Topics Language

Question Many different intellectuals have argued that using language in a certain way conduces to certain attitudes and beliefs in the speaker (I'm thinking mostly of feminist theorists who argue that our language both betrays and reinforces sexist and heteronormative worldviews). A great deal of literature presupposes the truth of this idea. I can see why this is such an attractive theory; it seems entirely plausible, and, if true, its implications would be deep. At the same time, however, I wonder if philosophers and theorists aren't overstepping their bounds in claims like this; if a certain way of talking inclines us toward a certain way of thinking and acting, isn't this in fact an empirical question? I can imagine how using masculine pronouns could instill sexist attitudes in a person -- but imagining is very different from proving.

Accepted:
February 23, 2007

Comments

I completely agree with you: it does seem plausible that noninclusive language fosters or reflects sexist thought and behavior, but it is in fact an empirical issue. This is, as it happens, a hot topic among psycholinguists at the moment. The research of Stanford psychologist Lera Boroditsky (view some of the work here: http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~lera/papers/) suggests that how we talk does affect how we think, and in particular, that the gender coding of nouns affects the properties we attribute to their referents. University of Pennsylvania psychologist Lila Gleitman has evidence, however, that how we talk has virtually no effect on how we think. I couldn't find a link to relevant work of hers, but here's her homepage: http://www.psych.upenn.edu/~gleitman/

There's probably a lot of relevant work in social psychology, among scholars who study the development of stereotypes and so forth, but I don't know that literature. Colleagues?

Benjamin Whorf took the idea that talk shapes thought to an extreme; most psychologists and linguists think he was wrong in most of the particulars, but as Boroditsky's research indicates, there's a movement afoot that aims to vindicate his basic idea.