Female Language

Los cambios a los que se enfrenta un sistema lingüístico a través del paso del tiempo responden, en gran medida, a las necesidades de sus hablantes. Pensar que la lengua es un organismo que manifiesta el mundo que percibimos es indispensable para comprender el porqué de ciertos fenómenos en el habla. Numerosos grupos de hablantes han moldeado la lengua para que ésta logre ser un reflejo de lo que se piensa y siente, desde naciones completas hasta grupos pequeños de
hablantes que representan minorías en la sociedad. En el campo de la lingüística, cada cambio, por pequeño que parezca, puede detonar un universo de estudio fascinante. 
Una de las comunidades de habla que ha reformado la lengua en más de una ocasión, ㅡcontinúa haciéndolo y, con seguridad, seguirá en constante lucha en el futuroㅡ, es el de las mujeres. Los cambios que ha atravesado el español, motivados sin duda por la voz colectiva de las mujeres, son primordiales para la manera en la que nos comunicamos en el día a día. Con el paso de los años, se han forjado avances con especial ahínco en la inclusión y el nombramiento de lo femenino dentro de la lengua. Estos cambios han sido considerados como un método de feminización gramatical, esto es: el reconocimiento de las mujeres en el habla por métodos que
este trabajo reconoce como tradicionales. No obstante, en los últimos años ha surgido un fenómeno que, bajo los preceptos de feminizar la lengua, ha marcado un nuevo punto de partida mediante estrategias que pueden pensarse como disruptivas, a saber: una nueva manera de feminización gramatical. El presente proyecto de tesis constituye un estudio acerca de los cambios de género ─de masculino al femenino─ en sustantivos animados e inanimados en español. En este trabajo se
entiende por feminización gramatical a aquel proceso mediante el cual los y las hablantes modifican, por razones pragmáticas, en los niveles morfológico y sintáctico, la categoría de género en sustantivos animados e inanimados, que bajo la norma culta son masculinos, por ejemplo: (el) contacto > (la) contacta; (el) mural > (la) murala. Podemos pensar que la etiqueta GRAMATICAL es sólo el origen de lo que más adelante se contempla como feminización discursiva, pues lo gramatical implica el cambio morfológico en sí mismo y lo DISCURSIVO engloba el fenómeno por completo ─atravesado por los ámbitos sociopolítico y cultural─. Así, en la presente investigación se retoman ambos conceptos como procesos que responden al mismo fenómeno. No obstante, el uso de feminización gramatical responde a los cambios en la morfología y/o sintaxis; mientras que feminización discursiva se emplea en partes de la redacción que involucren análisis extralingüísticos, como se verá más adelante, debido a que éste no sólo es un proceso morfosintáctico, sino que tiene implicaciones discursivas en el que el cambio de género implica un posicionamiento político, cultural, social, etc. que no es habitual.

Language has always played an active role in creating a subjugated life for women. In this limited life, civilization is patriarchal, history is HIStory, literature is phallocentric and language is man-made. In order to break the chain of vicious circle, forcing them being the inferior 'others' of men, women seek the ways of de(con)structing all the fixed and hierarchical structures of male discourse and its manmade language. Among those women are Virginia Woolf and Erendiz Atasü, who assert that women can transcend all patriarchal boundaries between body/mind, female/male and self/other through the 'all-encompassing female language', enabling a nonphallocentric feminine writing practice. Depending on their concerns, this study puts forward how phallocentric ideology affects women and how it is challenged by women's writing by basing its argument on post-structuralist feminist theories. It analyzes the pursuit of a female language by Woolf and Atasü to find out if the female language shares common features despite the philosophic, religious and cultural differences. The comparative analysis of the two writers reveals that the allencompassing female language challenges and brings down the phallocentric discourse by de(con)structing the distance between 'body and mind' and achieves 'wholeness' by moving beyond the fixed confines of sexual differences.

Si la « violence verbale » est une transgression des tabous langagiers,
« l’euphémisme » est un moyen de les contourner. L’étude de ces deux
concepts dans ce qu’on appelle «  le langage des jeunes  » est
intéressante dans la mesure où elle pose la question de son
« caractère masculin ». J’aborde la question des pratiques langagières
des jeunes de ce nouvel angle qu’est le sexe en mettant à l'épreuve
l'hypothèse de la politesse du langage des femmes auprès de groupes
de jeunes filles cairotes. J’ai cherché mes réponses à travers un guide
d’entretien semi-directif formé à la lumière de données collectées sur
le journal du Facebook de certains internautes. Un questionnaire
copiant ce guide d'entretien sous forme de questions fermées a
facilité le traitement statistique des données.

The dichotomies of 'self/other', ‘subject/object’, 'mind/body', ‘reason/emotion’ and 'materiality/rationality', having been initiated and systematized by Plato and Aristotle respectively, and accepted as ‘Cartesian Duality’ with the ideas of French philosopher René Descartes, have been gradually turned into strongly established binary opposition of ‘male/female’ by patriarchal societies. This transformation process deriving from female body and sexuality has defined and marginalized woman in accordance with androcentric terms and imprisoned her within patriarchal constraints. Women and women writers, aiming to subvert male hegemony, have been in a struggle for articulating the unspoken female body and sexuality, and giving voice to muted fellows with the required words and awareness. Erendiz Atasü, knowing all the difficulties and limitations as a woman and a woman writer in a patriarchal society, is one of those women writers seeking alternative ways to change women’s constructed submissive and secondary position. In accordance with those considerations, Atasü strives for transcending beyond long-established gender dichotomies emanated from primary ‘male/female’ opposition and emphasizes the significance of unshackling and de(con)structing the phallocentric discourses and unspoken taboos in regard to female body and experiences. In this respect, based on the theories of post-structuralist feminism, this study analyzes Atasü’s poetic work, That Scorching Season of Youth, and aims to prove how women can establish a new, female-oriented tradition that will allow, justify and acknowledge their female existence through the rejecting the constructed phallocentric discourses and hierarchical binary oppositions
Keywords: female body and sexuality, phallocentric discourse, de(con)struction, mind-body, unspoken

