Scholarly Understanding about Language _Culture


Introductory Remarks :

We wish to discuss what some scholars think or have said about how language and culture generally affect the behavior of people to things. Unfortunately, these are mainly European thinkers again. They are going to dominate discourse on it. Sad. Does it mean thinkers elsewhere are asleep or have said nothing? Not so!

We should note that these attitudes are everywhere and there are thinkers everywhere. The languages and cultures of all could in a peculiar way shape attitudes, which is one reason we should not think that our ways are everybody 's ways and we should study other contexts, too.

Simone de Beauvoire

Although this is not a lecture on Feminism, it is necessary to bring in Simone de Beauvoire here. In her work, *The Second Sex*, which was published in 1949, she critiques patriarchal cultures for inferiorizing women. Such a culture that regards maleness as superior tries to format citizens to think this way and to enshrine this prejudice in language in various ways. So, Beauvoire tries to show us how this thinking on otherness is flawed.

Julia Kristeva

It is another thinker, Julia Kristeva, who analyzes and brings this flaw out in a semiotic and psychoanalytic framework. Her book, *Revolution in Poetic Language * tries to show how language in the our grammar suppressess prematernal rhythms. In other words, masculine symbolic in language is not neutral but is oriented against femininity.

"Her most important contribution to the philosophy of language was her distinction between the semiotic and the symbolic aspects of language. The semiotic, which is manifested in rhythm and tone, is associated with the maternal body. The symbolic, on the other hand, corresponds to grammar and syntax and is associated with referential meaning. With this distinction, Kristeva attempted to bring the “speaking body” back into linguistics and philosophy. She proposed that bodily drives are discharged in language and that the structure of language is already operating in the body."

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julia-Kristeva

Helene Cixous

Helene Cixous, a French writer, recommends what she calls "ecriture feminine" (translated as "the woman's word"). In other words, Cixous is recommending any expression that either interrogates, negates, criticizes or displaces the masculine symbolic.

We find ecriture feminine in various songs and writings today. The revolution has changed English. Words previously thought to be generic are now seen as offensive in interaction.

Luce Irigaray

Another thinker who has used psychoanalytical thinking in this issue is Luce Irigaray. Her controversial work, *The Sex Which Is not One* system adismisses man's representations of woman as very faulty. For Irigaray, woman's semiotics of the body is multiple and cannot be made singular or simple. Masculine representation is, therefore, an excess and bad luggage for any culture to carry.  

A piece on Irigaray's scholarship

"Irigaray alleges that women have been traditionally associated with matter and nature to the expense of a female subject position. While women can become subjects if they assimilate to male subjectivity, a separate subject position for women does not exist. Irigaray’s goal is to uncover the absence of a female subject position, the relegation of all things feminine to nature/matter, and, ultimately, the absence of true sexual difference in Western culture. In addition to establishing this critique, Irigaray offers suggestions for altering the situation of women in Western culture. Mimesis, strategic essentialism, utopian ideals, and employing novel language, are but some of the methods central to changing contemporary culture. Irigaray’s analysis of women’s exclusion from culture and her use of strategic essentialism have been enormously influential in contemporary feminist theory. Her work has generated productive discussions about how to define femininity and sexual difference, whether strategic essentialism should be employed, and assessing the risk involved in engaging categories historically used to oppress women. Irigaray’s work extends beyond theory into practice. Irigaray has been actively engaged in the feminist movement in Italy. She has participated in several initiatives in Italy to implement a respect for sexual difference on a cultural and, in her most recent work, governmental level. Her contributions to feminist theory and continental philosophy are many and her complete works present her readers with a rewarding challenge to traditional conceptions of gender, self, and body."

https://iep.utm.edu/irigaray/

Other Scholars

There are other scholars whose ideas are very relevant. For instance, Deborah Cameron and Germaine Greere. Cameron sees language as "man-made, " that is made  by men to favor them. Greere, in *The Female Eunuch*, also sees a world colored by man.

Matters Arising

There are some very serious issues raised by the arguments of these scholars. They include the following :

(1) Expressing personal opinions and sentiments as facts.
(2) Creating stereotypes through repetition and generalization of sentiments.
(3) Transmission of stereotypes through aspects of culture, for instance, language.
(4) The need to filter out sentiments and stereotypes from aspects of culture, especially in consuming and using them.

Concluding Remarks

It is good to consider the thoughts of our significant thinkers in society about language, literature, and gender and to examine their recommendations. It is also important to note that language that encodes or communicates other aspects of culture is subject to change and that one must consider the context of use.

Consult the following :

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julia-Kristeva

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Luce-Irigaray

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/cixous-helene

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