Language and Gender Exam 1

Structuralism

"... views society as made up of social categories that constituted a system of parts so interrelated that changes in any part would have repercussions for the entire system. Male and female were viewed as two clearly defined and opposite categories, whose separate roles were an organizing principle that kept society on an even keel" A method of synchronic linguistic analysis employing structuralism, especially in demonstrating contrasts between formal structures, such as different phonemes or sentence structures, that make up systems, such as phonology or syntax.

minimal responses/backchanneling

"Hmm", "yeah". Women support what men say - overwhelmingly more than men

Agentless passives

"She was raped." "She was sexually assaulted."

Lakoff's "double bind,"

"So a girl is damned if she does, damned if she doesn't. If she refuses to talk like a lady, she is ridiculed and subjected to criticism as unfeminine; if she does learn [to talk like a lady], she is ridiculed as unable to think clearly, unable to take part in a serious discussion: in some sense, as less than fully human. These two choices which a woman has—to be less than a woman or less than a person—are highly painful."

Folk-linguistics

"a womans tongue wags like a lambs tongue"

target domain

"love", often abstract. a semantic domain that is structured and understood metaphorically in terms of another domain. Example: emotion can be a target domain, such as in "I feel down"

social networking theory of language evolution

(Robin Dunbar). Grooming to gossip

the extreme male brain theory

(Simon Baron-Cohen). Work on autism on the brain. Men more often have autism. Autistic people have a masculine brain. People with autism have trouble with empathy. Women better at empathy, men better at systemizing.

2nd wave feminism

1960s and 1970s-concerned with the issue of economic equality between the genders and the inclusion of women in traditionally male- dominated areas -radical feminism, liberal feminism, cultural feminism, Marxist feminism

Corpus Callosum

A major neural system connecting the two hemispheres. Bigger in women

Ethnography

A scientific methodology or research strategy that is often used in the social sciences for gathering empirical data on human societies and cultures. Data collection is often done through participant observation and interviews. It aims to describe the nature of those who are studied (ethnos - description) through writing (graphy- writing)

Water buffalo

A white student at the University of Pennsylvania was irritated by the noise some black students were making and told them they were behaving like a 'herd of water buffalo'

Language ideologies

An expectation that people have about language/how people should speak, Or observations on how people do speak. Extremely influential. men= low pitch, monotone, loud, hard. women= high pitch, variable intonation, quite, shrill. Examples of this in romance novels. Other ex: margaret thatcher's voice makeover.

Conversational maintenance work

Attention getters (twice as often). "Now this is interesting Questions (2.5 times as often. Ritualized rhetorical questions. "Do you know what?" (twice as often). Minimal responses or backchannels "Hmm", "yeah" Women support what men say - overwhelmingly more than men. "Conversational shitwork >>> conversational insecurity

be like vs. be all

Be all - preppy girls - "vapid trendiness" - more drama Go > Be like > Say. Social groups oriented to these differently. And important id resource for identity work at this high school

pitch adaptation

Before puberty, vocal cords same size in boys and girls. Pitch adaptation in infants, Lieberman: alone, baby babbles at 430 Hz. With mom, baby babbles at 390 Hz. 340 Hz with dad

social explanations for gender difference in language

Biernat, Manis, and Nelson's (1991) research on height perception, Lieberman's (1976) research on pitch adaptation in infants, Average pitch vs. pitch range in men and women

Nicknames

By mocking the subject and making the named person look foolish, nicknames give special powers to the provider. The purpose of a nickname is not just to mock but also to entertain. e.g. "Low Energy Jeb," "Little Marco," "Lyin' Ted," "Pocahontas," and "Crooked Hillary"

cognitive research on metaphor

Cognitive models of metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). Target Domain vs. Source Domain. Love in American English. Metaphors of communication in English (Reddy 1979). Conduit metaphor- Ideas are object, words are containers, communication is sending. Orientational metaphors (Lakoff and Johnson 1980)

markedness

Demonstrate linguistic asymmetries. Animal terminology (dog/bitch, lion/lioness). Pairs of opposites, the male term is the more neutral. Semantically unmarked (neutral) vs. marked. Lion example, female (lioness) is more marked than male. Human Terminology- actor/actress, master/mistress, duke/duchess. master/mistress: master means talented, mistress means "sleeping around". Female terms have taken on sexual or demeaning meaning. Marked terms die out while unmarked do not

