To what extent does the language used to represent different groups of people need to be changed?

Sanjay Patel English Language

To what extent does the language used to represent different groups of people need to be changed?

There are many areas of sexist language, which perhaps need changing for example the use of the generic ‘he’. The word he has been used as standard and has been the norm in the language. However, the generic ‘he’ doesn’t represent the both sexes. Another example can be the mankind, where man is used as the norm. The language has many derogatory terms for women. There are in fact over 230 demeaning words for women where as there are 20 or less for men. These derogatory terms in most cases used to insult the person, this is down to the prejudices that reflect towards women. There are three different titles for women, which can indicate different status. ‘Mrs’ indicates that the women is married, ‘Miss’ indicates that the women is not married and ‘Ms’ indicates that the women does not wish to reveal her marital status. The ‘Ms’ title has acquired negative connotations as it can imply prejudices that the women are some sort of feminist or even a man hater. The language makes women invisible when as her family name or surname does not count, as she has to take her husbands name instead. However it is not a legal requirement for the woman to adopt her husband’s surname. Females can either be categorised as women, ladies or girls, it is difficult to know what to call the females. “It is OK working for a lady – sorry, a woman I should say”? (BBC Radio 4 Interview, 30.7.1987) Women are tend to be represented as ones that are more in touch with children and that men are not seen as nurturing which therefore limits the number of roles that men do. Going to back to the issue where male terminology is used e.g. ‘mankind’ some people argue that politically correct language can go to far, but this can be argued that the language has always been like that and that we know that language includes women too. On the other hand there are objections to this as it hasn’t always been like this, language in fact is man made. The rules of grammar are arbitrary; they are set over time however not by the law. The language needs to change somewhat as it need to become equal, not just male dominated but also female dominated. The language I don’t think can change, as it has been the normal way to speak for so long now.

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Disablist language can go far depending on the situation and the level of the language that is used. For example you would avoid the use of the words like crippled and spastic, as they can be used as insults and they can have negative connotations. E.g. ‘To be crippled by fear’ and ‘Spaz’. The word disabled has negative connotations as you are referring to the person as completely powerless. This statement can become untrue as the person wit the disability may only have a small deficiency like there are visually impaired. The word spastic is originally a medical term, but it has been changed into a school ground insult where it has evolved into ‘Spaz’. The correct term that should be used is CP Sufferer as this is less insulting and there are no insults that are linked. Personally I think that the word disabled isn’t that offensive and if some one was to say that it was I would disagree on the grounds that there are more insulting words in the language. An article called ‘Cripple beaten to death at home’ written by a tabloid newspaper was going to far with the use of its words in its headline. The use of the term cripple indicated that the victim was also disabled, powerless and then they got beaten up. The headline could have just wrote man or women beaten to death at home, I think that the newspaper was trying to target its audience by emphasising the fact that the person that got beaten to death was actually a cripple. The cripple can mean many things but it does sound quite horrific. The language that is some times used to describe someone that has a disability is sometimes demeaning this is because you are again and again reminding him or her, that they are different. However the language that is sometimes used is offensive, so therefore people have to be politically correct to show the other person no offence, I think that it is better to be politically correct than not to at all. This is because you don’t use as much demeaning language and don’t make it as blatant.

Areas of the language are used to represent race that need to be changed, this is because they can be most likely cause offence. Referring back to the police booklet from greater Manchester police, it says that there are different terms that are applied to different members of the public of different race, these words/terms should not be used, as there are racist and cause offence. However you can argue that these terms are just used to describe what the person really is. Example of this is the word ‘paki’ it is used to call every asian looking person. The term ‘paki’ is technically short for Pakistani but is often used to illustrate the whole of the ethnic minority. This kind of term ‘paki’ is often closely related with violence, this is why the term needs to change within the language. However the term that is used cannot be changed because it is what has been spoken over the past few decades. According to the police booklet there are also other racist or derogatory terms, for example the word ‘nigger’ its is used to represent all the black individuals, however on a good note this term has been re-proclaimed by the black people, and used in the music industry in rap music. The term then is referred to as a ‘brother’ (‘Ma nigga’)

I think that the language can change all depending on how the individual is and how they have been brought up. Out of all the three areas of language covered I think that racist language has to come 1st for most offensive as in most cases the language is then carried forward to a violent operation. Politically corrected language should be emphasised a lot as many of the non-politically correct words tend to be slang and or maybe racist. However there are exceptions to this, for example the term ‘black’ can be used to differentiate between say 2 people, this term may or may not cause offence but it is better to use the politically correct term instead to be safe. The language needs to be changed in all three areas that represent the three different groups, but the priority of this change should be Disablist and racist language as they are what cause the most offence and concern, sexist language isn’t as important however the language could be fine tuned to accept both men and women into society a bit better.