MASARYKOVA UNIVERZITA Filozofická fakulta Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky Disertační práce Brno 2009 Mgr. Ludmila Zemková MASARYKOVA UNIVERZITA Filozofická fakulta Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky THE USE OF GENDER MARKERS IN ANIMALS AS DEMONSTRATED BY ISSUES OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Školitelka: PhDr. Naděžda Kudrnáčová, CSc. Brno 2009 Mgr. Ludmila Zemková I hereby declare that I authored this dissertation independently and used only the sources listed in the bibliography attached. Ludmila Zemková Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to express my most sincere thanks to my supervisor, PhDr. Naděžda Kudrnáčová, CSc. for her invaluable guidance, outstanding encouragement and insightful comments. I am especially grateful for her time and support, without which the completion of this dissertation would have been unthinkable. My special thanks belong to Doc. PhDr. Ludmila Urbanová, CSc. for her kind and constant support. I am also very grateful to Prof. PhDr. Aleš Svoboda, DrSc. who initiated my interest in the study of gender. I owe a special debt to PhDr. Vladislav Smolka, Ph.D. for his invaluable comments and recommendations. Finally, I would like to say thank you to my husband Dan and my family for their love, patience and tolerance. Thank you Content Content ...................................................................................................................... i 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 1 2 Theoretical and practical background information ............................................... 2 2.1 The History of Gender .................................................................................... 2 2.2 An Overview of Gender in English ................................................................ 3 2.2.1 History ..................................................................................................... 3 3 Animals and Gender .............................................................................................. 8 3.1 Gender in Present - Day English .................................................................... 8 3.2 An overview of gender in animals in modern reference grammars .............. 14 3.3 Gender in animals in the world´s languages ................................................. 23 3.3.1 Basic types of assigning gender to animal nouns in languages with strict semantic or predominantly semantic systems ..................................................... 23 3.3.2 Assigning gender to animal nouns in languages with formal assignment systems .............................................................................................................. 27 4 Material Analysis ................................................................................................ 31 4.1 Introductory information .............................................................................. 31 4.2 The analysis of gender of animals based on National Geographic articles . 33 4.2.1 Insect ..................................................................................................... 35 4.2.2 Sea Species ............................................................................................ 44 4.2.3 Reptiles and Amphibians ....................................................................... 64 4.2.4 Birds ...................................................................................................... 70 4.2.5 Big cats .................................................................................................. 78 4.2.6 Bear ....................................................................................................... 92 4.2.7 Elephant ................................................................................................. 97 4.2.8 Apes ..................................................................................................... 100 4.2.9 Final chart and material analysis ......................................................... 103 4.3 The analysis of gender markers in animals based on Journal of Zoology .. 106 4.3.1 Journal of Zoology .............................................................................. 106 i 4.4 The comparison of gender markers in animals included in the corpora of National Geographic and Journal of Zoology ...................................................... 114 4.4.1 Praying Mantis .................................................................................... 115 4.4.2 Cricket ................................................................................................. 117 4.4.3 Spider ................................................................................................... 119 4.4.4 Crab ..................................................................................................... 121 4.4.5 Turtle ................................................................................................... 123 4.4.6 Lizard ................................................................................................... 125 4.4.7 Snake ................................................................................................... 127 4.4.8 Bat ....................................................................................................... 128 4.4.9 Albatross .............................................................................................. 130 4.4.10 Seal ...................................................................................................... 132 4.4.11 Wild dog .............................................................................................. 134 4.4.12 Wolf ..................................................................................................... 136 4.4.13 Fox ....................................................................................................... 138 4.4.14 Lynx ..................................................................................................... 140 4.4.15 Bear ..................................................................................................... 142 4.4.16 Horse ................................................................................................... 143 4.4.17 Crayfish, Possum, Mongoose .............................................................. 145 4.4.18 Final charts and material analysis ....................................................... 147 4.5 The analysis of gender in juvenile animals ................................................. 151 4.5.1 Youngsters in National Geographic .................................................... 151 4.5.2 Youngsters in Journal of Zoology ....................................................... 152 4.5.3 Material analysis of gender in juvenile animals .................................. 154 4.6 The Comparative analysis of the use of gender markers by Czech students and native speakers ................................................................................................ 162 4.6.1 The use of gender markers by Czech students .................................... 169 4.6.2 The use of gender markers by native speakers .................................... 180 4.6.3 The use of gender markers by Czech students and native speakers .... 184 5 Summary ........................................................................................................... 186 ii List of figures ....................................................................................................... 195 List of tables ......................................................................................................... 197 Bibliography......................................................................................................... 199 iii 1 Introduction “Gender is the most puzzling of the grammatical categories. It is a topic which interests non-linguists as well as linguists and it becomes more fascinating the more it is investigated” (Corbett 1991:1). The thesis aims to be a contribution to gender studies. Out of the many potential research challenges in this area, I have chosen to explore the problem of assigning gender to animal nouns. The introductory part of the thesis will discuss the origin and history of gender to set the scene for more practically oriented parts. Chapter 2 will establish the theoretical background information for my further research. In the following part the focus is predominantly on gender in animals. Subchapter 3.1. (“Gender in present-day English”) summarizes recent descriptions of gender assignment in animal nouns. Subchapter 3.2. will look at grammarians´ treatment of “gender in present – day English”. Subchapter 3.3. describes basic types of assigning gender to animals in the world´s languages. Detailed analyses of gender assignment in the corpora of this study will be at the core of Chapter 4. 1 2 Theoretical and practical background information To establish the theoretical and practical background for my research, it is first necessary to define the term “gender” because causes a lot of misunderstanding. It may be used to define different concepts. When the research focus is on gender as manifested in language, the usual objectives are to discuss the differences between male and female use of language, or the differences in the representation of women and men in a language. 2.1 The History of Gender This chapter attempts to give a short overview of the history of gender, both generally