Review article
Linguistic Changes and the Feministic Critique of Language
Mislava Bertoša
; Faculty of Philosophy, Zagreb
Abstract
The text examines the theoretical and activistic ways on which the feminist critique approaches linguistic changes. One of the important features of language are its variability and subjection to constant change. Feminism approaches the changes in language by reexamining the validity of linguistic hypotheses taking into consideration the gender perspective, by looking at linguistic changes from different aspects and by consciously affecting grammar and vocabulary with the aim of changing the sexistic structures and meanings. The author presents a review of the feminist approach to various linguistic changes: the so-called changes in progress, contextual and unconscious changes, with an emphasis on the activistic introduction of conscious changes and on the suggestions for a feminist linguistic reform in the English speaking world, but with an attempt to outline the attitudes towards the sexistic nature of Croatian language in the Zagreb feministic milieu. Comparing the introduction of changes coloured by feminism into the English and Croatian languages the author concludes that the specific features of Croatian grammatic structure make it impossible to simply take over the English model and that they ask for a different elaboration of the problem.
Keywords
linguistic changes; sexism; feminist critique of language; (socio)linguistics
Hrčak ID:
154138
URI
Publication date:
30.6.2001.
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