LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.3 GENDERED LANGUAGE USE
2.3.3 Feminist Post-structuralism
dominance is achieved through language. They consider how interruptions, the use of gendered pronouns and nouns, deference and self-assertion, reflect and maintain language power relations. Whilst the gendered use of language has changed greatly over the last three decades, it is still true that the expectations of particular cultural groups (Zulu, Afrikaans, Indian, black or white) within the university may differ, and in the same way, impoliteness may be perceived differently in terms of gender expectations by the different groups.
The difference model sees itself as an alternative approach to the first two models.
Its objective is to discourage those working on women's speech from a perpetual comparison with male norms, which continues to place women in a position of deficit. This approach, therefore, stresses that women's language is not inferior to men's language, but simply different. It resembles other social divisions like race, since the segregation of the sexes during childhood and adolescence produces marked differences in conversational goals and styles (Maltz and Borker 1982;
Coates, 1986, 1995).
The 1990s saw a resurgence of interest in language and gender, which resulted in a critique of early approaches and the emergence of poststructuralist approaches. This critique argued that earlier models of language and gender studies had all been influenced by an essentialist understanding of gender, which is preoccupied with a view of men and women as binary opposites. What is required is an approach with anti-essential perspectives. The roots of the male/ female binary opposition can be traced to structuralist approaches to language. Within the structuralist paradigm, language is conceptualised in terms of a series of contrasting sounds, which are connected to form words, and still continue to make meaning only in opposition to each other. Thus, language is seen as a closed system that generates its meanings solely from internal features with no relation at all to external influences like society.
For instance, Jenkins (1996), from a narrowly structuralist view, defines identity by dividing the world into two social categories, 'man' and 'woman'. For instance, I am
a woman, not a man. It is from such structuralist understandings that essentialist feminists derive their binary approach. Such interpretations ignore the fact that meanings and identities are constructed and renegotiated in social interactions (Pujolar 1997).
The poststructuralist theory which centres on Foucault's theory of deconstruction, discourse and power has now been drawn on to analyse the dynamics of language and how they impact on gender identities. Weedon (1987) argues for feminist post- structuralism as a means of conceptualising the relationship between language and the individual consciousness of language use. This approach focuses on how power is exercised, tolerated and resisted through language. Feminist post-structural theory is a theory of subjectivity, conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions, which accounts for the relationship between the individual and his or her environment.
Poststructuralist theory enhances our understanding of why women tolerate social relations which subordinate their interests to those of men. Weedon (1987) argues that it is not enough to understand female subjectivity without investigating male subjectivity. It is equally important to understand the discursive strategies used by men in the project of sustaining their male hegemony in society. Unlike the essentialist approach, post-structuralism deconstructs the notion of gender relations by deconstructing the male-female dichotomy. Cameron (1996) argues that instead of looking for gender differences the focus should be on the "difference gender makes". Weedon (1987) points out that under post-structuralism, patriarchal power is not decided or held on an individual basis, it is a system that exists in institutions and social practices. Patriarchal ideology and its value system consider man as superior to woman and give him authority and control over the woman's life.
According to this world-view, man is the natural head and leader at all times. He is stronger than women and children. A woman on the other hand is man's helper.
Although biologically weak, she has the responsibility of bringing up children. She is the home manager and is patient, kind, loving and committed to the well-being of
the family... (See Gierycz and Reardon 1999). Feminist poststructuralist theory claims that patriarchy has been and is a fundamental organising principle in past and present human communities. It claims that such organisation is neither natural nor inevitable; it is a socially-produced phenomenon. In support of Weedon, Cameron (1992) Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (1992) have argued that no individual exists in isolation but only in relation to other individuals, and therefore femininity relates to masculinity. Both men and women are connected to other social categories in society.
Pavlenko (2001) points out that feminist poststructuralism offers a useful framework for understanding that gender is not just a system of social relations, but may also be hierarchical, since maleness may be more valued than femaleness in many societies.
The theory highlights the way discourse practices are arranged in a hierarchical structure, which promotes the notion of prestige or lack of it. In many communities, women's ways of speaking are considered inferior or are less valued than men's linguistic behaviour. In other communities, certain types of men are associated with less prestigious language and yet they may have some power. This social construction operates most significantly in what Weedon (1987:75) calls
"commonsense". "Commonsense" refers to those values which are taken for granted, and beliefs that are rarely justified, explained or commented upon. When
"commonsense" beliefs about gender structure the ways in which we define ourselves through linguistic behaviour, then the power of gender oppression is often invisible to those whom it affects. Feminist poststructuralist theory exposes the operation of such "commonsense" beliefs by identifying and tracking the words, gestures, and practices that signify gendered meaning in our culture. According to this theory, culture itself is constructed through discourse, and Weedon (1987) notes that discourse produces subjectivity.
