SOCIOLINGUISTIC ASPECTS OF GENDER DISCOURSE IN THE SYSTEM OF DIFFERENT LANGUAGES

Abstract

In this article, it is revealed that to what extent is some languages are sexist, beginning with the reality that the women is also put under pressure through languages and, as it is in almost every social area, there is sexism against women in languages. The conceptual expressions (such as gender, sexist language, language and ideology) are brought out that the dimension and the quality of the world's languages and which perspectives the sexist language is usually seen. Gender discourse representing the opposite views has a side if political views have an effect on preferring sexist expressions. What is come into the view is that there is another cognition beyond social views in using sexist language. While there is no important difference in using sexist expressions according to the political views in some languages, they make a big contribution to the being the "secondary" and "other" of women.

International Journal Of Literature And Languages
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Ergasheva Guli Ismail Qizi, & Narbutayeva Zarnigor Makhammadqulovna. (2023). SOCIOLINGUISTIC ASPECTS OF GENDER DISCOURSE IN THE SYSTEM OF DIFFERENT LANGUAGES. International Journal Of Literature And Languages, 3(01), 18–21. https://doi.org/10.37547/ijll/Volume03Issue01-03
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Abstract

In this article, it is revealed that to what extent is some languages are sexist, beginning with the reality that the women is also put under pressure through languages and, as it is in almost every social area, there is sexism against women in languages. The conceptual expressions (such as gender, sexist language, language and ideology) are brought out that the dimension and the quality of the world's languages and which perspectives the sexist language is usually seen. Gender discourse representing the opposite views has a side if political views have an effect on preferring sexist expressions. What is come into the view is that there is another cognition beyond social views in using sexist language. While there is no important difference in using sexist expressions according to the political views in some languages, they make a big contribution to the being the "secondary" and "other" of women.


background image

Volume 03 Issue 01-2023

18


International Journal Of Literature And Languages
(ISSN

2771-2834)

VOLUME

03

I

SSUE

01

Pages:

18-21

SJIF

I

MPACT

FACTOR

(2021:

5.

705

)

(2022:

5.

705

)

OCLC

1121105677















































Publisher:

Oscar Publishing Services

Servi

ABSTRACT

In this article, it is revealed that to what extent is some languages are sexist, beginning with the reality that the women
is also put under pressure through languages and, as it is in almost every social area, there is sexism against women
in languages. The conceptual expressions (such as gender, sexist language, language and ideology) are brought out
that the dimension and the quality of the world's languages and which perspectives the sexist language is usually
seen. Gender discourse representing the opposite views has a side if political views have an effect on preferring sexist
expressions. What is come into the view is that there is another cognition beyond social views in using sexist language.
While there is no important difference in using sexist expressions according to the political views in some languages,
they make a big contribution to the being the "secondary" and "other" of women.

KEYWORDS

Language, gender, sociolinguistics, culture, gender discourse, masculine, feminine, sexism.

INTRODUCTION

Research Article

SOCIOLINGUISTIC ASPECTS OF GENDER DISCOURSE IN THE SYSTEM OF
DIFFERENT LANGUAGES

Submission Date:

January 20, 2023,

Accepted Date:

January 25, 2023,

Published Date:

January 30, 2023

Crossref doi:

https://doi.org/10.37547/ijll/Volume03Issue01-04


Ergasheva Guli Ismail Qizi

Professor Of Uzbekistan State University Of World Languages, Uzbekistan State University Of World
Languages, Uzbekistan

Narbutayeva Zarnigor Makhammadqulovna

Master's Department Linguistics, English Language, 2nd Year Master's Student, Uzbekistan

Journal

Website:

https://theusajournals.
com/index.php/ijll

Copyright:

Original

content from this work
may be used under the
terms of the creative
commons

attributes

4.0 licence.


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Volume 03 Issue 01-2023

18


International Journal Of Literature And Languages
(ISSN

2771-2834)

VOLUME

03

I

SSUE

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Pages:

18-21

SJIF

I

MPACT

FACTOR

(2021:

5.

705

)

(2022:

5.

705

)

OCLC

1121105677















































Publisher:

Oscar Publishing Services

Servi

Language, as the most important communication tool,
is one of the indispensable elements of the existence
of societies. Language is the greatest power in
people's perception and evaluation of the world, in
transferring cultures and ideologies. Therefore,
language is never an issue that can be ignored in social
studies. The language is only a small part of that
integral phenomenon that we aspire to cognize, which
necessarily

involves

not

only

the

memory,

physiological,

psychological,

psycho-physiological

properties of the person, but also the knowledge of
the world, the social context of utterances, the ways of
interaction and organization of all types of the
knowledge, as well as all human activities .