Eleanor Maccoby

Did research on gender in childhood. (1) a laboratory study of same-sex orientation among 33 month year olds (2) same-sex orientation in the "carpet study"

Multicultural feminism

Different kinds of multicultural feminism. Black, Chicana, Postcolonial, Third world, Transnational feminism

vocal cords and vocal cavity

Different sizes of cavity and speeds at which cords vibrate influence pitch of sound. Bigger cavity = deeper pitch. Lower frequency

Lexical gaps

Don't have feminine counterpart. Such as mailman, fisherman, doorman. Terms for women's sexual experience (Stanley & Robins 1978)- Lack of terms to refer to... women's seual experience, sexualized, body parts, and seual potency. To have sex, have an orgasm = sex neutral. To screw, penetrate, boink = requires male subject?

negative politeness

Don't impose

polar opposites

Each of the contrasting categories is treated as on a par, complete with it own distinguishing properties. (man vs. boy vs. girl vs. woman) Gender and age are organizing principles in the polarized oppositions chart

substitute languages

Everyday language (specific terms) vs. avoidance language (generic terms). English is a sub. Language in India for sexual body parts, activity, desire

privative relations

Example: The generic masculine. A generic default alternative category is defined as lacking the distinctive properties that group together the marked category

Franz Boas

Father of american anthropology. Established need/value of looking at native american languages

social research on metaphor

Folk models of electricity among American high school students (Gentner & Gentner 1982). Can explain electric circuit through moving crowd or hydraulic system. Emily Martin's (1991) work on metaphorical gender in scientific discourses on Sexuality. Egg and the sperm. Explores metaphorical systems that undergird scientific discourses on secuality. Folk models of sexuality among american hs students. Egg is quiet and waiting, sperm is strong and active. Deborah Cameron's (1992) article on terms for the penis among American college students

Social gender

For example: In English,the pronouns 'he' and 'she' refer to a man and woman, respectively. English has social gender, not grammtical

naturalization processes

French vs. US cuts of beef

generic masculines

Generic man vs. generic he. "Stone age man", "bronze age man". Generic man: manmade, manpower, man-to-man, to man a post. Generic he: everyone thinks he has the answer. No one could blame himself for that.

Pragmatic gestures (also called interactive gestures)

Hand movements such as beats or points that do not depict the social world but rather accentuate or illustrate the rhetorical structure of a speech

orientational/spatial metaphors

Happy is up, sad is down. Metaphors based in embodied experiences. Source domains are often based in physical experiences that are universal

time in Hopi

Hopi vs. English, grammatical category of number. English- days, weeks, months. Spoons, pens, cats. Hopi- first day, second day. Cyclical. Different world views. Hopi- emphasize continuity rather than change. See world as ongoing set of processes. Time and space flow into each other. No concept of past, present, and futures as distinctive entities. English- change rather than continuity. Regard almost everything as discrete, measurable, countable, and recurrent. Time and space are apportioned into fixed arguments. past , present, and future are as distinctive as pens and pencils

sexual division of labor theory of language evolution

Hunters vs. gatherers. Men are initiators of language

physiological accounts of gender difference in language

Hypothalamus, hormones, and aggressive behavior, and corpus callosum account for differences

Standard vs. nonstandard grammar

I didn't do anything vs. I ain't done nothing

cross-cultural (mis)communication

Idea developed people in different social group learn different patterns of communication and may misunderstand eachother when they converse. Men and women have dif. Languages before they grow up separately. Women focus on connection. Rapport talk- Used more by women, The use of language to create connections; Feeling-based. Men focus on status and hierarchy. Report talk- Used more by men, Use of language to impart info. Fact-based. Ex: New york vs. berkeley at thanksgiving had different styles of talking, resulted in miscommunication.

