Does Gender in Language Affect Our Perception of the World?
How is gender expressed in language? More importantly, how does gender in language affect our perception?
Since beginning my teaching career in 2009, I have worked with students of many different native languages; Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Russian, Latvian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, etc… With all of these students, the issue of gender always causes confusion.
Even for myself, as a student of Spanish with a B2/C1 level, the concept of gender causes a great deal of confusion. If you tell me that la mujer is feminine, or el hombre is masculine, I have no problem understanding that. But, when you say la mesa (the table) is feminine, or el piso (the floor) is masculine, you’ve lost me.
In what way is a table feminine, or a floor masculine? Is it possible that these constructs affect our perception of the world around us?
I remember reading an article about gender in a linguistics magazine many years ago. They did a test with native Spanish and German speakers, equally divided between men and women. The first test was to show them all picture of the same bridge, and ask them to say the first words that came to their mind.
The original Rorschach Test ink blots
This was, in effect, a Rorschach Test. If you are not familiar with this, it is a test where psychologists present a test subject with images of ink blots on paper and ask them to say the first words that come to mind. The theory is that this test will provide insights into the state of mind of the subject.
So here in this linguistic “Rorschach Test”, we find some very interesting results. For the Spanish speakers, the most commonly said words, among both men and women, were: “tall”, “long”, and “strong” (alto, largo, and fuerte in Spanish). For the German speakers, again, with both men and women, the most commonly said words were: “beautiful”, “flowing”, and “elegant” (schön, fließend and elegant in German).
The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco
Do Germans speakers find bridges more beautiful than Spanish speakers? Could this be true? And if so, what could be causing this? Is it in their DNA? Are bridges in Germany more beautiful than bridges in Spain?
Well, there is more to this than meets the eye. In Spanish, ‘bridge’ is el puente, and in German it is die brücke. Now, Spanish has two genders, masculine and feminine (el and la), while German has three, masculine, feminine and a neutral gender (der, die and das). Let’s take a closer look.
El puente is masculine, and die brücke is feminine. Let’s have another look at those words the test subjects gave. The Spanish speakers said tall, long and strong; words generally thought of as having a more masculine character. The German speakers said beautiful, flowing and elegant; words generally thought to have a more feminine character.
Could this be the cause of the discrepancy in how Spanish speakers and German speakers perceive of bridges? Let’s look at the second part of the test and see what else we find.
In the second part of the test, the subjects were all told to pretend they were acting in an animated children’s movie, like Pixar or Disney. Specifically, they were told to pretend to be a magical talking spoon.
Again we see a difference between the Spanish speakers and the German speakers. The majority of the Spanish speakers, spoke with a higher pitch “feminine” voice, including the men who had to “fake” it, and said things like “Hello, I am the magical spoon, I am here to feed you some cake…”. Conversely, the German speakers did the opposite, and spoke in a deeper “masculine” voice, now with the women “faking” it, and said largely the same things that the Spanish speakers had.
This time the genders are reversed with the spoon, la cuchara, feminine in Spanish, and der löffel, masculine in German. Hmmmm. Very interesting, yes?
It seems clear that gender does actually play a role in how different cultures perceive the world. I’m sorry they didn’t include English speakers in the test, because for inanimate objects, we have no gender in English, or perhaps better said, only have one neutral gender. This is a question for another day, but my suspicion is that English speakers would have offered up a mix of “tall” and “beautiful” and “strong” and “flowing” for the bridges.
What do you think? Have you had similar experiences with gender in language? Do you think it affects our perception of the world? What are the advantages or disadvantages of this? Let me know, and I’ll see you the next time you join me as I ponder the curious in the world of language.
