ANT253H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Le Amiche, Markedness, Grammatical Gender
Document Summary
Pg115-116: of all social institutions, language is least amenable to initiative. It blends with the life of society, and the latter, inert by nature, is a prime conservative force. Ferdinand de saussure (1857-1913: there are several hundred words for a promiscuous female, but only a handful for a promiscuous male in english, society tends to see female sexual behaviour as less appropriate than similar make behaviour. /o : gender-coded differences exist in english as well. Wer meant adult male & wif meant adult female . Waepman meant adult male person & wifman meant adult female person . Wifman evolved into modern word women & wif narrowed its meaning to modern wife . The word man then replaced wer & waepman as a specific term distinguishing an adult male from an adult female, but continued to be used in generalizations referring to human beings in general. The end result of merging & has been the effect of rendering females invisible.
