Discriminatory Language Research Articles

Implicit homophobic argument structure

This article analyses the linguistic and discursive elements which contribute to the production of implicit homophobia. Explicit homophobia has been well documented and strategies for countering discriminatory language have been developed (Baker 2014, Leap 2012). However, our interest here is in documenting implicit homophobia, where homophobic beliefs are only hinted at, are disassociated from the speaker, or are embedded within discursive and argument structures. We decided to analyse the debate in the media around the introduction of equal or same-sex marriage legislation in the UK. We focused our analysis on a series of radio programmes on BBC Radio 4,The Moral Maze(2011–2012), where the issue of same-sex marriage was debated with a team of panelists and invited guests from a range of different organisations. Different perspectives on same-sex marriage were discussed, in a seemingly objective and dispassionate way, where the interactants distanced themselves from homophobic beliefs and yet implicitly subscribed to homophobia. We used an analysis drawing on argumentation structure (Fairclough & Fairclough 2012) and through focusing on stance, recontextualisation, imaginaries, and metaphor, we developed an analysis which made the way that implicit homophobia works more visible. In this way, we hope to foreground implicit homophobia, and develop a linguistic and discursive ‘toolkit’ which will enable it to be challenged and countered.

Sticks and Stones May Break Our Bones, and Verbal Abuse WILL Hurt Us

When playground bullies enter college, residence hall facilities can become their new “sandbox,” and gender-based discriminatory language is one way bullying can manifest itself. By the time sexual and/or physical abuse materializes, campus personnel often ask themselves what they could have done to prevent such actions. The author shares personal experience addressing this issue on both building-wide and individual student levels. In order to create real and meaningful change, collaborative partnerships are formed which break down barriers between student affairs and academic affairs. Addressing verbal abuse with intentional collaborative sanctioning, the author argues, serves as a positive form of both reactive and proactive assault education.

A Study on the Need to Teach Discriminatory Language of Japanese to Student Interpreters/Translators

A Study on the Need to Teach Discriminatory Language of Japanese to Student Interpreters/Translators

The Employment Equity Act (EEA) as an Instrument for Employment Equity in the South African Labor Market

This paper seeks to critically examine the Employment Equity Act (EEA) as an instrument of achieving employment equity in post apartheid South Africa. Special emphasis will be placed on the policy of affirmative action. In this article we will attempt to illustrate how focusing on affirmative action and failure to implement policies could pose a threat to the achievement of equity in the South African labour industry. This paper was prepared by means of a literature survey wherein various previous literatures were interrogated including the actual Act in concern. In a nutshell it can be argued that the EEA as a piece of legislation has managed to augment equality in opportunities at the same time addressing the past imbalances. However there are concerns that affirmative action may pose a challenge as it is presented in discriminatory language and if handled carelessly may undermine merit, leading to disenfranchisement of deserving individuals. Another concern is that it could be used as a front by the political elite to harbor elements of corruption and nepotism to the disadvantage of the poor of the poorest amongst designated groups. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n9p578

Libertad de expresión y discurso homofóbico en méxico: ¿es correcta la teoría constitucional de la suprema corte?

The article discusses a recent decision by the Mexican Supreme Court whereby damage resulting from the use of discriminatory language may in certain cases appropriately counterweight freedom of speech. The ruling expresses thesis at three different levels, all of them relevant from the viewpoint of constitutional theory. First, it expresses a vision of the kind of exercise the Court should deploy when reviewing sentences in amparo: it is a maximizing vision that the author considers to be fundamentally correct. At a second and third level, with different degrees of specificity, it proposes a particular constitutional reading for the revision of the case at hand. On this count and given the relevant historic-constitutional context, the article celebrates the Court's willingness to counterweight free speech with antidiscrimination-based considerations, though in terms of the sub-rules of decision used to pin down the general reading it identifies both successes and failures.

