Chapter 7: Language, thought and representation

Essential reading

Holmes, J. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. (Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2008) Chapter 13: ‘Language, cognition and culture’ third edition [ISBN 9781405821315].

Mooney, M. ‘Language thought and representation’ and first section of Pichler, P. and S. Preece ‘Language and gender’ both in Mooney et al. Language, Society and Power (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011) third edition [ISBN 9780415576598] pp.24–45 and pp.91–101.

Other works cited

Bally, C. and A. Sechehaye (eds) F. de Saussure: Course in General Linguistics. (London: Duckworth, 1983) [ISBN 0715616706].

Freeborn, D., P. French and D. Langford Varieties of Style. (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1993) second edition [ISBN 9780333589175].

Romaine, S. Language in Society: An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) second edition [ISBN 0198731922].

Introduction

In this chapter we consider whether the labels we have for concepts and things; that is, the words which we use, actually matter. We will think about whether they affect our perception of reality and the way we look at the world. To do this, we will consider some of the theories that have been put forward to describe the relationship between language and thought. First of all, we will look at the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss linguist (1857–1913). Saussure believed that language was a system of signs and that linguistics should be a study of that system of signs (semiology). Saussure didn’t write any books in his lifetime, but his students gathered his lecture notes together after he died and published them.

In addition, another key theory we will consider is one that has become known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. This is based on the work of Edward Sapir (1884–1939) and his student, who had been a chemical engineer, Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1941). The work of all of these scholars has been extremely influential in considerations of the relationship between language, thought and representation.

Finally, we will also consider whether a language can be sexist and whether using particular words and phrases in our writing and in our speech means that we think in particular ways about men and women. We will think about whether the language that we use contributes to societal attitudes and perceptions.

Saussure and semiology

Saussure distinguished between langue and parole. Langue is our mental template of how our language works, acquired by maturity. This template is shared by other members of our speech community. Saussure distinguished this from parole – the actual words or utterances produced by speakers (which may include mistakes, hesitations etc.) Saussure considered this template of language (that is, langue) to be a system of signs.

A sign consists of a signifier (the form; that is, a sound image or letter combination) and a signified (a concept). Saussure believed that the sound and the concept were inseparable and that each triggered the other. The association that binds signifier and signified together is called a linguistic sign. The association becomes natural to us and we don’t usually notice it, except if something happens. For example, if a person suffers brain damage and loses their ability to use language (that is, they become aphasic), we will notice the loss of that association.

The sign: an association between signifier and signified:

Saussure also introduced the concept of arbitrariness. This relates to the point that there is no reason why, for example, the concept of a book must be signified by the sounds/letters: b –o–o–k. As you can see from the diagram above, there is a concept that English speakers call a book. French speakers, however, would refer to the same concept as livre. Arbitrary, according to Saussure, means ‘no natural or straightforward connection’ rather than ‘just something you like’. The fact that there is no inherent link means that things can and do change. Sometimes words change their meaning over time, or sometimes we need a signifier for a concept. In these cases, a new link may become established. For example, think of the word gay which has changed in meaning over the years. You can look it up in a dictionary. Fifty years ago, gay meant bright or happy. Now, the main association of gay is with homosexuality, although recently the term has acquired a new, more general but negative meaning in English: slang phrases such as this is so gay, for example, can mean this is so stupid. It is, of course, important to reflect on why the slang usage of the term expresses such negative meaning, but this consideration of language in its sociocultural and ideological context goes well beyond what Saussure had in mind.

Although the example of book and its French counterpart, livre, illustrates that there is no inherent reason for the association between any particular signifier and signified, individual speakers are not easily able to change these associations. This means that if a person sees or hears the word book, a particular concept is evoked and vice versa. Sound images evoke concepts and concepts evoke sound images. Signifier and signified are inextricably linked: the linguistic sign is indivisible. It is impossible to conceive of one without (at some level of consciousness) thinking of its signified.

Activity

Is the link between signifier and signified always arbitrary? It might help you to think of compound words such as blackbird, ice-cream, screwdriver, bookcase etc. How do we understand the relationship between signifier and signified of the complex sign?

Activity

A small set of words in languages may be onomatopoeic, words like ding-dong, tick-tock, bang, zing, swish and plop. Does this indicate that, in some cases, there does seem to be a connection between sound and word meaning?

Activity

Research languages such as American Sign Language (ASL) or British Sign Language (BSL). Does there seem to be a link between the signifier (in sign languages this will be hand shapes and movements) and what is signified?

