grammatical face powder Lipstick
gender Thing Object
 Countries by
their gender

1/18/2019 The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University

• “Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense
or system in distribution; so the gender of each
must be learned separately and by heart. There
is no other way. To do this one has to have a The Awful
memory like a memorandum-book. In German,
a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. German
Think what overwrought reverence that shows
for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for
Language ~
the girl.” Mark Twain
 Gretchen.
Wilhelm, where is the turnip?
Wilhelm.
The Awful She has gone to the kitchen.
German Gretchen.
Where is the accomplished and beautiful
Language English maiden?
Wilhelm.
It has gone to the opera."
 On grammatical gender
and linguistic relativity

1/18/2019 The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University

Edward Sapir

• Language is a guide to ‘social reality.’ ...

The fact of the matter is that the ‘real world’
is to a large extent unconsciously built
upon the language habits of the group. No
two languages are sufficiently similar to be
considered as representing the same social
reality
The worlds in which different societies live
are Distinct worlds, not merely the same
world with different labels attached. ...
We see and hear and otherwise experience
very largely as we do because the language
habits of our community predispose
certain choices of interpretation.
GENDER-Spanish and German

Die Brücke – FEMININE

El puente MASCULINE

Boroditsky, & Phillips 2003

The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta

1/18/2019
University
GENDER-Spanish and German
German Spanish German Spanish
awesome big fragile long
Beautiful dangerous heavy secure
beautiful enormous metal solid
beautiful expansive narrow spanning
beautiful grand Paved strong
congested laborious Peaceful strong
desirable large Pretty sturdy
elegant long Short sturdy
Extended long
Slender thrilling
useful towering
The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta
1/18/2019
University
 Women’s dialect

The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University 1/18/2019

Jespersen [The Woman]
• There are tribes in which men and women speak totally different languages, or at any rate distinct
dialects
• Caribs (Dictionnaire Carraibe francais 1664)
• Sanskrit drama
• Tabus
• Where a man would say “ he told an infernal lie” the woman would rather say, ‘ he told a
most dreadful fib”. Such euphemistic substitutes for the simple word ‘hell’ … … probably
originated with women. They will also use ever to add emphasis … for surprise we have
feminine expression … ‘ goodness gracious’, ‘dear me’ …
• … women much more often than men break off without finishing their sentences
because they start talking without having thought what they are going to say…
 General characteristics
• Rapidity of thought
• Use of pronouns for the person not last
mentioned
• Tests show women read faster (one woman
Jespersen read four times faster than men)

[The Woman] Reasons for such differences

• Division of labour
• Superior readiness of speech of women is
concomitant of the fact that their vocabulary is
smaller and more central than that of men…
women do not reach same extreme points as
men but are nearer average in every aspects
The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University 1/18/2019
Women’s dialect in Bengali
~Sukumar Sen
First published in 1928

“ spread of literary education practically effaced the difference between linguistic

habit of sexes in the upper strata of the society”
“I had no opportunity to study the character and idiosyncrasies of females belonging
to the lower strata of the society”
“ by Bengali people, I mean people of West Bengal, specially of the districts lying on
both sides of Hoogly”

1/18/2019

The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University

Women’s dialect in Bengali

o OIA / MIA / NIA

o Bengali
o Noun/ Verb/ Adjective and other grammatical categories
o Relationship words/ phrases
o Taboos and euphemisms
o Proverbs
o Personal names

1/18/2019

The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University

o Substantives
o akaaj /agun/ anacchiSti/ aadikhyataa/ eyo
o Adjectives
o aalladi/doSSi/naacuni
o Relationship words
Women’s
o Dewor/ nanod/bhatar/bhagni dialect in
o Proverbs
Bengali
o aage jaamaai kaanThaal khaan na, seSe jaamaai
bhutio paan na
o maayer golaay dori, bouke poraay Dhaakai Saari
o Sakolei to meye, key jaacche paalki core, keu
royeche ceye
 • more conservative than men/ avoid
neologism
• More emphatic particles/ intensive
words
Women’s • Euphemism
dialect in • Superstitious … speech of modern
people have of course lost this
Bengali peculiarity
• Limited vocabulary
“Exceedingly fond of pejorative terms
and expressions … masters in the
exchange of saucy ridicule”

The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta

1/18/2019
University
 “ From the earliest days in the history of
mankind, women have a special environment of
her own … true for every country and every
people …. The difference may vary in different
people and different period”
“ In modern days less civilized people have
Women’s preserved some kind of sex dialects … though
languages of modern civilized people have no
sex dialect proper, yet almost all of them
dialect in preserve some characteristic idioms which
entirely, or almost entirely, confined to the
Bengali womenfolk.
Origin of different sex dialect lies in the
different psychologies … Women concerned
with her home and children … essentially timid
and superstitious … man has to find food for
her family … got to be bold and forward …
comes in greater touch with foreign people and
alien tongue

The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta

1/18/2019
University
 Women and men develop different patterns of language use

Observed Women tend to focus on the affective functions of an interaction

more often than men do
(testable)
trends Women tend to use linguistic devices that stress solidarity more
often than men do

(Holmes Women tend to interact in ways which will maintain and increase

1998) solidarity, while (especially in formal contexts) men tend to interact

in ways which will maintain and increase their power and status

Women are more flexible than men

The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University 1/18/2019

The gender difference hypothesis

• The idea that women and men use language

differently has a long history within
‘folklininguistics’, a term used by some
researchers to refer to sets of popular beliefs
about language.