Demanding Possibilities: The Legacies and Potentials of Sex and Gender Activism

The rain that poured down on gay activist Charlie Hill, speaking on steps of Parliament Hill in Ottawa on 28 August 1971, did nothing to cool and dampen heat of his political rhetoric.1 In his speech, Hill described how Canadian lesbians and gay men were fed up with lack of dignity, discrimination, harass- ment, arrests, and the genocide of gays fostered by psychiatrists using medieval tor- tures to destroy us (quoted in Moldenhauer 1971, 4). Hill had come to Ottawa to take in a demonstration in support of We Demand, a brief submitted to Liberal government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (Toronto Gay Action 1971). The We Demand demonstrations that took place in both Ottawa and Vancouver marked first significant organized public protest relating to same-sex sexuality in Canada (Smith 1999, 3).What galvanized these specific protests was a critical response to passage of Criminal Law Amendment Act. This vast law reform omnibus bill, undertaken by Liberal government in 1968-69, among other things decriminalized sexual activ- ity in private between two persons over 21 years old, and legalized abortions under very strict and paternalistic conditions. As scholar and activist Gary Kinsman mem- orably notes, these reforms were part of a broader process of reclassifying homo- sexuals, prostitutes, juvenile 'sex offenders,' and women seeking abortions as 'sick' or 'inadequate,' but no longer as necessarily (1999, 165). Unsatisfied with narrow liberalization of Criminal Code, a coalition of groups that included Vancouver-based Gay Alliance Toward Equity, Toronto Gay Action (TGA), Com- munity Homophile Association Toronto (CHAT), and Montreal's Front de liberation homosexuel drew dramatic attention to continued discriminatory language of Criminal Code and a range of other policies of Canadian state.Written by two members of activist and liberationist group Toronto Gay Action, Herb Spiers and David Newcome, We Demand utilized liberationist rhetoric while articulating a reformist political agenda. Although TGA was of an emergent radical sexual liberationist movement, one that would most famously find its voice in Toronto-based periodical Body Politic, brief itself was designed for broad political appeal that would be palatable to more cautious and reformist allies such as those in CHAT, as TGA's minutes of 11 July 1971 reveal. As such, most of demands focussed not on subjective or community-based forms of sexual liberation, expression, and consciousness, but rather on law reform and regulatory policies of Cana- dian government. Some of listed demands included removal of vague terms such as gross indecency and indecent act from Criminal Code (1953-54, s. 149, s. 158) and specification of illegal acts, adoption of a uniform age of consent, amendments to Immigration Act (1952) to remove references to homosexuality, right to serve in armed forces, and end to discrimination in employment by federal government and monitoring of homosexual employees within federal government (Toronto Gay Action 1971).All of these demands for change were significant, in no small because a great deal of same-sex sexuality in Canada-sexual acts, zones of sexual contact, forms of sexual expression and representation-remained illegal, or at best lay within a grey zone of criminality. For example, sex between more than two persons, even if these activities took place in privacy of a home, remained illegal and subject to criminal prosecution. Trudeau's famous statement that There's no place for State in bedrooms of nation (CBC 1967) had presumptive limits about what constituted legitimate sexual activity within bedrooms of Canadians. Implicit in Trudeau's statement were a range of assumptions about privacy and bedrooms that privileged individuals who were able to secure, control, and regulate their own domestic space. …

A Sociolinguistic Study of English Taboo Language

In every society there are things which are believed to be not appropriate if spoken on public occasions. A large number of words are therefore taken as silly, vulgar or obscene when used in communication. These words are “taboos”. This paper investigates all the major varieties of English taboo, i.e., bodily excretions, death and disease, sex, four-letter words, privacy and discriminatory language, which are respectively defined and provided with concrete examples. Euphemistic and roundabout ways of avoiding using taboo words are offered to deal with the situations.

