Language and Gender CrossCulturally

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Language and Gender Cross-Culturally

• Why is it important to discuss the differences
  and similarities of gender-related speech?

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Cross-cultural analysis

• Ideology of gender enacted in language
• Example English
• Gender specific ways of comm
• Universality of gender asymmetry
• Highly valued speech and men
• Three cross-cultural examples Malagasy,
  Javanese, Kuna

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Malagasy (Madagascar)

• Speech norms indirectness in speech
• Articulated in public Kabary ceremony
• Through use of proverbs, allusions and innuendo
• Kabary speech and male activities

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Women and Exclusion

• Encourage to violate norms
• Womens style of speech secondary
• Indirect speech public male prestige
• Direct speech domestic female secondary

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Javanese Language

• Importance of politeness for both sexes
• Status of addressee and speaker reflected in
  speech
• Highly stratified
• Weak distinctions along gender lines
• Strong ideology of gender equality
• Differences of speech in public and private

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Private and Public Spheres (Javanese)

• Private
• Women mas or older brother
• Men dkik or younger sibling
• Difference in seniority
• Public
• Women Less skillful
• Men Greater art of polite speech

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Kuna (Panama)

• Egalitarian society
• economic, political. Labor
• Complementary separate but equal
• Private and public contexts speech styles
• Public --equally accessible to both genders
• --Generally the domain of men
• Public ---Exclusive for women

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What do these examples tell us about the
asymmetry of the cultural evaluation of the
sexes?

• Malagasy and Kuna Egalitarian
• Javanese stratified
• Malagasy and Javanese marked linguistic behavior
• Kuna no great differences

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Communication and Sex Differences

• Reflection of sex differences (Chukchee)
• --dif pronunciation by men and women
• Or carrier of social meanings (Japanese)
• -- uti no yatu or fellow of my home
• -- uti no hito or person of my home

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Gender Deixis

• the notion that some actual linguistic elements
  are indexical of some fact about gender, maybe
  that of the speaker or that of the addressee, or
  both.
• Men and women differ in verbal forms, etc
• ----native American language (South Eastern)
  koasati
• Languages with gender-exclusive patterns

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Kúrux (Northern India)

• Man-Man Man-Woman
  Woman-Woman Woman-Man
• --------------------------------------------------
  --------------------------------------------------
  --------
• 1st sg. bar-d-an bar-d-an
  bar-e-n bar-d-an
• 1st pl. bar-d-am bar-d-am
  bar-e-m bar-d-am
• 2nd sg. bar-d-ayi bar-d-i
  bar-d-in
  bar-d-ay
• 2nd pl. bar-d-ar bar-d-ar
  bar-d-ayii bar-d-ar
• 3rd sg. bar-d-as bar-d-as
  bar-d-as
  bar-d-as
• 3rd pl. bar-n-ar bar-n-ar
  bar-n-ayii
  bar-n-ar

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Chiquita (Bolivia)

• Nouns
• Identical for women
• Mens speech nouns divided into two
• --nouns associated to supernatural beings
  refering or talking to men
• --not used when talking to women
• reflects social conflicts

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Languages with Gender-Preference Patterns

• Gender exclusive alternatives appropriate to
  their gender
• Gender preference language style a social or
  cultural choice
• Japan class, seniority, gender
• Men less polite and more assertive
• Women more polite and less assetive

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Choice of words depending on the context

• Less polite forms More polite forms
• Stomach hara onaka
• Water mizu ohiya
• Delicious umai oisii
• Eat kuu taberu

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Summary

• Womens domestic sphere -- less value
• Cultures evaluate gender styles in a similar way
• Example Malagasy, Javanese and Kuna Languages
• Ways of evaluating lang and gender relationship
• ----Gender exclusive
• ---- and gender-preference patterns

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Discussion Question

• In what ways are the relationship between
  language and gender cross-culturally similar or
  different to the relationship between language
  and race?