Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, [2002]. / A thesis submitted to the University of Western Sydney in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Bibliography: leaves 139-170.

Cette thèse examine les genres sémantique et social des noms de métiers, titres, fonctions d’un point de vue contrastif. Nous avons montré que le français, l’allemand, l’arabe, langues dotées du genre grammatical et l’anglais et le chinois qui en sont dépourvues, possèdent des noms de MTF exprimant les genres sémantique et social. Notre travail a mis en perspective le genre dans le fonctionnement du langage, en référence spécifique. Nous avons mis en évidence que la présence ou l’absence du genre grammatical n’est pas un indicateur suffisant pour prédire le genre sémantique ou le genre social, de même que l’appartenance à une famille de langues ne suffit pas à prévoir des comportements voisins. Un autre résultat concerne le rôle joué par la « variable genre grammatical», en référence spécifique, d’où l’idée d’« effet miroir». Ainsi : lorsqu’une langue possède le genre grammatical, elle a tendance à présenter des noms de MTF véhiculant le genre sémantique et une non-tendance à la valeur générique ; à l'inverse, lorsqu’une langue est dépourvue de genre grammatical, elle montre une non-tendance au genre sémantique des noms de MTF et une tendance à la valeur générique. Concernant le genre social, toutes les langues, qu’elles possèdent ou non le genre grammatical, comportent des noms de MTF porteurs d’asymétries sémantiques. La typologie que nous avons proposée a permis de dégager, au côté de la covert gender, spécifique des langues sans genre grammatical, quatre autres types de genre social qu’on retrouve dans les cinq langues. / The thesis examines the semantic gender and the social gender of occupational nouns, titles and terms in a contrastive perspective. I showed how the items examined illustrate convergences in five languages, assuming that some of these languages have the grammatical gender as French, German and Arabic while the others do not have the grammatical gender as English and Chinese. In a other way, despite the diversity of languages, the notions of semantic gender and social gender regarding the occupational nouns, titles and terms are transversal in specific reference. I showed that the presence or the absence of the grammatical gender is not enough for predicting the semantic gender or the social gender in the languages examined and I also pointed that the fact of belonging to a family of languages is not enough to predict nearby behavior. Another result concerns the role played by the " variable grammatical gender " in specific reference. That is the reason why I proposed the idea of " mirror effect ", in spécific reference : indeed, when a language possesses the grammatical gender, this language tends to have names of MTF conveying the semantic gender and has a non-tendency to the generic value. Conversely, when a language lacks the grammatical gender, then it shows a non-tendency to the semantic gender of the names of MTF and a tendency to the generic value (that is to say common gender). Concerning the social gender, all the languages examined, that is to say, which possess or not the grammatical gender contain names of MTF conveying semantic asymmetries. The typology that I proposed has identified, next to the covert gender specific to language without grammatical gender, four other types of social gender found in the five languages.

Abstract In English usages such as mankind and job titles ending in -man (fireman, chairman) when referring to people in general are considered sexist. Sexist language makes a distinction between women and men and it can exclude, trivialize or diminish women. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to study the sexist or non-sexist use of occupational terms in The San Diego Union Tribune and The Daily Aztec. The questions that were investigated were how the newspapers used affixed terms ending in –man and -woman, if they added female/woman/lady to refer to women, but also how they referred to traditional female professions (nurse, midwife). The study was conducted by hand by using a textual analysis, which was both qualitative and quantitative in nature. The study showed that the newspapers primarily use non-sexist occupational terms and avoid using female markings, even when reference is being made to women who have traditional male professions. The sexist usage that was most common was the affixed terms ending in –man and –woman. One conclusion that could be drawn was that The San Diego Union Tribune follows The Associated Press Stylebook’s policy about the usage of coined words such as chairperson and spokesperson.

The purpose of this study was to investigate if any linguistic differences between the sexes can be found in Swedish students’ compositions in English. My aim was also to investigate what features students perceive to be typically male or female. By studying a number of Swedish students’ English compositions, I was able to detect differences between boys’ and girls’ language and also compare my discoveries with earlier research. I investigated both the features that separate the genders in their writing and also what students identified as female and male language use. In my investigation, I found some linguistic differences between the sexes which were more distinct than others; for example their use of stative and dynamic verbs. But, on the other hand, I found no noticeable difference between boys’ and girls’ use of adjectives; words which are often said to be more commonly used by girls.

An article by managing director of the Linguistische Unternehmensberatung (LUB GmbH), Dr. Simone Burel, and consultant for gender-fair language, Franziska Saur.