Sowing Discontent

In 1921 New Mexicans approved a constitutional amendment that prohibited “aliens ineligible for citizenship” from owning land in the state. Reflecting the post-World War I nationalistic fervor and its racialization of “Americanism,” the amendment targeted the state’s tiny Japanese population, partly under pressure from institutions like the Farm Bureau, the American Legion, and even the Ku Klux Klan. While some Hispanos (or Nuevomexicanos) benefited by claiming an exclusionary “Spanish American” identity, others had worked alongside and intermarried with Japanese immigrants. Yet, although some predominantly Nuevomexicano counties rejected the amendment, many Nuevomexicanos joined with their Anglo neighbors to enact this discriminatory policy, ostensibly on the grounds of protecting the state from a huge influx of foreign farmers who would displace the state’s real citizens. The discriminatory language remained in the constitution until 2006.

Second-class citizens? Gender in African citizenship law

In recent publications, Manby (2009, 2010) has pointed out serious inequities in African citizenship laws. As women are one of the largest groups at risk of unequal treatment, we systematically examine sub-Saharan African citizenship laws for discriminatory provisions and language. We find that for laws currently in force, legal treatment of women is uneven, both across the continent and within countries. We consider the role gender plays in transmitting citizenship to children, as well as differences between the genders in citizenship transmitted through marriage. Some countries are gender neutral in most or all aspects of the law, others are gender neutral with respect to parents and children but favor men in transmitting citizenship to their wives, and others still discount the role of women in both respects. We employ quantitative methods to understand the background conditions that influence citizenship law, finding that temporal and demographic factors have some systematic influence. To understand when and how citizenship laws may change, we examine case study evidence of women's movements as a means for bringing about gender equality, finding that targeted legal action or major constitutional overhauls can help render citizenship laws more gender neutral.

Orientalism Now: Lebanese History, Identity and Alterity

Against the backdrop of turbulent change in contemporary Middle East societies, it is apt to reconsider Edward Said’s conceptualization of Eastern other. Within the theoretical parameters of Orientalism and the more fluid borders of postmodernism our present concern is with the formation of history and culture in Lebanon. Bearing in mind the inherent differences between Lebanese Christians, Muslims and Jews, we contend that Said’s notion of the other can explain only in part what is a far more complex religious encounter. Such a nuanced argument locates alterity in various frameworks of cultural correlation, appropriation and displacement. Our modus operandi is to adopt the epistemology of otherness in a comparative and comprehensive analysis of identity. We consider, in particular, how the Lebanese Maronites, a Christian sect, have employed history to assert ethnic difference and antecedence in terms of religion, language and territory. Furthermore, what we find in the discourse of contemporary Muslim leaders and academics ‐ specifically Sunni, Shiite and Druze ‐ are increasing questions concerning the meaning of Arab identity, common heritage and Islamic nationhood. The central premise of Said’s Orientalism is the belief that in the nineteenth century imperialism facilitated a growing interest among European academics in ethnography and taxonomy. The Oriens, the Orient, became alter by virtue of its Islamic identity, and a “pseudo-incarnation” by virtue of the fact that it came after Christianity (Said 1978: 62). This unrepresentative, flawed and tendentious classification of the Orient by a Western “corporate institution” predisposed to reinterpret historical data ad infinitum, was essentially racist as it “accumulated experiences, territories, peoples, histories; it studied them, classified them, verified them; but above all, it subordinated them to the culture and indeed the very idea of white Christian Europe” (Said 1990: 72). Moreover, the recursive formation of knowledge pertaining to the East was dependent upon a discriminatory language to

