How Gendered Languages Are Changing. Jugopop.
Grammar Girl: For Writers and Language Lovers.
Mignon Fogarty, Inc.
4.5 • 2.9K Ratings
🗓️ 12 August 2022
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
888. This week we take a fascinating look at how highly gendered languages are dealing with the drive to become more inclusive. Plus, we look at the differences between "simple" and "simplistic" and "backward" and "backwards."
Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/how-gendered-languages-are-changing-jugopop
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References for the gendered language segment by Valerie Fridland:
Braun, F., Sczesny, S., & Stahlberg, D. (2005). Cognitive Effects of Masculine Generics in German: An Overview of Empirical Findings. Communications (Sankt Augustin), 30(1), 1-21.
Carreiras, M., Garnham, A., Oakhill, J., & Cain, K. (1996). The use of stereotypical gender information in constructing a mental model: evidence from English and Spanish. The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology, 49(3), 639–663.
DeFranza, D., Mishra, H., & Mishra, A. (2020). How language shapes prejudice against women: An examination across 45 world languages. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 119(1), 7–22.
Eilers, S., Tiffin-Richards, S. P., & Schroeder, S. (2018). Individual differences in children’s pronoun processing during reading: Detection of incongruence is associated with higher reading fluency and more regressions. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 173, 250-267.
Stahlberg, D., Braun, F., Irmen, L., & Sczesny, S. (2007). Representation of the sexes in language. In K. Fiedler (Ed.), Social communication. A volume in the series Frontiers of Social Psychology.163-187.
Moehlman, Lara. (2018) Can Hebrew Be Gender Neutral? https://momentmag.com/can-hebrew-be-gender-neutral/. Accessed 8.7.2022.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Grammar girl here, I'm in Yann Fogarty and you can think of me as your friendly guide |
| 0:10.1 | to the English language. |
| 0:12.0 | We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff. |
| 0:16.2 | Today we're going to talk about languages that have more gender than English and about |
| 0:21.0 | differences between simple and simplistic and backward and backwards. |
| 0:29.3 | When you hear a sentence like, a soldier must be able to count on her fellow soldiers, |
| 0:34.6 | what strikes you most? |
| 0:36.8 | Some of you might think the pronoun feels off since it doesn't follow the old English |
| 0:40.7 | rule of using the generic he when gender is unspecified. |
| 0:45.9 | But studies have shown the primary reason the sentence strikes you as odd is probably |
| 0:50.7 | more about the clash between the underlying gendered concept of who we expect soldiers |
| 0:55.8 | to be, men, and the gender of the pronoun, she. |
| 1:01.2 | For example, research shows that when people come across something like a mismatch between |
| 1:05.6 | a pronoun and a stereotypically gendered role like that of a nurse or soldier, their |
| 1:11.2 | brains can actually have a little more trouble processing speech or text compared to how easily |
| 1:17.2 | they can do it when the pronouns do match gender expectations. |
| 1:22.3 | So it's not surprising there's been a lot of attention over the past few years on making |
| 1:26.7 | language and our gendered views about social roles less biased. |
| 1:32.8 | And we may hear about problems or objections in English, but it's even more interesting |
| 1:37.7 | to think about how people are trying to meet the even greater challenges in languages |
| 1:42.7 | that have grammatical gender like French or Hebrew where it's impossible to have a sentence |
| 1:48.7 | without pervasive gender marking and where change can feel like an attack on cultural |
... |
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