2020 Vol. 4 Issue 3 - TRAINING, LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
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ISSN 2520-2073 (print)
ISSN 2521-442X (online)
TRAINING, LANGUAGE
AND CULTURE
‘The crucial differences which distinguish human
societies and human beings are not biological.
They are cultural’
‒ Ruth Benedict
Vol. 4
Issue 3
2020
Issue DOI: 10.22363/2521-442X-2020-4-3
The quarterly journal published by
Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University)
TRAINING, LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
ISSN 2520-2073 (print)
ISSN 2521-442X (online)
A quarterly journal published by RUDN University
EDITORIAL BOARD
Dr Elena N. Malyuga Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), Moscow, Russian Federation
Barry Tomalin Glasgow Caledonian University London, London, UK
Dr Michael McCarthy University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
Dr Robert O’Dowd University of León, León, Spain
Dr Elsa Huertas Barros University of Westminster, London, UK
Dr Olga V. Aleksandrova Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russian Federation
Dr Lilia K. Raitskaya Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University), Moscow, Russian Federation
Dr Alex Krouglov University College London, London, UK
Dr Igor E. Klyukanov Eastern Washington University, Cheney, USA
Michael Carrier Highdale Consulting, London, UK
Dr Joongchol Kwak Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, Korea
Dr Chai Mingjiong Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China
Dr Claudia Schuhbeck International Certificate Conference – The International Language Association (ICC), Mexico City, Mexico
Dr Enrique F. Quero-Gervilla University of Granada, Granada, Spain
Dr Iván Vicente Padilla Chasing National University of Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia
ADVISORY BOARD
Robert Williams University of Westminster, London, UK
Anthony Fitzpatrick International Certificate Conference – The International Language Association (ICC), Bochum, Germany
Myriam Fischer-Callus International Certificate Conference – The International Language Association (ICC), Bochum, Germany
EDITORS Elena N. Malyuga, Editor-in-Chief (RUDN University) malyuga-en@rudn.ru
Barry Tomalin, Co-Editor (ICC) barrytomalin@aol.com
Elizaveta G. Grishechko, Executive Secretary (RUDN University) grishechko-eg@rudn.ru
COMPUTER DESIGN Elizaveta G. Grishechko
FOUNDERS Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University)
6 Miklukho-Maklay Str., 117198 Moscow, Russian Federation http://eng.rudn.ru/
International Certificate Conference – The International Language Association (ICC)
Bochum, Germany https://icc-languages.eu/
PUBLISHER Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), Moscow, Russian Federation
6 Miklukho-Maklay Str., 117198 Moscow, Russian Federation
CORPORATE CONTRIBUTORS Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), Moscow, Russian Federation
International Certificate Conference – The International Language Association (ICC), Bochum, