The Language of Dorian Gray: Why the Social and Cultural Treatment of Genders Cannot Be Improved by Acting on Their Reflections in Language

Authors

  • Boban Arsenijević

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18485/bells.2018.10.13

Keywords:

grammatical gender, gender-equality, gender-sensitive language, Serbo-Croatian, linguistic economy

Abstract

The paper discusses the interaction of the feminist ideology and action on the one hand and the deeper structure of grammar and the lexicon on the other. It is argued that linguistic intervention propagated as a means of achieving a gender-equal and gender-sensitive language can neither be successfully realized, nor can it deal with a projection of language which has the intended properties. Furthermore, the claim that language shapes reality is contested, in favor of a view according to which language reflects our picture of reality and at the very best (or worst) helps us preserve it. I conclude that in a society in which gender is not an axis of discrimination – any linguistic status of gender would be equally good, yet such a society would probably also end up with a language in which gender has no role in grammar whatsoever.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Downloads

Published

2018-11-21

How to Cite

Arsenijević, B. (2018). The Language of Dorian Gray: Why the Social and Cultural Treatment of Genders Cannot Be Improved by Acting on Their Reflections in Language. Belgrade English Language and Literature Studies, 10(1), 283–298. https://doi.org/10.18485/bells.2018.10.13

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 1 (2018): BELLS - volume 10

Section

THEORETICAL AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors are confirming that they are the authors of the submitting article, which will be published (print and online) in  Belgrade English Language and Literature Studies by the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade (Faculty of Philology, Studentski trg 3, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia). Author’s name will be evident in the printed article in the journal. All decisions regarding layout and distribution of the work are in hands of the publisher.
  2. Authors guarantee that the work is their own original creation and does not infringe any statutory or common-law copyright or any proprietary right of any third party. In case of claims by third parties, authors commit their self to defend the interests of the publisher, and shall cover any potential costs.
  3. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  4. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  5. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.