Social, psychological, cultural and linguistic aspects of gender issue

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SOCIAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC ASPECTS OF GENDER ISSUE

N. Kuzmin, О. Krapivkina

Irkutsk National Research Technical University

The paper deals with the issue of gender in humanities (social studies, psychology, cultural studies and linguistics). The authors give the definition of the concept from different perspectives, analyze the role of gender in studying social relations, personality, culture and linguistic characteristics of discourse. The authors concludes that the concept of gender is seen differently through the prism of different scientific thoughts.

Key words: gender, social sciences, grammatical category, sex, culture, psychology.

СОЦИЛЬНЫЙ, ПСИХОЛОГИЧЕСКИЙ, КУЛЬТУРНЫЙ И ЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКИЙ АСПЕКТЫ ГЕНДЕРА

Н.А. Кузьмин, О.А. Крапивкина, Иркутский национальный исследовательский технический университет

Рассматривается проблема гендера в гуманитарных науках (социологии, психологии, культурологии и лингвистике). Приводятся определения гендера, выработанные в указанных дисциплинах, анализируется его роль в изучении социальных отношений, психологии личности, культуры и языковых характеристик дискурса. Авторы приходят к выводу, что в понятии гендера каждая из гуманитарных дисциплин выделяет различные аспекты, которые позволяют создать целостное представление о данной категории.

Ключевые слова: гендер, социальные науки, грамматическая категория, пол, культура психология.

gender social linguistics

This work addresses the theoretical issue of gender aspects in humanities. The problem of the gender role in humanitarian studies is topical for linguistics due to two reasons. Primarily, it involves quite a multidimensional field of research which includes two major aspects: the first one is associated with linguistics since the grammatical category of gender is presented differently in diverse languages and has different semantic and cultural meanings; the second one is attached to the controversial issue of how personality of the speaking subject, their gender influences communication. At the same time, it is a new sphere of linguistic studies where there is not enough research conducted.

Thus, the object of the research is gender aspects of humanities. The theoretical value of the work is associated with the field of gender linguistics, especially, the issues related to translation studies; there has been not sufficient research carried out yet. The paper aims to provide a better understanding of translation aspects in cultural and social context.

The theoretical basis of the work is the researches of Russian and foreign experts in sociology, psychology, cultural studies and different linguistic disciplines.

First of all, we have to define the gender as a phenomenon. This concept appeared not long time ago. Socially and culturally significant differences related to behavior, habits and socialization of men and women in general were occasionally reflected in scientific works, especially in the field of anthropology and ethnography. However, the idea to differentiate between the concepts of biological sex and social sex (gender) appeared just in the post-modernist era [1, 2].

The formation of gender is something that has been highly controversial in many scientific fields. Specifically, researchers and theorists take different perspectives on how much of gender is due to biological, neurochemical, and evolutionary factors (nature), or whether it is the result of culture and socialization (nurture). This is controversial because there are political implications for either side being right. For example, if gender was proven to be completely biologically based, some people believe that this would be used to promote social inequalities.

As a result, there is a great number of different definitions, but according to the most general one suggested in the Oxford dictionary, gender is the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones) [3]. However, to make this image more detailed, we are going to provide more precise definitions.

The Dictionary of the Social Sciences defines gender as culturally constructed forms of behavior that roughly correlate with sexual difference. Traditionally, differences in behavior and roles have been assumed to naturally reflect social differences. Modern social science, however, became careful to distinguish between gender and sex; it has generally laid the burden of explaining behavior practices, roles and social organization on the former [4]. This definition helps understand what real role of gender in society is. It also provides us with an idea that the social concept of gender is more multidimensional than just dividing people into men and women and assigning them to proper behavioral model accepted in the society according to their sex.

Since this work involves some psychological aspects it is rational to provide the definition of gender in psychological terms. Thus, gender refers to the personal sexual identity of an individual, regardless of the person's biological and outward sex. How people define masculinity and femininity can vary based on the individual's background and surrounding culture. Differing societal expectations in different cultures establish the behavioral, psychological and physical attributes that are associated with one gender or another [5]. While the definition of gender given in the dictionary of social sciences gives us the concept of gender accepted in the society, the psychology dictionary provides us with understanding how the phenomenon of gender is perceived by every individual.

