Year 12 English Language groups have been investigating various issues surrounding language and gender. You can use this page to see what others have found. Hopefully we can get an overview of the issues investigated, the results of your investigations and see if there are some patterns.
Leave your comment below in the following format:
Your name:
What you investigated: (summarise in a couple of sentences)
Your findings: What your results were, any statistics you can provide, anything particularly surprising.
Your conclusion: Your 'golden nugget'. Something to remember in the exam (eg. "Females actually use a greater range of swearwords" or "The number of terms for promiscuous females still outweighs those for males, echoing Stanely's much earlier work".
Ian Addyman
ReplyDeleteIn my investigation, I researched how different ages and genders affected the approbational lexis the subjects used to describe the two genders. This would provide me with a rough image of how the genders may think of each other.
My finding showed that my older male subject seemed to use terms pointed towards physical activity when it came to males, while seeming to use terms referring both to physical appearance and personality when it came to females. My younger male candidate used terms referring to a males deeds as a way of complimenting them, while seeming to be more lenient towards a females appearance than any other aspects. The older female, on the other hand, used the approbation of "handsome" potentially to mean a formal attitude and fashion sense. While using female approbation more based on personality and attitude. Lastly, the younger female candidate described males seemingly in a more light-hearted, informal manor, using the term "adorable", this may be due to the males the subject is friends with.
Overall, my results seemed to display that females leaned towards the emotional side of things more than anything, while the males sort of seemed to look at things a bit more physically.
Well done, Ian - prize for first one to post!
ReplyDeleteAlex Fawcett
ReplyDeleteIn my investigation, I researched how gender based insults differed and the number of insults based on gender.
My results made it clear that there were clearly more female based insults compared to that of male based insults. I found that female insults seemed to degrade women in terms of relating them to an animal or degrading them based on gender. On the other hand my male subjects explained that male based insults are often either gender neutral more so than based on the male gender. One of my male subjects did say that occasionally male based insults link them to been "like a girl" indicating that being female is worse than being male. My subjects felt that female insults were far more degrading and sexist in comparison.
Overall, my results made it clear that female insults leant towards animal and gender based (also a larger no. of) compared to male gendered insults which tended to be gender neutral and not that degrading in comparison. Although linking a male to being female was used as an insult where as there weren't any linking females to being males as insulting.
Sally Phillips
ReplyDeleteI investigated the different types of insults for men and women (I got people to say 5 derogatory words for women and 5 for men).
My results showed that results for women were largely sex-related (9/10 people used slut as one of their 5 insulting words for women), whereas for men the insults were more gender neutral (arsehole, dickhead), or to do with their sexuality (bent/faggot). Only one of the ten people I asked gave a sex related insult for a man (man whore).
In general my results backed up the point that there are many more insults for women than men, and that whilst male insults are more gender neutral, those targeted at women are still mainly to do with their sex lives.
Lily Sanderson
ReplyDeleteI investigated the different dictionary entries for some of the words identified by Janet Holmes and what they have to say about language and gender.
I looked at the definitions for "bitch", "cow" (both commonly used towards women) and "stud" (commonly used towards men). All 3 words have definitions linked to animals in some way, however only the male definition is used positively; referring to a male as a "stud" originates from where animals are kept for breeding, suggesting using this word about a male suggests his power and sexual appeal. This term was the most popular in the late 40s/early 50s.
The terms directed towards women are used mainly in a derogative manner; both cows and bitches are animals domesticated and commonly associated with being used only to produce children, milk, or meat, therefore suggesting women are only to be domesticated.
To conclude, by looking at the dictionary definitions for these 3 terms, we can see that women are still referred to in a derogative way whereas language that is directed towards men is mainly positive, which proves Dale Spender's theory that language is androcentric - it has a built in bias towards men.
Tom Jenkins
ReplyDeleteI used an online dictionary (http://www.etymonline.com) to research the etymology of slang words that relate to gender (pointed to by Janet Holmes) trying to find out if words developed meanings related to gender before other euphemistic or dysphemistic meanings.
All of the words I researched had a euphemistic or dysphemistic meaning unrelated to gender before they developed the meaning pointed to by Janet Holmes.
I concluded from this that the meanings related to gender were more influenced by the positive or negative connotations of the secondary meaning than the original meaning of the word e.g. The word chick to refer to women in a derogatory way (circa 1940) is derived from chicken meaning coward (circa 1711) rather than the original meaning of a home fowl (circa ~1600)
Michael Clarkson
ReplyDeleteI looked at the different types of insults for men and women, and tried to spot a general theme.
The results showed that women insults were mostly to do with sex whereas for men the insults were more mixed.
