GENDER IN SPOKEN ENGLISH

GENDER IN SPOKEN ENGLISH

In the second chapter I will deal with the pronominal substitutes used to express gender. It is very interesting how in the spoken language the grammatical rules do not necessarily apply and deviations from the normative pattern occur, and as will be shown in this chapter there are no absolute rules when it comes to gender. I based this chapter on the research paper of Susanne Wagner, Gender in English Pronouns Myth and Reality, Lectures in English Morphology by Ioana Stefanescu, and Genul in Germana si Engleza by Sorin Ciutacu, and on Diana Hornoius Language and Gender.

1 The intimate pattern

According to Wagner , 130 ) there is a very big distinction between the normative pattern ( the grammatical rules ) and the intimate pattern which allows the use of he or she for an inanimate entity or of it for a person. Wagners research on gender shows that the choice of he or she or it depends on the speakers general attitude, state of mind, feelings towards the entity he or she is referring to. The intimate patters manifests 2 basic oppositions in pronominal gender: he/she vs it, and he vs she. The first contrast deals with upgrading and downgrading, and it is relatively straightforward, and the second one, he vs she is characterized by many variations.

1.1 Upgrading

Upgrading is the process by means of which a non human entity is attributed human status. Often the results of human creation, scientific and cultural domains, and artifacts can be looked at as if they were feminine. A special case is represented by objects with thrust , powered by a propelling force such as: ship, schooner, frigate, steamer, boat, engine, locomotive, motor, balloon, airplane, vessel, lorry, coach, bus, mill. These are feminine due to the fact that they are animated by a vital force and because they represent special objects to their owners/collectors.

(34): In such a fearful fog, on the morning of the 20^th of june, 1822, a small schooner, The Drake, struck suddenly upon a rock, and almost immediately fell over her side, the waves breaking over her. Her commander ordered her masts to be cut away.

(35) What a lovely ship! What is she called?

The origin of the habit to use feminine pronouns to refer to vehicles in general could have started from the use of she for boats which is hundreds of years old. Although the primary origin of this type of use in unclear, there are several theories. The feminine is used with respect to machines and ships because of their being sought of as persons, especially by sailors. The historical background of this custom is believed to be the Normand Invasion, during which nouns like ship and boat became feminine because they were under the influence of the French la nef . another explanation could be that this use is based on the imagery of a ship as a womb-like container.

Another case in point is that of the noun car which can also have double assignment. First option is neuter confirmed by the pronominal substitute it, and the second is related to the imaginary and to emotions. Car is seen as a created entity with a quasi vital dynamism. Therefore speakers assign it/her the feminine gender, confirmed by the pronominal substitute she, or perhaps the masculine gender if the owner is a woman.

Stefanescu (1978, 175) says that the feminine gender is also used with names of plants:

(36): Pauline rushed to embrace him, and he without a word led her to see where on a sunny bank Greek anemones had opened their deep blue stars. Blanda he whispered, and Ive never known her deep in colour.

Stefanescu , 175) also identifies nouns like pipe, ball, kite, furnace that are used most often assigned the masculine gender:

(37): And look at those furnaces of mine, how they rise upon us as we came down the hill. That to the right is my pet seventy feet of him. I packed him myself and hes bottled away cheerfully with iron in his guts for five long years. Ive a particular fancy for him.

She also points out a number of instances of upgraded entities that may include ice cream cones, mathematical formulae, high prices, poppies, grass, a pool deck, a pillow, a vase, a key, a door, a wall, a writing pen, a refrigerator, practically any object that the speaker considers close enough or dear enough to personify it.

The examples in the Gender in Spoken English chapter constitute a pattern of usage governed by intimacy and emotions. It is interesting to observe how in some contexts where a non in-group person is present there is a sudden switch from the intimate pattern to the normative one. Thus a man fixing a door can describe his work to his family by making use of the intimate pattern:

(38) Yeah. I finally fixed her up. Boy, was she a mess. Her lock was busted and her knob fell off in my hand.

