Entry 14: How Is My Fork Feminine?
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The French language. Spoken by 128 million people worldwide (nationsonline.org), it is a language of love and a language with rules. There are many rules, each with many exceptions. These rules are difficult for native speakers to grasp and even harder for people who speak french as a second language to understand. I am part of the second category. Many of the rules of French are hard for me to use and understand. One such rule is the classification of nouns as masculine and feminine.
The general rule when classifying nouns as masculine or feminine is that words that end with an "e" are feminine, as are words that end in "tion". There are many exceptions to this rule, though. One such exception is that any words that end in "isme" are masculine, regardless of the fact that they end with an "e". Another exception to the rule is the word "monde", meaning world.
Why do I care about whether or not a word is masculine or feminine? It's all about the perception of power. As you may recall, any word that ends in "isme" is considered masculine. Why does this matter? Words that end in "isme" represent powerful ideas. Examples of these ideas are "communisme", "nationalisme", "facisme", and "albanianisme" (Albanian nationalism). Even "feminisme" is masculine.
An article that we read in class called "Does Your Language Shape How You Think?" discusses how a person's mother-tongue can influence their perception of certain objects. One such influence was how language can influence your perception of objects. One test that they did involved people who spoke different language voice certain objects in a cartoon. One of the objects was a fork, which is "forchette" in French, a feminine word. When native French speakers voiced the fork, most chose a woman's voice. This is almost undoubtedly because their native language trained them to view a fork as a feminine object.
Here are some knowledge questions that can be formed based on this situation:
a) The perception of objects is changed depending on the language that describes it.
b) Many words representing objects or ideas of power are male, implying that masculine things are more powerful than feminine things.
Here are some knowledge questions that can also be formed based on this issue:
a) To what extent does language influence the perception of knowledge?
b) To what extent is language altered to accommodate perspective?
In regards to question number 1, it is clear that language can greatly influence perspective. As mentioned above, when psychologists asked French speakers to voice forks in cartoons, many of them demonstrated their perception of forks as feminine by using a woman's voice. This test was also performed on Spanish speakers. Many of the Spanish-speakers chose a male voice for forks. This is because in Spanish, fork is "el tenedor", a masculine object. From this one test, it is clear that language can absolutely influence the perception of objects.
As mentioned before, many powerful ideas and almost all powerful things such as the government and the world are masculine in French.
The representation of these ideas is masculine, leading to the presumption that all things powerful and ground-shaking are masculine. Masculinity equals power. Even the word for the movement to empower women is a masculine word. This almost seems to imply that the movement would not exist without some form of male involvement and consent. While I am absolutely do not believe in misandry, nor would I suggest a rewrite of the French language, the French languages classification of all things of power as masculine undermines the power of women as forces of change and powerful beings. The French language shows how language can alter the perception of knowledge.
To further explore this question, I will describe another real-life situation in which language is used to influence the perception of knowledge. This summer I went to Canada's Wonderland with my sisters. It was awesome. It was my first time at Canada's Wonderland in years, so I had never ridden The Behemoth or The Leviathan. Naturally, I was a little bit anxious after seeing the daunting height of the rides. The first ride we went on was The Behemoth. While we were in line, my sister, Lauren was describing the ride using words like "so much fun", "I love it", and "the first steep hill isn't scary at all". I was very comforted by those words and ended up having great time on the ride. The people in line behind us, though, were also talking to a first time rider about the ride experience. They were using language like "so scary", "you feel like you're going to fall and die", and "the the first hill is so steep!" When I saw them and their unfortunate friend walking off the ride, the first-timer was pale and clutching one of her friends' arm. While she may have simply been more afraid of roller coasters than I am, the girl's friends' language definitely prepared her to perceive the ride as worse than it was and ruined her experience of the ride. My sister's description of the ride, however, made me perceive the ride as an awesome thrill-ride and my experience was much better. In this case, the language used by my sister and the girl's friends completely influenced our perception of the ride, causing us to have two very different experiences.
The general rule when classifying nouns as masculine or feminine is that words that end with an "e" are feminine, as are words that end in "tion". There are many exceptions to this rule, though. One such exception is that any words that end in "isme" are masculine, regardless of the fact that they end with an "e". Another exception to the rule is the word "monde", meaning world.
Why do I care about whether or not a word is masculine or feminine? It's all about the perception of power. As you may recall, any word that ends in "isme" is considered masculine. Why does this matter? Words that end in "isme" represent powerful ideas. Examples of these ideas are "communisme", "nationalisme", "facisme", and "albanianisme" (Albanian nationalism). Even "feminisme" is masculine.
An article that we read in class called "Does Your Language Shape How You Think?" discusses how a person's mother-tongue can influence their perception of certain objects. One such influence was how language can influence your perception of objects. One test that they did involved people who spoke different language voice certain objects in a cartoon. One of the objects was a fork, which is "forchette" in French, a feminine word. When native French speakers voiced the fork, most chose a woman's voice. This is almost undoubtedly because their native language trained them to view a fork as a feminine object.
Here are some knowledge questions that can be formed based on this situation:
a) The perception of objects is changed depending on the language that describes it.
b) Many words representing objects or ideas of power are male, implying that masculine things are more powerful than feminine things.
Here are some knowledge questions that can also be formed based on this issue:
a) To what extent does language influence the perception of knowledge?
b) To what extent is language altered to accommodate perspective?
In regards to question number 1, it is clear that language can greatly influence perspective. As mentioned above, when psychologists asked French speakers to voice forks in cartoons, many of them demonstrated their perception of forks as feminine by using a woman's voice. This test was also performed on Spanish speakers. Many of the Spanish-speakers chose a male voice for forks. This is because in Spanish, fork is "el tenedor", a masculine object. From this one test, it is clear that language can absolutely influence the perception of objects.
As mentioned before, many powerful ideas and almost all powerful things such as the government and the world are masculine in French.
The representation of these ideas is masculine, leading to the presumption that all things powerful and ground-shaking are masculine. Masculinity equals power. Even the word for the movement to empower women is a masculine word. This almost seems to imply that the movement would not exist without some form of male involvement and consent. While I am absolutely do not believe in misandry, nor would I suggest a rewrite of the French language, the French languages classification of all things of power as masculine undermines the power of women as forces of change and powerful beings. The French language shows how language can alter the perception of knowledge.
To further explore this question, I will describe another real-life situation in which language is used to influence the perception of knowledge. This summer I went to Canada's Wonderland with my sisters. It was awesome. It was my first time at Canada's Wonderland in years, so I had never ridden The Behemoth or The Leviathan. Naturally, I was a little bit anxious after seeing the daunting height of the rides. The first ride we went on was The Behemoth. While we were in line, my sister, Lauren was describing the ride using words like "so much fun", "I love it", and "the first steep hill isn't scary at all". I was very comforted by those words and ended up having great time on the ride. The people in line behind us, though, were also talking to a first time rider about the ride experience. They were using language like "so scary", "you feel like you're going to fall and die", and "the the first hill is so steep!" When I saw them and their unfortunate friend walking off the ride, the first-timer was pale and clutching one of her friends' arm. While she may have simply been more afraid of roller coasters than I am, the girl's friends' language definitely prepared her to perceive the ride as worse than it was and ruined her experience of the ride. My sister's description of the ride, however, made me perceive the ride as an awesome thrill-ride and my experience was much better. In this case, the language used by my sister and the girl's friends completely influenced our perception of the ride, causing us to have two very different experiences.