the conduit metaphor

Ideas are object, words are containers, communication is sending

ESL and identity

Identity matters in education. Gendered speech styles as resources of identity

marked vs. unmarked

In linguistics and social sciences, markedness is the state of standing out as unusual or difficult in comparison to a more common or regular form. In a marked-unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is the broader, dominant one. The dominant default or minimum-effort form is known as unmarked; the other, secondary one is marked. In other words, markedness involves the characterization of a "normal" linguistic unit against one or more of its possible "irregular" forms.

linguistic asymmetries

In pairs of opposites, the male term is the more neutral. (dog/bitch, lion/lioness).

Slang

Informal, rapidly changing vocab that appear to have origins within specific social groups. Often concerned w topics that are taboo in adult mainstream (drugs, sex). Or in evaluation (something is very good or bad)Taboo in linguistic and cultural anthropology. "Mother-in-law languages"- change vocab if talking about mother in law or if in room. Death, sex, love, and the body are often universally taboo. The f-word in historical perspective- words that sound like f-word have dropped out of vocabulary

communicative competence

Interactional expectations Eye contact, Turn-taking (gap and overlap), Pitch, loudness raised/lowered intonation. Develop differently in different speech communities

Otto Jespersen

Jespersen's (1922) psychologically and sociologically oriented revisions of early claims d. Examples of languages with 'gender-exclusive' patterns and researcher opinions on why

involvement vs. independence

Jewish new yorkers (high involvement style) vs. berkeley-ites (independence)

speech community

John Gumperz Early work on "speech community". Linguistic competence vs. communicative competence. Different cultures have dif. Kind of interactional expectations

dude

Kiesling's "cool solidarity". Both solidarity and distance: discourse marker, exclamation, confrontational, connection, agreement

Jesperson's evolutionary model of gender differences in speech

Language becomes more gender-preferential over time. Linguistic exoticism- early groups haven't had contact with modern society. Evolutionary- primitive to civilized

Verbal hygiene

Language standardization. Educational and governmental enforcement of a "standard language". Policies against the use of vernaculars and minority languages in school. Codification in dictionaries. Language purification. Legislation on what should be the official language or languages of a nation-state. Political correctness

Top-down verbal hygiene

Language standardization. Standard language enforcement in education and gov.

kogal slang

Laura miller's research on slang and "kogals" in Japan. Going against expectations of proper, feminine way of acting. Use lots of japanese-english. Said to be responsible for emojis. American vs. japanese emoticons :-) vs. (^_^) "Banzai smiley"

positive politeness

Maintain camaraderie

Emblematic gesture (also called quotable gestures)

May sometimes be used in place of speech to displace responsibility for taboo topics E.g. Trump's pistol hand (conveys arrogance, sovereign power, and commanding force)

cool solidarity

Men use dude to show intimacy and also to show they're not too intimate. In male friendships, like between being too close is very important. Marking a particular type of masculinity- enables users to develop "cool solidarity"

Nortenas vs. surenas

Mexican American female gang members in the Bay Area. Nortenas: red, burgundy, motown oldies, feathered hair, deep red lipstick, solid then liquid eyeliner, english, jocks. Surenas: blue, navy, banda music vertical ponytail, brown lipstick, solid eyeliner only spanish

hijras in India

Most raised as boys, unhappy with how they were treated. Pushed out of homes before puberty. Place in society- blass newborn babies. Some get castrated. Language and embodiment- Distinctive for flat palmed claps, Dance for a living. Sexual insult- Known to be intense cursors, bad language. Claim a place and right to exist through sexual insult. Curses and blessings- Bless women to have many children. Secret language: hijra-farsi. Alternating uses of feminine and masculine speech