The same man can describe the same event to his boss for instance by using the normative pattern:

(39): I took care of the door leading to the stockroom. It wasnt much. The knob was on the wrong and its lock wasnt working properly.

1.2 Downgrading

Downgrading is the opposite process of upgrading or personification and corresponds to the denial of the human status either inherent or attributed. It is the use of it to refer to entities that are human beings or to entities that have previously been upgraded. Downgrading denotes negative involvement on behalf of the speaker, the degrees of negativeness varying from lack of interest to mild annoyance, to contempt or even violent rage.

(40): Where did you find it? Asked Emily of Miss Gilliken with a satirical accent. Who are you calling it? Demanded Mr. Barden aggressively. Perhaps youll kindly call me him and not it.

(41): You know what Mrs. Alisons suppers are. ( she turns to Frank and pets him) Poor Frank! Was all the beef gone? Did it get nothing but bread and cheese and gingerbread?

Downgrading also occurs when the speaker is talking about someone with whom the speaker is really and/or violently angry. A woman speaks about a robbery that took place in her house:

(42): I can understand why they took my silverware. But why did it take my piggy bank? It had sentimental value.

In some instances personification and downgrading are used alternatively. A man talking about his car can have sudden changes of attitude:

(43): Sometimes I feel like junking it, just tossingbut then she comes back with her choke working okay. I just dont know i/m going to do with her.

1.3 He versus she

According to Wagners study , 133 ) men use she or her about 40 times to refer to an inanimate entity while not a single use of masculine pronouns is mentioned. Women, on the other hand, use masculine pronouns about 60 times to refer to something inanimate. Pronominal use in the intimate pattern is primarily dependent in the sex of the speaker: males prefer feminine pronouns, and females will generally use masculine ones. According to Diana Hornoiu , 25 ) on the other hand an important trait of womens speech is that they tend to use more standard forms than men in both formal and informal styles of speech.

(44) Do you realize how many times I have picked him up? He keeps slipping off the shelf. Next time this happens Im going to leave it on the floor. See how he likes it! [towel]

The speaker in example (44) is clearly annoyed, however she does not use it in all slots. The switch to he is rather unexpected.

(45) What the hell is the matter with this thing?! It just wont work for me! He usually isnt like this. [typewriter]

(46) Ok , crack er up! From the movie Titanic ( USA, 1997) the speaker is an American male, talking about the safe being brought up from the ocean floor.

(47) Thats the way, ladies, you fill her up! Farmer talking to his cows as they are milked, probably referring to a container or tub of the milking machine into which the milk is pumped.

(48) Snake er through! American male talking to his co-worker about a wire.

(49) Where is she? If she will give us the pleasurethere she is! Male auctioneer talking about a violin that is to be auctioned; the turn table doesnt work , so the audience has to wait a bit for the violin; from the movie The Red Violin.

(50) She was burning good. ( house ) ( fireman)

(51) Up she comes! ( roof) ( construction worker)

The presence or absence of emotional attachment is crucial in assigning he or she to inanimate entities. While she symbolizes involvement, or attachment, personal interest both positive and negative , he ,many times, stands for a rather neutral attitude towards the referent ( detachment or objectivity). This seems surprising as it contradicts the observations which say that the use of a gendered pronoun is always positive and denotes attachment. So as said before , there are no absolute rules.

(52) before she [] leapt on the industrial gray shell of the computer. Mine. Its mine. [female1]

Yes, sir, lieutenant, sir. Shes all yours. [male1 who is to install new PC]

I requisitioned two goddam years ago. [female1]. Yeah. Well. He smiled hopefully. Here she is. I was just hooking her to the mainframe.

She looked over, snorted at the foot-high box. I know how it works. I have this model at home. [female1]

Its a good machine.

What happens to my old equipment? [female1]

I can haul it out for you, take it down to recycle. [male1]

Fine-no. no, I want it. I want to take it home. Shed perform a ritual extermination , she decided. She hoped it suffered.

