THE COMMUNICATION OF

GENDER IN TURKISH
 LIST OF PRESENTERS
1. Başak Yaşar - 19132807
2. Emrecan Sargın - 18132066
3. Ayşe Kalkan - 16132039
4. İpek Uçucu -18132035
5. Rana Erduran - 18132052
6. İpek Gürşener -18132029
7. Helin Ercoşman - 18132003
8. Kaan Utku -17132020
9. Dina Oğuz - 18132903
 CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION
II. Gender in the Turkish language system
III. Covert gender – the semantics of terms without overt gender distinctions
IV. Asymmetrical gender marking
V. The male-human ambiguity
VI. Gender in Turkish proverbs
VII.Gender in terms of abuse and verbal insults
VIII.Feminist language critique and linguistic change in Turkish
IX. CONCLUSION
 I. INTRODUCTION
 Turkish (Türk dili, Türkçe) is the official language of the Turkish Republic.

 Turkish is a left-branching language with modifiers preceding syntactical

heads.

 It has a typical agglutinating structure.

 The rich morphology is extremely regular.

 During the Ottoman empire Turkish was heavily influenced by Persian

and Arabic.
 Gender is one of the most salient social categories in Turkey.
Paradoxically however, gender does not appear to figure prominently in
the Turkish language.

 But how is gender communicated when it is not grammaticalized? How is

gender signaled, and how is it perceived? Is it really less prominent in
Turkish discourse than in the languages where it is anchored as an
obligatory category in the grammar? What does language contribute to
the social gender arrangement?
 II. Gender in the Turkish language system
 No gender based terms for person reference
Ex: Komşu ‘neighbor’, İşçi ‘worker’

 No dinstinction for pronominal forms using referential gender

Ex: Ev-i ‘her or his house’

 Nouns with lexical gender

Ex: Anne ‘mother’ , Baba’father’  Kinship
Hanım ‘madam’ , Bey ‘sir’  Adressing
 Gender based suffixes are not originally Turkish.
Ex: e (Arabic)  sahibe ‘female owner’
içe (Slavic)  kraliçe ‘queen’
gender based pairs (European) prens/prenses

 No systematic gender dinstinction from suffixation

 Gender marking: Gender lexemes +Terms of person reference

Ex: Kız çocuğu ‘girl child’ , Erkek arkadaş ‘boyfriend’
Erkek okuyucu ‘male reader’ , Bayan sürücü ‘female driver’
 III. Covert gender – the semantics of terms
without overt gender distinctions
 Gender can be overtly expressed in Turkish.
 What about the many cases in which it is not expressed?
 Gender semantics

 The semantics of Turkish terms for person reference are determined by

socio-cultural factors rather than by grammatical genderlessness.

For example : polis ‘police officer’ can be

expected to have a male-biased semantics.
 III. Covert gender
● hanımefendi ‘lady’ as a form of address
● 130 subjects (78 female and 52 male for a secretary, it was evident that the
university students). stimulus sekreter had been interpreted as
‘female’.
● (male-dominated, female-dominated and
● They were given a questionnaire which
unspecific)
contained a list of person categories,
such as sekreter‘secretary’, kuyumcu
‘goldseller’, taksi şoförü ‘taxi driver’ etc.,
and were asked to write down the terms of
address most widely used for these types
of persons.
 MALE-
BIASED temizlikçi ‘cleaning
person’, sekreter
polis ‘police officer’, ‘secretary’ and tezgâhtar
is¸portacı ‘street vendor’, ‘salesperson’
kuyumcu ‘goldseller’, taksi
s¸oförü ‘taxi driver’, postacı
‘mail man/woman’ and
memur here: ‘bank Misafir ‘visitor’
employee’ (institutionalized as gün
‘day’)

FEMALE-
BIASED

gender distribution and the socio-

cultural background
these activities are considered not suitable for women
 Very Interesting
HİZMETÇİ FACTS OKUL MÜDÜRÜ

DOKTOR
ÖĞRETMEN
ÇÖPÇÜ MÜHENDİS
BAKAN

YÜKSEK MÜHENDİS
MİLLETVEKİLİ AİLE BAKANI
AVUKAT

This is where you section ends. Duplicate this set of slides as many times you need to go over all your sections.
● Why should a ‘person’ or ‘someone’, for
instance, be more often thought of as male
rather than female?