The N-Word at Work: Contextualizing Language in the Workplace

The N-Word at Work examines the misinterpretation of language in employment discrimination cases. There is a widening gap between the use and meaning of words in modern American culture and courts’ treatment of those words. This is particularly true in the case of derogatory slurs and phrases but is equally true for discriminatory language in general. This article argues for a context-driven theory of linguistic meaning that is compatible with the purposes of Title VII and other anti-discrimination statutes but that would re-inject a sense of reality into the consideration of discriminatory language.Both the legal literature and judicial system have largely ignored this problem of language in discrimination cases. Perhaps sensing an emerging problem in the lower courts, in its 2006 decision in Ash v. Tyson, the Supreme Court devoted a single, vague sentence to the meaning of language in discrimination cases. Nonetheless, the problem persists among appellate and district courts alike. In late 2010, for example, a federal district court in Philadelphia addressed the issue head-on in a case involving a white employee who was terminated for using “the N-word” and claimed in his reverse-race discrimination case that had he been African American and used the word, he would not have been disciplined. Like its predecessors, the court approached the problem in a formalistic way that resulted in a context-blind approach to language with unsatisfactory results.This article calls attention to this issue by examining the uses and meanings of discriminatory language in modern culture and advocates a theory of meaning that relies on the context in which it is used, the identity of the user, and the social, historical, and cultural framework in which the language developed. The article highlights the mistreatment of language by trial and appellate courts and tracks the troubling history of Ash, which was finally resolved in December 2011 after two trials, a trip to the Supreme Court and four reviews by the Eleventh Circuit. Finally, the article suggests solutions to this seemingly intractable problem, including the need for (1) robust guidance from the Supreme Court on the purposes of anti-discrimination law and the non-literal applications of that law that make flexible, context-driven considerations of discriminatory language both possible and preferable and (2) extra-legal expert testimony akin to social framework evidence that could translate the cultural realities of language for courts.

Pharmacy student professionalism and the internet

User modifiable internet applications, often termed Web 2.0 and social media have the ability to quickly broadcast opinions, beliefs, and personal details. Pharmacy education has begun to integrate this technology for educational and outreach purposes and is also grappling with the negative issues that surface with respect to student professionalism. The objective was to investigate academic administrators' reports of unprofessional online postings of pharmacy students and how this related to policies at their respective institutions. This study was an online survey of Deans of student affairs, or their proxies, at United States colleges of pharmacy in December 2009. The survey collected information on school setting and respondent characteristics, incidents of student-posted unprofessional content, respondents' level of concern and institutional policies. Fifty-four percent of schools responded (60/111). Of these, 51% (31/60) reported incidences of student-posted online unprofessional content. Patient confidentiality was involved in 7% of these incidents (2/28). Profanity (74%; 20/27), discriminatory language (39%; 11/28), depicting intoxication (50%; 13/26), and sexually suggestive content (32%; 8/25) were also reported. Of the respondents who reported incidents and answered the question regarding disciplinary actions, 20 resulted in informal warnings (67%). Fifty-six percent of respondents believe that current policies do not cover student-posted online content (32/57). Of these schools without policies, 25% (9/32) were adjusting policies to cover this issue. There was no difference between schools reporting incidents and amount of policies, school characteristics, or Deans' level of concern. Online student-posted unprofessional content appears equally prevalent regardless of schools' policies to address it.

Pediatric Clerkship Directors’ Social Networking Use and Perceptions of Online Professionalism

ObjectiveThe use of social networking sites (SNS) is increasing among all ages, with implications for medical education faculty and trainee interactions. Our objective was to understand pediatric medical educators’ use of SNS and perspectives on professional boundaries and posted content. MethodsFrom September through December 2010, the Council on Medical Student Education in Pediatrics conducted its annual online survey. This survey included 11 questions regarding members’ own SNS use, interactions with trainees, and perceptions about online behaviors by students. In addition, 3 open-ended questions about reasons for SNS use/nonuse and interactions with trainees were included. Bivariate and multivariable analyses were conducted with the use of logistic regression for predictors of clerkship directors’ SNS use and views about behaviors. Open-ended questions were analyzed qualitatively to identify themes. ResultsOf the 65% (94/144) of clerkship directors responding to the survey, 34% (32/94) currently use SNS, 54% (51/94) never used SNS, and 12% (11/94) previously used SNS. Lack of time was the main reason for non-use. Female respondents were more likely to perceive it as never/rarely acceptable to accept students’ friend requests (odds ratio = 2.96, P = .03). Most felt hypothetical student online behaviors were rarely/never acceptable, such as photos of students holding alcohol (68/92, 74%), using discriminatory language (89/91, 98%), and sexually explicit posts (87/90, 97%). ConclusionsApproximately one-third of pediatric clerkship directors currently use SNS, with use less likely with increasing age. Fewer have SNS relationships with students than with residents. Perceptions of appropriateness of faculty SNS behaviors and students’ postings varied. These perceptions by medical education leaders can stimulate discussion to inform consensus guidelines on professional SNS use.

