1. Thinking Outside of the Box
Use the objects to create something that represents any ideas, theories, concepts, examples of language use and gender.

2. NEA Bits and Bobs Starting to take shape – HURRAH!!!
Annotations still need greater depth – link to those contextual ideas. GASP++, Representation, Attitudes …..
FIRST DRAFT DATE – 7th December
Those writing an opinion article – have you looked at the example?

3. How much do you remember
How much do you remember? You need to make sure you know their key points and studies….
Dale Spender
Robin Lakoff
Zimmerman and West
Deborah Tannen
Randall
Pamela Fishman
As part of your homework this week complete the sheet.
It will help you formulate specific examples for your exam.
READ. READ. READ.
CHECK THE BLOG!
There is some really detailed stuff on there. I can’t possibly do anymore!

5. What are little girls made of?
What are little boys made of?

6. Caitlin Hines Rebaking the Pie – The Woman as Desert Metaphor
Woman as a dessert reduces women to the status of objects. Something to be commodified.
Metaphor extended and internalized – women are sweet and therefore compliant, smiling, well mannered.
They are ‘pieces’ and ‘slices’ – Syntactic depersonalisation extended with the use of the modifier ‘little’.
Alan Dundes (1980) also notes the association of women and food “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach”
Pejoration is most common. Like Schulz (1975) agrees that “again and again in the history of the language, one finds that a perfectly innocent term deignating a girl or woman may begin with totally neutral or even positive connotations, but that gradually it acquires negative implications […] after a period time becoming abusive and a sexual slur.” Hines identifies ‘TART’ as first being an affectionate term defined in 1864.

7. Women are sweet objects
Process of metaphor
“She tasted victory”
Tart.
Cream puff.
Women
Are
Sweet
Achieving a desired object is getting something to eat
Women are sweet objects
PEOPLE
ARE OBJECTS
Desserts
“Eyes are the windows to the soul”
“sweetie. Honey bun”

8. Links to other ideas….
Spender (1980) – Man Made Language. Investigated sexism in the lexicon and suggested that language reinforces male power over women.
Deborah Cameron (1985) – “in the mouths of sexists, language can always exist”. Argues not the words, but the minds that need changing.
Shulz (1975) – “[…] we cannot tell the extent to which any language influences the people who use it. […] However, words which are highly charged with emotion, taboo or distaste do not only reflect the culture which uses them. They teach and perpetuate the attitudes which created them. […] terms designating women routinely undergo pejoration, both reflects and perpetuates derogatory attitudes towards women.”

10. Janet Holmes (1992)

11. Mini Investigation: How significant are the metaphors used to describe women that Janet Holmes identifies in her account of sexist language?
Take 10 of the terms identified by Holmes and Hines
Go to the British National Corpus at This is a 100 Million collection of word body (10% Spoken 90% Written) of modern English taken from a wide range of sources.
Search the terms – it will give you 100 ‘Hits’
Count the amount of times the term is used to describe a woman and give as a percentage. So 14 out of 50 would be 28%
The idea here is that the higher the frequency of use as a sexist term to describe women, the more significant the metaphor is.
Findings and analysis
Examine the data carefully and see what you find. It might be helpful to show your findings visually, using charts.
Is there anything significant about the uses of the word that are not sexist descriptions of women? Are any of them being used of men?
WHERE are you finding the terms used most? Anything significant?
Conclusions
What conclusions can you draw from your detailed analysis?
To what extent can you answer the question the investigation set out to explore?
What theories and concepts about language and/or society might be helpful in explaining these conclusions?
How do these conclusions compare with those of other studies and accounts, including that by Janet Holmes?

12. bitch
chick
cow
crumpet
honey
kitten
old biddy
stud
sugar
sweetie
tart
wolf

13. READING! Please find and Read!
Is also on the blog!