TITLE: The Generic Masculine in Educational Communication ABSTRACT: The thesis deals with the use of generic masculine in educational communication. The use of masculine nouns to refer to a group of people of both sexes is a target of frequent criticism from proponents of gender-neutral language. The theoretical part of my paper discusses and explains in general the importance of language for cognitive development of an individual and the principle of gender-sensitive expression. The empirical part of my paper is based on qualitative research that was conducted at a selected secondary school in order to verify the influence of language attributions of the generic masculine form on the mental representation of reality. The main technique of data collection was a survey inspired by the psycholinguistics association experiments. Attitudes and opinions of students on the subject of research were identified during group discussions. The results of my study among respondents points at the generic masculine to be significantly more often associated with mental representation of a male than to be perceived as gender-neutral. These findings thus correspond with some of the current theses of gender linguistics.

M.A. / South Africa is going through a transitional phase and urbanization, which among other things, has caused many families to resettle. The education system is no longer based on bilingualism with English and Afrikaans as the languages used in the senior primary phase. Our multicultural, multilingual society requires that children from different backgrounds be taught in the same classes. Schools in Eldorado Park have experienced an influx of learners with other mother tongues than English and Afrikaans into the schools. This influx has brought with it challenges for both learners and teachers. Teachers had to adapt their teaching methods to accommodate these challenges. Coupled with this is the rationalisation and redeployment process of teachers which is currently taking place. This has resulted in big classes with some catering for as many as fifty learners. Mother tongue speakers of African languages, with or without the necessary language background in English and Afrikaans, are admitted to the schools in different grades and find themselves in classes with learners who are fluent in English and Afrikaans. In this study some of the problems that teachers and learners experience are identified, the participation of parents in the education process is emphasised and the importance of language planning with regard to the child's medium of instruction and the school's first and second languages stressed. The research has touched on the implications of various aspects of language acquisition and learning (amongst other important findings). It was found that teachers need continual support from the government, the parents and the school's governing body.