Gender, Sex and Stereotyping in the Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary

Abstract

The analysis of any topic related to language and gender or sex tends to give rise to a range of somewhat diverse material. The core of the problem is not so much the bias of an approach to such a matter (which is obvious and can be easily identified), as how bias itself may organize human beings’ experience by means of language in use. There exist well-known cultural stereotypes associated with the male and female conditions, and it is necessary to acknowledge the limitations to the application of many an impressionistic linguistic study on such issues. Taking this into account, the aim of this paper is to look at the way certain aspects of present-day English (a natural-gendered language) are recorded by the Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary (1987) in order to assess: 1) the representation of the two sexes; 2) the extent to which some of the dictionary definitions are inaccurate, biased, and/or the result of having ignored changes in society; and, subsequently, 3) possible stereotyping. By describing a corpus extracted from the Collins COBUILD , I also address its representation of Western societies; its editorial board's policy to prevent discrimination in language usage; and its efforts, if any, to avoid conveying the same stereotyped picture of women and men.