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Las que no son mencionadas. El lenguaje androcéntrico y los masculinos genéricos en el periódico El País.

Those who are not mentioned: Androcentric language and the generic masculine in the Spanish newspaper El País.

Author

  • Alva Persson

Summary, in English

This paper investigates the journalistic language in El País, Spain’s most read newspaper, with the aim to problematize the use of male generic nouns in Spanish. According to our theoretical framework, the feminist critique of language, male generic nouns are considered to be the result of a patriarchal and androcentric system. Thus, the analysis studies how and to which extent the usage of male generics excludes women from the language in El País. An extensive number of male generic nouns is found in the material, while the linguistic visibility and/or presence of women is very scarce. Besides in the male generics, we can also discern androcentric language in the way one is referring to women and in assuming that all the readers are men. Likewise, it is observed that androcentrism reproduces and reinforces hetero-normativity and that it does not only affect women, but men as well.

Department/s

Publishing year

2017

Language

Spanish

Document type

Student publication for Bachelor's degree

Topic

  • Languages and Literatures

Keywords

  • androcentrismo
  • lenguaje androcéntrico
  • masculino genérico
  • invisibilización de las mujeres
  • crítica feminista del lenguaje
  • alternativas genéricas
  • El País
  • androcentrism
  • androcentric language
  • male generics
  • invisibility of women
  • feminist critique of language
  • generic alternatives

Supervisor

  • Carlos Henderson (Research fellow)