~Mestrie et al, 2009: 213

The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University 1/18/2019

‘Women’s language’ has as foundation the attitude that women are marginal to the
serious concerns of life, which are pre-empted by men. The marginality and
powerlessness of women is reflected in both the ways women are expected to speak
and the ways in which women are spoken of. In appropriate women’s speech strong
expression of feeling is avoided, expression is favoured, and the means of
expression in regard to subject-matter deemed ‘trivial’ to the ‘real’ world are
elaborated
~ Robin Lakoff,
Language and Women’s Place,
1973
1/18/2019 The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University
Gender differences in language structure
Exclusive features Preferential features

• Used exclusively by or to • – used more frequently by some

speakers of a particular sex members of the sex than others
• auntie (as opposed to cousin) • What a terrific idea
• dewor/ bhaaSur/ jaa • What a divine idea
• shaala/ bhaayra

The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta

1/18/2019
University
 Gender in early
sociolinguistic
studies

The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University 1/18/2019

 class stratification of r

80

Stratification 60
1

of ‘r’ in NYC 40
2 &3

by class and 4&5

6 TO 8

style 20
9

0
casual careful reading word lists minimal pairs

1/18/2019 The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University

1/18/2019 The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University
Change below the level of conscious
awareness– women use more new variants
Eckert 2000
Jocks and burnouts study
Detroit suburban schools
Jocks – a school oriented community embodying middle class culture.
Burnouts – locally oriented community ( of practice) embodying working class culture

Northern cities shift – backing of [Λ] bus =boss

Change mostly restricted to “burnouts”/ within the groups girls use it more
1/18/2019 The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University
• Women conform more closely than men to sociolinguistic norms that are overtly
prescribed, but conform less than men when they are not 
• men are less conforming than women with stable linguistic variables, are more
conforming when change is in progress within a linguistic system
~ Labov 2001 pp281-2
(cited in Wardaugh 317)

1/18/2019 The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University

 Change above the level of conscious awareness–
women use more standard variants
• Interpretation :
• Women has greater sensitivity to what is standard or non standard
• Trudgill: In western educated societies men are evaluated on what they do and
women on how they appear
• Eckert: Women make greater use of symbolic resources (speech, dress, makeup ) to
establish their position in and identification with a social group or their opposition to
the group

1/18/2019 The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University

 • Women use
1. more standard forms AND
2. more new forms?
• ANS 1 is above the level of conscious
awareness/ 2 is below
Gender Gender paradox is only a paradox if it can be
shown that the women using the standard are the
paradox same women leading the innovative use
Paradox is only a result of analytic methods used
~ Eckert and McConnell- Ginnet, 2000
Problem in Lumping men/women together. Who
are the female speakers using the non-standards?
 • Bakir (1986)
• Sex Differences in the Approximation to Standard
Arabic: A Case Study
• Across six variables it was seen that women
When women consistently use the nonstandard (Iraqi Arabic
variants more than the standard (Classical Arabic)
use more non • Diglossic community – high variety learnt mostly
through formal education
-standards • However, even relatively well educated women
continues to use less Classical Arabic variants
• Opportunities to engage in public sphere is
restricted even for women with knowledge of
Classical Arabic
 • The very local communities that constitute their
own meanings of social identities including
Communities gender
• These local meanings, in turn, provide us with
of practice the level of information we need to understand
the way gender is part of larger web (or
hierarchy) of social relations
 “ there are more principled reasons for gender
replacing sex in sociolinguistics, and they reflect
many changes in the field. Some are changes in
Language and the way people think about social identities and
gender or some are changes in the way sociolinguists go
about gathering data.”
Language and
Meyerhoff 2006:202
sex?
 Gender as
performance

