We live in a world where any type of swearing or cursing is ubiquitous. It is almost impossible to not hear a swear word when in public places or even at home. Not much can be done about the swearing situation as it is sometimes seen as a rebellious act or as an intensifier that adds no meaning but adds an “emotional punch” to any utterance. Swear words, especially the “F-word” and words involving sexual terms or racial slurs are looked down on. People using swear words are seen as uneducated, vulgar or low class people. Swear words are often attached to stereotypes when it comes down to who swears the most between men and women and gender roles come into play here. This will be explained and described further into the essay. Many people get offended by swear words, no matter what age, but that is because everyone has a different offensiveness threshold. One word that is offensive to one person may be the word used regularly by another person. Swearing goes back to the Victorian Era where a woman’s right were extremely limited and their rights were given to their spouse. This is where the notion of power of a swear word comes in and where the stereotypes comes in concerning men swearing more than women. Both men and women have a different view on who swears more and when. There are also many factors that affect when and why a person swears more. It can be due to the age, race, ethnicity, and situation. In this paper I will be focusing on gender differences in frequency of swearing. The theories surrounding this topic include but are not limited to the Separate World Hypothesis, Lackoffs’ “Women’s Language” theory, and Howard Gile’s Accommodation theory. Firstly, in this paper, a brief history of swearing will be given. As... ... middle of paper ... ... “Women’s Language.” In this “language” she says that women tend to use more color adjectives and more tag questions than men because of their uncertainty. Also, she stated that swearing is considered an act of power and it is possible that that is the reason as to why women are not “allowed” to say these words. Even in the Victorian Era, swearing was reserved to men because the rights of women were basically given to their husbands. This is where the “housewife” attributed to women began. Lackoff claimed that “the decisive factor is less purely gender than power in the real world” (1975). Swearing is not only seen as a male attribute but is reserved to people (men) who exert power. In our society, it seems that men believe they are the only ones who should have access to power. Therefore, “women’s language” Women are also described to be “experts at euphemisms.”
After a reader first notices the title of Firoozeh Dumas’ essay, “The F Word”, it may be hard to believe her writing is not about curse words. Her writing is about her experience moving to America and living in a society that is unwilling to accept outsiders. Immigrants face hardship when they come to the United States and she knew that before she moved. But she never thought living with a foreign name would be so challenging. Dumas brings light to those difficulties and how she dealt with them through sentence structure, excellent word choice, and well-written metaphors and similes.
In the modern society, millions of people realize that several offensive words with insulting taboo meanings heavily disturb their daily lives and break some special groups of people’s respect to push them to feel like outsiders of the whole society. As a result, more and more people join some underway movements to eliminate the use of these offensive words in people’s everyday speech and writing. However, these offensive words themselves are not the culprit, the bad meanings people attach are the problems and some other functions of the words are useful in the society. Christopher M. Fairman the author of “ Saying It Is Hurtful, Banning It Is Worse” also argues that although
Swearing has the ability to get someone in a whole load of trouble at the dinner table with their mother but could also be their choice of words when they accidently stub their toe on the coffee table in the living room. Natalie Angier discusses this controversial topic of words that shouldn’t be said in her article feature in The New York Times, “Almost Before We Spoke, We Swore”. Provoked by a recently proposed bill to increase fines for using swear words on television, Angier analyzes not only the impact of swearing, but also where the desire to speak obscene words comes from. She references many credible studies and sources as she unfolds her argument. She uses a diverse slew of studies, experiments, and famous pieces of literature and
Many feminist/post-modern theorists see language as a patriarchal construct that excludes women. As Jeanie Forte writes, this characterization of language is informed by Lacanian theory, which, in turn, is influenc...
Gender Matters is a collection of various essays on feminist linguistic texts analysis, by Sara Mills. Mills develops methods of analyzing literary and non-literary texts, in addition to conversational analysis based on a feminist approach. The author draws on data from her collection of essays gathered over the last two decades on feminism during the 1990s. The essays focus on gender issues, the representation of gender in reading, writing, and in public speaking. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of feminists’ analysis of sexism in literature and the relation between gender and politeness. The article is informative for my research paper, as my topic is going to cover language analysis of the text and who women reading and writing differs according to the discourse analysis within linguistic, psychology, case studies audiences and surveys. The book would be helpful, particularly the last three essays that discusses gender, public speaking, the question of politeness and impoliteness in public speaking. Mills’ analysis is not complete without including the idea of global notions of both women and men, to see whether women and men write and read in the same way globally. Therefore, an update would enrich the book’s discussion section. Although, Mills addresses the class and race theme in language and public speaking, I will only look into the role of language that plays a part in doing or reducing gender in literary, non-literary texts and in conversation.
