preview

Gender Discrimination In Language

Decent Essays

In the history of mankind, different forms of communication systems were developed for people to connect with each other. Language, in particular, is the most common communication system invented predominantly by males. However, language is much more than a communication system. Language is a representational system that “uses graphics, signs, organized into languages of different kinds, to communicate meaningfully with others.”(Hall 18) Language not only serves as the bond that connects us together but also plays a crucial role in everyone’s life as we use it to exchange ideas, knowledge, and emotions. It is also the primary means of constructing and maintaining a society. Yet the so-called language that we take so much pride in possesses a connotation for our genders that is clearly sexist in a way that we trivialize women and rendering them invisible. Discrimination against women exists and can be easily observed in language. What Lakoff means by “We use language as much as language uses us,” is that humans use language to express their thoughts and ideas but at the same time language dictates our thoughts and how we interpret reality. Without words it’s extremely hard to express our thoughts and the different form of expressions that come out “can be synonymous in their denotative sense”. (Lakoff ) We tend to believe that we are in control of language, but the inability to find a word that resembles the meaning that the speaker desires clearly shows that language

Get Access