Language, Society and Gender
Language, gender and society, although different terms are deeply interrelated to each other as they each play an important role in each other spectrum. The relationship between language, gender and society arise between them through the ways of using language and the social roles of men and women who speak the language. In simple words, it deals with how a language which is a way of communication through which humans express their thoughts and ideas and by bringing these ideas into action they reflect and maintain the reality or the societal norms of a society and through the use of language with the influence of a society it also reflects the perspective regarding gender and the impact a language can have over time on the perspective of gender in a society which contributes toward the development and changes in language. As gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, expressions and identities of girls, women, boys, men, and gender diverse people. In simple words, it is how a society sees an individual and how an individual identify themselves through language, i.e Whether they see themselves as binary, transgender, nonbinary and gender neutral etc. A great example to express the relationship between language, gender and society is of how before people only identified themselves as binary which means that there were only two sexes of men and women but in present and mostly in western societies people use different terms to identify themselves which is outside the category of binary. e.g. transgender, an individual who identify themselves as reverse of their assigned sex i.e The individual might be a man by birth but may identify as woman and so the use of his language such as style, pronouns etc is also that of women.
However, this view regarding the relationship of language, gender and society is very new to field of linguistics and not much research has been done in to it. But if we look at the traditional use of the term gender which is used to identify an individual as man or woman and it's relationship with language and society then certainly, women’s speech differs from men’s speech; and women and men use language differently due to the styles, registers, and the way of using language, interaction, thought, culture, and linguistic attitudes gender, politeness and stereotypes. This difference of language use among the genders arose due to the structure of the language, norm of the society or people of the society who use the language. Moreover, gender (male-female) is socially constructed. Because of the social institution or taboo, we find variations/differences between men and women. In addition to, men’s style of speaking and women style of speaking are deeply rooted in power structure. For instance, women are often soft spoken and therefore they are considered submissive while man are often harsh spoken and are considered dominant. Therefore, there is a close relationship between the language and the social roles of men and women who speak the language.
This difference in language as mentioned above also helps in influencing and establishing gender identity in a society. As language provides the means for an individual to express themselves in a society and it is through this expression that an individual express their gender identity. An example of the language and society influence on gender identity as mentioned above is how in the western society, people use different terms to express their gender identity although there are only two genders of man and women and sometimes three if intersex people are included but due to the emergence of new terms in their language and developmental role that it has played in their society by giving them the choice of gender identity, it has led to the creation of more than the two traditional gender identities.
Another important aspect of language and society influence on gender identity is how a society treats it's genders. As gender is a social identity which helps in the development of a society. However this development of society, to be positive or negative depends on the treatment of the genders of man and woman in a society and how they are viewed. For instance, if a society is patriarchal, considers its men superior to women and treats women unfairly then there is a large possibility of the society not being able to develop well as compared to a society where both the genders are treated equal and there is no gender discrimination involved. Ancient societies like ancient Egypt civilization and Indus valley civilization are some examples of highly developed societies where there was no gender discrimination. However it is not entirely true for all societies as there were some highly developed societies where the treatment of women was not good such as ancient Greek civilization and ancient Chinese civilization.
It should be also noted that gender identity is an integral component of every aspect of the economic, social, daily and private lives of individuals and societies, and of the different roles ascribed by society to men and women. These gender differences are social constructs, inculcated on the basis of a specific society's particular perceptions of the physical differences and the assumed tastes, tendencies and capabilities of men and women. Gender differences, are universally conceded in historical and comparative social analyses to be variants that are transformed over time and from one culture to the next, as societies change and evolve. This generation to generation evolution of societies also evolved language and it's use in showing the difference between men and women and their use of language. Therefore it can be said that language and society has great influence in the creation and development of gender identities as they are known today as society constructed the social view regarding the genders and language provided the means to express those views and differences.