Using the example of book/livre, we have made the point that in different languages there will be different signifiers for the same concept. Cultures will have different concepts which they will encode in their language, things that are relevant to a particular culture and world view (or ideology). For example, in the UK we might differentiate methods of transport into: car, van, lorry, bus, motorbike, coach, train, plane and so on. Another culture may not need to do this because those distinctions are less important, or not relevant. There are two more points worth considering:

1. Linguistic signs are dependent on one another for meaning – the distinctions between them give them meaning. For example, coach is different from a motorbike.
2. Meaning is not always stable. If a new sign is introduced then the meaning can shift but not always in a predictable way. For example Ms was introduced into the address system in many English speaking countries to act as the equivalent of Mr (with no indication of marital status). But speakers continue to use Mrs and Miss, adding Ms to make a three-way distinction which, it can be argued, increases rather than decreases asymmetry. Ms is often perceived (in the UK at least) as indicating that the speaker is a feminist or divorced. In a consideration of examples such as this, language needs to be considered in relation to societal context: in this particular case the roles of women and men in any given society. These are not issues that Saussure was concerned with, but later approaches to analysing language, such as Feminist Stylistics and Critical Discourse Analysis, which are inspired in part by his thinking, have taken up issues such as these (see also Chapter 8).

Activity

Are you aware of the Ms/Mrs/Miss divide? What are your observations on how women refer to themselves? Do you consider the term Ms is as neutral as Mr? How would you refer to yourself when filling in forms, introducing yourself and so on? How do these titles in English compare to the titles used for women and men in other languages?

To summarise:

1. We have a linguistic sign, in which the associated concept and label is indivisible and invisible.
2. The choice of label for the concept is arbitrary.
3. The choice of concept we choose to label is also arbitrary.
4. The arbitrariness of both is invisible.

If we don’t think of our language as arbitrary but as natural, then it becomes a powerful tool which can affect our perceptions. Building on what we have outlined thus far, we can now take a look at another theory which also considers the way things are represented and how this affects our perception. This theory will move us closer to an analysis of language in its sociocultural context.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

Benjamin Lee Whorf was an anthropological linguist, but he was also employed as a chemical engineer in a fire insurance company, where he dealt with insurance claims. As is detailed in Holmes (2008, p.335), while at work, Whorf observed that certain labels for objects affected the way people thought about those objects and how they perceived things like danger. For example, gasoline drums, which no longer had any petrol in them and were labelled empty, were often not considered to be dangerous (people would smoke near them and also throw their cigarette butts in them). In actual fact, they were much more dangerous because of the inflammable vapours. If you have a car you will know that when you go to the petrol or filling station, you are prohibited from smoking or doing anything that might cause a spark and hence the risk of a fire to develop. As a result of Whorf’s observations and his work as an anthropologist he and his teacher, Edward Sapir, developed what is now known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. There are two forms, a strong version and a weak version.

Strong form: the theory of linguistic determinism. People from different cultures think differently because of differences in their language. Language determines the way we think or conceptualise our world.

Weak form: the theory of linguistic relativity. Different cultures encode their differing world perceptions in different ways. Thus, language reflects those different perceptions as relative and variable.

There have been a variety of experiments which aim to show how far the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis holds true. Holmes (2008) Chapter 13 refers to a range of examples from different cultures which try to test this. Holmes (2008, p.337) observes that most studies concerning shapes/colours and the differing ways certain cultures have of expressing these concepts support the weaker claim (linguistic relativity), which is that the categories you have in your language make it easier to make conceptual distinctions.

Activity

After reading Chapter 13 in Holmes (2008) summarise different factors which might be used in experiments designed to explore to what extent the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis holds true. What is your view on the relationship between language, thought and representation? Give reasons for your position.

You might also want to follow up on the work of Carol Cohn (1987). Cohn spent a year as a visiting scholar at an American university’s defence studies centre, so she could understand how nuclear defence intellectuals think in ways which could have extremely grave consequences. She found that the language and terminology this group used, supported the view that nuclear weapons were safe. It encoded their ideology. The defence intellectuals regarded nuclear power very positively. This was evident in the many euphemisms Cohn found that they used. When we use euphemistic words and expressions, we make something unpleasant sound less unpleasant. Cohn also drew attention to the many metaphors (representing one thing in terms of another), often sexual, that the group used. She concluded these sorts of abstract terms allowed the group to think in the way they did because it removed them from the terrible things that they were actually describing. As she spent more time with them she found that she started to use the group’s terminology and she started to think like them some of the time. Moreover, the learning process (being introduced to new terms; learning the language of the group) obscured the reality of war.

