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The Awareness of Language Within the Classroom

For no educator, it is in doubt that, although education standards are seeking to be

increasingly inclusive to facilitate the participation of all students, seeking to avoid what

over time has been called exclusion and marginalization, it is paradoxical that even so the

psychological support provided to the students is having greater power due to the

rejection they feel for their classmates and teachers, in some cases due to the bad

language used in schools. Far from being a marginal issue on how this reality can be

mitigated and how to integrate students into the mainstream education, there is talk of

reflection and transformation in the particular language to transform educational systems

so that they respond to diversity of genres, cultures, races and interests of the different

populations. It is worth stressing again that, although education today is set as a right,

instead of as a privilege that only the “pure race” and white lineage populations accessed,

the language handled by the world in general, tends to be discriminatory by leaning

towards the acceptance and prestige of external media, at the convenience of a few. In

other words, it is a constant revelation between the approval of the greatest number of

people possible and the sanity necessary to not properly attribute the discrimination

through words.

One of the first most common discrimination gaps currently existing within the

discourse is that of sexism in both men and women. Although sex is a biological fact; the

key difference between men and women is women’s ability to have children. Men have

physical power and aggressive tendencies, the biological function of which is to protect
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their women and children. But, despite being clear about this condition and that there are

different natural factors to differentiate the two genders, this topic generates some

susceptibility in some people, since it is not unidirectional and, even more so in women,

because through language, the condition of women has been discredited from their

capacities. Studies have shown that language is used discriminatorily to women and men.

According to (Banaji & Hardin, 1996) Sexist language is an example of subtle sexism in

that it consists of speech that reinforces and perpetuates gender stereotypes and status

differences between women and men. In this we find that, in languages such as Spanish

and French, there is a gender distinction in the definite article of things and, obviously,

about people or, also, as Mills and Mullany (2011, p. 145) say that women are portrayed

negatively through language or are generalized through language based on men and

women stereotypes. Examples given in English language are: the use of masculine

generic nouns to refer to both men and women and not vice versa: for instance, ‘man is

mortal’; whereby ‘man’ in this case refers to both men and women. Similarly, the use of

pronoun 'he'; as a generic pronoun; for example, ‘someone must be aware of what he is

going to encounter’. The use of ‘man’ and ‘he’ in the both examples refers to both men

and women; and thus they are generic in favor of male gender. More demonstration of

sexism in language at work is the leaning to associate women with negative connotations

in the context where a common term is used to refer to both men and women. The case in

point is the term professional –which is generic for both men and women.

These examples, or possible unconscious errors, are one way in which men or

women are excluded when discussing a topic that is applicable to both genders. For a
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better understanding of this type of language, a vision of favoritism is brought to the

masculine gender that is made even from religious scriptures, where it is commonly

known that God created man and with this, what is meant is that he created to humanity.

In literature, women are reported to be not represented in equal image as men (Newell,

1996, p. 186, 171). And, for this reason, in the light of day, there is the existence of

movements such as feminism, in which women advocate equality and equality of

conditions between women and men in many social aspects. Feminists believe that there

is a fundamental power struggle between men and women. This, like the struggles around

class and race, is potentially revolutionary. Indeed, it is the oldest power struggle, the

least public in its manifestations of conflict, the most fundamental in its implications for

society.

From this point of view, sexist language tends to have a gender bias, when it is

taken as an unconscious action, product of society and of some grammatical norms

established by some languages, in which, for example, the allusion of the masculine

gender to refer to a whole, from the plurality. Other people use sexist language, and

repetition normalizes it until the speaker unconsciously produces his or her own sexist

language where men are the norm and women the "other." people lack knowledge about

what constitutes sexist language, people do not believe that such language is sexist, or

people are attempting to protect established social hierarchies (Parks & Roberton, 1998;

Ruscher, 2001).

This is why, as teachers, we must be aware that the use of a sexist speech weakens

the educational goal of a non-discriminatory, inclusive treatment within the classrooms,

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although, [ CITATION Jen93 \l 9226 ] mentions, there has been talk about creating a

new, non-gender-specific pronoun such as "t” "y," "e" or "E", but, on the whole, writers

and readers are uncomfortable with such a drastic change. There are simple ways to avoid

using language that can offend and marginalize half the people on Earth, so teachers

should take care to use gender-inclusive language. And for this, we can contribute some

considerations from our discourse, such as those mentioned in Klein's text.

For example, to erase sexist language, it is possible to substitute a noun subject

instead of a pronoun, instead of “asking him to define the thesis”, the replay could be

“ask the writer to define the thesis”. Or also, try making the subject of the sentence

plural: When students write their papers, they should use the spellcheckers on their

computers. The plural subject "students" now includes both genders, and the sentence

retains its meaning without sounding awkward. Instead of sex-linked titles, try neutral

titles: Fireman, fireperson is awkward, but firefighter is not, in policeman, policeperson

sounds silly, but police officer sounds natural.

Parenthetically, Ann Bodine (1975) suggests a device that she calls the singular

"they." Consider the following sentences: “Who dropped their ticket?” Using "they" in a

singular context technically is not grammatically correct; however, more and more people

are starting to accept this usage as an alternative to sexist writing. And this device can

also eliminate the use of "him or her".

