Summary one of the great classics of the womens movement, man made language opened our eyes to the myriad ways in which the rules and uses of language promote a male, and so inherently partial, view of the world. An argument i regularly hear from students is that language has always been sexist. Author spender, dale subjects sexism in language women language sociolinguistics. Routledge 1985 abstract this article has no associated abstract.
Language and the womans place 1975 sexist language shift to gender differences in discource dale spender, 1980. Sex differences, language and languages, sexism in language, protected daisy, in library. It is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued by scholars and students as a. Dale spender extracts from man made language o events of the world do not present themselves to us ready classified. She is cooriginator of the database wiked womens international knowledge encyclopedia and data and founding editor of the athene dale spender born 1943 is an australian feminist scholar. Singular they, sexindefinite he, and he or she 12 4 the debate on nonsexist language 10 douglas hofstadter a person paper on purity in language 141 11 margaret doyle. Man made language by dale spender, 1998, pandora, distributed in u. Reading man made language by dale spender motyourdrive. I have long been fascinated by the topic of this book. Man made language by dale spender and women and men speaking by cheris kramarae are two delightful examples of the new crop of texts on language and gender. Index of publicbooksradical feminist literature dale spender man made language 77 man made language dale spender.
She published the pamphlet the language of sexism in 1975, noting that there had been no systematic research to date into the language. Dale spender, an australian feminist who has been a strong advocate of female rights in this area, noted that teachers who tried to restore the balance by deliberately favouring the girls. Language and gender is fully indexed and has a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which highlights key themes that have persisted across different historical periods and places the collected material in its intellectual context. Women have not been judged on the grounds of whether they talk more. Her book made some strong claims about the way that language is organised.
Semantic scholar extracted view of man made language by dale spender. Man made language by spender, dale and a great selection of related books, art and collectibles available now at. Create an aipowered research feed to stay up to date with new papers like this. A constructed language sometimes called a conlang is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised. Moreover, according to her, the reality most of us inhabit most of. Spender articulates a theory of the male control over the english language and the way that women have been systematically. Dale spender s man made language is a radical feminist analysis of language published in 1980.
As a matter of fact, this is a far more limited claim than that made by dale spender. Both are clearly written and nicely organized around substantive issues, making them especially useful for teaching. In 1980, dale spender took lakoffs zdominance approach a stage further in her book man made language. To believe or not to believe language sex research the deficient woman a man s language the legacy sexism in language the semantic derogation of women plus and minus male the male line language change and social change sex differences in language the lesser value o f. The book man made language 1980 is based on spender s phd research. Index of publicbooksradical feminist literaturedale. Often imitated, never replaced, manmade language has become a. Finally, the findings are related to more recent theoretical discussions of the relationship between language and gender. Uk differences in conversational styles actually turn out to disandvantage women, contributing to women being effectively silenced.
She begins by pointing to the problems with the zdeficit theory, then distances her own from lakoffs work. Use the link below to share a fulltext version of this article with your friends and colleagues. The talkativeness of women has been gauged in comparison not with men but with silence. This is a highly influential text for the womens movement as a whole and specifically for the discipline of womens studies. One of the great classics of the womens movement, manmade language opened our eyes to the myriad ways in which the rules and uses of language promote a male, and so inherently partial, view of the world.
A presentation outlining the ideas, views, works and life of dale spender. Publication date 1998 topics sexism in language, language and languages, sociolinguistics. Whether youve loved the book or not, if you give your honest and detailed thoughts then people will find new books that are right for them. It covers the main topics, beginning with a clear discussion of gender and of the resources that the linguistic system. Other readers will always be interested in your opinion of the books youve read.
In 1980, dale spender wrote a book entitled man made language. Often imitated, never replaced, manmade language has become a cornerstone of modern feminist thought. As introductions to the field, both survey a wide range of topics. Language and gender is a 2003 introduction to the study of the relation between gender and language use, written by two of the leading experts in the field. The importance of ethical and accurate language cst 100. Dale spender and language theory by tim windsor on prezi. As dale spender notes in her book, man made language, until 1746 when john kirkby formulated his eighty eight grammatical rules, the words they and their were used in sentences for sexindeterminable sentences. Changing man made language australian feminist and writer dale spender also intervened into linguistic scholarship, but took a different view of the potential of feminist linguistic activism. A short presentation for an inclass presentation on dale spenders man mande language, a book revolving on the correlation of gender and language pusblished in 1980. Males, as the dominant group, have produced language, thought and reality. Alison assiters critique of dale spender s man made language and a dialogue between mike shortland and john fauvel on the subject of sexism and linguistic reform.
Language sexism and semantics deborah cameron in rp34, two articles appeared dealing with the relation between language and sexism. Her argument is that in patriarchal societies men control language and it works in their favour. Constructed languages may also be referred to as artificial languages, planned languages or invented languages and in some cases, fictional languages. Spender believes that maleness pervades language as a whole.
Planned languages are languages that have been purposefully designed. She started lecturing at james cook university in 1974, before going to live for a while in london and publishing the book man made language in 1980. M y n w rich m this is w t it rate i accept language is a. Introduction to dale spender s influential analysis of the male bias implicit in language. This sentence appears on page 143 of dale spender s book man made language. Each day we construct the world we live in according to these man made rules.
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