SEXISM AS AN ASPECT OF FACE THREATENING ACT: A STUDY OF SELECTED SPEECH SITUATIONS

Abstract

The effects of heightened gender consciousness as a result of creative awareness by feminist scholars and linguist have continued to influence women’s linguistic perception of male dominance in communication. This study has investigated the linguistic phenomenon of sexism as a form of face threatening act. It is motivated by the fact that the use of dehumanizing language, gender exclusive language as well as negative cultural practices such as male child preference have continued to be a linguistic instrument of perpetuating sexist language in the African society. The theoretical framework of this study is hinged on politeness theory of Brown and Levinson. The method of data collection is anchored on direct participant observation. This study used conversational settings such as family and church meetings to examine the linguistic phenomena of sexism as a form of face threatening acts from the perspectives of diverse speech situations. This study revealed that sexism constitutes an overt as well as covert face threatening act. It was also discovered that the sociolinguistic and cultural factors that encourage sexism in different speech situations in Anambra State are the socio-linguistic assumption promoted by culture and religion which assumes that the male gender is stereotypically superior to the female gender. The linguistic implication of sexism as a form of face threatening act is that a sexist motivated impoliteness constitute verbal scar that it is intended to devalue the positive face of female co-interactants in a given speech situation. The study recommends thatthere is the need for female scholars, linguists and writers to be more focused in challenging patriarchal gender identity constructions that encourage the propagation of sexist face threatening language use in mixed gender communication.