Whoa. Peabody came in, circled around. Whoa squared. Its beautiful. [female2] Yeah. Its mine. Tomjohn Lewis, my new best friend hooked it up for me. It listens to me, Peabody. It does what I tell it to do.

(from J.D. Robb, Betrayal in Death, 2001, 220)

This example clearly shows how a layman ( in this case a female author of these book) expects the system to work. A new computer is delivered to a female police officer. Her old unit had so many kinks and problems that it was more often not working than in order. Her personal involvement with the machine and by extension with computers in general is thus fairly strong, strongly negative that is. For her a computer can only be it ( fitting to Stefanescus idea of downgrading). The male colleague who is installing the new unit also shows strong personal involvement with it and with computers in general this time of a very positive nature. For him such a beautiful new computer can only be a she. When he becomes less attached, slipping back into into his more professional self, he refers to both the new and the old unit with the help of standard non involved pronouns, using it consistently.

The following examples show that professionals are prone to talking about things strongly connected to their jobs using gendered pronouns: for the stock broker indices and shares are she rather than it, ( or he) , for the fireman the fire he is fighting is she etc. While its safe to assume strong involvement in all these situations this involvement is much more likely of a professional, detached rather than personal, emotional nature:

(53) she of a stick price. Shes up/down.

(54) she was spreading quickly. (About a fire)

(55) she ( of a photograph)

(56) she ( of an exercise pulley)

While feminine forms are relatively frequent, and have been explained as representing the mental image that the speaker has of the referent, masculine ones, are rare. In every day casual spoken English the pronoun of choice when referring to an inanimate noun and wishing to add extra information is and has been for some tine a form of she. As stated before, the sex of the speaker may influence the pronominal form in so far that women are more likely to use masculine forms in a number of contexts where male speakers will use feminine ones, particularly in domains associated with gender-biased behavior ( cars, tools, etc). although concrete nouns receive gendered reference, more often than abstract ones there seems to be no restrictions, semantic or otherwise, on the type of the noun that can take a feminine form in anaphoric references.

2Non referential she

An interesting category is the use of she and her referring to hard to identify referents, a situation, or general circumstances, which is shared by male and female speakers alike. Non referential here stands for real instances ( pronouns without an antecedent ) as well as abstract nouns referring to situations and events.

(57) Okay! Julia yelled. Get ready! Here she goes! Timber!!!

(58) Watch out! Here she comes! ( speaker is sea sick)

(59) Here she comes! ( referring to approaching whether front )

(60) Shes blowing hard out there. It almost blew over a tree.

The pronoun she most likely refers to whether in general, while the second one it, refers to wind specifically.

(61) Shes fine; shes cool; shell be joe ( synonyms of it does not matter)

(62) Start her off! ( reference to making pancakes)

(63) Let her go! I am ready)

(64) There she goes! ( undertaking )

(65) A How do you like it , Tim?

B Ah, shes alright

(66) Fill er up! ( referring to refueling a vehicle)

All these examples have one thing in common. The referent of the personal pronoun she is either difficult to identify, or cannot be named at all. Very often she seems to refer to the general or concrete situation ( generally highly abstract), circumstances, or side effects of the utterance rather than to a concrete thing.

This use is encountered with high frequency in every day conversations

(67) There she blows! ( reference to a spouting whale)

Example (67) is a very puzzling one. Such an utterance would usually receive a masculine anaphoric form ( he is usually used when referring to animals like whales). However the utterance or the pronoun can also be interpreted as non referential according to Wagner , 141). Many of the non referential examples show fronting or preposing of certain elements, which is otherwise rare - here she comes! or there she goes! are similar in this respect. Although not specifically mentioned a syntactic peculiarity of this category is the frequent use of fronting or extraposition. Only rarely it is possible to identify a referent; more often the speaker seems to be referring to the situation in general.