Yu.V. Klyuev defines a discourse as the result of
socialization

the comprehension of the surrounding

world by an individual, his/her involvement in reality.
Primary

socialization

(family,

education)

and

secondary socialization (information received by an
individual from messages of mass media) represent a
single mechanism of personality formation in the

information society. “It is a discourse which serves as

the main tool for the socialization of a person, his/her

involvement in the public and political life” .

If according to van Dijk Teun A., to make an “ind

ividual

understand a discourse strategically as an action in an
ongoing social interaction sequence means that the
hearer makes assumptions about the intentions,
purposes, wishes, preferences, beliefs, opinions,
attitudes, ideology, emotions, and personality of the

speaker” etc. , we assume that a language, in essence,

in line with its terminology system has the potential to
create a discourse and send it to the audience based on
particular strategy on behalf of the official agency,
entity, etc.

Feminists also drew attention to the importance of
language in gender studies and brought the language
and feminism fields together and put the language
issue in a very central place in feminism studies. Under
this lies the constant influence of language and
behavior on each other. In other words, our thoughts
and our perception of the world are shaped by
language. It is a continuous, unchanging process. While
our thoughts, behaviors and realities affect the
formation of language, language also contributes to
the production of new thoughts and realities. Since
culture and language are two phenomena that are
constantly affected by each other and cannot be
considered separately, they cause the formation of
new facts about genders or the reproduction of
existing ones. This connection between language and
culture is quite clear. By examining the language of a
society, it is possible to observe, to a large extent, their
views on genders, the roles they assign to them, the
distribution of power and the prejudices of the society.

For example, idioms constitute an important clue and
resource in this sense. The places where societies have
put different genders since ancient times can be clearly
seen in idioms. While the idioms "qiz olmoq/qiz
bermoq" (show girls (daughters) as an object of
possession in Uzbek society, the phrase "xotindek

yig’lash" (crying like a woman) indicates the weakness

of women. The fact that these and similar words have
been spoken over the years ensures the reproduction
of these roles and perceptions.

Feminists questioned the concept of "sexism in
language" because of this relationship and pointed out
that languages are a male-dominated form. They
defined sexist language as expressions that make
irrelevant and unfair discrimination between the sexes.


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Publisher:

Oscar Publishing Services

Servi

They claimed that such a language excludes one of the
sexes (woman).

The resources of each language allow the creation of
different discourses, which reflect and strengthen the
ideologies of those who use this language. In a sense,
every ideology is produced through its own language.
Socially powerful groups can use language to adopt
their ideology. Considering this, the studies and
sensitivity of feminists on language becomes very
meaningful. According to the feminists who argue that
there is a dominance in language against women: male
dominance over language shapes not only thought but
also reality.

It is observed that the male dominance in the language
reinforces the social subordination of women and
reproduces it constantly. Because this sexist use of
language is quite common through proverbs, slang,
everyday language and the media. This masculine
language used is generally a language that humiliates
women and their sexuality, pushes women to
compulsory roles and is offensive because the existing
language system prevents women from expressing
their own worldview and even self-expression. The
masculine language takes the man as the norm, which
makes the woman invisible. It means that the reality of
the whole world is based on men.

The identity formation and subjectivity of women who
cannot find their place in language is negatively
affected, and thus the identity of women exists in
relation to the identity of men. In the light of these
observations and knowledge, some feminists (such as
radical feminist Mary Daly) have taken this issue
seriously enough to suggest "a radical deconstruction
or deconstruction of language". According to them, in
order to create a new reality, it is necessary to work on

new terms, new words and to neutralize language.
Although this will require a long and exhausting
process, feminists have taken the most important step
by drawing attention to this issue and creating
sensitivity.

Against this background, world languages reflect
sexism in direct proportion to their culture. Sexism in
language can take two forms. First, the system of the
language itself is sexist (as in languages that divide
words into masculine-feminine); second, the way we
use language is sexist (as in semantically gendered
languages).

The fundamental approach to gender and language
studies dates back to the early XX century. Gender
aspect of language and communication had been the
main subject of the researches but still remaining
invisible to the linguistics. The development of
sociolinguistics, the formation of the postmodern
theory of knowledge and the rise of the feminist
movement played an important role in the emergence
of fundamental gender issues, as an independent
aspect within an interdisciplinary field.

Data gathered indicate an identification of (male) man
with human being. However, the feminist theory
explains the identification by distribution of gender
roles in society, rather than linguistic factors, since
according to the sociolinguistic research, the English
language has been developed under influence of
Jewish-Christian traditions which supported male
dominance over female . According to Pamela
Fishman, who studied a conversational activity in

“Language, Gender and Society” language is the

constructor and keeper of hierarchical status between
males and females.


