7. Language ang Gender

• Gendered language does not refer to the masculine or feminine labels given to nouns, instead it is an language that carries a bias towards a specific sex or gender.
• The use of gendered language can often lead to gender inequality, which creates an unfair bias towards a certain gender.
• Gender Language can result in harmful stereotypes which cause discrimination and portray a negative view of a certain gender.
• The difference theory simply aims to prove that men and women do speak in different ways—Deborah Tannen a supporter of this theory.
• The dominance theory is the idea that the language men use is superior and holds more dominance in society, whereas the language women use is seen as inferior.
• The deficit theory is the idea that the language men use is seen as the standard, whereas the language women use differs from the standard and is seen as insufficient.
• The diversity theory argues that there is a difference between sex and gender, it also suggests that the sex we are assigned at birth does not affect the language we use.
• ‘verbal hygiene’ is refer to the ways in which people think they are supposed to speak in order to fit into the norm and meet the expectations of a correct society.