scholarly journals Gender, language and prejudice: Implicit sexism in the discourse of Boris Johnson

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 323-333
Author(s):  
Jane Sunderland

AbstractWhile linguistic prejudice is commonly understood to concern individuals or social groups because of the way they speak, we can also see it as damaging language used about individuals or social groups. In this article, I start by looking at the traditional sociolinguistic understanding of linguistic prejudice, then go on to look rather widely at various forms of prejudicial/sexist language about women. In doing so, I identify various lexical asymmetries and associated “lexical gaps”. The main part of the article takes this further by exploring how certain insults to men draw on an understood prejudice again women. I illustrate this with a “telling case”: three naturally occurring examples of prejudicial, sexist language recently used by British prime minister Boris Johnson: big girl’s blouse, man up and girly swot. For all three to work, they draw on what we might call a discourse of “Women as ineffectual”. I conclude with a discussion of intentionality as regards this sort of prejudicial language use, what it is intended to achieve and how it can be resisted.

2001 ◽  
Vol 99 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-34
Author(s):  
Bridget Griffen-Foley

This article surveys the relationship between Australian's longest serving prime minister. Sir Robert Menzies, and the controversial media proprietor Sir Frank Packer. It begins by briefly discussing the progressive liberalism that characterised the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs in the 1930s and 1940s. It then considers Packer's flirtations with the affairs of the United Australia Party and the Liberal Party in the 1940s, and the way in which Menzies, as leader of the opposition, viewed the press proprietor. The main part of the article explores the value that the prime minister and the Liberal Party placed on the support of the Packer media outlets, and the form that this support took. The article goes some way to describing how media tycoons and political correspondents interacted with politicians in the days before press releases and professional lobbyists became highly sophisticated news management devices.


2000 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chik Collins

AbstractThe term ‘Bakhtin Circle’ is used to refer to a group of Russian thinkers centred around Mikhail Bakhtin in the years following the 1917 Revolution. The group's prime concern was with the importance of questions of language-use in social life, and with the way in which language-use registered conflicts between social groups and classes. Prominent members, as well as Bakhtin himself, included P.N. Medvedev and V.N. Voloshinov. Between 1929, when a number of members were arrested, and his death in 1975, Bakhtin continued to work on the issues which had occupied the group.


1956 ◽  
Vol 10 (38) ◽  
pp. 156-192
Author(s):  
T. Desmond Williams

By March 21 the British prime minister had discovered that, owing to difficulties raised by Poland and Russia, as well as by Rumania, it would be impossible to secure the support of all the four great powers for the declaration he had suggested on March 20. Chamberlain accordingly altered his course, and on the same day, through Halifax, threw out the suggestion of a bilateral arrangement for mutual consultation between Britain and Poland. The foreign secretary had a long discussion with Count Raczynski, who had received instructions from Warsaw to inform London of Polish objections to the proposed four-power declaration.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1953 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 471-482
Author(s):  
JONAS E. SALK

The simple fact is: That an experimental method for inducing measurable amounts of antibody for the three known poliomyelitis viruses, employing a killed-virus vaccine is available, and it now becomes possible to determine whether—and to what extent—the incidence of naturally occurring paralysis may be influenced. All that should be inferred now is that studies are progressing satisfactorily; there have been no set-backs nor anything but revelations that shed more light on the course ahead. We must continue to regard the experimental developments to date as providing immunologic markers along the way that tell us whether we are on the right road. That there is more to do now than before indicates that we have not stumbled down a by-way but have selected a road, with many lanes, that seems long indeed. Our problem is to select not only the fast lane but the one that is safest and most certain.


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Martijn Abrahamse

Summary This article deals with the reception of Billy Graham and modern evangelicalism in the fragmented society of the Netherlands in 1954. It takes its departure from the stream of newspaper articles published between February and June in response to the Greater London Crusade and Graham’s first large scale rally in Amsterdam’s Olympic Stadium. The analysis of the reports in different newspapers, which represent the different social groups (catholic, protestant, socialist and liberal) in Dutch society, reveals a significant shift in the way Billy Graham was perceived: from initial scepticism to mild appreciation. This change in press coverage, it is concluded, is mainly due to the different way in which Billy Graham presented himself compared with the large-scale publicity which surrounded his campaign.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-91
Author(s):  
Dominic Bryan

This article examines the way in which the availability of cheaply produced polyester flags has changed the symbolic landscape in the public places of Northern Ireland. The “tradition” of flying flags to express identity is common throughout the world and an important feature of an annual marking of residential and civic spaces in Northern Ireland. Such displays have been a consistent part of the reproduction of political identities through commemoration and the marking of territory. However, the availability of cheaply produced textiles has led to a change in the way the displays take place, the development of a range of new designs and helped sustain the control of areas by particular paramilitary groups. It highlights how the “symbolic capital” of the national flags can be used by different social groups having implication on the status and value of the symbol.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tasnim Lubis

In oral literature, the moment that people remember most is could be the way the performer in performing it, the intonation, the history beyond, the particular sayings, or the performer itself. It depends on the listeners’ background about how they achieved. Among of them, oral literature has important role in sharing information among a speech community because the listeners are able to get the message directly without any interpretation. Consequenty, the study of oral literature is not merely study the language as principal but also language use because it is related to the character and identity. In addition, the study tends to have information from native view because it is related to their concept in mind. This study discussed about the concept of oral literature, the role of oral literature of Malaynese in building character and identity, and the role of Antropolinguistik as interdisipliner to analize oral literature in Malaynese.


2021 ◽  
pp. 51-58
Author(s):  
Herman Cappelen ◽  
Josh Dever

This short chapter does two things. First, it shows that in fact workers in AI frequently talk as if AI systems express contents. We present the argument that the complex nature of the actions and communications of AI systems, even if they are very different from the complex behaviours of human beings, and the way they have ‘aboutness’, strongly suggest a contentful interpretation of those actions and communications. It then introduces some philosophical terminology that captures various aspects of language use, such as the ones in the title, to better make clear what one is saying—philosophically speaking—when one claims AI systems communicate, and to provide a vocabulary for the next few chapters.


1985 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Harvey Cox

THE PROVISIONAL IRA'S ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE THE BRITISH Prime Minister and Cabinet at Brighton on 12 October 1984, represents the most dramatic move to date in a reputedly 20-year strategy of inducing the British to withdraw from Northern Ireland and leave Ireland to the Irish. Where nonviolent Irish nationalists have aimed, most notably through the New Ireland Forum Report published in May 1984, to persuade the British that the 1920 constitutional settlement dividing Ireland is inherently unstable and must be dismantled, the Provisional IRA has no faith in this course of action. The British, they calculate, will be persuaded not by the force of argument but by the argument of force. In this they can claim, with some justification, to be the true heirs of the Easter Rising of 1916. At that time the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, which was to become the basic document of Irish republicanism, declared ‘… the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible’. Since the 1916 Proclamation was ratified by the first subsequent meeting of elected representatives of the Irish people, the first Dáil Eireann, in 1919, representing virtually all but the Ulster unionist minority, and since the right and the aspiration to Irish unity have been reaffirmed by all non-unionist Irish parties ever since, it must be a truth universally acknowledged that the division of Ireland is unjust and undemocratic and that the reunification of the country is the rightful aspiration of the great majority of its people.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document