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Servi

A new approach to gender and language has been put
forward by Deborah Tannen and her followers ,
supporters of the theory of gender subcultures, which
assumes that women and men experience language
socialization in different ways. Being brought up in
different sex groups (sociolinguistic subcultures) in
their childhood with different tactics of speech
behavior, the verbal communication between men and
women provokes an inadequate reaction. Therefore,
they have to be regarded as two distinct subcultures
characterized by special speech practices. Having
originated in the US, the most prevalence of feminist
linguistics in Europe has been affected by the works of
Trömel-

Plötz “Linguistik und Frauensprache” , and L.

Pusch “Das Deutsche als Männersprache” .

In the world's languages, sexism appears in various
forms, sometimes in grammar rules, sometimes in
dictionaries and almost always in idioms and proverbs.
With a few exceptions, languages belonging to the
same language family are similar in terms of sexism as
they are in other respects. For example, when we look
at the Indo-European language family, we see that with
a few exceptions (e.g. English), almost all languages
are grammatically sexist, while the Ural-Altaic language
family is sexist not in terms of grammar, but in terms of
words, idioms and proverbs.

Since language is a means of transmitting culture,
while examining the similarities and differences
between these languages, we also have an idea about
their cultures, the way they perceive and live in the
world, and their values. For this reason, languages are
important tools to learn about societies. One of the
social realities that we can uncover when we analyze
languages is the relationship between men and women
and the position of both in society. We have already
mentioned that women are seen as subordinate in

almost every society in one way or another, and how
this is related to language. Looking at language families
and the characteristics of individual languages, what
can we say about the relationship between the place
where the societies of these languages put women and
the place women find in language?

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Bora, Meltem Ağduk Gevrek, Fevziye Sayılan,
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1991; Maltz D.N., Borker R.A. Mißverständnisse
zwischen Männern und Frauen - kulturell


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VOLUME

03

I

SSUE

01

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18-21

SJIF

I

MPACT

FACTOR

(2021:

5.

705

)

(2022:

5.

705

)

OCLC

1121105677















































Publisher:

Oscar Publishing Services

Servi

betrachtet // Günthner, Kotthoff (Hrsg) Von
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языков): Дисс. … канд.филол.наук. –

М.,

2006.

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References

Donovan, Josephine. Feminist Teori, Çev. Aksu Bora, Meltem Ağduk Gevrek, Fevziye Sayılan, İletişim , İstanbul, 1997. p290.

Fishman P. ‘Interaction: the work women do’, in Barrie Thorne et al. (eds) Language, Gender and Society. Rowley, Mass.: – Newbury House, 1983. – p. 89.

Jespersen O. Language: its nature, development and origin. – London: Allen & Unwin, 1922; Haas M. ‘Men’s and women’s speech in Koasati’. Language 20, 1944. – p. 142–9.; Trudgill P. Sociolinguistics. – London: Penguin, 1974, 1983, 1995.

Pusch L. Das Deutche als Männer Sprache. Edition Suhrkamp.SV, 1984. – 201 s.

Sharma, J.C.. “An Introduction To Sirmauri-Grammatical Gender”, Language In India, Volume:1 , January, 2002. Ed. By SINGH, Ishtla; Jean Stillwell Peccei. Language , Society And Power , Routledge, New York, 1999. p33.

Sharma, J.C.. “An Introduction To Sirmauri-Grammatical Gender”, Language In India, Volume:1 , January, 2002. Ed. By SINGH, Ishtla; Jean Stillwell Peccei.Language , Society And Power , Routledge, New York, 1999. P77.

Tannen D. You Just Don’t Understand! Women and men in conversation. – London: Virago, 1991; Maltz D.N., Borker R.A. Mißverständnisse zwischen Männern und Frauen - kulturell betrachtet // Günthner, Kotthoff (Hrsg) Von fremden Sttimmen. Weibliches und männliches Sprechen im Kulturvergleich. – Frankfurt am Main, 1991. – S. 52-74.

Tromel-Plötz S. Linguistic und Frauensprache // Linguistische Berichte. 1978. – S. 186-196.

Van Dijk Teun A., Walter Kintsch, Strategies of Discourse Comprehension. – New York: Academic Press, 1983. – p. 83.

Герасимов В.И., Петров В.В. На пути к когнитивной модели языка // Новое в зарубежной лингвистике. – Вып. 23. – Когнитивные аспекты языка. – М., 1988. – С. 6.

Клюев Ю.В. Дискурс в массовой коммуникации (междисциплинарные характеристики, концепции, подходы). Вестник СПбГУ. Сер. 9. 2013. Вып. 1. – С. 208.

Семенова И.В. Гендерный аспект концептуального анализа лексем “мужчина” и “женщина” (на материале фразеологии английского, русского и кабардинского языков): Дисс. … канд.филол.наук. – М., 2006. – С. 128.