Looking in the thesaurus under ‘white’ and ‘black’ it is amazing to see the difference in language use. In the ‘white’ section there are many normal meanings, but there are 17 negative synonyms. These include ‘dead white’, ‘ghostly’ and ‘corpse-like’. So there are some negative synonyms fro ‘white’, however, not as many as under ‘black’. There are few nice meanings and many negative ones. 70 to be precise. This is an outrageous amount, which backs up the fact that culture today is andocentric. Some of these negative synonyms are ‘wicked’, ‘evil’, ‘threatening’ and ‘sinister’. These can be made into really abusive and hurtful comments when said in a negative way. If I compare the black negative and white positive, a distinct difference can be seen – black negative – death/devil and then white positive – pure/innocent.
Dale Spender is a language professor who believes in the semantic rule. She says this is a rule which, if put in place, means to abolish sexist words, but we should have to abolish virtually all words about women and it wouldn’t help anyway because the semantic rule would still exist. The semantic rule Spender is talking about is this: words that refer to women occupy a ‘negative semantic space’ so that they acquire a pejorative (negative) meaning.
All words have a history; this is known as its etymology. It is where they come from, how they originated. Following on the racial prejudice theme, here is a word and it’s history: ‘black death’ – from the dark spots that appeared on the skin of plague sufferers. So there is no negative meaning against the black race, though this phrase is used around the world to be discriminative against them.
‘Sexism’ means discrimination against others on the basis of their gender, otherwise known as gender prejudice. The English language we use nowadays still reflects the fact that we live in a patriarchal society (male dominated).
Lexical asymmetry is when male words and their female equivalents are unequal (asymmetrical) in their associations and connotations. For example ‘mistress’ and ‘master’. When I see these two words I see ‘master’ as someone who is rich, good-looking and is in charge of his life with a good-looking wife at his side and kids. When I see ‘mistress’ I have a vision of a pretty girl who is a ‘little bit on-the-side’ for the master. This is how I see these titles because this is the culture I have been brought up in and it has affected my language.
Terms for females are often marked by the addition of a suffix to the male terms, which is unmarked. For example, ‘actor’ and ‘actress’. This suggests that male roles are more important and explains the default assumptions people make which is when a high-status position is seen as held by a man, for example a doctor, because they are ‘more powerful’. This is because we have been brought up in an andocentric world.
When thinking of words for men and women and how they are different in insulting and patronizing usages, sexual associations are clearly opposites. Women are called ‘slut’, ‘slag’ and ‘whore’ whilst men are called ‘stud’, ‘Casanova’ and ‘Don Juan’. There are hardly any bad sexually associated names for guys compared to girls. There are no patronising terms especially for the male of the species which in noticeable in the language we use. Women are called lots of different things including ‘darling’, ‘tart’, ‘honey’ and ‘crumpet’ which are all patronising.
‘Man’ is sometimes used to specifically mean males, but all around the world it is used a generic term. This is when it applies to the whole of the human race – including women and children. For example, ‘mankind’ is a generic term and it is often criticised because of the fact it implies that men are more important than women in the human race.
There are two different titles in the English language that are criticised as well. These are ‘Miss’ and ‘Mrs’. ‘Miss’ implies that a woman is free for a man to have whilst ‘Mrs’ implies that the woman is taken by a man as his wife. To overcome this problem women are more frequently calling themselves ‘Ms’ which hides this fact. I think this is good because if someone is single, but perhaps embarrassed at the fact, or they are single because their husband died, maybe divorced, they can hide this and it gives them a lot more privacy.
There is evidence that people are divided in their preference for using one of the alternative terms ‘disabled people’ or ‘people with disabilities’. I feel that ‘people with disabilities’ is more politically correct as it is putting the person first, as they have feelings and they have the disability, not the other way round, the disability is not them, they just have one. Negative synonyms of disabled include ‘spastic’ or ‘crippled’ which were originally medical descriptions but have now turned to be negative because of the way people were using it. This is unfair for the people with these disabilities as they are laughed or discriminated against for it.
Overall, I feel that we live in a very prejudiced world. Nearly everything we say can be put into one of the three categories above which is a very sad fact and shows we live in a world with sexism, racism and prejudice against people with disabilities. There are many other things that we are prejudiced about, these include height, weight, religion and so many other things that makes an individual or group different.
We live in an unfair world.