The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University 1/18/2019

 “Men and women … are members of cultures in which a
large amount of discourse about gender is constantly
circulating. They do not only learn, and then mechanically
reproduce, ways of speaking ‘appropriate’ to their own sex;
they learn a much broader set of gendered meanings that
attach in rather complex ways to different ways of speaking,
and they produce their won behaviour in the light of these
meanings …
Performing Performing masculinity or femininity ‘appropriately’
cannot mean giving the same performance regardless of the
gender circumstances. It may involve different strategies in mixed
and single-sexed company, in private and public settings, in
the various social positions (parent, lover, professional
friend) that someone might regularly occupy in the course of
everyday life”
Cameron 1998:280-1
 • Goffman 1974– gender and other social roles emerge
from our different activity
• Framing – how we set up the interpretive frame for
an interaction or event
• Footing – how we position ourselves and others
within this established interpretive frame
Gender as • Judith Butler 1988 --Gender is performative as iteration
of actions and ways of talking in social context acquires
performance constitutive force with a community – underlies social
meaning associated with action, event and categories
~Rejection of variation model which simplifies the
identity and treats it as deterministic
• Stresses the changes in gender role through life span
– personal history
 • ..though constrained by social expectations but
having the potential to engage with them
• Sometimes conforming
• Sometimes challenging
Shift in sociolinguistics –
Speakers as Instead of generating large chunk of data and
looking for language change
social agent Interest in long-term study of smaller number of
speakers in an attempt to understand where
gender and /or power and language meet
• Ocracoke English – raised diphthongs
• MOUTH aw
• PRICE ay
• Raised ay was most frequent among a group of middle aged men – a network of
poker players (all men) who strongly identified with a particular kind of islander
identity --- traditional waterman
• Among their peers (men and women) the raised variant is less common
• Raised aw favoured by middle aged women and gay men ( not part of the poker
network)
• Also have strong ties with the island, But do not share the traditional macho
world associated with fishing and crabbing

~Shilling-Estes, Natalie. 1998. “Investigating ‘self-conscious’ speech: the

performance of registrer in Ocracoke English”. Language in Society 27:53-83
1/18/2019 The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University
 Constitutive view of
gender

The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University 1/18/2019

Constitutive view of language A co-
relation between a linguistic behaviour
and a non-linguistic factor actually
helps to bring about and define (i.e.
constitute) the meaning of a social
category.
1/18/2019 The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University
Reflexive view of language --There is a
relationship between linguistic behaviour
and non-linguistic factor is that language
reflects identification with a social category
or a personal stance
early sociolinguistics ( inspired by
William Labov) made generalisations about
groups of people on the premise that
social category is reflected in speech
 • Certain speech acts ( orders/ requests…)
• Certain stances ( hesitancy/ assertiveness…)
Indirect • Social practices / discourse activities (making
indexing public speeches / soothing someone who is
upset)
 • Tag questions
Indirect • The house is beautiful. Isn’t it?
indexing • The issue of language and gender is quite
complicated. Don’t you think so?
• Conventional gender specific Japanese sentence final particles
• ze (male)
• wa (female)
• Association is probabilistic than reflexive
• ze ( assertiveness)
• wa (hesitancy) (Ochs 1992)

• Recent studies show different workplace have developed specific cultures

• In some workplace both men and women use the ‘masculine’ particle ‘ze’
• In others both men and women ‘feminine’ ‘wa’
1/18/2019 The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta University
 • Even though in common knowledge as well as
Strategic use according to some linguists wa and ze as
deterministically linked to sex, the reflect a lot
of gendered more than that.
language • there are several other factors one of the most
important being the context and negotiation
 • Hypothesis: particles wa and ga are being elided in speech (change
in progress) (seemingly below the level of conscious awareness)
• Assumption: women deleted these particles more often than men
do
• Findings
Strategic use • Women in single sex conversation deleted the particles most
often

of gendered • Men in single sex conversation are most likely to mark use the
particles

language • In mixed-sex conversation, the difference disappear

Takano, shoji (1998) a quantitative study of gender differences in

the ellipsis of the Japanese postpoitional particles –wa and –ga:
gender composition as a constraint on variability/ Language
Variation and Change 10”289-323
 The Language Trouble, Aditi Ghosh, Linguistics, Calcutta
1/18/2019
University
 • Bakir, Murtadha. "Sex Differences in the Approximation to
Standard Arabic: A Case Study." Anthropological Linguistics 28,
no. 1 (1986): 3-9. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30027941.
• Bloomfield, 1933. Language
Works cited • Boroditsky, L. & Philips, W. (2003). Can quirks of grammar affect

& some other the way you think? Grammatical gender and object
concepts. Proceedings of the 25th annual meeting of the
Cognitive Science Society, 928-933. Mahwah, NJ:
classic works Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Butler, Judith. "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An
on Language Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory." Theatre Journal
40, no. 4 (1988): 519-31. doi:10.2307/3207893.
and Gender • Cameron, Deborah (ed). 1998. The Feminist Critique of
Language. London and New York: Routledge
• Cameron, Deborah. 1998.
 • Cheshire, Jenny and Trudgill, Peter (eds). 1998. The Sociolinguistic
Reader, vol 2 Gender and Discourse. London: Arnold
• Coates, Jennifer (ed). 1998. Language and Gender: A Reader.
Oxford: Blackwell

Works cited • Goffman, Erving. 1974.Frame Analysis. Philadephia: University of

Pennsylvania Press

& some other • Holmes, j 1998. women’s talk: the question of sociolinguistic
universals

classic works • Jesperson. 1922 language

• Lakoff, Robin. 1973. ‘Language and Woman’s Place’. Language in
on Language Society. 2/1. 45-80
• Ochs, Elinor 1992
and Gender • Sapir 1921 language
ECKERT, PENELOPE. 1989. Jocks and burnouts: Social categories and
identity in the high school. New York: Teachers College Press
• Tannen, Deborah (ed) 1994. Gender and Discourse. Oxford: OUP