Questioning the Usage of Generic Masculine and Reflection of Objective Reality with Regard to the Function of Language (Demonstrated on the Slovak and English Examples)

Abstract

The English language uses dual gender which is an umbrella term for including fe/males, e.g. student, doctor, teacher, president, minister, opponent, etc. In Slavic languages, e.g. in the Slovak language it works differently. Suffixes reflect grammatical and natural gender of lexemes referring to occupation, activity or the position of a person in the public sphere. And so the gender is recognized by means of a masculine or feminine suffix. In effort to become economical with language and to avoid misunderstandings as well, generic masculine (GM), i.e. preferring dominant masculine gender whereever possible, was introduced in the past. It used to be working for some time without doubting or questioning GM. However, this is no longer true as far as females realize that there is no real existence without their real presence in language. And so what is inherently present in English due to its typological type of language known as analytical, must be reconsidered in some Slavic languages due to their flexive nature. This was investigated by several means: approach of professional language workers for dictionary, appearances of frequencies in the Slovak National Corpus, Google and Census which took place in 2011 in Slovakia. The Census reveals the real numbers of fe/males in their public positions (i.e. occupations and jobs). The analysis and further comparison bring both relevant information and uncover discrepancies between language and reality. It turns out that reality is manipulated via language which has appropriate means to include both genders in public discourse in order to avoid gender stereotypes which are present in more or less sexist society. Remark: In the paper Slovak examples are left without specific Slovak signs in order to avoid misinterpretation by formal publishing mistakes and problems.

Keywords

• gender
• generic masculine
• gender stereotype
• slovak and english languages