At the same time, translation studies concern intercultural (i.e. social and psychological) phenomena as well as linguistic ones. Consequently, it is necessary to provide the linguistic idea of gender. It is as follows: gender (grammatical gender) is a noun class system, composed of two or three classes, whose nouns that have human male and female referents tend to be in separate classes. Other nouns that are classified in the same way in the language may not be classed by any correlation with natural sex distinctions [6]. The linguistic concept of gender seems to have nothing to do with social and psychological interpretation of this phenomenon. Nevertheless, it still has a great cultural significance and could be considered crucial in relation to different social and mental concepts, even if this connection is not obvious from the first sight.

Further, we should note that gender is an important concept in social sciences that are closely associated with other humanities including linguistics and translation studies. This is the reason why it is important in terms of this work to consider gender from the point of view of sociology and other related disciplines.

In the context of social sciences gender is closely associated with the notion of social roles. By a social role, it is understood as a set of connected behaviors, rights, obligations, beliefs, and norms as conceptualized by actors in a social situation. It is an expected or free or continuously changing behavior and may have a given individual social status or social position [7].

On the basis of the notion of social roles, T. Parsons worked out the idea of social constructivism, and E. Goffman reinterpreted this idea to some extent. According to the concept of Parsons, the dominating element in the trichotomy society-group-individual is society. This mechanism of social action makes it possible to explain any socially significant phenomena. Personification of social relationships is realized through social roles. E. Goffman also considered the society and the individual as a product of role interaction between people. However, in his opinion, the interaction is made on the basis of united symbols. Symbolic interaction between people focuses on communicative phenomena: information processes, language, communication means. Goffman pointed out not the significance of the structure but the significance of role interaction, making no difference between stage action and social interaction [1].

Admitting the biological basis of gender, E. Goffman showed that biological sex is just the starting point to divide the society into two classes depending on the sexual assignment in order to create different roles for the members of each class. To describe social aspects of sex, Goffman introduced the terms genderism and gender display denoting all the cultural elements related to sex: gender stereotypes, gender role norms and gender role identity [Ibid.].

Social roles of men and women are different in each society, and in most societies gender differences are accompanied by gender inequality - almost always the subordination of women. This is, perhaps, the major axis of gender research in social sciences, and it has led to a wide range of speculations about the relationship of sex and reproduction to other social domains, such as economic production, warfare, distinctions between nature and culture, the differentiation of public and private spheres, and a range of other forms of social organization that produce or materialize conditions of gender inequality. As a question of gender attracted growing interest in the 1960s and 1970s, the preponderance of research showed a remarkable variety of gender roles in different cultures. This diversity has raised serious obstacles to formulating a single satisfactory account of gender formation [8]. Other works (notably that of Michel Foucault) have demonstrated the historical contingency of what counts as sexual difference and have investigated the process through which sex became a distinct and independent object of study in the 19th century [9]. Such works have problematized the distinction between sex and gender but have hardly dispensed with it, and questions of gender roles, gender inequality, and gendered institutions remains firmly entrenched in the agenda of social sciences.

The phenomenon of gender is an issue of not only social sciences but psychology as well. Personal interests are likely to be a matter of social sciences as well as a matter of psychology. This is the reason why psychological disciplines are greatly concerned with the notion of gender.

Gender is one of the key notions of psychology since it is closely associated with personal identity and, thus, is an important element characterizing an individual in psychological terms. Modern linguistics and translation studies often refer to psychological concepts. This way, it is important to consider gender from the psychological point of view.

Gender in psychology is conceptualized in contrast but, at the same time, on the bases on the concept of sex. While, in general, authors differentiate between terms sex and gender in most official diagnostic psychological literature the term sex and not gender is used to differentiate between males and females [10].

There are four main approaches to the notion of gender accepted in the modern psychology. The first one belongs to the evolutionary psychological theory, and consists in the opinion that behaviors or traits that occur universally in all cultures are good candidates for evolutionary adaptations. Cultural universals include behaviors related to language, cognition, social roles, gender roles, and technology [11]. The second approach to understand the concept of gender is that of social psychology. It is based on the assumption that a society's treatment of one gender is often different from its treatment of the other, even from the time a child is born (a rather trivial thing, for example: blue for boys and pink for girls). The third approach is that of cognitive-developmental psychology. The essence of this approach is the emphasis on motivational consequences of gender concepts; the active, self-initiated view of development; and focus on developmental patterns highlighted and contrasted with social-cognitive views. Human differentiation on the basis of gender is considered to be a fundamental phenomenon that affects virtually every aspect of people's daily lives. As for the forth approach, its concept is similar to the previous one, but focuses not just on the cognitive processes taking plays in the child's brain considering a range of certain factors to be determining in the process of psychological gender formation. The aim of the psychoanalytic approach consists in deconstruction of traditional concepts of children's early development.