Clowning

Nontraditional Latina gender styles... Challenges to traditional notions of femininity. Latina gang members. Calo: ritual boasting. Traditionally associated with men. Trying to breakdown stereotypes of gangs

gender-preferential languages

Not exclusive languages. Solidarity vs. hierarchy

Critiques of Tannen's theory

Not speaking for all women's experiences. Some people don't fall into her pattern of gendering. Non biased. Not critical of males or females, so not presenting this as a problem, stance not strong enough. Essentialism, assumes all women talk same way - but more difference intra-group then intergroup. Community of practice model would be stronger

tabooistic distortion

Oh fudge, shoot, darn it, doggone it. Words with taboo meaning- sexuality, body parts, F-word, words fell out of vocabulary because they are similar to ****

hertz (Hz)

One cycle of vibration per second

feminism

Out of date def? Anyone who believes that women a men should have equivalent rights and representation economically, politically, legally, and socially

Equal Pay act (1963)

Passed June 10, 1963; became effective June 11, 1964. Through this act, it became illegal to pay women lower rates for the same job strictly on the basis of their sex

four classic subfields of anthropology

Physical anthropology. Archaeology, Cultural anthro, Linguistic anthro

bottom up verbal hygiene

Political Correctness. Attempts to make language more inclusive of minorities and women

critiquing empirical studies

Problems with interpretation. 'Women's speech or "powerless' speech? When using women's language, they're less likely to be taken seriously; non-authoritative. Problems with generalizations- Generalizing from small-scale to "all" men and women. Contextual consideration- Is the laboratory the same as everyday conversation in the "real world"? Problems with formal identification- Interruption vs. overlap. Problems with functional interpretations- varying functions of discourse markers: like

1850 Act of Parliament

Replaced "he/she" with just "he"

Phonemes

Smallest unit of distinctive sound

features of Lakoff's "women's language,"

Specialized vocab plated to specific interests. Empty adjectives. Question intonation. Hedges. Emphatics, such as "so". Hypercorrect form. Super Polite forms. Avoidance of jokes. Use of italics

Left hemisphere

Speech, logic

same-sex playgroups in childhood

Study by Eleanor Maccoby w/33 month year olds. A lab study of same-sex orientation among 33 month year olds. Same-sex orientation (preference) in the "carpet study". Awareness of one's own gender in the presence of others

Phonetics

Study of inventory and structure of sounds of a language that determine how sounds pattern in a language

Semantics

Study of meaning in human language

neo-Whorfian approaches to language and culture

Substance in Yucatec Maya. Yucatec focus on material rather than shape. Numerical classifier language- always uses a classifier that tell you about the substance that follows. English speakers geared more towards shapes. Space in Guugu-Yimiddhir- Stephen levinson. Lacks spatial terms relative to body orientation. Describing location or motion- Where the salt? there, to the east. Egocentric vs. absolute directional systems. Rainforest vision- Took guugu-yimidhirr into forest and spun them around. Avg. error was 13.9. Dutch speakers couldn't not achieve a 90 degree error in related tasks. Telling narratives- Telling story about jumping off a boat

conversational insecurity

Suggest hesitation and uncertainty

gratuitous modifiers

Surgeon vs female surgeon. Words we think are generic arent as generic as we think. More ex: women policeman, woman lawyer, WNBA, . Also: male nurse, female flight attendant. A black man, an african american suspect, paraplegic man, an hispanic man (often marked if different from the norm, like race or disability).Argument: the continuous declaration of a persons race makes people of that race more associated w/ crime such as "an american american subject"

Morphology

System of categories and rules involved in word formation and interpretation

African american

Term that has changed due to semantic pejoration - took on a bad association because group is marginalized. Some people still find it offensive

Semantic pejoration

Terms changed because they have undergone - language change - take on bad associations because groups are marginalized

linguistic reclamation/resignification

Terms that have been given bad meanings have been changed to be positive. Ex: n-word

radical feminism

The 'root' cause of women's oppression is in patriarchal gender relations as opposed to legal systems (liberal feminism) or class conflict (Marxist feminism). Premise: the systemic oppression of women by men is the root of all oppression- Patriarchy: the structural power of men over women-Men don't necessarily 'deliberately' oppress women; the problem is systemic. Goal is to eliminate patriarchy

liberal feminism

The 'root' cause of women's oppression is legal systems as opposed to patriarchy (radical feminism) or class conflict (Marxist feminism). Premise: Genders are different and unequal; women should be able to have all the privileges that men share. Goal: To increase legal representation for women as equal partners of men