Through centuries, the patriarchal construction of women's bodies as disobedient, uncontrollable and as an eternal source of disruption to the social order has formed the misogynist system that silences women's voices and ignores their bodily experiences. Captivated in that system, women have been estranged from their bodies and from their sexualities, and in time, they acquire a split identity and self-understanding as they are merely considered silent and passive objects of male desire. Nevertheless, believing that the female body is an important site of struggle and resistance against the patriarchal structures, a medium through which a woman can articulate her repressed and ignored desire, Erendiz Atasü depicts independent female characters that experience their sexuality as an expression of power. Based on those issues and the theories of de(con)structing the phallocentric discourses, this study analyzes one of Atasü's most sexually explicit works, A Midlife Dream, to unveil and question the relationship between body and sexuality as well as proving that spiritual and sexual integrity is obtained through full body awareness. Keywords: bodily and spiritual integrity, female body, female sexuality, de(con)struction, patriarchal dichotomy BİR YAŞ DÖNÜMÜ RÜYASI: BEDENSEL VE RUHSAL BÜTÜNLÜK Öz Asırlar boyunca kadın bedenini asi, kontrol edilemez ve toplumsal düzeni bozucu her türlü şeytani kötülüğün kaynağı olarak inşa eden ataerkil düzen, zamanla kadınların seslerini duyulmaz ve bedensel deneyimlerini görmezden gelen kadın düşmanı bir sistem oluşturmuştur. Bu sistem içinde hapsolan kadınlar, sadece erkek arzusunun sessiz ve pasif nesneleri olarak görüldükleri için, bedenlerine ve cinselliklerine yabancılaştırılarak, bölünmüş bir kimlik ve anlayışı benimsemek zorunda bırakılırlar. Bununla birlikte, kadın bedeninin ataerkil yapılara karşı önemli bir mücadele ve direniş alanı olduğuna inanan ve kadının bastırılmış ve görmezden gelinen arzusunun dile gelebilmesinde kadın bedenini vazgeçilmez bir araç olarak gören Erendiz Atasü, eserlerinde cinselliklerini bir güç ve özgür irade ifadesi olarak deneyimleyen bağımsız kadın karakterleri resmetmeyi benimsemiştir. Kadın/kadın bedeni ile ilgili konuları göz önünde bulundurarak ve fallosentrik söylemleri yeniden yapılandırma teorilerine dayanarak oluşturulan bu çalışma, Atasü'nün cinselliğin en cesur ve yalın haliyle anlatıldığı eserlerinden biri olan Bir Yaş Dönümü Rüyası'nı inceleyerek, kadın bedeni ve cinselliği arasındaki ilişkiyi gözler önüne sermeyi * This study is based on the fourth chapter of the author's Ph.D dissertation. All translations from the Turkish works belong to the author unless otherwise noted.

Throughout the twentieth century women theoreticians and writers have examined the relationship between gender and space and how power mechanisms operate through this relationship. One of the outstanding examples of these writers is Susan Glaspell. Glaspell focuses on how private space enables women, who are deprived of language, to claim a language of their own in her short story, ‘A Jury of Her Peers’. In the story private space turns out to be a text that enables women to communicate. However, this text is not woven totally of words but of certain signs of female experience. The most prominent sign is the quilt made by Minnie Foster, the murder suspect in the story. The traces that Minnie leaves -consciously or unconsciously- in her household and on the patterns of the quilt enable a dialogue among the women characters and provide the necessary clues for the two women characters to solve the mystery of the murder of her husband. Minnie and the other women communicate throughout the story, though Minnie is not present but only mentioned in the story. The medium of this communication is the oblique language of women that men cannot decode. Thus this language is not one that is constructed of words and that serves the operation of the patriarchal order but a kind of female language.

Language has always played an active role in creating a subjugated life for women. In this limited life, civilization is patriarchal, history is HIStory, literature is phallocentric and language is man-made. In order to break the chain of vicious circle, forcing them being the inferior 'others' of men, women seek the ways of de(con)structing all the fixed and hierarchical structures of male discourse and its man-made language. Among those women are Virginia Woolf and Erendiz Atasü, who assert that women can transcend all patriarchal boundaries between body/mind, female/male and self/other through the 'all-encompassing female language', enabling a non-phallocentric feminine writing practice. Depending on their concerns, this study puts forward how phallocentric ideology affects women and how it is challenged by women's writing by basing its argument on post-structuralist feminist theories. It analyzes the pursuit of a female language by Woolf and Atasü to find out if the female language shares common features despite the philosophic, religious and cultural differences. The comparative analysis of the two writers reveals that the all-encompassing female language challenges and brings down the phallocentric discourse by de(con)structing the distance between 'body and mind' and achieves 'wholeness' by moving beyond the fixed confines of sexual differences.