Bias and Language

I am going to write some of my personal experiences that are related to the bisas in language and how Language has Power and Privilege.
Both of my parents own a piece of property of houses and land. Most renters are calling them as “landlord”. Sometimes when my father is not at home and is out of business property, one of the renters called my mother about rent issues. Renter asked her if landlord is there or not. It seems like renter thinks that my mom is not like a landlord but a landlady because renter’s thoughts are different; some thinks man has power to control the property than women. Other article I have selected from a short story. It is a short sentence showing that it has language bias. “Not a man’s house. Not a daddy’s. A house all my own” .It seems like that the author used to call her father as a man not her mother as a woman because he/she may said that because the house was the owner of her/his dad. In most families, fathers are the breadwinner so that they take the authorization of the house mostly than mothers.

English is Androcentric because it has a built-in bias toward means. The use of many words relating to the women made by male such as babe, honey, pussy, hole, beauty etc. Language was built by men because society was controlled by men and it is ‘The People with the Power’ in society who can build their reality, their point of view into the language. Long time ago, women were not educated and they were not the influential politicians, teachers, philosophers, public speakers, writers or linguists. Fat people, skinny people, people with disability, racial groups like white and black are some of the groups of people who are underrepresented in English. Yes, people do even notice that English is biased. Other serious problem is racial bias in the language. That is half the problem people rarely noticed the prejudice unless it affects them so they carry on using language that is racist or sexist. About the thought and language debate, some say thought is governed by language; some say language is governed by thought. Yes, language can affect our thinking. There is of course an alternative argument. Conceptual primes may have made us all shape our language similarly but these languages could still play a part in and affect our thoughts. Linguists believe that though and languages are ‘interdependent’. The language has some control over our thoughts because it is so powerful like oratory or rhetoric. Speakers use words along with music and visuals for effective advertising. It is one of the techniques speaker do use in advertising. Euphemism is the word that presents their unpleasant subject in a favorable light. These are used by media, politicians and other people in power to manipulate the way they present info e.g. freedom fighter.