Yo

The Baltimore gender-neutral pronoun. "Yo" used as a replacement for "you". Possibly gender neutral

unconscious language habits

The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group... We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation

Gestural space

The personal space appropriated in the execution of gesturing. e.g. hunched body reading a script for Hillary Clinton, stiff upper body for Mitt Romney, and a huddled sleeping body for Jeb Bush uses small gestural space to critique the political establishment. Trump himself uses gestural excess to convey impression that he is a new kind of politician

contextualization cues

The rules to everyday conversation (eye contact, proximity)

Morpheme

The smallest meaningful unit in the grammar of a language

Phonology

The study of elements and principles

Pragmatics

The study of how context and situation affect meaning (the study of how what is conveyed outstrips what is literally said)

Discourse

The study of spoken or written language use in particular social situations (beyond the level of the sentence)

Sociolinguistic variation

The study of the way language varies in communities of speakers and concentrates in particular on the interaction of social factors (such as a speaker's gender, ethnicity, age, degree of integration into their community, etc) and linguistic structures (such as sounds, grammatical forms, intonation features, words, etc).

Taboo

Topics we don't talk about. Went across genders and affected gender differentiation

Sexuality

Traditional- Differentiation based on the sex or gender of those toward whom individuals have an erotic attachment or interest (homo-/hetero-). Class- Erotic or reproductive orientation.

Gender

Traditional- Sociocultural differences of social actors (feminine/masculine). Class- sociocultural differentiation of female and male (feminine/masculine) using sociocultural justification OR gender [is] a social construction—the means by which society jointly accomplishes the differentiation that accomplishes the gender order

Sex

Traditional- biological differentiation of bodies (female/male). Class- sociocultural differentiation of female and male using biological justification. Based on a combination of anatomical, endocrinal, and chromosomal features

Trump's gestures

Trump goes against normativity to stand out through his use of gestures.

Anti-political correctness

Trump uses it to bring down the political establishment, separates himself from his opponents, an adversarial stance to the norms in politics

U Chicago statement on trigger warnings

University of Chicago sent a welcome letter to incoming freshmen with a statement that opposed some hallmarks of campus political correctness. "Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called trigger warnings, we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual 'safe spaces' where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own"

Landmark cues

Used to navigate, use places and landmarks to navigate. Women use more often

Geometrical cues

Used to navigate, uses directions and distance. Men use more often

Comedic entertainment

Uses entertainment as a political platform. "He used his craft as an entertainer to forge a new hybrid of politics and comedy."

Humor

Uses his speeches, gestures, and humor to bring entertainment value which ultimately leads to his political success. The power of laughter = intimacy, affiliation

biological explanations for gender difference in language

Vocal cords and vocal cavities, Hormones as influencing pitch (ex. boys' choirs and trans men)

Anatomical

Western medical profession imposes stringent requirements for male and female genitals at birth. An estimated 1 in 1000 babies do not fit these requirements and are said to be born with " ambiguous genitalia. " These children are sometimes diagnosed as intersexed.

Transition-relevance place (TRP)

When there is a pause it's a good time for another person to take a turn talking

false generics

Why we know generic masculines aren't exactly neutral. the words themselves dont force the gendered defaults, but their employment in discourse supports default male interpretations. "The committee included three brazilians and a woman". Brazilians should include men and women but its made into something that excludes women. If sentences using he as generic sounds weird to us, can it really be used as gender neutral?