Activity

Read Cohn’s article online: there is a reference to it in the further reading section. To what extent do you think that using figurative language (such as euphemisms or metaphors) can determine or at least influence a person’s thinking?

We can explore the relationship between language, thought and representation further by considering whether societies perpetuate discrimination against certain groups through the use of language. We will investigate whether our use of particular language forms shapes or influences our way of thinking about women and men in society. To do this, we will now consider the concept of sexist language.

Sexist language

To begin with, then, what do we mean by ‘sexism’? The term refers to prejudice based on sex and is usually associated with discussion of the marginalisation or discrimination of women. When we refer to ‘sexist language’ we are concerned with exposing how language systematically reproduces gender stereotypes (see Pichler and Preece, 2011, p. 92). But can we describe a language or words and phrases within a language as ‘sexist’? Or are we referring to the speakers of those words? To consider this idea, think about these two words:

bachelor

spinster

On the one hand, we could say that each describe a similar state of being (someone who isn’t married or in a relationship), except that one describes a man (bachelor) and the other describes a woman (spinster). The connotations (or associations), however, attached to each term are somewhat different. The term for a male (bachelor) comes with connotations (or associations) of being single, going out and having fun, whereas the term for a female (spinster) has associations attached to it of an older woman who failed to marry and lives alone, perhaps with her cats.

Sometimes we describe women and men by referring to animals or food. Consider these examples:

bitch; old biddy; cow; chick; bird; wolf; stud

sugar; honey; tart; crumpet; six pack; beefcake

Apart from the fact that there seem to be more terms to describe women, and far fewer that are only for men, those that do describe women are quite insulting, and there is frequently a sexual meaning associated with them. Hines (1999, p.150) charts how tart first meant small pie or pastry and then its meaning extended to express affection. Next it was used to talk about a sexually desirable woman and now the term can be used to refer to a prostitute. Considering language in this way enables us to see the asymmetry or unequal power relations expressed in the way that we use it.

Activity

Here are some more sets of words. Are they symmetrical (equal) terms or is there some asymmetry attached to them?

There are some terms which we can describe as symmetrical or equal when referring to males and females. Take for example: ram/ewe; stallion/mare; man/woman; boy/girl. There is one term for each gender and they mean the same, the only difference being gender. What about the others? The terms do not match. The female term is not of a similar status to that of male term and there is often a sexual connotation attached. There seems to be a pattern of what is referred to as semantic derogation (see Schulz, 1990). This is the process by which words acquire certain connotations and start to mean something different from previously. We could say that some terms referring to women have undergone pejoration (they have undergone devaluation over time). Note that the word wizard has actually undergone semantic amelioration, the opposite process, where a male-referring term develops more positive connotations (see Romaine, 2000, p.112). You might also like to argue that the terms boy/girl are not in fact equal, because the term girl can be used almost as an abuse term (for example ‘Don’t be such a girl’).

Activity

Here is a riddle. Can you solve it? Who is the surgeon?

A father and his son were seriously injured in a car accident. On the way to hospital in the ambulance the father died. The boy was taken to the emergency operating room and the surgeon was called. On seeing the boy, however, the surgeon said, I can’t operate on this boy. He’s my son (Freeborn et al., 1993, p.251).

Did you assume the surgeon was male? When we are not given the sex of a person, only their occupation, it is common to assume that they are the sex that is usually associated with that particular occupation. When the person is of the sex not usually associated with a particular occupation we often mark it in some way. Thus, we can refer to two categories:

Unmarked: this is the norm, that which goes unnoticed.

Marked: this is the noticeable version, it is unusual and deviates from the norm.

Activity

Which sex is more usually linked to each of these occupations? Or, in other words, is it the female form of the term that is marked linguistically or the male form?

waiter; steward; actor; manager; doctor; soldier; fire fighter; nurse; secretary; model

Activity

Now consider what kind of linguistic marking is used. For example, does the marked form carry a suffix such as ‘ette’ or ‘-ess’, or is the noun preceded by an adjective such as ‘male’ or ‘female’?

Activity

What does the term ‘ladette’ refer to and how has it been constructed? How does it compare to the American term ‘tomboy’?

For a further discussion of marked and unmarked terms and to answer some of the above questions refer to Pichler and Preece (2011).