In recent years, gender differences have already been one of the most controversial issues in various research. As an important communication tool of mankind, language is inevitably involved in controversies. However, Rachel Rafelman, a Canadian journalist and the author of “The Party Line” express her thought and opinion in her essay. She not only have some great points on what and how women and men are likely to talk, but also have different points on the talking environment. She comes up with facts and fit real and particle examples in her essay to make it understood. Whereas, Ronald Macaulay, a professor of linguistics and the author of “Sex Difference” uses words of novels to argue and promotes them as a cause of reinforce to men’s and women’s stereotypes in his essay. He argues through his whole as rebuttal and gives some examples to oppose the preconceived notion of sex differences. Over all, both Rafelman and Macaulay are the good writer but Rafelman is having upper to prove her essay better organized using her tones as per requirement.
Deborah Tannen’s essay, “There Is No Unmarked Woman”, explores the idea of “marked” and “unmarked” words, styles, titles, and how females have no ability to choose an unmarked position in life. She posits that “The unmarked forms of most English words also convey ‘male’” (88). Tannen is incorrect in her premises because females are able to choose unmarked hair and clothing styles, men are marked just as often as women, and many unmarked forms of words no longer convey “male.”
The origins of gendered word and phrases are a debated topic. To clarify, a word that has a gendered meaning is an utterance that refers to a particular gender or is categorized to a particular gender. While some people believe that the interpretation of the listener is responsible for deriving the gendered meanings of words, others believe that the meanings of gendered adjectives and phrases originate from speaker intent. I believe, however, the context in which a word is used, how it is presented, and the context with which it is interpreted, affect its meaning. This “context” also includes the cultural background of both the speaker and the interpreter. From my perspective, gendered words gain their meanings from various sources, which include both the intentions of the speaker and the interpretations of the hearer.
In American society the “F” word has been deemed a cuss word, a dirty word. It’s a simple, four letter word that shouldn’t be used. In Firoozeh Dumas’s essay, “The ‘F Word’”, she gives a new light to a different “F” word with the same context in our culture today with the help of her Iranian background. Firoozeh Dumas criticises the American ability to adapt to different and unfamiliar cultures through humor, empathy, and metaphors.
The use of language can be seen to correlate with the views of society. The words used to describe groups and the tone associated is a hindrance to the acceptance of all the ways people are grouped. Prejudice can be stereotypes or terms used that society did not first recognize as discrimination or hate. The words spoken can have a greater impact than once believed. The ability to vocalize these words can be permanent through social media and has a negative impact on society. Social media shows that women are grouped with unwanted characteristics. The message that language can have towards the ability of women is taught in schools. The discrimination learned through schools can affect women in their area of employment and society. The inability
The beauty of art is that everyone has a different opinion of what they consider art. A highly debated topic is if graffiti can be considered art. Technically speaking, it is usually vandalism but people believe it is also art. Although it is in fact vandalism, graffiti is still art because it is self-expression of the individual and can even convey powerful messages that can reach out and affect the everyday person.
Language is a multifaceted topic. It seems that language cannot be discussed without also discussing the differences that occur within speech. One of the most obvious differences exists between the speech of men and women. This paper describes the existence of “women’s language” and “men’s language.”(O’Barr and Atkins 1980) More specifically, this paper will discuss how these so-called languages differ in the way they address power in a formal situation. These gendered differences in speech occur in the way topics are brought up, what words are chosen, how hedges are used, and how intonation is utilized. (Holmes 1986;O’Barr and Atkins 1980) I will address how male language tends to be more assertive and confident in situations that affect power, while female language tends to be more apologetic and tentative when asserting information. (Kiesling 1997;O’Barr and Atkins 1980) I hypothesize that these differences do not reflect natural inclination or ability of the two genders. These differences in male and female language occur because they have been socialized in America by the construct of gender roles and respective expectations of genders. (O’Barr and Atkins 1980) I will analyze this hypothesis with sources of third parties and with my research.
Cyberbullying is a new form of bullying that follows students from the hallways of their schools to the privacy of their homes. Many victims of cyberbullying are bullied 4 from the moment they wake up and check their cell phone or e-mail, to the time they go to bed and shut off their computer or cell phone. Cyberbullying is bullying or harassment that happens online and more difficult to stop because you need to have all the evidence saved to prove it happened. Cyberbullying is nothing to mess around with if a kid is being cyberbullied you need to get that taking care of before it gets any worse.
Kramarae’s work is also foundational. She believes that there has been little research on the way men and women use language. She seeks to understand not only the possibility of differences in grammatical, phonological, and semantic aspects, but also possible differences in the verbal skills, instrumental use of language and the relationship of non-verbal uses to verbal behavior. Her research also looks for differences between the sexes in their linguistic competence and performance. She discovered that it is easier to see differences of language between the sexes in other cultures. There is, she writes, “linguistic evidence that in at least some scattered instances, the existence of these distinctions is associated with an assertion of
Our capacity as human beings to acquire and express complex methods of communication has been one of the biggest driving forces of humanity’s success. These complex linguistic systems are what we know as language. Language gives us a method of expressing concepts, emotions, and ideas in a varied way which sets us apart from all other animals. Language and gender is an area of sociolinguistics and related fields which attempt to define the differences in language related to gender, and what the inferences of these differences may be.