Overall, the results proved the point that there seems to be a considerable amount more of women insults than men insults. Although male insults seem to be more mixed, remarks aimed at women tend to be a dig at their sex lives.
Catherine Brough
ReplyDeleteI asked people to state words describing men and women and I looked at how they differ and what this says about the way they are represented through language.
I found that words describing women were softer such as 'calm, gentle, beautiful and maternal' and the words describing men were much harsher for example 'strong, tough and lean.' However I did find the younger generation was less stereotypical. For example someone referred to women as 'strong, brave and powerful.' And men as 'paternal, kind and brave'
In conclusion, the words which describe both men and women are stereotyped. However this was more the older generation and we could possibly be going in a direction where the words are less stereotyped, as the younger generation were using the same words to describe both men and women.
Dulcie Poskitt
ReplyDeleteI investigated to see if there are more derogatory words available to describe women then men by asking people to list as many derogatory words for men and women as they could.
I found that people found it a lot easier to list words for females then males as the female list was considerably longer. Also, for the terms used to describe males, I noticed many of them could equally be taken as a compliment and are used more to joke compared to insult e.g. player. However the words used to describe women seemed more offensive. Additionally, the majority of words listed for males were words that are derogatory for women but changed slightly e.g. man-slag.
When comparing to Janet Holmes' findings I saw a lot of similarities like similar terms and also the fact there was a lot more derogatory words to describe women.
Dulcie Poskitt
ReplyDeleteI investigated to see if there are more derogatory words available to describe women then men by asking people to list as many derogatory words for men and women as they could.
I found that people found it a lot easier to list words for females then males as the female list was considerably longer. Also, for the terms used to describe males, I noticed many of them could equally be taken as a compliment and are used more to joke compared to insult e.g. player. However the words used to describe women seemed more offensive. Additionally, the majority of words listed for males were words that are derogatory for women but changed slightly e.g. man-slag.
When comparing to Janet Holmes' findings I saw a lot of similarities like similar terms and also the fact there was a lot more derogatory words to describe women.
Charlotte Brown
ReplyDeleteI investigated what derogatory terms were used to insult each gender over a span of generations by asking people of a variety of age and gender for five derogatory terms they would use to insult each gender.
My findings showed that the older the person, the more likely they were to insult a male about his intelligence and masculinity. The insults aimed at women were more prone to be about them not fitting the social norm of being feminine eg "brunhilder" and also that women talk a lot but not with any substance, eg "fish wife". The younger generations tended to use insults for women being promiscuous and for men, more general terms such as dickhead, Asshole or bastard.
Shows that the trend of insulting women for being hysterical is becoming outdated, however more promiscuous terms are being used in replacement. For men, their masculinity is still being insulted just in a different fashion. Instead of like older generations using intelligence as an insult, the younger generations tend to use more "Ladish" language as this is the new social conformity.
Connie Fletcher
ReplyDeleteI looked at what derogatory terms young people (16-17 years old) used to refer to women and to men. To do this I asked two girls and two boys to name five terms they would use themselves.
I found that there were more common derogatory terms for women, as 100% of my participants chose four of the same terms. However for boys 100% only chose two of the same terms. Moreover a lot of the terms used for men had the ability to be used to describe a woman too. However those used to describe a woman had connotations which linked purely to a woman and would not be heard being used to refer to a boy.
This shows that derogatory terms for women are more well known and used more frequently than those for boys. People are much more likely to use the same insults towards a woman because they're so commonly used that everybody knows them. Where as those used for men weren't as popular or distinguishable.
Consequently, my research shows that although what Stanley was saying about there being more derogatory terms for a promiscuous female is true. Another point to consider is how widely spread these terms are used. Which are most regularly used and familiar to people?
Alice Prescott
ReplyDeleteI was investigating whether there was more derogatory terms available to describe women than men. I did this by asking both men and women of different ages to list as many derogatory terms they would use for men and terms they would use for women.
I found that there was often an even amount of derogatory terms used for men and women throughout the age ranges, and to my surprise sometimes more for men than women. Often my results showed a pattern as many terms were repeated for both male and female.
in conclusion I found that there is a pretty even amount of derogatory terms for both men and women which goes against the findings made previously by Stanley.
Tom Armstrong
ReplyDeleteI was investigating which gender has the most derogatory terms to describe each other with. I did my research by asking men and women from different ages and ethnicity to try and list as many insulting terms they could aim towards women and insults they would use for men. In my findings it showed that there were more derogatory terms could be used to describe women than there was to describe men; however some of the derogatory words used were the same and could be used to describe both genders male and female, for example the insult 'slut'. In conclusion, I found that there were more derogatory terms to describe women than men, this therefore concludes with the findings of Stanley.