How gender shapes the world / Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (Language and Culture Research Center, James Cook University).

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Aĭkhenvalʹd, A. I︠U︡. (Aleksandra I︠U︡rʹevna), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sociolinguistics.

Language and languages--Sex differences.

Language and languages.

Physical Description:

xvi, 271 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2016.

Summary:

This is a book about the multi-faceted notion of gender. Gender differences form the basis for family life, patterns of socialization, distribution of tasks, and spheres of responsibilities. The way gender is articulated shapes the world of individuals, and of the societies they live in. Gender has three faces: Linguistic Gender-the original sense of 'gender'-is a feature of many languages and reflects the division of nouns into grammatical classes or genders (feminine, masculine, neuter, and so on); Natural Gender, or sex, refers to the division of animates into males and females; and Social Gender reflects the social implications and norms of being a man or a woman (or perhaps something else). Women and men may talk and behave differently, depending on conventions within the societies they live in, and their role in language maintenance can also vary. The book focuses on how gender in its many guises is reflected in human languages, how it features in myths and metaphors, and the role it plays in human cognition. Examples are drawn from all over the world, with a special focus on Aikhenvald's extensive fieldwork in Amazonia and New Guinea.

Contents:

1 The multifaceted Gender 1

1.1 Disentangling 'Gender' 1

1.2 What is special about Linguistic Gender 4

1.3 How this book is organized 6

1.4 The empirical basis, and a note on conventions 9

2 Linguistic Gender and its expression 13

2.1 Linguistic Gender in a nutshell 13

2.1.1 Marking Linguistic Gender 14

2.1.2 Gender agreement and anaphoric gender 15

2.1.3 Linguistic Gender and other linguistic categories 16

2.1.4 How many genders? 17

2.2 How to choose a Linguistic Gender 18

2.2.1 Gender choice by meaning 18

2.2.2 Gender choice by form 22

2.2.3 Meaning meets form: mixed principles of gender assignment 23

2.3 Markedness and Linguistic Genders 25

2.4 Linguistic Genders and their labels: envoi 29

3 Round women and long men: physical properties in Linguistic Gender 33

3.1 Small round women and long slender men 33

3.2 When 'women' are larger than 'men' 41

3.3 Physical properties in Linguistic Gender choice: contrasting the two scenarios 43

3.4 Beyond mere physique: attitude, value, and importance in Linguistic Gender 44

3.4.1 Endearment and disdain through Linguistic Gender 45

3.4.2 Value and importance in Linguistic Gender 47

4 What are Linguistic Genders good for? 52

4.1 Variable choice of Linguistic Gender 53

4.2 Linguistic Gender in discourse 57

4.3 The utility of Linguistic Gender 59

5 Gender meanings in grammar and lexicon 63

5.1 Sex, humanness, and animacy in classifier systems 63

5.1.1 Numeral classifiers 64

5.1.2 Noun classifiers 65

5.1.3 Verbal classifiers and other classifier types 67

5.1.4 Linguistic Genders and classifiers as noun categorization devices: commonalities and differences 68

5.2 Sex, humanness, and animacy in noun categories 69

5.3 Gender in gender-less languages 71

6 The rise and fall of Linguistic Genders 76

6.1 Developing Linguistic Gender 76

6.1.1 From generic nouns to Linguistic Genders 77

6.1.2 From generic nouns to noun classifiers and then to Linguistic Genders 79

6.1.3 From anaphoric gender to agreement gender 81

6.1.4 From derivational gender to agreement gender 81

6.1.5 Linguistic Gender from other nominal categories 82

6.2 Reshaping Linguistic Genders 83

6.3 Partial loss and reinterpretation of gender: the story of English 85

6.4 Linguistic Gender in language contact 87

6.4.1 To lose a Linguistic Gender 87

6.4.2 Evolving a Linguistic Gender 88

6.4.3 Readjusting Linguistic Gender 90

6.4.4 Linguistic Gender in language obsolescence 91

6.5 Linguistic Gender in language acquisition and language dissolution 92

6.6 Linguistic Gender and language reforms 93

6.7 Linguistic Genders, their development, demise, and transformations 94

7 Manly women and womanly men: the effects of gender reversal 99

7.1 Reversing Linguistic Genders with jocular effects 100

7.2 Offence and praise in Linguistic Gender reversals 102

7.3 Linguistic Gender reversal: endearment and solidarity 105

7.4 Men as women, women as men: a summary of Linguistic Gender reversals 108

7.5 Attitudes to Social Genders through Linguistic Gender reversals 109

7.6 'Women' as a subtype of 'men'? The overtones of masculine generics 112

7.7 Markedness, status, and power in Linguistic Gender choice 114

8 The images of gender 120

8.1 Myth-and -belief in the choice of Linguistic Gender 120

8.2 The metaphors of Linguistic Gender 121

8.3 Does Linguistic Gender affect cognition? 126

8.4 What men and women look like 127

8.5 'Gendering' the world: images, metaphors, and cognition 132

9 When women and men speak differently 136

9.1 'Male' and 'female' dialects 136

9.1.1 How male and female dialects differ 138

9.1.2 Speakers and addressees of male and female dialects 141

9.1.3 Male and female dialects, and language history 142

9.1.4 Male and female speech on the way out 144

9.1.5 Beyond Natural Gender 145

9.1.6 Politeness, identity, and change: male and female dialects in Japanese and Thai 148

9.2 Gender-variable skills: men's and women's speech practices 152

9.2.1 Social status, and women's speech 152

9.2.2 Tokens of men and women in gender-variable languages 154

9.3 The other genders 158

9.4 Male speech, female speech: a summary 160

10 The rituals of gender 166

10.1 Social Gender, speech genres, and speech practices 166

10.2 The languages of manhood 168

10.3 Secrets, avoidance, and taboos: what women are not supposed to know 169

10.4 Men, women, and language change 175

10.5 Language keepers or language killers? Women and language maintenance 177

10.5.1 Women as language keepers 177

10.5.2 Women leading language shift 177

10.5.3 Women and modernity 178

10.5.4 Women as language killers 179

10.6 Summary; Social Gender through rituals, genres, and speech practices 181

11 Gender in grammar and society 185

11.1 What Linguistic Gender can tell us about Social Gender 185

11.2 Social inequalities through gender asymmetries 186

11.3 The value of 'man' through gender in lexicon 190

11.4 How Linguistic Genders reflect social change 191

11.5 Thwarting 'sexist language' 194

11.5.1 Masculine bias through Linguistic Gender: pronouns and agreement 195

11.5.2 Fighting the 'generic masculine' throughout the language 201

11.5.3 Bias in address terms and naming patterns 204

11.6 Expression of Linguistic Gender and social change: a summary 206

12 The heart of the matter: envoi 212.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 218-250) and indexes.

ISBN:

9780198723752

019872375X

OCLC:

959692340