Certainly, there are different perspectives in psychology, and they have somewhat different view on gender identity development.

It is important to remember, though, that gender being an essential concept of social and psychological sciences becomes a meaningful cultural unit since culture is the product of human social and mental activities. The role of gender varies depending on a particular culture but still there is no nation where gender does not have any significance in terms of mentality.

In the cultural context, gender characteristics are subjective behaviors that we learn through social acculturation. At the same time, lots of historical instances show us that these behavioral models can change over the time.

Cultural perception of gender generally accepted for a particular nation in a particular period of time often determines its specific traditions concerning male and female population. We can consider as an example that today it is thought effeminate for a man to wear lots of lace about his neck. But, in earlier societies, a man was not considered to be a true man unless he wore the finest lace. Certain cultures say a woman must be obese to be considered feminine. Certain cultures say that a woman must be anorexic to be considered feminine. Certain cultures require a woman to have long hair to be considered feminine, and certain ones require braids.

Behaviors like occupation can be culturally genderized as well. For example, men shy away from nursing today because society recognizes that profession as a feminine profession. But, 60 years ago, the majority of nurses were males and nursing was not considered to be appropriate for ladies.

The perception of gender is different in different cultures and could be considered as an important factor forming national mentality. It is possible to prove that gender attributes play a significant cultural role through the existing national traditions related to men and women.

In terms of linguistics, gender is a grammatical category. However, lately this notion has also been reserved to other linguistic fields that are mostly associated with problems of discourse. Mostly it is determined by development of such disciplines as sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics that study social, psychological and neurobiological factors respectively that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend and produce language, and gender is considered one of these factors. In the context of translation studies, the concept of gender has acquired quite a significant role, as well.

In languages where the grammatical category of gender exists, each noun is assigned to one of the classes called genders, which form a closed set. Such languages usually have 2-4 different genders, and some are attested with up to 20. The division into genders usually correlates to some degree, at least for a certain set of nouns, with some properties (masculine or feminine) of the things that particular nouns denote. Such properties include animacy or inanimacy, humanness or non-humanness, and biological sex.

The system of gender is particular to each language where it exists but there are 4 most common patterns:

1) masculine-feminine:

nouns that denote specifically male persons (or animals) are normally of masculine gender; those that denote specifically female persons (or animals) are normally of feminine gender; and nouns that denote something that does not have any sex, or do not specify the sex of their referent, have come to belong to one or other of the genders, in a way that may appear arbitrary (modern Roman languages, Afro-asiatic languages etc.);

2) masculine-feminine-neuter:

this system is similar to the masculine-feminine one, except that there is a third available gender, so nouns with sexless or unspecified-sex referents may be either masculine, feminine, or neuter (Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, Latin, German, the Slavic languages etc.);

3) animate-inanimate:

nouns that denote animate things (humans and animals) generally belong to one gender, and those that denote inanimate things to another (earlier forms of Proto-Indo-European, the extinct Anatolian languages, Basque etc.);

4) common-neuter:

a masculine-feminine-neuter system previously existed, but the distinction between masculine and feminine genders has been lost. Thus nouns denoting people are usually of common gender, while other nouns may be of either gender (Danish, Swedish, Dutch etc.).

In terms of linguistics, gender seems to be a purely grammatical attribute. However, experience and research shows that it has more profound basis as well as bigger significance in the mind of individuals, and the whole societies, speaking a particular language.

During the last decades, the notion of gender has become an important concept in a wide range of humanities, especially in social sciences, psychology, cultural studies and linguistics. Despite the fact that the notion of gender is a general concept of diverse disciplines, it is seen differently through the prism of different scientific thoughts. This idea could be easily proved just by the number of the definitions offered for the concept of gender. Being a complex issue in a wide range of humanities, gender is an important matter of concern in modern studies which requires more detailed analysis.

References

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