Dacă nu mai există limitări de gen în arealul profesional, de ce ar mai exista ele în limbă? / If there are no gender limitations in the professional realm, why would they persist in language?

Authors

  • Felix Nicolau Lund University, Centre for Languages and Literature, Sweden

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35824/sjrs.v2i1.18780

Keywords:

gender linguistics, gender studies, usage, norm, feminine suffixes, equality of chances

Abstract

The historical evolution of languages has been more than once influenced by the sheer influence of scholars who re-channeled some linguistic phenomena or simply consecrated aspects of colloquial usage. This happened in the history of Romanian language when the Latinist scholars cleansed the lexicon and parts of morphology of various non-Latin borrowings and derivations whereas they revived or inserted Latin formations. Taking account of this, it would be hard to justify the rejection of many feminized denominations of professions used already by people in everyday conversations. With the advance of technology and with the support of the third wave of feminism women are able nowadays to embrace whatever professional field they may want. On the other hand, there are numerous international conventions that acknowledge the role played by women in the setting up of the postindustrial society. That is why my article is a plea in favor of a linguistic updating, namely the acceptance into the literary language of feminized denominations of professions.

Author Biography

Felix Nicolau, Lund University, Centre for Languages and Literature, Sweden

Felix Nicolau is Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Communication, The Technical University of Civil Engineering, Bucharest, Romania and senior lecturer at the Faculty of Humanities, Lund University, Sweden. He defended his PhD in Comparative Literature in 2003 and is the author of eight books of literary and communication theory: Morpheus: from Text to Images. Intersemiotic Translations (2016), Take the Floor. Professional Communication Theoretically Contextualized (2014), Cultural Communication: Approaches to Modernity and Postmodernity (2014), Comunicare şi creativitate. Interpretarea textului contemporan (Communication and Creativity. The Interpretation of Contemporary Text, 2014), Homo Imprudens (2006), Anticanonice (Anticanonicals, 2009), Codul lui Eminescu (Eminescu’s Code, 2010), and Estetica inumană: de la Postmodernism la Facebook (The Inhuman Aesthetics: from Postmodernism to Facebook, 2013), five volumes of poetry (Kamceatka – time IS honey, 2014) and two novels.He is member in the editorial boards of “The Muse – an International Journal of Poetry” and “Metaliteratura” magazines. His areas of interest are translation studies, the theory of communication, comparative literature, cultural studies, translation studies, and British and American studies, Romanian studies.

References

Bidu-Vrănceanu, A., Călărașu, C. & al (2005). Dicționar de științe ale limbii / Dictionary of Language Sciences. Bucureşti, Editura Nemira.

Borza, I. (2006). Cartea neagră a egalităţii de şanse între femei şi bărbaţi în România / The Black Book of Opportunity Equality between Women and Men. Bucureşti, Editura AnA.

Bunduchi, I., Handrabura L. (2016). Echilibrul de gen în produsele mediatice (Gender Balance in Media Products), https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj80PGVz4ngAhWKEVAKHbqHCvYQFjABegQICRAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.md%2Fupload%2FGhid_gender_2016.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3WTBus4EjVzEjfbcKxBNy9

Dragomirescu, A., Nicolae A. (2011). 101 greşeli de lexic si de semantică / 101 Mistakes of Lexic and Semantics. Editura Bucureşti, Humanitas.

Egalitatea de gen / Gender Equality, proiect Posdru /156/1.2/G/133630, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=2ahUKEwiRIvyzYngAhWFbFAKHTkNDAgQFjAAegQICRAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdpus.uv.ro%2Fdocs%2FA6%2FA6.4_continut_egalitatea_de_gen.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3UvFfEa9TQzTBxaOqHexyM

Gruiţă, G. (2006). Moda lingvistică. Norma, uzul și abuzul / The Linguistic Fashion. Norm, Usage and Abuse. Piteşti, Editura Paralela 45.

Joiţa, R. (2016) Perspective comparative şi diacronice asupra limbii române / Comparative and Diachronic Perspectives on Romanian). Bucureşti, Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti.

Munteanu, C. (2018). „Când vorbitorul nu are dreptate. Câteva observaţii referitoare la <> limbii române” / ”When the speaker is wrong. A few observations referring to the ’masculinity’ of Romanian”. Philologica Jassyensia, an XIV, nr. 1 (27), pp. 97-106.

Popa, M., Popa, I. (2015). Limba română. Gramatică, fonetică, vocabular, ortografie şi ortoepie / Romanian. Grammar, Phonetics, Vocabulary, Ortography and Orthoepy. Bucureşti, Editura Niculescu.

Redeş, S. (2009). „Categoria genului în limba română şi în limba engleză. Studiu comparativ” / ”Gender category in Romanian and English. Comparative study”. Philologica Banatica, III (2), Editura Mirton, pp. 46-59.

Downloads

Published

2019-05-16

How to Cite

Nicolau, F. (2019). Dacă nu mai există limitări de gen în arealul profesional, de ce ar mai exista ele în limbă? / If there are no gender limitations in the professional realm, why would they persist in language?. Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies, 2(1), 182–191. https://doi.org/10.35824/sjrs.v2i1.18780