After reading this amazing article called the “English is Androcentric,” I realized that it was so true on use of language. I started to analyze everything that is being written or said. I kept finding that we refer out writing and speaking references on males. The images above are related to the topics in my blog.
What does the word ‘androcentric’ in the title means? It mean when people speak or write, they usually will focus on men, and doesn’t include women. Such as when you write you usually will refer to the unknown person as a ‘he’ instead of ‘she.’ The words ‘he’ and ‘men’ are used to explain everyone, and all of the gender races while there are females. Even though there are many terms to the women than men but these terms to the women is mostly belittling while the terms to men are more flattering.
The English is built by men because in back then the men have the power while females don’t. The females were not educated so they had no saying in making of the English. The men say that anything using women terms is not important, while men terms are. A man called Mr. Wilson declared that it is abnormal if the women came before men. The Act of Parliament passed the law that ‘he’ is used to represent both sexes. Therefore, the English language was made by men because the people are under authority of men.
Not only the women are underrepresented in English, the races beside white are underrepresented. This is called racial bias in the language. When you look up in dictionary on white and black, there are more damaging definitions on black instead of white. The word black usually describe something that is evil.
Sadly, people don’t really notice the sexist and racial biases in the language. Only the time that people notice is when it applies or influences them. Before I have learned about sexist and racial biases, I did not notice this problem. I am thankful because this article is an eye-opener.
There is a debate on thoughts and languages, how it affects out thinking skills. Such as some linguists and psychologists believe that thought is controlled by language while others thinks that language is controlled by thought, or both is totally separate or linked, or that the both is the same.
Many people wonder if language could affect our thinking. The answer is yes, the language could affect our thinking somewhat. Every language has some basic concepts, this is called conceptual primes. Conceptual primes mean basic, important thoughts. For example, we have a basic concept on how the direction works by using up and down, or near and far.
There are many linguists believe in thought and language being interdependent. Both of it can be separate but most of the time language assists the thought. This helps us to understand the language correctly. We usually think to ourselves to help our thoughts and explain it to people clearly.
The speakers manipulate people by using oratory or rhetoric methods. There are many ways to convince the audience, the terms that speakers uses to attract the audience makes the speakers seem more valid. These methods speakers uses are: repetition of words, metaphor, simile, very emotive language, and rhetorical questions. There are more methods other than these listed above.
People may ask what does euphemism means. Euphemism is when people use words or expressions to talk about horrible subjects without actually talking about it. For example, the word ‘RIP’ is horrible so people use other words that don’t sound horrible to replace the word ‘RIP.’ The replacement of ‘RIP’ is ‘the old woman passed away,’ this is the euphemism.
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