IJASOS- International E-journal of Advances in Social Sciences

Abstract

Feminisation of names of professions
is a set of linguistic processes consisting of explicating women’s presence on
the public stage. In this study, we refer to
feminisation of terminology or creation of terms denoting feminine professions,
titles, degrees and functions, without taking into account texts’ feminisation. In French, female human beings are
designated by feminine grammar pronouns, leading to male-female opposition
representation with respect to the division of the sexes. For the feminisation defenders, this
representation has considerable social consequences. In French, the masculine
gender can be used as generic gender (un
professeur may nominate a man or a woman) and it is the gender of a group
composed of individuals of both sexes. However, this use was perceived by
feminisation upholders as concealing the role of women in public life, and it
may even cause psychological strength to stand in certain positions. Therefore,
the discussion on the gender of the words denoting status or professional
activities of human beings is not only a formal grammar issue, but a matter of
sociolinguistics, closely linked to the image that society makes on the
relationship between genders and it may even influence these relationships. In the French current use, it
appears that certain feminine professions nouns are used when the job is
occupied by a woman, while at some point in the past, when it was not accepted
as a woman to occupy that post, the same feminine form was denoting the wife of
the man occupying the post. But French Academy considers that
feminisation can introduce an imbalance in the language structures and cause
confusion in formulating simple sentences. Although nouns such as professeure, recteure, sapeuse-pompière,
auteure, ingénieure, procureure are considered by the French Academy
elected members as „barbarisms“, a number of nouns was introduced in the 8th
issue of the Dictionary of the Academy: artisane,
aviatrice, avocate, bûcheronne, compositrice, éditrice, exploratrice, factrice,
pharmacienne, postière. In this article, based on a corpus of nouns in French written press in
the period of September 2016, we will present the evolution of the feminisation
of names of professions, highlighting areas in which nouns become easier used
in their feminine form. We will examine the position of the press, knowing that
the media has a great influence on language changes, while reflecting the
mentality of the people.