The feminist poststructuralist approach posits that identity is not given, but constructed in discourse (Hall, 1996). Research that draws on the poststructuralist approach to language and gender argues that it is through discourse that men and
women in different communities produce and reproduce the three senses of self: the gendered self, the ethnic self and the racial self. These senses of self are presented and represented in multiple forms and discourses, whether public or private, written or oral. The discourse types, individual or institutional, become the key sites of construction and negotiation of powerful and powerless gender placings and other social identities. In a multilingual context, the power struggle for recognition of group identities is constructed and negotiated in discourse. The 'self that is constructed in discourse, depending on the circumstances surrounding the situation, is usually influenced by other socially and culturally constructed categories into which that 'self must also fit, if an appropriate identity is to be constructed. For example, the type of discourse used by a woman may be influenced by the fact that she is a postgraduate student and a Zulu. 'Self for multilingual speakers tends to vary in discourse as it is communicated through different languages. In other words, as Weedon (1987) points out, the struggle concerning the social definition of self results in the production of subjectivity in different forms in various social contexts;
and all are ordered by power relations. For instance, self plus group would present ethnic identity, and self plus sex and age would present gender- and age-appropriate identity. In all communities these influences interact with one another. In the present study, the members of the diverse student population of the University of Natal interact daily and are therefore constantly involved in identity negotiation through language behaviour.
The feminist poststructuralist approach is an anti-essentialist approach. It rejects the essentialist assumption that any 'nature' belongs essentially to women or men. As Weedon (1987:121) points out, the theory provides a "conceptualisation of experience, and an analysis of its constitution and ideological power", and insists on the social construction of gender in discourse, a social construction that encompasses desire, the unconscious and the emotions. The theory therefore offers a useful framework for understanding gender relations, gender identities and the interaction of gender with other social forces, and the ways they are produced, reproduced, challenged, and negotiated in all forms of discourse.
Poststructuralist theory also offers me scope to accommodate the African feminist position. As I have indicated earlier, there is at present no single, unified African feminist theory acceptable to women of all cultures and nations in Africa. African women's major concern has been to make western theories of gender relevant to Africa11. Since my study focuses on African students at the University of Natal, African feminist resistance here cannot be simply ignored, though it is likely to be diverse. Poststructuralist theory allows for diversity of meaning, and the meaning of linguistic behaviour is always examined, interpreted, and evaluated within specific historical and cultural circumstances, and as a result, differs across cultures. Because interpretation is context-dependent, the difference in gender roles, gender identities, and the interaction between the genders as well as the influence of other social forces can be made specific to the different language groups. In view of this, in my analysis, I will approach gender not as a trait, a variable or role, but as a product of social actions, that is, culturally constructed power relations, produced and reproduced in interaction (Pavlenko and Piller 2001).
Another reason for using poststructuralist theory arises from the fact that it acknowledges the variability of gender identities, in spite of perceived regulation and policing by rigid social norms. For instance, for a number of reasons women and men at times break out of their early socialisation and indulge in infraction, subversion and resistance. A change of environment may result in a change in behavioural attitudes of men and women. Such shifts in behaviour can be brought about by a new environment with different social norms. In my study the university in itself is a new environment for almost all students, very few of whose parents are likely to have had tertiary education. It is characterised by a culture with a strong western influence, where students are away from controlling influence of their parents. A large number of the students whose contributions appear in this study are newcomers to South Africa. The possible impact of these different kinds of 'foreignness' on their gender and other identities will be considered in this study.
" See Oyewumi (2002) and Nnaemeka (1998) on African feminist concern.
In terms of the foregoing framework (outlined by Weedon 1987 and Cameron 1992), this study focuses on the role of language in the production of gender relations, and gender dynamics in language use. Of particular importance to my study is the poststructuralist focus on language as a form of symbolic capital and as the locus of social organisation, power, and individual and group consciousness. Subjectivity is central to poststructuralist theory (Weedon 1987); it refers to the conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions of the individual, his/her sense of self and ways of understanding his/her relations to the world. These have implications for the ways in which the different student groups as members of the University of Natal (and members of their different ethnic, national or religious groups) perceive themselves and how they express this view of themselves to fellow students from different cultural backgrounds.
The feminist poststructuralist approach proposes a route to find answers to my research question concerning the discursive construction of gendered subjectivities in multilingual language situations, which comprise clashes in ideologies of language and gender, and this is why I choose to work within this framework. I shall focus on how people behave in terms of gender and why they choose this behaviour.
'Who we are' is strongly determined by 'how we represent ourselves'.