Girl Words The host of Lexicon Valley podcast, John H. McWhorter, reveals that words referencing women have interesting origins in “Words, for Her” (2018). McWhorter uses song lyrics, a play, a poem, and the Salem Witch Trial transcripts to support his argument. He discusses the origins and histories of words in order to educate people on how words have changed throughout time. Persons interested in etymology would enjoy listening to McWhorter.
McWhorter uses twentieth century songs as secondary sources to show how we now use the words woman and girl. He uses another song to demonstrate a pronunciation of the word aunt. The primary sources he uses were from the 1600s which included a play, a poem, and the transcripts from a trial. An old
Girl Time is a book written by Maisha T. Winn who is a former public elementary school and high school teacher. She has worked extensively with youth inside and outside urban schools throughout the United States. Winn provides information in the book about girls incarcerated in juvenile detention centers and girls who have been previously incarcerated.
In her article, “Lecture Me. Really”, Molly Worthen addresses the issue college students know all too well: how to lecture properly. Published in the New York Times, Worthen writes a passionate article about lecturing but from the perspective of a professor. Worthen presents the idea that lecturing, although some may think ineffective in the classroom, is a way to truly challenge and engage students into critically thinking. Worth dictates this idea with an excellent build up logical argument but lacks the proper evidence to support her claims creating a faulty argument.
This week’s reflection is on a book titled Girls Like Us and it is authored by Rachel Lloyd. The cover also says “fighting for a world where girls not for sale”. After reading that title I had a feeling this book was going to be about girls being prostituted at a young age and after reading prologue I sadly realized I was right in my prediction.
Margaret Sanger was the founder of The American League of Birth Control which later became Planned Parenthood and her argument in those times was that it was not fair for women who were from a lower class could not have access to Birth Control.
In this paper I will talk about some information that I have obtained from reading Mary Piphers, Reviving Ophelia, Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls and give my view on some of her main points and arguments. I also will discuss why I feel Mary Pipher’s views on the toxic influence of media are accurate, and that it does affect adolescent girls. This paper will also point out the importance of Mary Pipher’s studies on the problems that today’s female teens are facing and why I feel they are important and cannot be ignored.
In “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, O’Connor introduces the reader to a family representative of the old and new Southern culture. The grandmother represents the old South by the way in which she focuses on her appearnace, manners, and gentile ladylike behavior. O’Connor writes “her collars and cuffs were organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady”(O’Connor 118). In this short story, “the wild diproportion of the terms, the vapid composure that summons up the ultimate violence only to treat it as a rare social opportuinty, and the cool irony with which O’Connor presents the sentence makes it both fearful and ludicrous”(Asals 132). The irony that O’Connor uses points out the appalling characteristics of the grandmother’s self-deception that her clothes make her a lady and turns it into a comic matter. Flannery O’Connor goes to great length to give the reader insight into the characters by describing their clothes and attitudes. The fact that the grandmother took so much time in preparing herself for the trip exemplifies the old Southern tradition of self-presentation and self-pride. The grandmother takes pride in the way she presents herself because she wants everyone to know that she is a “lady”.
Often times you find yourself in deep thought, reminiscing about the past. The good, the bad, and even a few memories you wished to forget and never return. In Flannery O’ Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, you are taken along on a journey. Why yes, Flannery writes about the journey the family takes together on their way to Florida, but she does a job well done figuratively joining the forces of the past and present, as well as what lies in the middle.
Berube, Margery S., et all; The American Heritage Dictionary Second Edition; Houghton Mifflin Company; Boston, Mass, 1985
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.”
Early Modern English." Feminist Studies 19.2 (1993): 377+. JSTOR. Feminist Studies Inc.,. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.
What's in a name? Apparently quite a lot, when it comes to matters of race. Today, in popular culture and journalistic discourse, the terms black and African-American are often used interchangeably, and neither has established a leg up over the other as the more progressive linguistic choice. But there are some people prefer to be called by only either one or another, and John H. McWhorter is an example for that. The title of his ineffective essay “Why I’m Black, not African American” has clearly pointed out his desire to show his true identity. But, his essay doesn’t persuasive me, to be called “African-American” is better than to be called “Black”.
Sexism in language takes many forms, though theses may be reduced to 3 types: language ignores, it defines and it deprecates women. Women and girls are hurt both physically and materially by it. Everyda...
Some linguists, as Lanser notes, have argued that there is a woman's language or discourse of the powerless 'speech that is polite, emotional, enthusiastic, gossipy, talkative, uncertain dull and chatty' in contrast to men's speech or powerful speech. We may not agree that women's speech is essentially like this, but The Yellow Wallpaper suggests that there is certainly a particular way that men expect women to speak and behave. As Ford notes 'There can be no doubt that the narrator dwells in the middle of a Patriarchy ' ( Gilman , 1997, p. 309) She is living in 'ancestral halls', has just given birth to a baby boy and is...
In order to discuss the relations between sexuality and linguistic versatility I have chosen the two female characters, Molly and Gerty. The major reason for this is because the female voice in Ulysses is heard at length on only two occasions but I would argue is very important. So important in fact, that Joyce chooses to conclude the novel with Molly’s monologue. I hope to convey some of the contrasts and similarities in these differing monologues (despite the fact that in Gerty’s case it is technically not ever her monologue). In addition, I have tried to take into account that one is perceiving relations between female sexuality and linguistic versatility through the eyes of a man.
In the beginning, Mills discusses theoretical elements and has labeled this section as “General Theoretical Issues” and the second part is comprised of analysis having three sub chapters. The main section of the book examines feminist models of the text and investigates language typologies. According to Sara Mills, language is a form of social communication, a tool to transfer information and a set of mutually decided linguistic choices in any system (Crystal: 1995, 18). Language functions as sharing of thoughts in a framework where options are equally exclusive. Mills criticizes the traditional method to deal with legendary writings which often neglect the fact that the writer has no command over the stuff, being delivered by him or her. Another drawback of this conventional approach is that only the texts which have literary worth are selected for analysis (e.g. the works of Shakespeare, D.H. Lawrence, Beckett and so on) and women’s writings for stylistic analysis are often overlooked. TorilMoi (1985) and Elaine Showalter (1978) are of the view that “women’s writings have frequently been barred from standard status, by the procedure named phallocentric