The present thesis deals with the frequency and ways of using gender-specific and gender- neutral occupational labels and attempts to show if there is a tendency towards a more balanced representation of men and women in the contemporary spoken British English. The theoretical part describes the approaches to the study of language from the perspective of gender and summarises the previous research in the area of gender linguistics, focusing on the representation of men and women through language, linguistic androcentrism and sexism, language reforms proposed within the framework of equality movements and the impact of these reforms. The empirical part examines the frequencies and ways of using occupational -man compounds and compares them to their female and gender-neutral alternatives in the British parliamentary speeches, using the data from the Hansard corpus. The compounds with -man can be viewed as problematic since, from a feminist viewpoint, they contribute to linguistic invisibility of women, therefore efforts have been made to eliminate their usage. This thesis shows that overall the occupational -man forms tend to prevail over -woman, -person and other alternatives in the British parliamentary debates. However, it appears that with some occupations gender-neutral forms are becoming...

The aim of this study is to investigate Swedish senior high school students’ Extramural English (EE) activities and their beliefs about learning English inside and outside of the classroom. EE is defined as English language activities that learners are engaged in outside the classroom, and includes activities such as listening to music, reading, writing, speaking, surfing the Internet, playing computer games, watching TV, YouTube and movies (Sundqvist, 2009, p. 1). The study also investigated possible gender differences related to students’ reported EE activities, and their reported attitudes about English. This study is based on questionnaire data. Twenty students participated in this study. 9 of 10 participants indicated that they believed that they are learning most of the English they know outside of school by daily contact with popular EE activities such as listening to music, followed by surfing the Internet, reading, watching YouTube, watching TV, playing computer games, writing, speaking and lastly watching movies. Boys reported a greater exposure to EE overall compared to the girls, more specifically, in their contact with music, computer games and writing and speaking in an EE context. Most of the students reported positive attitudes to English both inside and outside the classroom, but overall students reported more positive attitudes to the English that they use in their free time. The study has found no strong gender differences concerning students’ attitudes to learning English.

<p>Studies carried out by different scholars have shown that the social roles society assigns to women and men create differences in how the genders use language. However, there is little previous research in the domain of gender and topic shift or initiation. This essay aims to investigate possible gender differences in topic shift and initiation in multiparty conversation among second language learners of English in upper secondary school. The three group discussions were recorded in a classroom setting and the data collected was transcribed. The topical shifts in the transcripts were coded using the Topical Episode Analysis (TEA) and the episode shifts in each conversation were analyzed on the basis of gender distribution and type of shift. In addition, the findings of the three groups were compared and discussed. The main result of this study was that the boys initiated 100 percent more shifts than the girls. The boys took up more linguistic space and dominated the topical shifts in the conversation which indicates that gender differences in topic shift and initiation exists, a finding that is consistent with previous research within the field of gender and language. In conclusion, gender differences were found between how the girls and the boys participating in this study shifted and initiated topics. The boys initiated more shifts than the girls in the multiparty conversations.</p>

Am 01.04.2013 ist in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland eine neue Straßenverkehrsordnung (StVO) in Kraft getreten, die Frauen gleichermaßen ansprechen soll wie Männer. Die vorliegende Arbeit stellt die Frage, inwieweit die sprachliche Gleichbehandlung der Geschlechter in der StVO tatsächlich umgesetzt werden konnte. Auf Grundlage einer Online-Befragung wird zudem die öffentliche Einstellung zu den in der StVO primär verwendeten Formen genderneutraler Sprache untersucht.

The present study examines students’ use, attitudes and preferences, when it comes to EE (Extramural English). EE is defined as English language activities that learners are engaged in outside their ordinary language class, such as reading books, reading newspapers/magazines, watching TV, watching films, surfing the Internet, playing video games, listening to music, etc. The results of the study are based on data that was collected from Swedish upper secondary-school learners of English over a period of one term on several occasions. Information about students’ EE activities was collected by quantitative questionnaires, including both multiple-choice and open-ended questions. The results showed that Swedish upper-secondary school students were engaged in many different extramural activities. The extramural activity that the students were most often engaged in, was watching English language movies. The second most popular extramural activity was watching TV-programs in English with Swedish subtitles. Furthermore, according to the surveyed upper-secondary students, most of their language skills they develop with the help of their Extramural contacts with the English language. These are for example understanding of spoken English, speaking English, understanding of English vocabulary and understanding written English. However, when it comes to the written English and the development of English grammar, it appears that the students see themselves as developing these language skills more successfully within the language classroom than in their free time. The results also showed that, whereas the above-mentioned extramural activities were preferred by both boys and girls, there were also some differences in their use of extramural activities. Whereas boys rather preferred such activities as "English-speaking role-playing or computer games", girls, according to their answers, preferred such activities as "reading texts in English". The results of this study have shown that, according to the students’ responses, there is no strong gender difference when it comes to attitudes about learning English in school versus outside the school.