Man-Made Language

Rating:
Summary: interesting, yet constrained...
Review: Along with such titles as Robin Lakoff's Language and Woman's Place or Deborah Cameron's Feminism and Linguistic Theory, this book is on the essential reading list of students of language/sex research. Her claim is rather bold: "English language is "literally" man made and it's been in male control since the beginning." Its uncompromising adherence to the simple thesis, to the extent of being crude, makes this book comparable to one of the classics in the women in literature studies, that is, Kate Millet's Sexual Politics: both are constrained in their approach and methodology, but yet both are thought provoking and read well.

Although there are some unconvincing claims even to people with no linguistic training, Man Made Languae will certainly raise the awareness about how language can be sexist by those who intend to keep it that way. One of the sexist rules of English Spender examines is 'semantic derogation of women', through which any terms related to women eventually go through a change in meaning that makes them derogatory to women. There are many interesting examples, and unlike most of Ph. D. dissertations, it is readily accessible to non-specialists.