Introduction to Language and Gender

Author: (English) Mary Talbot | Translator
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-09-01
Features: A collection of recent works on language and gender studies, which opens with the argument: "Just as we rarely question our ability to breathe, we rarely question the habit of dividing humans into two categories—male and female" [Bergeron, Bing, and Fried (1996:1)]. The authors of the chapter, American linguists Janet Bing and Victoria Bergvall, continue to explore the following questions: Why do humans need to impose categories and boundaries on experience to understand it? This is very familiar to linguists. Our various experiential boundaries are quite fuzzy, lacking clear limits, while language assigns things to clearly defined categories, imposing boundaries, restrictions, and divisions on reality. Bing and Bergvall note, for example, that we have two distinct categories, "day" and "night," yet the actual boundary between day and night is unclear. We cannot precisely determine when day ends or when night falls. Day and night are polar categories imposed on us by language, while the reality of time itself is a continuous unity. Similarly, sociolinguists interested in dialect continua are accustomed to dealing with fuzzy boundaries. However, it is very difficult to determine where one dialect or language ends and another begins. In conclusion, Bing and Bergvall derive the conclusion that many of our experiences are best described as continuous unities, and polar opposing categories are often inaccurate. I have already discussed how gender is a continuous unity, so it is meaningful to discuss the degree of masculinity and femininity. We can say that one person is more feminine than another, but men and women are indeed two distinct categories, aren’t they? Yes, usually they are; but not always. Evidence suggests that sex is also a continuous unity. In the previous section, I introduced the basic factors that determine fetal sex development, but sometimes things are different. For example, within eight weeks, a fetus with an X chromosome and a Y chromosome may fail to receive the key male hormone testosterone. This could be due to insufficient testosterone. Or, there may be enough male hormone, but the timing of its action is wrong. Such "errors" mean that fetal development will exhibit both male and female characteristics. Not everyone is born male or female. Some are both, some are neither, and some are undetermined. According to the statistics cited by Bing and Bergvall, one in 30,000 newborns is a hermaphrodite. They note, "Although hermaphroditic births are not rare, this is rarely mentioned, even though some tabloids frequently report sensational stories like 'intercourse with extraterrestrials' or 'Elvis has returned.'" In industrialized societies, medicine also intervenes, forcibly distinguishing men and women as two poles. Through surgical procedures and hormone treatments, these gender exceptions are "corrected." Given these circumstances, it should not be surprising that even doctors admit: physiological sex, like gender, is socially constructed [Bing and Bergvall (1996:8–9)]. In some writings on language and gender, there is a tendency to view social psychological categories like masculinity and femininity as polar opposites. This tendency is particularly pronounced in works discussing different communication styles between men and women, especially in popular and mainstream literature (see Chapter 5). These studies drive essentialism out the front door, only to let it sneak in through the back door. That is, researchers reject biological essentialism but replace it with equally bad social essentialism. The obsession with polar differences is a theoretical concern that I will discuss in the final chapter of the second part. The part of this book shares the same tendency as some of the studies introduced in the second part, treating the division between physiological sex/social gender as certain. The author’s goal is to find differences in language behavior between male and female members within polar opposing categories, explaining that men speak this way and women speak that way. Other studies avoid this situation, with the authors more likely investigating the correlation between language and gendered social roles (such as a person’s position in the family) rather than the correlation between language and gender itself. Bing and Bergvall’s outlook is not optimistic. They point out that although we are increasingly aware of the problems of gender polarization and gender stereotyping, "there will still be as many students starting their semester research projects with questions like, 'How different is the language of men and women.'" Such questions reinforce deeply rooted beliefs, and facts alone cannot shake them. I really hope their prediction is wrong. (P12-14)