Gender assignment in present-day scientific English
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Trinidad Guzmán-González
Abstract
The article aims at exploring an aspect of the category of gender in English – namely what I have called “assigned gender” (Guzmán-González 1989, 1999, 2002, 2012, forthcoming and Guzmán-González & González 2005): the use of covert marks – third person singular and relative pronouns, and sex-sensitive collocations (of the type “moon, mother of dreams”) in a way deviant from the classification most currently assumed for English in modern times; that is to say, he for human males, she for human females and it for everything else (where he, she, it stand for the relevant complete set of pronouns and collocations). In particular, this chapter is based on textual evidence retrieved from a sub-corpus composed of zoology journals and addresses how the category is employed in reference to a particular group of nouns (animals) in a particular register (scientific English) in a particular medium (writing).
Abstract
The article aims at exploring an aspect of the category of gender in English – namely what I have called “assigned gender” (Guzmán-González 1989, 1999, 2002, 2012, forthcoming and Guzmán-González & González 2005): the use of covert marks – third person singular and relative pronouns, and sex-sensitive collocations (of the type “moon, mother of dreams”) in a way deviant from the classification most currently assumed for English in modern times; that is to say, he for human males, she for human females and it for everything else (where he, she, it stand for the relevant complete set of pronouns and collocations). In particular, this chapter is based on textual evidence retrieved from a sub-corpus composed of zoology journals and addresses how the category is employed in reference to a particular group of nouns (animals) in a particular register (scientific English) in a particular medium (writing).
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction ix
- Collocations, lexical bundles and SciE-Lex 1
- SciE-Lex 21
- Formal and functional variation of lexical bundles in biomedical English 39
- A corpus-based analysis of the collocational patterning of adjectives with abstract nouns in medical English 55
- As described below 73
- Negation in biomedical English 105
- A cross-disciplinary analysis of personal and impersonal features in English and Spanish scientific writing 121
- Gender assignment in present-day scientific English 145
- The metaphorical basis of discourse structure 165
- Frames, constructions, and metaphors in Spanish FrameNet 185
- Subject index 211
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction ix
- Collocations, lexical bundles and SciE-Lex 1
- SciE-Lex 21
- Formal and functional variation of lexical bundles in biomedical English 39
- A corpus-based analysis of the collocational patterning of adjectives with abstract nouns in medical English 55
- As described below 73
- Negation in biomedical English 105
- A cross-disciplinary analysis of personal and impersonal features in English and Spanish scientific writing 121
- Gender assignment in present-day scientific English 145
- The metaphorical basis of discourse structure 165
- Frames, constructions, and metaphors in Spanish FrameNet 185
- Subject index 211
