Notes on language, power and gender

Abstract

Some of the capacities and «jobs» that language can have/perform are shown here, in which its aptitude to intervene in reality is glimpsed. With words we transmit thoughts and emotions but we also unleash events that can influence (even transform) the course of social reality. Thus, languages are capable of creating identity, individual or collective, which sometimes arouses reactions against that very construction. These reactions reveal the power struggle that underlies this type of conflict, where languages do not escape the temptation of being subjected to mandatory rules. On the other hand, with the incorporation of the variable «gender» to the binomial «language» ? «power» we will see the existence of a dominant
(male) discursive power against which certain sectors of today’s society declare themselves in rebellion. In this text, such ideas are accompanied by concrete examples drawn from the social and linguistic reality of Spanish-speaking countries, whose common language —as a living language— has been affected in its trajectory by the problems mentioned here.
in its trajectory by the problems mentioned here.