● The Turkish gender arrangement is

characterized by a male dominance evident
in almost all of the subsystems of Turkish
society (economy, labor market, politics, law,
religion). Men are simultaneously the
privileged group and the leading figures in
these subsystems.
 Turkish Gender
Belief System..

Women seem to be a special case within

the larger category of humans…
 III.1. Covert gender in context

how context the context may

linguistic and/or information and contribute clues
non-linguistic covert gender to the gender of a
context interact arises person
mentioned
 LET’S REVIEW EXAMPLES.

sekreter ‘secretary’ kuyumcu ‘goldseller’ kişi ‘person’

female domain, covert gender male domain, covert gender neutral domain, covert gender
female male male

cooking sports watching television

household activities
football
3 terms combined with 3 different context
The covert gender of Turkish
person reference terms functions
as a default value: an interpretation
which predominates at least when
the context does not provide
contradictory clues. But covert
gender can be so pronounced as to
be largely resistant to contextual
factors.
III.2. Linguistic effects of covert gender

The covert gender of terms for person

reference is not a strictly linguistic
phenomenon. Covert gender could be
understood as the mental image conjured
up by certain terms, but outside of
language itself.

It is thus worth considering which traces

of covert gender can be found in linguistic
structures.
 futbolcu ‘football
player’ (covert
male-biased gender male)
term kuyumcu:
A 22 year old football player, who had been married for only two days, lost his 22
year old wife in a tragic car accident in Maltepe yesterday.’
Köşe-de-ki kuyumcu, Sadece iki gün-lük evli ol-an 22 yaş-ı-nda-ki bir futbolcu yaş-ıt-ı ol-an karı-sı-nı dün
altı ay-lık hamile-ymis. Maltepe’de meydan-a gel-en feci bir trafik kaza-sı-nda kaybet-ti.

The goldseller at the A 22 year old football player, who had been married for only two days, lost her 22
corner is six months year old husband in a tragic car accident in Maltepe yesterday.’
Sadece iki gün-lük evli ol-an 22 yaş-ı-nda-ki bir futbolcu, yaş-ıt-ı ol-an koca-sı-nı
pregnant.
dün Maltepe’de meydan-a gel-en feci bir trafik kaza-sı-nda kaybet-ti.
As the figure shows sentences with
non-matching predications received
lower scores than matching sentences.
The difference between matching and
non-matching sentences in each
domain was statistically significant.

Note that none of the non-matching

sentences violated grammatical rules and
that all of them were “logically” possible.

What caused the reduced acceptability of

nonmatching sentences must therefore have
been the semantic conflict between covert
gender and predication.
 IV. ASYMMETRICAL GENDER MARKING
● 404 students (176 female/227 male)

● A text relating a traffic accident in which one person was injured

● American injured in traffic accident :

Thick fog over South England was the cause of several traffic accidents yesterday. Near London a
thirty year old American was seriously injured when the car which she was in crashed into a tree.
She was taken to Knightsbridge Hospital. This morning doctors reported that her condition was
critical.
● American and child (neutral domain)

● Secretary and househelper (female domain)

● Basketball player and police (male domain)

● Gender marking much more frequent when the person referred to female.
● Kız çocuğu ‘girl child’

● Çocuk ‘child’

● Tendency to place gender markings for females at the earliest possible position in a text, while
markings for males tended to appear in later positions

● Female markings diminish when the covert gender of a term is female already, as with hizmetçi
‘househelper’ or sekreter ‘secretary’