Therefore, with the aforementioned alternatives, teachers are able to adapt our

language and our practices towards an awareness of diversity and of the possible

susceptibilities of our students, since, Although avoiding sexist language is a challenge, it

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is not impossible and the most important point to remember is that every time an error of

the aforementioned is made, the solution is to think of a possible synonym or substitute

for the sentences, while society and culture in general, are adapting the new

considerations of language as a neutrality in which sexist language is gradually

eliminated in favor of men and women.

On the other hand, it is important to consider another topic of discussion in

language, very latent in classrooms and this is that of racism, that ideology that defends

the superiority of one race over the others and the need to keep it isolated or separated

from the rest within a specific community and in which, without a doubt, discrimination

still occurs due to the lack of guilt in the expression of some phrases or words that can

hurt the susceptibility of students. Although it is often thought of a simple social

category, race is most often used to create hierarchies of power and dominance (Omi &

Winant, 1994). Talking about racial identity and bias with students means acknowledging

what they already know, people are different, and the world is not colorblind. And it is

for this same reason that discriminatory gaps in language appear, since, for years,

theorists have argued that education has been used as a tool of oppression to teach People

of Color that their culture is inferior to the dominant White culture (Woodson, 1933).

Woodson wrote The Mis-Education of the Negro to argue that schools miseducate Blacks

(and Whites) to believe that Blacks are of less value than Whites. He claimed that

education was used to maintain White dominance by socializing Whites to believe they

are superior, while simultaneously internalizing a self-hatred within Black students.

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Consequently, it is important to point that for Black, Latinos ,Asian American,

and Native American youth to prosper in this nation, there must have strong Black,

Latino, Asian American, and Native American teachers, because in the current days,

socializing through racially biased educational systems and carry skewed perceptions of

communities, and other non-White racial or ethnic groups, begin to encourage these

teachers to reflect on their own educational experiences and how the belief in White

cultural superiority may have penetrated their values or worldviews for giving example to

the students.

As globalization expands the roads of the entire world, the racism is not

uncommon in schools. Every day, the differences of Color are exposed to humiliations,

including low expectations, stereotypes, inadequate resources, and a curriculum that

privileges White cultural values (Johnson, Manuscript). Within these educational

conditions, many students internalize negative messages about their own culture due to

the misused language. Racist language must be taken seriously because, in general,

modern racism has facilitated and caused incalculable suffering over time. It is an evil

that has taken on catastrophic proportions in all parts of the world. Notorious examples

include Europe under Nazism, and since then Yugoslavia, Cambodia, South Africa, and

Rwanda.

Some restrictions on speech are content-neutral, meaning that the content of the

expression is irrelevant to whether the speech is restricted. The prohibition applies to all

kinds of speech irrespective of whether the expression is trivial or ideological, pleasant or

offensive. (Cohen-Almagor, 2015) as in the simple case of primary education, in which

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children are suggested to color with “skin color” without having the distinction of the

wide range of colors that this could mean.

This essay concludes that accurate discourse in teaching focused on correcting the

production of language cannot achieve its objectives without focusing on cultural change,

but it is important not to take the inclusion of language to extremes; Each specific

individual has a gender and a race, and can be referred to in that way, as mentioned

above, some biological facts apply only to women or men. The essay suggests that

society greatly influences the thinking of its members and the product of that effect is

what is seen in the language produced. The use of discriminatory language does not

reliably indicate that people discriminate on the basis of gender or race. It seems that

many teachers use these phrases simply because they acquired them from their

communities and are available in their mental lexicon, not because they intend to

discriminate with their use. It also means that, in part, both teachers and students are

responsible for contributing to their own learning experience the experience of others.

Because each student's contribution of ideas is critical to the learning process, any

behavior that makes other students feel uncomfortable in their learning environment will

not be tolerated. This includes interrupting others while they are speaking, having far

conversations from the class discussion, or comments that may be perceived as offensive

in terms of race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, etc.

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List of references

Banaji, M. R., & Hardin, C. D. (1996). Automatic stereotyping. Psychological Science,

7, 136–141.
Bodine, Ann. "Andocentrism in prescriptive grammar: singular'they', sex-indefinite 'he',
and 'he or she'. Language in Socieb¡, Vol. 4(1), Dell Hymes (ed.) London:
Cambridge University Press, 1975. Pages 129-146.
Cohen-Almagor, Raphael. (2015). Hate and Racist Speech in The United States, a
Critique. Philosophy and Public Issues (New Series), Vol. 5, No. 3 (2015): 77-
123 Luiss University Press
Johnson, R. (Manuscript). Internalized racism and California U.S. history state standards:
Racism, curriculum, and African American identity. Unpublished Manuscript,
University of California, Los Angeles.
Klein, J. (1993). Avoinding Sexist Language. New York: Hamilton College, Clinton NY.

Mills, S. and Mullany, L. (2011). Language, gender and feminism. London and New
York: Routledge.
Newell, S. (1996). Construction of Nigerian women in popular literatures by men.
African Languages and Cultures, 9(2), 169-188.
Omi, M., & Winant, H. (1994). Racial formation in the United States (Second Edition).
New York: Routledge
Parks, J. B., & Roberton, M. A. (1998). Contemporary arguments against nonsexist
language: Blaubergs (1980) revisited. Sex Roles, 39, 445–461.
Woodson, C. (1933). MisEducation of the Negro. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.