The N-Word at Work: Contextualizing Language in the Workplace

The N-Word at Work examines the misinterpretation of language in employment discrimination cases. There is a widening gap between the use and meaning of words in modern American culture and courts’ treatment of those words. This is particularly true in the case of derogatory slurs and phrases but is equally true for discriminatory language in general. This article argues for a context-driven theory of linguistic meaning that is compatible with the purposes of Title VII and other anti-discrimination statutes but that would re-inject a sense of reality into the consideration of discriminatory language.Both the legal literature and judicial system have largely ignored this problem of language in discrimination cases. Perhaps sensing an emerging problem in the lower courts, in its 2006 decision in Ash v. Tyson, the Supreme Court devoted a single, vague sentence to the meaning of language in discrimination cases. Nonetheless, the problem persists among appellate and district courts alike. In late 2010, for example, a federal district court in Philadelphia addressed the issue head-on in a case involving a white employee who was terminated for using “the N-word” and claimed in his reverse-race discrimination case that had he been African American and used the word, he would not have been disciplined. Like its predecessors, the court approached the problem in a formalistic way that resulted in a context-blind approach to language with unsatisfactory results.This article calls attention to this issue by examining the uses and meanings of discriminatory language in modern culture and advocates a theory of meaning that relies on the context in which it is used, the identity of the user, and the social, historical, and cultural framework in which the language developed. The article highlights the mistreatment of language by trial and appellate courts and tracks the troubling history of Ash, which was finally resolved in December 2011 after two trials, a trip to the Supreme Court and four reviews by the Eleventh Circuit. Finally, the article suggests solutions to this seemingly intractable problem, including the need for (1) robust guidance from the Supreme Court on the purposes of anti-discrimination law and the non-literal applications of that law that make flexible, context-driven considerations of discriminatory language both possible and preferable and (2) extra-legal expert testimony akin to social framework evidence that could translate the cultural realities of language for courts.

The ‘Other’ Side of Prejudice: Understanding the Role of Language in Confronting and Overcoming Prejudices

Australia is often called the country of migrants. It has received people from some 200 countries, one quarter of the population was born overseas and since World War II, Australia has been the third highest recipient of refugees in the world. As this society grows more diverse through the interaction of people from different ethnic backgrounds, there is a need for understanding of prejudicial labelling and of discriminatory behaviour and language that breaches societal aspirations for equality. A critical examination is made of the way prejudices are embedded in language and how language is used prejudicially against anyone who can be seen as ‘Other’ due to their language or ethnic background. However, prejudice goes both ways. This paper also looks at the experiences of an ‘Other’ in confronting and resolving personal and enacted prejudices. Insight from these interactive processes, can lead to an increased awareness and understanding of ways of confronting and overcoming prejudices in behaviour and language.

Gender, Work and Wages in Industrial Revolution Britain (review)

