An_Investigation_Into_Sexist_Language

An Investigation Into Sexist Language Title: An Investigation into Sexist Language. Name: Andrew Verrijdt One of the most important political and social movements of the twentieth century has been the drive towards achieving complete equality for all people regardless of race, colour, class, gender identity, mental state or physical impairment. One area that has remained resistant to change is language. While it is has been widely accepted that some aspects of language are clearly sexist, for example the use of ‘he’ as a genderless pronoun (Cameron 1998, Wardaugh 1992, Pauwels 1998), there is still argument as to whether or not changing these forms of language is necessary. Some claim that the use of "politically correct" terms is not only unnecessary but disempowering (Jernigan 1994) because it forces a group of people to refer to themselves by a term that was invented by people who are not of their group. This essay will examine some of the different kinds of linguistic sexism in the English language, some of the reasons why these forms of language are harmful and finally some ideas of how these forms of language can be changed for the better. As stated above the most obvious example of sexist language is the use of the language, social, women, sexist, pronoun, society, because, one, example, linguistic, change, pauwels, very, simply, pronouns, people, men, male, being, while, reality, problem, both, been, 1998, words, view, 1980, word, terms, sexism, out, clearly, between, argument