Abstract:
Gender is an issue of social and interpersonal relationships between males
and females, a problem of differences in roles and values, and inequalities in
opportunities, access to resources and power. These relationships, differences and
inequalities are located in social and institutional structures and practices, but they
are also firmly rooted in language. Language is a locus for the manifestation of
gender because language and its usage convey not only factually objective
meanings but also produce and reproduce social meanings and affect social
relations.
Using an eclectic conceptual framework, the study takes into consideration
gender theories, feminist linguistic perspectives, and discourse analysis paradigms
to critically examine Dagbanli linguistic items and Dagomba linguistic behaviour
that create and re-affirm those culturally constructed differences and inequalities
between males and females called gender. I examine single lexical items, phrases,
proverbs, popular sayings as well as language in active everyday use in
conjunction with the social and cultural circumstances that define usage practices
or add gendered meanings to the language. These were collected from written
texts and from language in active use recorded electronically and transcribed, or
recorded in writing during conversations.
The results show that the Dagomba hold strong views about differences
between males and females and express these in various ways. Paired male/female
or masculine /feminine linguistic items tend to have positive meanings for males
but carry negative associations for females. There is a higher tendency of giving
stereotypical and derogatory labels to females than to males. Negative
representation of females is most pervasive in proverbs and contrasts sharply with
positive representations of men, though the uniqueness of the woman as mother
and wife is recognised. There are also some differences in the use of some
linguistic items by males and females Men use forms that are associated with
higher status and power while women have to use forms that are associated with
inferior status. Men and women engaged in normal interaction routinely
reproduce
gender
stereotypes
as they
use
language.
