Journal Entry #3

Next time, hopefully, this will be a song.

Again I am choosing to focus on the most recent reading assignment, not because it is the freshest in my mind, but because it addresses, in reference to a hypothesis, a way of understanding language which I have secretly harbored for years. The article makes reference to a “Whorfian” hypothesis. As I understood it, this hypothesis is based on the idea that language frames our perception of reality. In the article, this idea is dismissed by stating that its implications on class struggles are potentially limiting and fodder for social control and justification of hierarchies, “some researchers began to claim that the language of Blacks and the working class was structurally impoverished and, by preventing speakers from complex and creative thought, led to inevitable educational and career failure” (149). To dismantle this objection I will call loosely upon Saussure. To begin with it is true, at least from Saussure’s standpoint that there is no thought outside of language. The implications of this would thus support the Whorfian hypothesis, granted one agrees that different language highlight different facets of the human experience and occlude others (the idea that some languages could be more sexist than others would indeed fall under this category). Given this assumption we can then see how speaking French would provide a different experience than speaking Quechua, and perhaps this could then lead to the idea that some languages are more limited than others as “some researchers” claimed. However, were we to call upon Saussure once more we can see that language, that is, a system composed of signs, have both arbitrary signifiers, and arbitrary signifier-signified relationships. This claim frees language claims which would seek to evaluate its expressive capabilities. The claim made by “some researchers” hinges on the idea that one language, or rather, one form of speaking, is somehow less rich, or less capable of providing ideas than another. This claim is a bit hard to swallow, since language is something that springs from humans and is not imposed upon them. We cannot take the Whorfian hypothesis to mean that language limits human experience. Where there is human emotion, should that human choose to express it, he or she will always enlist a combination of known signs to satisfactorily communicate it. I believe, however, that the Whorfian hypothesis can still hold water if looked upon from the perspective of translation. In Walter Benjamin’s The Task of the Translator, he explains that translation is not a corruption of the original work, but rather an extension of the life of the work and both languages involved. This is because human language is not a precise means of communication. Rather, it is like a spot light illuminating only given facets of a dark, amorphous, psychic-substance. The beauty of translation is that it provides an additional source of light with which to examine the substance. This not only adds depth to the work, but each language sheds light on certain characteristics and nuances of the other. I believe that it is these nuances and subtle characteristics that do the framing in the Whorfian hypothesis as I understand it. While this idea remains practically unstudiable considering the conditions under which testing could occur defy both unity of self and time (same exact individual, same exact conditions, different language). Regardless, I personally consider this to be an interesting addition to the study of language with its many implications for sexism and gender.

Works Cited:

Graddol, David, and Joan Swann. Gender Voices. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 1989.

Works Referenced:

De la Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in General Linguistics. Trans. Roy Harris. Boston: Open Court Company, 1988.

Ct. 570

Journal Entry #2

This week’s reading brought up some interesting questions for me regarding the forms of speech examined. While reading Sattel’s article on the characteristics and dynamics of male inexpressiveness I noticed a strange reaction I had to an example he used from literature. In his article, Sattel explains that while we have come to know inexpressiveness as a typically masculine trait, which we may understand simply as opposed to feminine, that rather, “The starting point for understanding masculinity lies, not in its contrast to femininity, but in the asymmetrical dominance and prestige which accrue to males in this society," (119). His thesis is then, that rather than understanding that men are simply taught to hide their emotions as part of occupying the male identity, we should recognize that this is instead a move to seem more rational, and thus capable of handling the situations of power and prestige which they are, as American males, to inherit. He explains further “Being impersonal and inexpressive lends to one’s decisions and position an apparent autonomy and ‘rightness’” (120). At this point in the text I believe it is easy to see which phenomenon Sattel is referring to, it even has a kind of common place in society: the stereotype of the stony stoic male, embodied by John Wayne as referenced in the beginning of the article. However, what I encountered in Sattel’s chosen passage from Fear of Flying was quite the opposite.
In the example, a man and a woman are in a quarrel wherein the man retains information, according to Sattel, in order to establish power. What I found to be completely bizarre about this example is that I had to read it twice just to be clear on who the female and male speakers were. In this example, we stumble upon another well recognized pattern of speech, only the genders are reversed. This was particularly striking because all of the examples prior to this one were indeed "typically" masculine (President Nixon, President Ford, John Wayne), but something about this example made the man's speech sound so utterly feminine. This is because of a phenomenon which, though commonly identified, especially in the media, has remained untouched by the readings so far, namely the "feminine" mode of attack.
In this example the man seems to be acting out what in pop media could be named the "feminine" response to a disturbance. In this cliché, the woman, held back by her non-confrontational nature and a desire to "test" her partner and decide if he is indeed as devoted/attentive as he seems to imply refuses to reveal information, but is generous in her display of disdain. The situation thus remains tense until the man either guesses long enough to reveal the secret root of the conflict or gives up. One line was particularly evocative of this stereotype, "I can't read your mind. I don't know why you're so mad. I can't intuit your every wish" (121). This line could have come from any modern middle-class couple sitcom.
The questions, then, which arose for me in reading this was how the "feminine" forms of aggressive speech, or attack, fall in with the rest of our understanding of how women speak. It seems to me that in quite a few of the readings the topic of male aggressive behavior has been covered, although perhaps not explicitly. And while most of these texts seem to suggest that women are not particularly aggressive, I am surprised that there has not been more attention paid to the occasions in which women break with the "desire for cooperation" and set themselves willingly apart from a group, namely in conversational battle. It seems to me that although in this case the gender roles are the reverse, that this would indeed be a good place to start examining the way we think of gendered forms of verbal attack.


Works Cited:
Sattel, Jack W. [Barrie Thomas, Cheris Kramarae, and Nancy Henley, eds.] Language, Gender, and Society. Rowley: Newbury House, 1983.

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