Deborah Tannen

Writer of 'You Just Don't Understand: Men and Women in Conversation', a book reacting to the dominance-based approach to male and female speech styles. Attempted to explain male-female miscommunication by labelling it 'cross-cultural communication', due to the fact that men and women could be considered part of separate subcultures, as in the difference approach. [1990]

source domain

X, often concrete. a concept that is metaphorically used to provide the means of understanding another concept. Example: directions can be the source domain for feelings "I feel down"

lexical replacement

Zulus in Africa- wife cant mention name of father-in-law and his brothers. Harry- can't use words that sound similar. Come up with many replacements to avoid saying taboo words

Political correctness

_____ in the 1990s. Multiculturalism hits academia. Feminism diversifies. Queer theory is born. College campuses begin instituting speech codes against hate speech and creating safe space zones for minority students. A social history of the term African American, according to Prof. Geneva Smitherman. African, colored, negro, black, african american, people of color. Terms changed because they have undergone semantic pejoration - language change - take on bad associations because groups are marginalized

"The new biologism"

a 21st century revival of the traditional view that differences between men and women are not, as feminists would have it, "socially constructed," but natural, rooted in our biological make-up.

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (Whorfian Hypothesis)

a concept-paradigm in linguistics and cognitive science that holds that the structure of a language affects its speakers' cognition or world view.

Sociolinguistic variable

a linguistic feature which correlates with some. non-linguistic independent variable of social context: of the speaker, addressee, audience, setting, etc.

mirror neurons

a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another

diacritic

a sign, such as an accent or cedilla, which when written above or below a letter indicates a difference in pronunciation from the same letter when unmarked or differently marked.

Trigger warnings

a statement at the start of a piece of writing, video, etc., alerting the reader or viewer to the fact that it contains potentially distressing material (often used to introduce a description of such content).

physiology and/or evolutionary psychology

a theoretical approach to psychology that attempts to explain useful mental and psychological traits—such as memory, perception, or language—as adaptations, i.e., as the functional products of natural selection.

Depictive gestures (also called iconic gestures)

a type of gesture that caricatures opponents by embodying a behavior of activity associated with them. Signal to Trump's base that he challenges the political establishment and political correctness. Also can be anything that represents an action, like picking up a phone.

discourse markers

a word or phrase whose function is to organize discourse into segments, for example well or I mean. little contact but have significant pragmatic functions. Structure, breaking up speech, show relationships, brackets. Discourse markers are the "glue" that hold discourse together. Examples: actually, yeah, like, but, oh, um, you know.... (as hedge, focus, approximation, new information, hypothetical)

linguistic relativity

also known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis or Whorfianism, is a concept-paradigm in linguistics and cognitive science that holds that the structure of a language affects its speakers' cognition or world view. The linguistic relativity principle ...means, in informal terms, that users of markedly different grammars are pointed by their grammars toward different types of observations and different evaluations of externally similar acts of observation, and hence are not equivalent as observers but must arrive at somewhat different views of the world.

Disintegration of the "nuclear family,"

b/c women typically stayed home while men worked, women developed "another language"

hypothalamus

clump of nerve cells at base of human brain, thought to produce hormones. Bigger in men

Trannie

controversy about the term and whether we should use it or not. Jack Halberstam's article "You are Triggering Me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger, and Trauma." (2014). He argues that "When we obliterate terms like "tranny" in the quest for respectability and assimilation, we actually feed back into the very ideologies that produce the homo and trans phobia in the first place!"

interruption

deliberate attempts to take the floor from another speaker. Often, not close to a transition-relevance place (TRP). A point in a speaker's turn.... Often raised volume. Usually, one speaker succeeds and continues. Same- sex conversations: interruptions evenly distributed. Cross-sex dyads: men produced 96% of the interruptions and the women only 4%. Conclusions: asymmetry in speakers ability to hold the floor in conversations. Where and who? College students, predominately a particular race and age. Critique: does it reflect actual conversation? No clear research evidence that men interrupt more in every situation, BUT: Overall, men in studies interrupted women more than they interrupted men, women in studies interrupted both genders equally, women in studies used more supportive overlap

absolute directions

directions of a compass, doesn't change

egocentric directions

directions such as left, right. Uses self as point of reference

Marked and unmarked forms

doctor vs. female doctor, nurse vs. male nurse. remember example from simpsons, lisa tries to buy a dolphin