The origins of this type of use remain in the dark. It is definitely not enough to claim that the situation in question shows some feminine characteristics, as folk has it. Wagner , 128) claims that most speakers who use non referential she are probably not even aware of it. The construction seems to have found its place among all the empty its that are around in everyday English conversations, and be it only because there she goes sounds much better than there it goes

3Animal references

Wagner , 122 ) says that within the class of animals, personification could be held accountable for the use of human pronoun in only about half of the cases. Masculine pronouns are the unmarked choice when referring to a pet such as a cat or dog. While it can be assumed that most of the instances of feminine pronouns referring to dogs are used by speakers who know that the dog in question is actually female, cats are more likely to be shes generically, based on the biological-semantic pattern (dog - neuter or + male, vs. bitch', cat = neuter or + female, vs. tom-cat.

Pronoun switches are typical, and a number of emotive factors play a role in the choice of pronouns when referring to animals. For example, the owners of a cat ('cat people', according to popular opinion) are very likely to refer to the dog that chased their cat as it rather than he or she, signifying their emotional attitude or intimacy towards their cat, but at the same time signalling distance towards the dog. The reverse pattern naturally holds for 'dog people'.

. In (68), a police officer is obviously being questioned about dogs on the force. He himself has never owned such a dog, which, in addition to the rather formal situation of the discussion, should explain his four uses of it. Once he gets emotionally involved though, talking about a dog becoming a member of the family of the leading officer, he switches to he in the two final references.

(68) A:What was it like when you had your police dog?
B: I have never had a police dog, I've never had, never been on the
special force. A lot of people like it because basically when you look
after a police dog it becomes your pet as well, you take it home with you and
you take it to work with you, and the a you'll have a police dog for sort of like
its working life of seven to eight years, so basically you're gonna have him for
seven to eight years and he becomes like a family pet, I've never been on the
force so I've never had a police dog.

In (69), a farmer is talking about hunting foxes. Although reporting a rather general procedure ('One dog would go in ..,'), the speaker obviously has one specific dog in mind, which explains his use of she in all instances.

(69) And we used to hear somebody saying there was a vixen there and some and some young ones. [] we went up there with the dogs and let them in in to the burrow. Block everywhere, let them into the burrow. One dog would go in, and she'd just shake her tail and come back, and you couldn't get her in afterwards because she knew that they'd cleared off.

B: I see.

A : They had moved.

B : Yeah.

The speaker in (70) has an obvious antipathy towards small dogs, such as a friend's Chihuahua, Both the negative feelings and the animal's size are responsible for the choice of pronouns - it in all but one instance, where the speaker uses a masculine pronoun, most likely referring to the true sex of the dog in question.

A: I couldn't stop laughing. The little dog's going [yelping sound] [panting]
[] This little dog was mad, man, did you see it? It was so ugly I would've
B: Yeah.

A: kicked it if I saw it. Same as Chris's chihuahua. I'd love to kick it. I'd love to kick her dog. He's so tiny! I feel so sorry for it you know, up at that house with all them big fat balls of, of fat They've probably stepped on it enough times.

B: []

A: And have you heard it crying at night?

B: Mhm.

In (71), the owner of the cat uses masculine pronouns exclusively, while her friend only uses neuter pronouns, a typical pattern signaling familiarity or ownership.

(71)A: Come on puss, shh, shh, shh

B: Where's it gone Rebecca? Where's pussy cat?

A: puss, puss, puss, puss

B: [laughing] Where's it gone ?

A:Is he there?

B: Can you see him? Can you see him?

A: Where's the cat?

B: Go on out, out eat [shooing away]

A: [laugh] where's he gone?

Ciutacu ( 2005, 59) also notices that we cannot talk about absolute rules when it comes to gender. When the speaker refers to animals there is a certain freedom of choice. If basically big and small animals are neuter there is an occurring frequency of the masculine gender tied to the generic reference:

(72) Check out this wolf! He does not care whether we pay him any attention or not!

A more personal , emotional approach implies selecting between male and female according to the extra linguistic reality when we make reference to domestic animals and pets:

(73) Buck, our dog would bite his tail every time he was angry.

(74) I saw your cat, Portia, flashing her teeth at the poor canary.

