Why is the study of Linguistics important? What impact does it have on our daily lives? On one level, our histories and experiences with language certainly influence who we are and how we think, but these effects seem pretty theoretical and detached from my life as I interact with my fellow residents of Paloma (which is the best dorm, for all those who were wondering). I also haven’t studied, and may never study, enough Linguistics to paint a vivid picture of how my neighbor’s understanding of Arabic affects her personality or how her neighbor’s knowledge of Portuguese affects his.
At least, that’s how I thought before this class. I’m starting to see that even a relatively superficial understanding of a language (such as its approach to time markers) can influence people’s personalities. So, even this glossy understanding of language can help make cross-cultural social interactions more fruitful. I’m starting to also see more how being raised in a bilingual household has impacted my own life and my own identity. However, I think that sometimes we exaggerate the effects of language in our lives. I’m speaking particularly in reference to an article examining the differences between the way in which men and women converse.* This article takes on the “conventional wisdom” that men and women understand language in different ways.
On first glance, men and women do think differently in several fundamental ways, and so why shouldn’t language be one of these discrepancies? Interestingly, this thought process leads to some devastating conclusions. For instance, it can lead to rape victims being blamed implicitly for their situations. While that may seem like a leap, the article’s author actually presents a perfectly logical explanation. She cites the example of a Canadian university tribunal hearing in the 1990s when two women lodged complaints against the same male student. During the hearing, one of the tribunal members essentially suggested that the case boils down to a problem of miscommunication and that the defendant is primarily responsible for “getting signals mixed up.” Rather than blaming the defendant wholly for his transgressions, the tribunal instead shifted some blame onto the victims for their apparent failure to communicate competently. According to this theory, men have trouble understanding women, and so, the victim of a rape has a responsibility to overcome this obstacle of communication.
There’s something deeply wrong and slightly sickening about this line of logic, which stems from the idea that men and women inherently have difficulty communicating with each other. According to Mary Crawford’s book Talking Difference: On Gender and Language, there are 2 primary results of this “Miscommunication Model:” First, women must accept responsibility for rape prevention. Second, they are blamed for rapes that occur. Neither results are beneficial at all.**
Overall, in this case, applying a theory of language fails. So although we may often think that we can explain the world with our differences in language (and we often can I think), we should be careful. Sometimes, these crazy intellectual and theoretical explanations can have disturbing consequences.
Anyway, I think I’m done for now, and so I’m going to hit the sack. See you all tomorrow!
PN
*http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,2181805,00.html
** http://books.google.com/books?id=x6TH210UaZQC&pg=PA123&lpg=PA123&dq=rape+miscommunication&source=web&ots=KBUOMCI9C9&sig=Aw77eCYvnTLgdYOSYnXCUggoYk8#PPA123,M1
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2 comments:
I love reading your blogs. They are informational, yet fun. It is truly a tragedy when blame for an attack can be placed on the victim. This is definitely a case when the (hypothetical?) gender-language barrier needs to go stay in the lab.
You make a good point about the potential negative consequences of theorizing about language and gender differences. However, you fail to make clear that the “miscommunication model” presented here is NOT, in fact, a scientifically validated theory but rather is a model based on very non-scientific, stereotypical beliefs about men and women. Indeed, it is often through rigorous scientific theorizing and testing that we are able to see past these dangerous common-sense theories. Several other people in the class have blogged about these issues so it would be worth checking their posts out (Travis, Maya)! Moreover, if a scientific study DID show a gender difference, does this mean that these differences are inevitable or innate? In the future, it would be interesting if you could do some additional research on the state of academic theorizing about the topics covered in the articles to make sure the journalists are getting their facts right!
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