In
recent years, unnecessarily gendered language has become a popular topic. The
press voices a concern for pronouns and gendered phrases in Jessica Bennett’s post in the New York Times, Rachael Pells’s post from Independent, and Caroline Davies’s post on The Guardian, but just how well do they represent the linguistic matters at
hand? At a first glance, they don’t seem to be speaking too narrowly! However,
depending on the individual reader’s stance on gendered language, their
viewpoints may feel noticeably less than well-rounded. This is especially true
when they are compared to an academic source on the same subject!
Bennett seems like she will attempt
to discuss both sides of the gendered language argument. She acknowledges that some
people use “they” as a pronoun, and there are also those who would sooner find
themselves using “function words.” What are those? Bennett describes them as, “.
. . words that have little lexical meaning but serve to connect other words —
or ‘the basic building blocks in language’” (Bennett). Conversely, Pells and
Davies both bring up school policies that punished gendering words. Instead of
generic masculine words, they assign alternatives that include “postal carrier”
while doing away with “mailman,” (Davies), or “waiter,” and “server,” in place
of “waitress” (Pells).
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Some Universities
are beginning to enforce linguistic guidelines like these!
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This is where a lack of thoroughness
wounds their articles! Bennett introduces new pronouns as an answer to the
gendered language problem, for those who are not fond of “they.” From
here-on-out, rather than explaining function words, she appeals to those who
prefer pronoun alternatives. Similarly, we see little of the school campus’s
arguments in Pells’s and Davies’s articles! The language representation in both
posts is overshadowed by commentary from interviewees who make fun of gender
policies. They merely joked that a language-banning move was likely to cause rebellion
(Davies)!
The writing itself is not biased in
any of these press articles . . . However, the fact that they reference folks
who enjoy pronoun alternatives, and ignore gender-neutral language policies (for
the sake of function words and “free speech”) raises suspicion that other arguments
are silenced!
Comparatively, the scholarly article of Benson, Kemp, Pirlott, Coughlin,
Forss, and Becherer discusses pronouns and alternatives in richer detail. Unafraid to
be specific and tackle all angles, the authors describe how surveys were used
to gauge student reactions to the “man” suffix and prefix (Benson, Kemp,
Pirlott, Coughlin, Forss, and Becherer 237). These studies reveal that, while
not all students were in agreement of abandoning “man”, there were also those
willing to embrace some language change. This document also explains the
process universities undergo to establish gendered language policies, so that
they may apply to “all academic communications” (Benson, Kemp, Pirlott,
Coughlin, Forss, and Becherer 238). Language-editing universities sound
unreasonable when there is little shown in their defense. Funnily enough, when
the story is told from the side of the faculty, we learn that there is a
connection between language and school law policies. Suddenly, the evolution of
language not only makes sense; it holds practicality in the linguistic values
of an entire community!
