Sociocultural gender in nominal classification: A study of grammatical gender (original) (raw)
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A Comparative Study of Grammatical Gender in Hindi and in Dravidian Languages
Abstract In this study, we aim to explore the ways in which grammatical gender affects human thought and perception. In particular, we aim to establish a link between the genders ascribed to inanimate objects by a given gendered language, and the values and qualities which native speakers associate with these objects. We endeavour to do so by conducting a comparative research between languages which have disparate systems of grammatical gendering. For the purpose of this study we have chosen Hindi as our gendered language, and a number of Dravidian Languages as our non-gendered languages. We seek to conduct our investigation on two levels. First, we aim to prove the transference of grammatical gender categories onto the way native speakers of Hindi classify inanimate objects. Second, we wish to explore if this system of classification into male and female categories leads native Hindi speakers to associate stereotypically masculine and feminine qualities with grammatically masculine and feminine nouns respectively.
The Influence of Grammatical Gender on Hindi and German Speakers’ Sex Categorization
MANUSYA
genders. These two languages belong to the same language family, Indo-European, so that with the exception of gender number, they should hav e many common characteristics. What Is Gender? Ge nder , as mentioned above, is a grammatica l category concerning the categorization of nouns of a language into groups. However, gender is not the only phenomenon of this type. According to Dixon (1986) there are two types of linguistic classification : first, the lexicosyntactic phenomenon, which he calls " noun c l ass ificati o n " (including num era l c lass ifiers), and second, the grammatical category of "noun class" (including most types of gender systems). Gender and other kinds of noun classes are defined by: l. Size: There is a small number of noun class sets in a language (usually, from 2 to around 20). 2. Morphological status: Noun classes are obl igator ily marked by inflection and , therefore, found only in agglutinative or inflectional languages. 3. Grammatical use: The inflection of noun c lasses is usually applied to the noun itself and also concord ially applied to other words in the sentence, such as demonstratives, adjectives, or verbs J) cho.tfi /aRka jaega small(MAS) child(MAS) will-go(MAS) 'the small boy will go. ' 14 2) cho.u laRki jaegi small(FEM) child(FEM) will-go(FEM) 'the small girl will go.'
2002
In a recent paper, Lera Boroditsky and Lauren A. Schmidt (2000) examined the degree to which the linguistic category of grammatical gender of nouns influences people's perception of the cognitive category of biological gender, or sex. Their conclusion was that English speakers' intuitions about the gender of certain nouns (animals) correlate with the gender assigned to those nouns in languages such as German and Spanish. More important, they found that people's ideas about the putative biological gender (sex) of objects are strongly influenced by the grammatical gender of those objects in their native language. In this study I sought to reproduce Boroditsky and Schmidt's results in order to show that the interpretation they supplied is unwarranted, and that the authors conflate the concepts of biological gender (sex) and "formal gender", which is employed by most Indo-European languages (as opposed to "natural gender", in English). I compare the i...
Evolution of Gender in Indo-European Languages
Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society
In a recent paper, Lera Boroditsky and Lauren A. Schmidt (2000) examined the degree to which the linguistic category of grammatical gender of nouns influences people's perception of the cognitive category of biological gender, or sex. Their conclusion was that English speakers' intuitions about the gender of certain nouns (animals) correlate with the gender assigned to those nouns in languages such as German and Spanish. More important, they found that people's ideas about the putative biological gender (sex) of objects are strongly influenced by the grammatical gender of those objects in their native language. In this study I sought to reproduce Boroditsky and Schmidt's results in order to show that the interpretation they supplied is unwarranted, and that the authors conflate the concepts of biological gender (sex) and "formal gender", which is employed by most Indo-European languages (as opposed to "natural gender", in English). I compare the intuitions of 20 American monolinguals with the statistics of formal gender as it appears in 14 Indo-European languages. Moreover, I discuss the possible origin and evolution of gender in such languages, and suggest an explanation for the relation between grammatical and biological gender.
Research Journal Of English (RJOE), 2020
Gender, a cultural construct, has a strong influence on language. Grammatical gender, an output of that influence, plays fundamental and stricter roles in the syntactic structures in some languages like Hindi and Urdu. On the other hand, grammatical gender is significantly less strict in some languages like English and Bengali. This paper probes into how Bengali and English are different from Hindi and Urdu in this respect. A socio-cultural perspective on the parts of speech of these four Indo-European languages has been briefly analyzed with an especial focus on some Sanskrit vocabulary being used in Hindi and Bengali alike. The malefemale power asymmetry as apparent in the syntactic structures of Hindi and Urdu versus Bengali and English is shown with examples to suggest how efforts may lead us "towards a gender-free language" if we intend to do so.
