It has been an interesting week by all accounts. The arrival of a new bloke in the office has set a cat among the pigeons. Not many men would be brave enough to announce to a room full of women that they are white, middle class, male and proud. Or then again perhaps they would?
Talking to this guy, and listening to him speak (there is a fundamental difference in the way a woman gets ICT to fix her PC than the way a man approaches this largely masculine enclave) has made me revisit the stuff I did on linguistics while I was studying for my MSc.
The bottom line is that English is a man’s language. This is a structuralist idea – that we use language to codify thought to express ourselves and make ourselves understood to one another. Essentially: I think something, open my mouth and say it, and you hear it and understand. Very direct, very masculine.
But this presupposes that I have a word to express my thought. What if I think something that I don’t have a word for? How do I explain myself to you? This turns the structuralist argument on its head, because I am constrained in what I say by the words I have to say it. The words are changing the way I think.
Words are powerful things.
This is expressed beautifully in a book called the Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin. Suzette has created a language called Ladaan, that is specifically designed for women to express the thoughts not yet codified in any language. Having a way to express their perceptions allows them to communicate fully with each other and makes them powerful.
I am totally in love with this interplay between words and thought, because with the right words, anything is possible. You can create. You can change who you are. If that is not a spell, then I don’t know what is.
