Gender in Basic Turkish Dictionary - How Sexism operates in the Basic Turkish Dictionary

İlerten F., Çubukçu H.

COMMUNICATION INTERCULTURELLE ET LITTéRATURE, vol.2, pp.205-216, 2009 (Peer-Reviewed Journal)

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 2
  • Publication Date: 2009
  • Journal Name: COMMUNICATION INTERCULTURELLE ET LITTéRATURE
  • Journal Indexes: Directory of Open Access Journals
  • Page Numbers: pp.205-216
  • Yıldız Technical University Affiliated: No

Abstract

Although there exists a substantial amount of research investigating gender ideologies underlying a wide variety of texts towards minimizing sexism in languages, scant attention has been directed to the investigation of dictionaries which are “major resources” about specific languages and that inherently bear the cultural repertoire of given speech communities. Therefore, this study aims to investigate whether and/or to what extent the lexical items related to female and male genders in the Basic Turkish Dictionary reflect sexist ideologies in favor of one or the other category. It is expected that the study will help uncover how F/M genders are categorized and conceptualized in Turkish culture as well as raising awareness regarding sexist practices in the language, and lastly by contributing to the dictionary to re structure its discourse on its republication . To this end, the definitions of 1300 words were categorized utilizing Conceptual Analysis (Carley 1992).