Marcin Kilarski Polish-English contrastive grammar

1

Language and gender

Review for the language and culture quiz:

a) terms
> linguistic determinism, linguistic relativity, codifiability; basic colour term, focal meaning, hierarchy of colour terms

b) skills
> Be able to interpret the examples on the handout (e.g., lexical contrasts between German/Danish and Polish or
subjectless constructions in Polish/Russian vs. English) in terms of linguistic determinism and relativity in their strong
and weak versions.
> Be able to state universal and language-specific features of colour terms.

Review for the address forms quiz:

a) terms
> types of address forms: T/V, intimate/familiar vs. polite/deferential; types of social relationships: solidarity, power,
distance, respect, intimacy; reciprocal / symmetrical vs. non-reciprocal / asymmetrical usage

b) skills
> Be able to identify T and V forms in Polish and German.
> Know the differences in the use of pronouns of power and solidarity.
> Know the differences in use of pronouns/pronominal forms in Modern English: thou : you, you : yous / you guys etc.
> Know the main differences in the use of address forms in Polish and English.
> Be able to analyse examples of address forms in terms of T/V distinction, formality, intimacy, distance and power and
solidarity (e.g. Pan/Pani + FN).

1.

English

a) use of titles
> original situation: Master – Mister, Mrs – Miss (for age only); Master now obsolete while the fem. forms came to be
associated with marital status; Ms /miz/ was introduced in 1940s and met with a considerable success

b) generic masculine he
> claim: generic (i.e., including male and female) use of he is a myth: speakers interpret it in male-exclusive terms or
the interpretation including women is secondary because of formal similarity

Suggestions:
> singular they, e.g. Somebody phoned... Did they... (problem: grammatical contradiction)
> sex-indefinite reference, e.g. he or she, he/she, s/he (problem: awkward in discourse, restricted to written English)
> various coinages: co, tey, hesh, thon, xe, E, po, thon (problem: very limited success)

> epicene (i.e. may refer to both males and females) pronouns (Baron 1986: 205-209)

1850

ne, nis, nim; hiser

1868

en

1884

thon, thons; hi, hes, hem; le, lis, lim; unus, talis; hiser, himer, ip, ips

1888

ir, iro, im (sg.); thir, thiro, thim (pl.)

1889

ons

1890

e, es, em

1891

hizer

1912

he’er, him’er, his’er, his’er’s

1927

ha, hez, hem; on; hesh, hizzer, himmer; on

1935

himorher

1940

heesh (A.A. Milne)

1970

co, cos (IE *ko); ve, vis, ver

1971

ta, ta-men

1972

tey, term, tem; him/herself; shes, shim, shims, shimself; ze (Ger. sie), zim, zees, zeeself; per (person), pers;

1973

na, nan, naself; it, s/he; s/he, him/er, his-or-her; shem, herm; j/e, m/a, m/e, m/es, m/oi, jee, jeue

1974

ne, nis, ner; en, as, ar; hisorher, herorhis, ve, vis, vim; shem, hem, hes

1975

hir, herim; ey, eir, em, uh; h’orsh’it

1976

ho, hom, hos, homself (Lat. homo); he or she, (s)he; she, herm, hs

1977

po, xe, jhe; E, E’s, Em; e, ris, rim; sheme, shis, shem, heshe, hisher, himmer; em, ems

Marcin Kilarski Polish-English contrastive grammar

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1978

ae; hir; hesh, hizer, hirm, sheehy, sap (Homo sapiens); heesh, hiser(s), herm, hermself

1979

one; et, ets, etself; hir, hires, hirem, hirself; shey, sheir, sheirs, hey, heir, heirs

1980

it

1981

heshe, hes, hem

1982

shey, shem, sheir; E, Ir

1984

hiser; hes; hann

1985

herm

c) generic man
> claim: generic man is interpreted as ‘male-exclusive’, e.g., God made the country, and man made the town. vs. Man
is destined to be a prey to woman.
> cf. G der Mensch (m.), Sw. människa (f.), Da., Nw. menneske (n.) ‘human being’

d) generic -man
> interpreted similarly when a derivational suffix in, e.g. spokesman, postman, mailman, cameraman; suggestions: sex-
neutral alternatives: spokesperson, mail carrier, camera operator
> woman – women > womon – womyn, *human, *humanity (cf. Lat. homo) (these supposed etymologies are
reminiscent of those suggested by Rowland Jones, an 18

th

century Welsh philologist, e.g., Eve < E-ve ‘him, she was

taken out of him’; marry < mi-ar-hi ‘me upon her’)
> problem in relation between man and -man; arguments pro: irregular plural in both, not *-mans; arguments con:
reduced vowel in both the singular and plural of the compound.

e) occupational terms
> negative semantic space – there are fewer nouns referring to women in English and they are less prestigeous
> narrowing and derrogation of female terms: sir/dame, master/mistress, bachelor/spinster; whore (‘lover’ > ‘female
prostitute’); girl (ME girle ‘young person of either sex’ > Mod.E. also offensive for woman of any age or female
servant/employee); witch (‘male/female sorcerer’ > ‘usu. female sorcerer, ugly old woman’)

word formation:
> female markers: prefixal woman, female, e.g., woman doctor; suffixes -ette, -ess, and suffixal -woman, e.g.,
congresswoman
> male markers: prefixal male-, e.g., male prostitute, nurse

f) lexical gaps
> lexical gaps in words denoting positive features of female sexuality, e.g., lack of equivalent of male virility
> restriction to one sex through suffixes: man-servant, maid-servant, he-devil, she-devil
> restriction in social function: minister, baker, lawyer, bishop vs. nurse, secretary, dressmaker

2.

