Studying for Ways of Communication Exam

[silver_wolf101]

This section on performativity theory really intrigued me.

Performativity discusses the questions of when and why did certain linguistic (and other) features become associated with gender? And how did certain gender performances become associated with (biological) sex? When did empty adjectives (Lakoff, 1975), for example, become associated with '

Comments

[mycroftxxx]

That's... fascinating. I can see the logic and the lure of the hypothesis. I guess that would be another fun project for a civilization with mature time travel to play with. Who was Roman/Etruscan/Indo-European woman who, for example, decided that the table was female - and whose table was she talking about? Why was she held in regard as to be referenced in conversation long enough to influence a generation of speakers so that Romance languages are still referring to that funny, striking story without realizing it? (I'm guessing as to the gender of the speaker, but I'm mostly spinning moonshine anyway.)

The idea for finding out who actually did these things is stolen from Orson Scott Card's Pastwatch, where a future civilization actually knows who invented the wheel (though I forget her name), and the real life story of Noahe's Journey to the Sea, and the Boat She Made on Dry Land, and who invented slavery, and why (it was kinder than sacrificing all the prisoners to God). It's a fascinating read, if you can burrow through to