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Abstract

The documents of a university were analyzed for the presence of sex-linked and sex-neutral language as a measure of the impact of regulation on language change. Documents from 1969–1972, the period just prior to the bulk of the sexist-language controversy, were compared with matching documents from 1978–1979; and documents covered by sexist-language regulations were compared with unregulated documents. It was found that the newer documents contained significantly fewer sex-linked language items and markedly more sex-neutral items than the older documents. Most of the changes involved linguistic structures which had received considerable public debate. The results also show that federal regulation, only where enforced, has had a strong impact on language use; but that the unenforced institutional resolution which was studied had no effect on language use. It was concluded that the sexist-language controversy has influenced the language in university documents and that enforcement of regulations is the major factor in the impact of regulation on language use.

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The Impact of the Sexist-language Controversy and Regulation on Language in University Documents

Abstract

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References