[Special Feature: Looking Toward CGS's 10th Anniversary]
Sachiyo Fujita-Round
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Intercultural Communication, Rikkyo University; CGS member
[The article below is the same as the article that appears in the sixteenth issue of the CGS Newsletter.]
Sachiyo Fujita-Round, an associate professor of Rikkyo University and an active member of CGS, comments on the pGSS core subject "Language and Gender," which she has taught at ICU for the past two years.
I have been teaching the subject "Language and Gender" at ICU since 2011. As this subject is also part of the major in Media, Communication, and Culture, it aims to teach not only the key theoretical concepts of the relationship between language and gender in sociolinguistics but also an awareness of our own language use pertaining to gender. If we assume that the language used to discuss gender has shaped the development of gender norms, then it follows that in learning about gender we should also hone our awareness of the language that we use in everyday life. Therefore, "Language and Gender" aims to develop students' awareness of the system that lurks behind the language that we have come to think is normal and then to encourage them to consider what kind of language we can use with this heightened awareness.
As gender norms are particularly reflected in the language of media, we discuss various newspaper articles throughout the course. Group discussions provide multiple viewpoints, which can pick up language use and other issues pertaining to gender that can be overlooked if we read articles with only our own ideas of what is "normal." In the group discussions, we analyze the ways in which any form of media reflects the conscious or unconscious gender biases of their authors (e.g. screenwriters, manga artists, journalists), based on the understanding that normality is relative. As such, this course effectively hones students' awareness of the social, cultural, and political aspects of language.
Since the class seeks to critically evaluate the media and our own beliefs and norms, my own language use, as the instructor, naturally falls subject to scrutiny. When I was studying sociolinguistics as a postgraduate student in Japan and England, sexuality was not considered within the field of language and gender in sociolinguistics, and gendered language was studied as a variation of social dialect or sociolect. Looking back, I can appreciate how difficult it must have been for sexuality research to overcome this standard paradigm of sociolinguistics. Teaching this subject has been a challenging journey of discovery with my students, based on the understanding that there are diverse sexualities, without knowing where we may end up after all our group discussions. I appreciate the assistance of CGS staff in contributing to the discussion of particularly difficult questions that arose in class. Indeed, I feel that the course, from beginning to end, has very much been a collaborative effort with my students and the CGS staff.
Putting our understanding of gender and sexuality into practice entails a fierce battle with the latent ideology within ourselves, which is governed by the male/female dichotomy. This mind-blowing battle filled with self-confrontation has been an invaluable experience for me personally. After all, how can I teach "Language and Gender" if I do not confront the potential gender biases embedded in my own language use?