Critical discourse analysis for fun and profit

[triskellian]

I've been thinking for a while about trying an experiment in the way I use language, and something that came up in my reading today made me decide to go ahead and do it.

The experiment is this: I will watch for times when I'm about to use "he" to refer to a person of unknown gender, and I will substitute "she" instead (I'm talking about speech; I take care to use non-gender-specific language in writing). I think I mostly do this with the drivers of nearby cars, when I'm predicting they're about to do something stupid ("He's going to pull out!"), so there's no value judgement involved, just an attempt to change the default setting on a switch, so to speak ;-)

I invite you to join me in this experiment if you wish, and to call me on it if you spot me using "him" as a generic (also if you wish!)


The reading that prompted this is for the Good Course (as opposed to the Bad one), which is on critical discourse analysis. The material we're currently covering is to do with the way ideology shapes language, and through it the world, and I've just finished reading a chapter on the way "common sense" encodes and enforces a particular way of understanding the world. (This same material is causing me to write and rewrite every sentence in this post as I notice the assumptions I'm building into the most innocent-looking phrases.)

Anyway. The words that solidified my intention to proceed with the experiment describe a way of foregrounding common sense, of making its working obvious and therefore open to question:

"the deliberate disturbance of common sense through some form of intervention in discourse"
(Normal Fairclough, Language and Power)

...And they're a reasonable description of my experiment, too. So that settled the matter ;-)

Comments

[al-fruitbat.livejournal.com]

I find the area of how language defines thought to be very interesting.

I remember being fascinated by the concept that the Romans couldn't deal as well with abstract algebra because of their way of counting, and (from a very limited perspective) I have found that phrasing things in French did change my own perception of how I thought.

I imagine that a German speaker would think a bit differently as well, due to the need of having your verb worked out and held onto until the end of your current sentence. I don't know if that helps to explain their famous technical and musical abilities or not, but it's an interesting possibility.

Personally, I'm not going to go changing my 'neuter' pronoun to being expressly female, as I have in the past felt irritated by those who do. It also makes insulting other drivers on the road (at least in my mind - I don't actually say anything!) less acceptable. Insulting a female is something I have to specifically want to do, and needs a good reason. Insulting another male, on the other hand, is almost expected...

See a BMW for example - think 'wanker'. Nice and simple. ;-)

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

I started on-purpose using neutral words instead of gender-specific ones a couple of years ago - both pronoun-ish ones (I use 'they' all the time) and role-specific ones (like police officer, chairperson, and so on). Within a couple of weeks it was utterly second-nature. I wasn't sexist-language-of-the-year winner before that, by a long shot, but I found there was still quite a lot of gender-specific-ness in my language when I started listening to every word I said or typed.

There are two things I noticed from this:

I'm far more aware of my inner assumptions/prejudices as a result. I *notice* when I make snap assumptions about gender - things like the mental image of a film director or a dj being male would be a simple example, but it's usually a lot more complicated than that. I didn't as easily notice that before.

I'm incredibly aware of people using non-gender-neutral language, both in writing and in speech, and it really bothers me. I find it difficult sometimes to restrain myself from correcting people. It also affects how I view what someone is saying, and I'm more likely to pick holes in an argument when someone uses gender-specific language.

boys who like boys to be girls who do girls like they're boys who do boys like they're girls

[kauket.livejournal.com]

I have a couple of text books who opt for gender non-specific description (the Director, the convenyancer etc) and it tends to annoy me as it tends to increase the length of sentences and can get quite confusing, as the description often appears several times in a sentence. I like simplicity in my reading. I also dislike the he/she his/hers things that some of my books do. I know enough that not all criminals are men, not all people buying houses are men etc. On the flip side, my criminal law books often give examples of the idea they are trying to convey and swap between using male and female names. But to be honest it's not something I notice especially. They could use initials for all I care :>

More interesting to me, is the use of insults, and the gender-specific nature of them. There are a number of insults that are particularly related to the fact that you are a woman - bitch, whore, bint, slut, slag, slapper. Other insults, such as bastard, git, bugger can be used to describe either sex, and whilst probably these are used more with men, can be interchangable. I can't think of as many insulting descriptions which apply specifically to men, as my first list do to women. I also find some of the insults that are 'female' much more insulting than the general ones - for example the word bint is completely repulsive to me, and i've rarely, if ever, used it. Similarly, the phrase mother-fucker. I'm not even entirely sure why this is an insult, although I could hazard some guesses. But we don't have father-fucker.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I got to write a list of semi-swear words, so I guess my work here is done.

[cuthbertcross.livejournal.com]

Something I picked up in childhood was the habit of calling a single person of unknown/immaterial gender "they" in conversation. e.g. "They look cold", or "they made a mistake".

Every now and then someone misinterprets this, assuming I'm referring to more than one person, and they (see, I'm doing it now!) almost always try to "correct me" into using he/she instead. I prefer my way though, I'm just used to it!

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

*sleepybee*
Mmph, are we on Sapir-Whorf atm?
*zonks again*

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

The material we're currently covering is to do with the way ideology shapes language

Ooh, fun ! Are you also going to cover how language limits and directs ideas ? I think that might be the single academic issue that interests me the most outside mathematics. So often it's made very, very difficult to talk about something because there's no word for it. In fact never mind "talk", the same often applies even to "think".

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I've actually been attempting a similar thing recently, although not dignified with any experimental value ;-) -- prompted by when I started driving, I realized sharply how often I refer to other cars as 'he'. I guess this is a holdover from childhood, but it seems very difficult to overcome in the heat of the moment.

[sumbitch.livejournal.com]

i do this pretty much reflexively. it annoys people. it's my little way of discomfiting the comfortable.

interestingly, the one that i haven't been able to break myself of is referring to unknown dogs as "he" and unknown cats as "she". psychoanalysts, start your engines!