Reviewed by: Gender, Work and Wages in Industrial Revolution Britain Eric Schneider (bio) Gender, Work and Wages in Industrial Revolution Britain. By Joyce Burnette. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Pp. xii+377. £55. This book is the most forceful argument to date that gender wage differences and occupational sorting during the Industrial Revolution were based on market responses to real differences between male and female productivity, not on gender discrimination or custom. Joyce Burnette argues that productivity differences between the genders can be explained by two key factors. Most important, men's greater strength gave them a productivity advantage over women in manual labor, which resulted in men receiving higher wages for their greater productivity. Differences in human capital between men and women also contributed to the gender wage gap. Burnette sees strength as exogenous to the economic system because it was a product of biology, and human capital as endogenous because men and women had different incentives to invest in human capital. Thus, women earned approximately one-half to two-thirds the salaries of men performing the same task for equal periods of time because they were less productive. This argument challenges earlier historiography, which has emphasized the role of ideology, gender discrimination, and custom in determining women's wages. Burnette argues that ideological concepts of "women's work" rarely limited the industries in which women could work. Instead, conceptions of women's work reflected natural and efficient occupational segregation and were later harnessed by male unions in noncompetitive markets to justify the exclusion of women. Gender discrimination did not influence wages because men and women were given equal piece-rate wages for producing the same goods. Finally, women's wages were not set by custom because they varied over time and were responsive to regional economic pressures. Burnette also argues that, in competitive labor markets, occupational sorting based on strength decreased the gender difference in wages by allowing women to specialize in low-strength industries where they could [End Page 195] be more productive. This was the most efficient outcome for women and the economy as a whole. However, women were sometimes excluded from industries where labor markets were less competitive by men's distributional coalitions, which used ideological and discriminatory language to justify their attempt to maintain higher wages by excluding women. This outcome was less efficient for women and the economy. Of particular interest to the readership of this journal will be Burnette's discussion of how technological change shifted occupational structure. Because hand spinning in preindustrial England required little strength, women had a comparative advantage and performed most spinning work. Even with several substantial improvements in spinning technology in the early years of the Industrial Revolution—the spinning jenny and throstle—women continued to dominate the spinning industry because these new technologies were not strength-intensive. However, with the invention of mule-spinning, a task requiring a great deal of strength, women were pushed out of the spinning industry because men had a greater comparative advantage. After men became dominant in mule-spinning, they created unions and successfully excluded women after the self-actor decreased the strength requirements necessary to operate the machine. Thus new technology that either increased or decreased strength requirements could significantly influence occupational sorting in the economy. I agree with Burnette that strength did create real differences in productivity between men and women, but these productivity differences could have had an endogenous as well as exogenous determinant. For example, Burnette too readily dismisses the influence of gender inequality in the distribution of food in the household, which has been shown to leave women in a weaker and less-productive state than men. Therefore, it may not be possible to remove gender roles and ideology from gender differences in productivity and wages, even if wages were determined by the marginal product of female and male labor. In addition, in order to definitively prove that wage differences were determined by productivity differences and not by custom, Burnette would have to show quantitatively that wage differences were greater for occupations where strength was more important than in occupations where strength was not important. This is a difficult task given the paucity and nature...

Language rights and the San in Namibia: a fragile and ambiguous but necessary proposition

In many countries, discriminatory language policies from the colonial era continued after independence, favouring languages that the majority of citizens do not speak as the first language in their homes. Policies, legislation and their implementation often discriminate against indigenous languages in a number of ways. The prevailing situation in the world today is that certain languages are given official status and recognition while the majority of languages, and, in particular, indigenous languages are denied legal recognition. This imbalance weakens indigenous languages and contributes to views that portray indigenous languages as inferior and give room for discriminatory and corrupt practices that are difficult to combat through legal or political means.

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The Perception of Discriminatory Language to the Disabled and Patterns of Alternative Expression

The Perception of Discriminatory Language to the Disabled and Patterns of Alternative Expression

‘Away with the fairies?’ Disability within primary‐age children's literature

This article outlines the findings of a new study that explores the portrayal of disability within a sample of the primary‐age children's literature most readily available to UK schools. The kind of literature to which children are exposed is likely to influence their general perceptions of social life. How disability is handled by authors is therefore important from the standpoint of disability equality. Findings suggest that whilst there are some good examples of inclusive literature ‘out there’, discriminatory language and/or negative stereotypes about disability continue to be present in a range of more contemporary children's books. Clearly, more still needs to be done to ensure that schools and teachers are provided with information relating to the best examples of inclusion literature and efforts must continue to be made to inform authors, publishers and illustrators about how to approach the issue of disability.