ON A SOCIOLINGUISTIC TERM: GENDER OR SEX¹

With the emergence of various interdisciplinary studies, the number of academic fields that had not previously existed in Lithuania increased. Understandably, research in new areas also requires terms for naming concepts in those fields. Alongside the study of anthropology, attention to various social divisions within society increased: both typical phenomena characteristic of the majority of society and those observable only in certain margins are studied. One such field of study is the analysis of the cultures of men and women, as well as the analysis of people who understand their identity (or whose identity is understood by others) differently. This is also connected with the emergence of feminist theory: from these studies, which initially focused on women’s role in society, broader studies developed that also became interested in the cultural types of men and of people who do not consider themselves representatives of either of the biologically defined sexes. Among other cultural features, language analysis also becomes important, viewed both as a system and as the realization of that system. Consequently, many studies are devoted to analyzing the expression and structure of speech acts.

In English, the language in which most feminist and anthropological studies are published, the term gender is used for this purpose. Like the studies of this field themselves, it is not an old term; it came into use only in the second half of the 20th century. Some languages did not seek an equivalent, but simply adopted the English term. Latvians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Russians, and Estonians use the term gender. Even in German, where foreign words are generally avoided, the term Gender has been introduced, and compounds or phrases are formed with it: Genderforschung, Gender Akademie, and so on.

In English–Lithuanian dictionaries, the meaning “sex” for the word gender is either not indicated or is given only as a colloquial usage. In Lithuanian linguistics, the English gender or any adaptations of it had not been used in sociolinguistics, sociology, or other studies. J. Džežulskienė was perhaps the first, drawing on sociology, to propose the word giminė to name an object of sociolinguistic research, defining a whole complex of social, cultural, and psychological characteristics associated with sex (Džežulskienė 1994: 55). Apparently, the suitability of this term has not been debated to date, since sociolinguistic studies are scarce in Lithuania, and existing studies generally make do with the expressions men’s speech and women’s speech. The proposed term giminė has not become widely established.

¹ This article was prepared with support from the LR Science and Studies Fund. Project: Dictionary of Gender Studies.

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This word is not very convenient as a sociolinguistic term. On the one hand, giminė is already a linguistic term, and polysemy among terms in the same field of science should be avoided. As S. Keinys states in The ABC of Terminology, “a term’s univocity is not the same as the univocity of an ordinary word. To demand that a term be univocal throughout the entire lexicon would be quite pointless. It would mean burdening the language with various coinages or borrowings. A term is required, or at least preferred, to be univocal within the terminology of the field to which it belongs². It is to be used with the same meaning in neighboring, related, and other fields into which it extends…” (Keinys 1980: 29). Thus, from this perspective, the term giminė is inconvenient for sociolinguistics. On the other hand, the fact that this word has as many as five meanings in contemporary Lithuanian—primarily indicating ties between different generations and kinship—is telling. One of its principal semantic components expresses commonality, a certain connection: it denotes formations associated with generational and blood ties. It is often also used as a collective noun denoting a particular group of people, cf.: His extended family; Look what family she is marrying into [i.e. joins]]. The sememe “sex” of this word is merely secondary, associated with the grammatical term. It is true that, for a time, literary scholars and cultural researchers used this term either interchangeably with the term “sex” (Giminė 1995; Feminizmas 1996), or tried to do without it (Kavolis 1992). Later, the term “sex” became established in their work. For all the reasons mentioned, the term giminė is unacceptable in anthropology and philosophy studies as well as in sociolinguistics.

Thus, at present, two words are used in various interdisciplinary studies to denote the same phenomenon, the same concept: giminė and lytis. This is unnecessary. The use of multiple words introduces confusion into studies (especially when students have to become familiar with interdisciplinary subjects) and creates difficulties in communication among specialists in different fields.

As a term, the word lytis would be better in this respect. It has long held the status of a term in the medical and biological sciences. It is also convenient in that it is not polysemous. In contemporary Lithuanian it has only two meanings, the first of which relates to the description of male and female beings. Thus, its primary semantic component is directly associated with different biological origins. Understandably, in human communities these are supplemented by social, cultural, and psychological characteristics, but this does not eliminate the biological understanding of sex. The word lytis has not previously been used as a term in sociolinguistics, but it is already used in other studies. Perhaps first of all

² Emphasis mine – G. Č.

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jis imtas vartoti verstinėje feministinėje literatūroje (Gruodis 1995). Kiek vėliau terminas lytis įsitvirtino kituose visuomenės moksluose (antropologijoje, filosofijoje ir kt.), jis vartojamas visų Lietuvos universitetų studijų programose.

Conclusions

1. An analysis of the semantics of the words giminė and lytis shows that the former is characterized by the seme of connection, while the latter has the seme of separation. In sociolinguistics, this aspect concerns separation, not connection, so lytis is the better term.

2. The term giminės used in linguistics denotes grammatical, but not social, affiliation. In the terminology of the same field of science, polysemy of the same word used as a term should be avoided.

3. For a decade now, works in various social sciences and humanities (philosophy, anthropology, sociology, law, etc.) have used the term lytis to refer to this phenomenon.

4. The word lytis would be more suitable than the word giminė for sociolinguistic terminology; it would facilitate mutual understanding and help avoid confusion.

LITERATŪRA

Džežulskienė J. 1994: Kalba ir giminė. – Sociolingvistika ir kalbos kultūra: straipsnių rinkinys, Vilnius, 55-61.

Feminizmas 1996: Feminizmas ir literatūra, Vilnius.

Giminė 1995: Giminė ir literatūra: Gender and Literature, Vilnius.

Gruodis K. 1995: Feminizmo ekskursai: Moters samprata nuo antikos iki postmodernizmo. Antologija. Sudarė K. Gruodis, Vilnius.

Kavolis V. 1992: Moterys ir vyrai lietuvių kultūroje, Vilnius.

Keinys S. 1980: Terminologijos abcėlė, Vilnius.

Mokomasis anglų kalbos žodynas – English Dictionary for Speakers of Lithuanian, Vilnius, 2000.

Piesarskas B. 1998: Anglų–lietuvių kalbų kompiuterinis žodynas Alkonas, Vilnius.

Giedrė ČEPAITIENĖ

Gauta 2005-03-05

Šiaulių universitetas

P. Višinskio g. 38, LT-76352 Šiauliai

E. paštas [email protected]

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