● Male gender remains mostly unmarked regardless of context, whereas female gender tends to
be overtly expressed.
V. The male-human ambiguity
V.1 Male = Human

● ‘ Masculine ’ generics in English:

Lexical (e.g.
Grammatical
mankind,
(e.g. he, his)
chairman)

● Male  human in general

● ‘Masculine’ generics in Turkish:

Linguistically Deviation
in male in female

● Male generics help us to separate from generics which contain grammatical

gender

● Adam (man)
1st: male
2nd: human being
● 1) Adam  indefinite pronoun (in the sense of ‘one, you’):

(1) Adam-ı çile-den çıkar-ıyor.

[Gloss: She /he drives you (one) crazy.]

● 2) Adam  in idioms ( positive evaluation ):

E.g. Adam gibi ‘descent, proper or literally like man/human’

Adam olmak ‘to become descent, educated person’
Adama benzemek ‘to resemble a proper, educated person’
Adamdan saymak ‘to treat respectfully’
Adam yerine koymak ‘to respect, honor’

In reference to female: ?adam olmak / ?adama benzemek

● 3) Adam  component of a number of occupational terms:

E.g. iş adamı ‘businessman’ devlet adamı ‘statesman’

din adamı ‘clerygman’ bilim adamı ‘scientist’

In specific reference to a female:

(2) ? Bir iş adam-ı olarak abla-mı-n devamlı toplantı-lar-a katıl-ma-sı lazım.

[Gloss: ?Because she is a businessman my sister is always having to attend

conferences.]
● 4) Word form : İNSAN ‘human’ in (the sense of one, you)

Nonetheless, insan is another male generic in Turkish

(literally: son of a human)

Referring to species = ‘insanoğlu’

alternatively for the term « insan »

● İnsanoğlu is seen problamatic with female feature:

3) ? İnsan-oğl-u ancak 50 yaş-lar-ı-na kadar çocuk doğ-ur-abil-iyor.

[Gloss: ? ‘Man(kind) is only capable of giving birth up to the age of 50.’]

● İnsanoğlu is seen appropriate with male ones:

(4) Evrim sürec-i-nde insan-oğl-u-nun vücut kıl-lar-ı gittikçe azal-mış-

tır, sadece vücudu-nun belirli yer-ler-i-nde kıl ve surat-ı-nda sakal-ı
çıkı-yor.

[Gloss: Man’s body hair has gradually diminished in the course of

evolution, it is now limited to facial hair (beard) and certain parts of
the body.]
V.2 Human > Male
● Semantic narrowing from human to male

E.g. ‘ Genç ’ (young )

genç müdür (young director) genç kız (young girl) gençler (youths)

● Genç as the head of an NP + in specific reference  Male

(5) sev-diğ-i genç-le birlikte kaç-an genç kız

[Gloss: The young girl who eloped with the young (man) she loved.]

● General to gender-specific
● In former times: Oğul ‘child’ (gender neutral) over with time narrowed to  son (lexical
gender word)

● The modern word for ‘child’ çocuk:

● In specific reference to a single person: more frequent for boys

For girls, it is referred to as kız ‘girl’ or kız çocuğu ‘girl child’

● ‘çocuk’ is completely male when referring to young adults:

(6) Soner, çok hoş bir çocuk.

[Gloss: Soner is a very nice child or young man.]
 VI. GENDER IN TURKISH PROVERBS
● Turkish proverbs involves gender streotypes quite plainly.
● In Turkish language, there are a lot of proverbs about women and having female
characteristics than dealing with maleness.
● 80 entries with the keyword kadın ‘‘woman’’
● Approximately 30 entries with the keyword erkek ‘‘man, male’’
● Proverbs are highly conservative.
● This showcases the reason why women are being portrayed as the responsible
individual of the house, and men are breadwinner.

Yuvayı dişi kuş yapar.

‘It is the female bird that builds the nest.’

Er olan ekmeğini taştan çıkarır.