Our imagination can personify animals, and in such a discourse English speakers associate big and strong animals ( perhaps because of a vague sentiment of proportion ) with the masculine gender, while smaller and more delicate animals are assigned the feminine gender, sometimes ignoring the extra linguistic reality and biological sex. So wolf, bear, eagle, ape, pig, are the beneficiaries of the he pronominal substitution, while rabbit, mouse, cat, parrot are considered feminine and thus substituted by she.

Wagner study ( 2003, 126 ) shows that pets are more likely to be hes than shes or its when their sex is unknown, he thus (still) serving as generic pronoun despite the arguments of recent feminist linguistics theories. Anecdotal evidence supporting this claim can be found in (75), a joke:

- What kind of dog is that?

-He's a police dog.

-He doesn't look like one to me.

-Of course not. He's under cover.

Generally, researchers agree that personal involvement seems to be the most relevant factor in pronoun choice. The cut-off point within the class of animals differs from speaker to speaker, depending on their professions, environment, empathy or similar factors. For someone who grew up in a big city and has never lived in the countryside, it is highly probable that only pets, or even just dogs and cats, can be he or she, whereas a badger or fox (which the speaker may not ever have seen in the wild) will be an it. On the other hand, it is extremely likely that a farmer will refer to the animals on his farm as he or she, that a hunter will refer to the hunted animal, the fisherman to the fish in his catch as he.

4Poetic elements

In literary English the discourse is characterized by rhetorical figures and poetic elements. According to Ciutacu, here personifying is central, and the subjects of this process are abstract nouns and concrete inanimate nouns passed down from the vocabularies of passion , geography, techniques and culture. According to grammar these nouns belong to the neuter gender class, but thanks to gender reassignment they are given life through bookish personification. Consequently by the reasoning of elective affinity masculine nouns are those which describe actions full of strength, passion, and those of great intensity: terror, fury, despair, lust, love; forces of nature and culture: wind, sun , mountain, ocean, river, stream, summer, autumn, time, day, sleep, murder, death, crime, danger, law, grave; also some geographical names are given the masculine gender: the Volga, the Thames, the Carpathians.

Nouns that acquire feminine gender have the justification that they express features similar to the affinities attributed to the feminine sex: delicateness, affection, fertility, grace, elegance youth, cleanliness purity. This category comprises: faith, hope, virtue, charity, chastity, patience, justice, modesty, melancholy, pity, humility, but also avarice, envy, vanity, treason, revenge, folly, jealousy, pride. Some natural phenomena and abstract nouns can be considered feminine: earth, sea, life, night, morning, evening, darkness, moon, nature, eternity, fancy, memory, reason, necessity, peace, liberty, truth, conscience, soul, experience, fame, fortune, victory.

The English literary and cultural tradition influenced by the Renaissance transformed the gender of the sun into male and the gender of the moon into female in contradiction with the original gender from Old English seo sunnu feminine, se mona masculine ). The invocated cause of this gender reassignment the fact that the former abstract masculine nouns became feminine because of the association of the literary imagination. So se mona becomes feminine because of the association of ideas under the influence of the French / Latin gender and under the Renaissance. Also the names of the planets are either masculine ( Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus) or feminine ( Venus) according to the sex of the Greek or the Roman deity they were named after.

5 Conclusions.

As stated before when it comes to gender and the spoken and not necessarily colloquial language there are no absolute rules, and deviations from the normative pattern are very common. he speaker can choose between personal noun reference ( he, she) or non personal reference (it). The use of he/she expresses greater familiarity and emotional involvement, while non personal reference is more detached. These deviations from the normative pattern occur in both colloquial and literary English. Non human entities are personified, while human beings are denied their human status.

Thus he and she refer to non human entities that are personified, or upgraded by the mere fact of assimilating them to a human being and it refers to either human beings whose inherent human status is being denied, or to non human entities whose attributed human status is being denied. Personification or upgrading indicates various degrees of positive involvement on the part of the speaker, from mild interest to passionate attachment.