Teaching
Linguistic Anthropology
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Unit 3
Language and Gender
Words, phrases, and context tell us a great deal about how we think, speak about, and ultimately view people of different genders. This unit encourages students to think about the way language lays bare the gender inequality that is present in our societies and how changes to language are part of creating more equitable systems.
Sapiens articles
Unmanning Space Language
Do the terms we commonly use to discuss space exploration reflect the reality of humankind and our engagements with outer space?
The Power of the Dictionary
Dictionaries are typically viewed as being value-neutral. But they are just as steeped in culture and prejudice as the rest of the world—and they have the power to shape what we see as “normal.”
Keywords
View All in Communication
![Two people crouch down to create colorful chalk art on a street. Intricate designs and language characters surround a central circular moti]()
![Two pairs of scissors, two rocks, and two slips of paper rest on a pale-yellow surface.]()
![An officer dressed in black, wearing a baseball-style hat and balaclava, with a machine gun slung across his chest, stands before a gray concrete building.]()
![A person stands inside a moving flame of yellow light while sparks fly out in all directions. A second person stands on the left side holding an umbrella against the sparks.]()
![In a pitch-black environment, a person with black smudges on their face wears a fur pelt and holds a lit torch.]()
![On a wood-paneled floor, four barefoot people wearing different outfits in shades of red, yellow, and blue dance in front of a gray wall. Captured in motion, and therefore blurry, each has several of their dance moves overlapping and visible at once.]()
Tackling the Impossibility—and Necessity—of Counting the World’s Languages
A language scientist delves into historic and current efforts to catalog the planet’s 7,000-plus languages, uncovering colorful tales and Herculean challenges.
Playing Rock, Paper, Scissors Across the Red-Blue Divide
As toxic polarization deepens in the U.S., some global conflict prevention experts are now addressing political violence at home. An anthropologist shares three key insights from a community action program in Wisconsin.
When a Message App Became Evidence of Terrorism
Beginning in 2016, the Turkish government accused anyone with the messaging application ByLock of terrorism. An anthropologist investigates the risks of this kind of digital evidence.
A Call for Anthropological Poems of Resistance, Refusal, and Wayfinding
SAPIENS is seeking poetry submissions for a curated collection that will publish next year. Deadline: September 1, 2024.
How Accurate Is the Stone Age Thriller Out of Darkness?
An archaeologist with expertise in human origins assesses the accuracy of a 2022 film about Homo sapiens who encounter Neanderthals.
Making Anthropological Poetry Reel
In featuring three SAPIENS poems, students in a digital anthropology seminar infused video reels for Instagram with vivid history and powerful emotions.
View All in Gender
![A line of cattle travel across a dry desert landscape, kicking up dust.]()
![An old bucket coated in multicolored limestone sits in front of a limestone-covered wall out of which protrudes a faucet dripping water that falls into the bucket.]()
![A stream of clear water pours into an orange bucket. Behind it, two slightly out-of-focus women and a child look on.]()
![A close-up view features an art exhibit composed of multiple photographs arranged side by side. The photos show people riding a horse, receiving medical care, and speaking at a women’s event.]()
![A historic black-and-white photograph shows a small group of workers on the floor of a pin manufacturing plant tending to rows of machines.]()
![Amid a political rally where red, black, and green colors are prominent, a smiling woman wearing glasses, a khaki shirt, and a black headscarf holds aloft a sketch of a person’s face that says, “Khan Is Hope.”]()
An Imagined Monograph for Nongqawuse
A 19th-century prophetess reportedly bore a serious message from the ancestors to her Xhosa people amid British colonial assault. The written archives judged her—but much still remains unknown and unacknowledged.
Her Dirge
A poet-historian reflects on women’s labor carrying memories and the past.
How Water Insecurity Impacts Women’s Health
Anthropologists and local activists in Indonesia and Peru uncover links between water scarcity and gendered violence, and work together to lessen the harms of gender inequality.
Fighting for Reproductive Rights in Retirement
An anthropologist conducts research in an Arizona retirement community, where older women share hard-won insights about how limitations on sexual and reproductive freedom impacted their lives.
