If the feminist critique of language is correct, and much of language demonstrates and embodies masculine and male experience (Cameron 1998, 9), then it should come as no surprise that slang, which can be one particular method of vocabulary, should echo the same manly and guy experience. However , apparently little quantitative research have been done upon slang straight until comparatively recently. The first study was Kutner and Brogan’s research (1974), just over 3 decades ago.
The object of this study is to test my peer’s knowledge of slang, and how mindful they are of its use. Among the common tips about slang is that slang words transform fast, coming from generation to a new, the other is the fact slang is definitely not mainstream. But wherever it comes to gender and slang, slang words have confirmed rather steady and prevalent, even the ordinario slang ” being a virgin mobile or a slut has had that means since time immemorial.
But first, I will define slang and give a little bit of background about its study since the 70’s. What is slang? Slang refers to planets and dialects that are not found in mainstream lifestyle. As such, it can be the marker of any subculture, or of areas of discourse or ideas which might be taboo in mainstream thinking. A subset of slang are what we normally take to always be slang, namely vulgar, sexualized, or negative language. For the purposes on this paper, we all will concentrate on slang that includes a particularly gendered aspect ” that is, terms that are used to designate “male and “female genders in slang vocabulary. These types of slang words include, but are not limited to: Chick, hoe, babe, and guy, boy, and guy. The fact the particular slang words and phrases are common exactly where it comes to discussing the associations between the genders, on topics such as lovemaking attraction and gender relationships (activities and relationships).
In respect to Flexher (1975), whom produced the first dictionary of slang, the use of slang and the creation of new slang is almost exclusively the purview of men (xii). Women tend to use the terminology that is developed for them by males. This may take into account the disbalance of terms in a gendered distribution: there are more slang terms to specify female or feminine actions, and more of the terms are negative, and many more negative than its male/masculine counterpart: for example , review bitch and asshole. First off, you should almost never call a man a bitch if you were trying to feminize him, but you can contact women arseholes without masculinizing them. Second, hoe has a even more negative charge than asshole, which might possibly carry an optimistic charge. These are some informal observations that may could holdup within the scrutiny of the quantitative study.
Males could use slang more because they are even more at home in all of dialect, and so this violation of language rules becomes likely. There is a sense where the use of slang is a bold thing to do, and doing brave things is consistent with manly patterns of behavior and development. Young girls tend to need to adhere to the rule, be these types of rules linguistic or otherwise. That they are previously not wholly at home in language signifies that they currently risk certainly not communicating, which in turn does not manage them the bedroom to play with language in the daring approach that slang demands. In this same vein, the usage of profane dialect is more anticipated and lauded of young boys and males than it really is of girls and ladies.
These suggestions, which could become summarized as the general thesis that gender slang is definitely the domain of males is one that is at a be evidenced and approved by many scholars, women, men, feminist and not, since the 1970’s. For example , one study quoted in the text message (Stanley, 1977) found that whereas there are 220 approaches to designate female in British slang, there are only twenty two comparable methods to designate males. More interesting is that both women and men share the use of these same conditions ” you will discover not two set of slang terms, every appropriate for each gender, but merely one that is identified and reveal men’s experience. It has lead a lot of feminists to argue that women ought to develop and independent lexicon (see Irigaray in the Cameron, 1998). And while this kind of disparity is very obvious when you start to think about it and investigate vocabulary and slang use, it seems to be rather transparent to the everyday vocabulary user ” or at least, this is what this task has attempted to test.
Bibliography
Cameron, Deborah. (1998) The Feminist Critique of Language. New York, Routledge.
de Klerk, V. (1992). How taboo are taboo words for ladies? Language in Society, twenty one, 277-289.
Eckert and McConnell-Ginet. (2003)Terminology and Gender. Ny: Cambridge University Press.
Flexner, S. B. (1975). Preface to the dictionary of yankee slang. In H. Wentworth & S. B. Flexner (Eds. ), Dictionary of American slang. New York: Thomas Sumado a. Crowell.
Kutner, N. G., & Brogan, D. (1974). An investigation of sex-related slang vocabulary and sex-role orientation among guy and female students. J of Marr plus the Family, thirty-six, 474-484.
Risch, B. (1987). Women’s negative terms for men: That’s right, “dirty” words. Language in Culture, 16, 353-358.
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