Grammatical gender in story texts: Interaction of linguistic structure, culture and cognition
This paper is based on a textbook analysis that explores the interaction of a specific grammatical component i.e. grammatical gender with socio-cultural notions of gender and anthropomorphism used in children's literature. Language under study is Hindi, which has a two-gender system. Grammatical gender has been shown in numerous studies to color speakers' perception of nouns. For the present study, Hindi textbooks for classes I-III used in government schools of India were analysed for tools of personification of animal characters, with specific focus on gender assignment via cues related to physical attributes or social addresses. It was found that despite the logical possibility of representing both sexes for almost all animal species (using proper names and other means), a significantly high percentage of assigned gender correlated with default grammatical gender of the animals. In one instance, even teachers' instructions followed this mapping. Additionally, the ratio of grammatically masculine to feminine animals was 2:1. Analysis indicates that grammatical gender affects speakers' perceptions of animal characters. Given the dominant presence of animal characters in children's literature, such effect combined with skewed representational ratio between the two genders can accentuate the marginal representation of feminine gender even in imagined constructions. A possible alternative is presented.
The representation of gender in Bajjika grammar and discourse
In this article I provide the description of grammatical gender in Bajjika, a minority language of the Eastern Indo-Aryan family spoken in a small region in the northern part of the north Indian state of Bihar. Grammatical gender in Bajjika is expressed in the nominal forms, definitive particles, and verbal agreement. Although the morphology of Bajjika verb-agreement is one of the most elaborate in Indo-Aryan languages, the formalization of gender in the verbal morphology is very simple; the gender of only the second person honorific and the third person honorific referents in the subject function is encoded. The definitive particle receives gender marking when it is added to an adjective. In this article, I identify and describe different areas of Bajjika grammar where gender is encoded. Based on the analyses of excerpts from natural discourse, I also observe an interesting tendency in terms of (written and spoken) mode-based neutralization of gender in Bajjika discourse. While the masculine and feminine genders of the second and third person " honorific " referents are consistently encoded in the verb-agreement in the spoken mode, in the written mode it is neutralized. We may then witness a potential neutralization of gender in terms of a diachronic change in the Bajjika grammar.
Some Cultural and Grammatical Aspects of Gender in Hindi and Urdu
1972
Despite similarities between Hindi and Urdu and mutual intelligibility, at least on the spoken level, slight grammatical differences between the two languages do exist. The treatment of gender proVides an example of such differences. Explanation of the actual differences in gender usage can be based on a synchronic, linguistic level as well as on a diachronic, cultural level. First-year students learning these languages, unless well-versed in linguistics or literature, probably do not need to receive such explanations for learning purposes. Such linguistic and cultural complexities are more easily understood by second-year students who have been exposed to other exceptions in Hindi and Urdu grammar and to Indian culture in general. (VM).
Why is gender so complex? Some typological considerations
2019
A cross-linguistic survey shows that languages with gender can have very high levels of morphological complexity, especially where gender is coexponential with case as in many Indo-European languages. If languages with gender are complex overall, apart from their gender, then gender can be regarded as an epiphenomenon of overall language complexity that tends to arise only as an incidental complication in already complex morphological systems. I test and falsify that hypothesis; apart from the gender paradigms themselves, gender languages are no more complex than others. The same is shown for the other main classificatory categories of nouns, numeral classifiers and possessive classes. Person, the other important indexation category, proves to be less complex, and I propose that the reason for this is that person, but not gender, is referential, allowing hierarchical patterning to emerge as a decomplexifying mechanism.
In press. The representation of gender in Bajjika grammar and discourse
In this article I provide the description of grammatical gender in Bajjika, a minority language of the Eastern Indo-Aryan family spoken in a small region in the northern part of the north Indian state of Bihar. Grammatical gender in Bajjika is expressed in the nominal forms, definitive particles, and verbal agreement. Although the morphology of Bajjika verb-agreement is one of the most elaborate in Indo-Aryan languages, the formalization of gender in the verbal morphology is very simple; the gender of only the second person honorific and the third person honorific referents in the subject function is encoded. The definitive particle receives gender marking when it is added to an adjective. In this article, I identify and describe different areas of Bajjika grammar where gender is encoded. Based on the analyses of excerpts from natural discourse, I also observe an interesting tendency in terms of (written and spoken) modebased neutralization of gender in Bajjika discourse. While the masculine and feminine genders of the second and third person "honorific" referents are consistently encoded in the verbagreement in the spoken mode, in the written mode it is neutralized. We may then witness a potential neutralization of gender in terms of a diachronic change in the Bajjika grammar.