How Allocating Work Aided Our Evolutionary Success
Societies divide labor by gender and age. A biological anthropologist considers when and why this behavior arose.
The Rise of Aunties in Pakistani Politics
Middle-class, conservative women in Pakistan have found a political voice as supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party—putting them at odds with the secular women’s movement their own daughters support.
View All in Language
![Two people crouch down to create colorful chalk art on a street. Intricate designs and language characters surround a central circular moti]()
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![Amid a rocky landscape, a grove of gnarled olive trees stands under a nearly cloudless blue sky.]()
![Dark gray clouds hang in a pale blue sky. With orange light shining from behind them, these clouds seem to touch dark rolling hills scattered with trees and buildings.]()
![A close-up image features a circular street sign with random black symbols such as an exclamation mark and hashtag and a red circle and strikethrough over them.]()
![A picture features a sky with a large, slightly orange, billowing cloud at its center that morphs on its left side to look like the side profile of dark-skinned woman’s face. To the left of her is a bright-blue sky with clouds.]()
Tackling the Impossibility—and Necessity—of Counting the World’s Languages
A language scientist delves into historic and current efforts to catalog the planet’s 7,000-plus languages, uncovering colorful tales and Herculean challenges.
Do You Want to Write for SAPIENS?
A free online webinar by SAPIENS Editor-in-Chief Chip Colwell to learn about how to write for the magazine and its peer publications.
Griko’s Poetic Whisper
In two poems, an anthropologist speaks to the timelessness and constant change of the minority language Griko in the Italian landscape.
Speaking in Tongues
A scholar from Nagaland in India offers visceral, familial insights on language and culture loss in her Indigenous tribal community.
Why I Ask My Students to Swear in Class
An anthropologist uses explicit insults to get students thinking about gender and power in everyday language. Plus, a brief explainer on the slang term “sus.”
Indigenizing What It Means to be Human
SAPIENS offers a curated collection of poems and stories that center Indigenous values, worldviews, and insights, creatively reimagining anthropology and the human experience.
Professor Talking Points
- Gender inequality in various societies is mirrored in and supported by people’s use of language.
- Linguistic anthropologists who study gender are well-positioned to observe changes in the way language reflects adaptations in how the concepts of masculinity, femininity, gender binaries, and gender fluidity are understood and conveyed.
- The rise of gender neutral language is an example of these ongoing shifts in language and culture. Gender neutral language provides a way to speak about human beings without assuming or imposing a gender identity on them. An example of gender neutral language in English is the use of “they,” “them,” and “their” as singular pronouns instead of “he/she” or “his/hers.”
- Shifts in language are happening alongside shifts in cultures by way of social institutions and interactions that lead many to think more critically about assumed gender traits.
- These shifts are also taking place in our linguistic institutions, including dictionaries, journalistic guidelines, style guides, etc.
Academic Articles
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Kiesling, Scott Fabius. 2008. “‘Now I Gotta Watch What I Say’: Shifting Constructions of Masculinity in Discourse.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 11 (2): 250–273.
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Kulick, Don. 2000. “Gay and Lesbian Language.” Annual Review of Anthropology 29: 243–287.
Student Discussion Questions
- What do this unit’s articles say about the way people think about gender hierarchies in general?
- What are the effects of the changes in these hierarchies on the way people talk about women’s and men’s places?
- How does the Kiesling (2008) article inform the two SAPIENS articles in terms of how gendered language is being contested and adapted?
- What can we learn from Kulick’s (2000) article about the way gender and sexuality are expressed through language? How does his message relate to the other articles?
Activities
- Have the students list all of the gendered words in English they can think of that are loaded with meaning and power. Then have them discuss the implications of individual words and the list as a whole.
Additional Resources
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Book Review: SAPIENS’ “The Anthropologists Who Undid Sex, Race, and Gender”
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PowerPoint: University of Chicago’s “Language and Gender”
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Video: Deborah Tannen’s “Gender-Specific Language Rituals”
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Video: The Economist’s “Sexism and the English Language”
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Video: Deborah Tannen’s “She Said, She Said (You’re Wearing That?)”
Unit By
Eshe Lewis (2020)
Teaching
Linguistic Anthropology
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Unit 4
Language and Colonialism
