Sociolinguistic Sexism in English Language Classroom (Biased Interpretations)

Abstract

The research experiment dwells upon to study the essence of various lexical and grammatical means constituting linguistic sexism in the English language classroom and suggests specific recommendations for teaching of nonsexist style of English. The research experiment consists of case studies and tests developed by the researcher with the purpose of investigating whether and/or how linguistic sexism is problematic in teaching of the English language among Georgian students of English at university. The discussion of the literature demonstrates that the use of generic and sexist forms creates masculine gender-bias which is perceived and understood as not referring to females or to unspecified gender referents.

The experiment concretizes on the existence of various lexical and grammatical means constituting linguistic sexism in the English language, and attempted to explore whether and/or how these variables are problematic in teaching of the English language referring to the administered tests and suggests specific recommendations for teaching of nonsexist style of English. Whether grammatical gender exists in language or not, gender will be communicated through different means of practices as long as it is an appropriate social category in a language community. In Georgian, in most of the pairs of gender-marked nouns, the feminine precedes the masculine. Therefore, the subjects of the experiment were given the tasks containing the Georgian sentences and texts with pairs of gender-marked nouns, gender-unspecified forms and several other gender focused forms to translate into English.

The implementations of gender-neutralization language teaching methods might serve as a remedy for gender unequal language treatment performed in the English language classroom. Here, the role of social and linguistic factors determines the success of applying non-sexist teaching methods.