‘The one who is a man digs his bread from stone.’
● Turkish proverbs also shows the preference of sons over daughters:

Oğlan doğuran övünsün, kız doğuran dövünsün.

‘Let the one who bears a son be proud, let the one who bears a daughter beat herself.’

Oğlan büyür koç olur, kız büyür hiç olur.

‘A boy grows up to be a ram [strong, proud], a girl grows up to be nothing.’
● The following proverbs describe power relations in marriage:

Karı sözüne uyan adam değildir.

‘He who takes heed of his wife’s word is not a man.’

Kadının sırtından sopa, karnından sıpa eksik edilmez.

‘A woman shold not be spared the rot on her back and the child in her womb.’
● Bülent Harputlu, Gazipaşa/Adana Sokak
Sergisi, 2012
● A double standard is expressed in the example:

Kadının yüzünün karası, erkeğin elinin kınası.

‘The shame of a woman is the pride of a man. / Sexual relationships are a source of shame for a
woman, but a source of pride for a man.’
● Proverbs communicate traditional beliefs about gender and, as part of the shared
knowledge of the language community, contribute to gender streotyping.
 VII.Gender in Terms of Abuse and Insults

● Abuse and verbal insults convey their messages indirectly, by negating values that
are vital for individuals’ self-esteem or for their social acknowledgment.
● Negating values that are vital for individuals’ self-esteem or for their social
acknowledgement.
● Insults aimed at women focus upon their sexuality
 ***
 ***
 ***
● A more wide-spread derogative for males
 Example: ***
***
● Namus is translated in the dictionary as ‘honor, honesty, good name’ and the
corresponding adjective namuslu as ‘honorable, honest, modest, chaste’ (Redhouse)
●  For women to be namuslu is to be: sexually pure or virtuous, presupposing either
virginity or fidelity in marriage.
 On the other hand, a man who is namuslu is one who is honest, reliable and who is
capable of protecting and controlling the namus of his female relatives.
● A man’s namus has no relevance.
  A woman commits zina (adultery) if she has intercourse just once with a man to whom
she is not married.
 A man, on the other hand, is only guilty of adultery when having a permanent affair which
is publicly known or when having intercourse with another woman in the conjugal house.
● Since male namus is independent of male sexual behavior, it is more effective to call one
of his female family members a prostitute than to call him a prostitute.
e.g  ***
 ***
Mother insults are used in the following functions:
(a) As insults in fights and arguments among males
(b) as playful teasing among boys or grown-up acquaintances
(c) as material in verbal duels among boys.
● Current in Turkish (male) slang:
***
 VIII. Feminist language critique and linguistic change in Turkish

● Feminist language critique has led to noticeable changes in languages such as English or German, but
little in Turkish.

● The asymmetries discussed in Sections 3 and 4 are less immediately obvious than the much discussed
asymmetries of gender languages.

● The only forms that have received some critical attention are the occupational terms containing adam
(such as bilim adamı ‘science man’)

● But a constant repetition of explicitly ‘female’ forms, in order to enhance female visibility and to directly
evoke female associations, would be a strategy which is alien to Turkish language structure.
IX. Conclusion
● There is no systematic gender distinction from suffixation in Turkish originally, but there are
some suffixes that are borrowed from other languages.
 sahib-e, memur-e (Arabic)
 prens/prenses, aktör/aktris (European origin)
● Male-biased and female-biased socio-cultural structure:
 Polis, basketbolcu, futbolcu (male-biased)
 Çocuk bakıcısı, sekreter, hizmetçi (female-biased)
● Male-human ambiguity comes in two ways: 1) generic reading
2) semantic narrowing from “human” to “male”
● Gender in Turkish proverbs:
 Saçı uzun, aklı kısa. / Eksik etek. / Erkeğin şeytanı kadındır.
● Abuse and verbal insults (mostly on women’s sexuality):
 orospu, fahişe, orospu çocuğu, namussuz (nonvirgin), ananı sikerim, etc.
THANK YOU!