Polish (Herbert – Nykiel-Herbert 1987)

a) gender in the sg.
> semantic agreement is possible only for sex-definite and sex-indefinite nouns which refer to males; nouns referring to
females have to take formal agreement, e.g.,

ten stary-MASC. mężczyzna-MASC.

vs.

ta stara-FEM. kobieta-FEM.

ten stary-MASC. chłopina-FEM.

*ta stara-FEM. babsztyl-MASC.

ten stary-MASC. fajtłapa-FEM. Janek-MASC.

ta wstrętna-FEM. fajtłapa-FEM. Zosia-FEM.

ten stary-MASC. flejtuch-MASC. Janek-MASC.

*ta wstrętna-FEM. flejtuch-MASC. Zosia-FEM.

b) gender in the pl.
> recall the distinction between masc.pers. (virile) and non-masc.pers. (non-virile) in the pl.
> claim: non-masc.pers. gender carries pejorative connotations: females in masc.pers. only in company of men (Janek i
Marysia przynieśli ciastka), derrogation of males to non-virile, e.g, profesorzy > profesory, dyrektorzy > dyrektory,
studenci > studenty

c) generics
> possible male-only interpretation of Pol. człowiek?
> note the differences in agreement with epicene osoba, determined formally within the sentence and formally or
semantically outside, e.g., Ofiara została przewieziona do szpitala. Lekarze podali mu/jej krew.

d) lexicon
> fem. term is usually derived from the masc. (but wdowa > wdowiec)

Marcin Kilarski Polish-English contrastive grammar

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> in masc.-fem. pairs of occupational terms, the fem. form is less prestigeous or unacceptable, e.g., sekretarka,
doktorka, psycholożka, fotograficzka, geolożka, lingwistka
> the fem. form may be blocked by an already existing word, e.g., cesarka, kominiarka, marynarka, szoferka
> masc. forms are available with the prefixal męska, e.g., męska prostytutka
> names and address: children normally receive their father’s name; fem. names are derived from the masc. name, e.g.,
Misia Sertowa (Sert), Pawlakowa/Pawlakówna (Pawlak), Pankiewiczowa/Pankiewiczówna (Pankiewicz), Profesorowa
Machowska (Prof. Machowski) (cf. also Zygmuntowstwo for the couple)
> lexical gaps, e.g. lack of comparable male equivalent of the feminine noun dziewica

References:

Web resources:
> Language and gender page (

http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/faculty/bucholtz/lng/

) for the best selection of links on

the web

>

http://www.umbc.edu/cwit/syllabi.html

for gender related syllabi

> LSA guidelines on nonsexist writing:

www.lsadc.org/info/coswl/coswl.gls.htm

> guidelines for non-sexist use of English:

http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa/publications/texts/nonsexist.html

Baron, D.E. 1986. Grammar and gender. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Bodine, A. 1975. “Sex differentiation in language”, in: Barrie Thorne – Nancy Henley (eds.), Language and sex:

Difference and dominance. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. 130-151.

Bußmann, H. – R. Hof (eds.). 1995. Genus. Zur Geschlechterdifferenz in den Kulturwissenschaften. Stuttgart:

Kröner.

Chambers, J.K. 1992. "Linguistic correlates of gender and sex". English World-Wide 13/2: 173-218.
Coates, J. 1986. Women, men and language. London: Longman. ("Language and gender" 3-15; "The social

consequences of gender differences in language" 187-204).

Coates, J. 1998. Language and gender: A reader. Oxford: Blackwell.
Eakins, B.W. – G.R. Eakins. 1978. Sex differences in conversation. Boston.
Herbert, R. – B. Nykiel-Herbert. 1987. "Explorations in linguistic sexism: a contrastive sketch", PSiCL 21: 47-86.
Jaworski, A. 1986. A linguistic picture of women’s position in society: A Polish-English contrastive study. Frankfurt am

Main: Peter Lang.

Key, M.R. 1996. Male/female language: With a comprehensive bibliography. (2

nd

edition.) Lanham, Md. –

London: The Scarecrow Press.

Khosroshahi, F. 1989. "Penguins don’t care, but women do: A social identity analysis of a Whorfian problem",

Language in Society 18: 505-525.

Koniuszaniec, G. - H. Błaszkowska. 2003. "Language and gender in Polish", in: M. Hellinger - H. Bußmann.

Gender across languages. The linguistic representation of women and men. Amsterdam - Philadephia:
John Benjamins. (259-285)

Lakoff, R. 1975. Language and women’s place. New York.
Milroy, L. 1980. Language and social networks. Oxford: Blackwell.
Shibamoto, J. 1985. Japanese women’s language. Academic Press.
Takahara, K. 1991. “Female speech patterns in Japanese”, International Journal of the Sociology of Language 92: 61-

85.

Tannen, D. 1990. You just don’t understand. Women and men in conversation. New York: Ballantine Books.
Tannen, D. (ed.). 1993. Gender and conversational interaction, New York: OUP.
Trudgill, P. 1990. Sociolinguistics. (3

rd

edition.) Hammondsworth: Pelican.

updated 4 December 2007

kilarski at amu.edu.pl