Generic terms

The use of generic terms concerns the way in which references such as man and he are used when what is being talked or written about includes both women and men.

Activity

Read the following and comment on it:

Mountainland ecosystems are fragile, and particularly vulnerable to the influence of man and his introduced animals…Life in the mountains is harsh. Storms are common, and temperatures are low…Into this scene comes man, with his great boots, ready to love the mountains to death. Man loves to hunt. He sees it as a tradition and a right. He believes that deer herds should be managed so he and his son after him, can hunt them. He cannot understand his brother’s claim, that deer diminish the range of plants. After all his brother couldn’t name a single plant that deer had made extinct.

(From ‘Mountain Management’, quoted in Holmes, 2008, p.319)

Activity

Do you agree with the view that using ‘generic’ terms (such as ‘man’ and ‘he’) marginalise women or do you think it is simply a necessary strategy for referring to humans, both male and female?

There are different strategies used by writers who feel it is inappropriate to use ‘generic he’. Sometimes he and she are used alternately or perhaps she is used in an effort to redress the balance because he has been used so much in the past. Other strategies used in writing involve pluralising subject nouns, using the innovative s/he, and using singular they (see Holmes, 2008, pp.320–21). This latter strategy is controversial because prescriptivists insist that they is plural, but they is regularly used as a singular pronoun in everyday speech and is also used in writing by eminent writers (for example, Shakespeare!).

Further examples of sexist language use

There are many other examples of sexist language that have been identified by scholars and researchers, for instance the way we personify objects such as cars and boats, referring to them as if they were female. In addition, it is worth thinking about what Mills (2008, p.124) refers to as ‘indirect sexism’. Mills (2008) argues that there are fewer examples today of overt sexism than there used to be. No doubt increasing legislation outlawing sex discrimination has played its part in reducing this. There is, however, a substantial amount of indirect sexism and this takes several forms which she discusses in Chapter 5 of her book. One is the type of sexism that can often be found in jokes such as those where the humour rests on stereotypical behaviour associated with women, or with men, for example, that women are principally concerned with what they are wearing, shopping or with nagging men, whereas men are preoccupied mainly with thinking about sex.

Activity

Do you think there is less overt sexism than used to be the case in the language(s) that you speak? Do you think by suggesting that sexist jokes are problematic and that they reproduce sexist ideologies about women, this is going too far? You may want to compare the situation in (British) English with other languages you are familiar with.

We can also consider sexism in discourse. This is the way in which particular ways of thinking are perpetuated by language use that we encounter in our everyday lives. Examples of sexism in discourse include the way in which women’s clothes and their appearance are described in media reports to a much greater extent than those of men, or the fact that we are frequently told more information about the status (that is, single, married, family) of female business women. Despite the fact that no sexist words are actually used, we can argue that these ways of representing women are still problematic because they form gendered discourses; that is, ways of speaking and thinking which reflect and affect ideologies about roles typically associated with each gender.

Activity

Read the first part of Chapter 5 of Pichler and Preece (2011, pp.99–101). Select some texts, perhaps from newspapers, magazines, leaflets, brochures, on the television or from the internet. Examine if and how gender stereotypes are being perpetuated in the examples you have chosen. Can you suggest ways in which we could avoid perpetuating gender stereotypes?

Learning outcomes

After working through this chapter, and having done a substantial amount of reading on the topic as well as the activities, you should be able to:

• discuss the ways in which language, thought and representation are linked
• explain the work of the main theorists associated with these processes (Saussure and Sapir-Whorf)
• critically discuss and evaluate these theories in relation to the research that has been done involving them
• describe the relationship between sexist attitudes and language use.

Sample examination questions

1. Discuss the relationship between language, thought and reality, drawing on examples and research evidence to support your answer.
2. Is the English language sexist? Draw on research and examples to support your discussion.
3. Critically discuss what has become known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, giving examples to support your argument.
4. To what extent do you think eliminating sexist terminology from a language will alter views and perceptions towards women and men? Draw on examples to support your discussion.
5. Look at some articles about women in a men’s magazine and some advertisements of women’s beauty or sanitary hygiene products in women’s magazines. Then consider if and in what ways any of the language used is sexist and/or draws on gendered discourses.

Chapter 7: Language, thought and representation

Essential reading

Further reading

Other works cited

Introduction

Saussure and semiology

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

Sexist language

Generic terms

Further examples of sexist language use

Learning outcomes

Sample examination questions