Gestural enactments

e.g. The wrist-flailing reporter, food-shoveling governor, border-crossing Mexican

linguistic exoticism

early groups haven't had contact with modern society. Evolutionary- primitive to civilized. So called "primitive languages. Example: Whorf when he investigated Hopi and thought they perceive time differently.

universalism

emphasizes innate biological and psychological determinism. belief in the existence of a shared species-wide language faculty grounded in human biology

communities of practice

formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor. Discussion of Mary Bucholtz's article on the quotatives be all vs. be like in an American high school. The geography of population. ethnography. Popular kids ("preppy" kids). Nerds. Early studies ignore how speech figures become linked to identity as associated with particular communities of practice

Grammatical gender

gender based on arbitrary assignment, without regard to the referent of a noun, as in French le livre (masculine), "the book," and German das Mädchen (neuter), "the girl.".

epicene (or gender-neutral) pronouns

gender neutral pronouns such as they

metaphorical gender

knives are male, spoon are female. Pepper male, salt female. Machines, nature, and nations are designated as female in english.

strong version of Sapir-Whorf

linguistic determinism. the idea that language and its structures limit and determine human knowledge or thought

weak version of Sapir-Whorf

linguistic relativism. also known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis or Whorfianism, holds that the structure of a language affects its speakers' cognition or world view.

contrastive fields

men vs. woman are contrastive. They have different meanings depending on context

gender-exclusive languages

mens languages and womens languages. Dont speak each others language

Terms of address

name words, and phrases used as vocatives. Ex: "Hey ____". Nicknames, kinship terms, first middle and last names, etc.

Sexual selection theory of language evolution

natural selection arising through preference by one sex for certain characteristics in individuals of the other sex. Public and adversarial speech genres. Men use language to court women. Disputes idea that women are better at speech. Argue men have stronger verbal ability than women. Peacocks have bright feathers to court women, despite the feathers attracting predators and making survival harder

categorization

overarching terms for different things e.g. some languages have 1 term for fruits and nuts, they are categorized under the same term. Cross-cultural differences in conceptual classifications.

Right hemisphere

perceptual and spatial functions

relativism

philosophical position claims that experience in the forms of culturally mediated activity plays a crucial and determinative role in cognition

classifier language

provides information about the substance of the noun, is a word that is used to accompany nouns and can be considered to "classify" the noun depending on the type of its referent.

Quotatives

quote other people's words or body movements (gestural enactment)

deictic pronouns

refers to words and phrases, such as "me" or "here", that cannot be fully understood without additional contextual information

evolutionary accounts of gender difference in language

sexual division, social networking, extreme male brain, sexual selection

Overlap

simultaneous speech that does not seek to take over another speaker's turn

slang and identity

slang reveals who you are a social citizen and the communities you do/dont identity with

jargon

technical vocabulary (ex: engineering jargon)

Diachronic linguistics

the description and explanation of how language changes over time

linguistic determinism

the idea that language and its structures limit and determine human knowledge or thought, as well as thought processes such as categorization, memory, and perception. The term implies that people of different languages have different thought processes. Boas misinterpreted the eskimos many words for snow. Supports idea that language reflects culture

linguistic anthropology

the interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life.

pitch

the quality of a sound governed by the rate of vibrations producing it; the degree of highness or lowness of a tone. Influenced by physical diffs. In the vocal chords and cavity in men and women

metaphysics

the structure of language contains a theory of the structure of the universe

Syntax

the system of rules and categories that underlies sentence formation in human language

Bricolage

the way we style ourselves without knowing it, as part of communities. This is something created from a diverse range of available things

singular sex-indefinite referent

they

complementary schismogenesis

when speaking w/ someone they do something that puzzles you and you react to it by doing something that puzzles them, over and over, until the conversation blows up

semantic pejoration

when terms take on bad connotations over historical periods. change whereby a word acquires unfavourable connotations. Ex: feminism?

Cultural feminism

women and men are biologically, naturally or socially different. developed from radical feminism, although they hold many opposing views. It is an ideology of a "female nature" or "female essence" that attempts to revalidate what cultural feminists consider undervalued female attributes.[1] It is also a theory that commends the difference of women from men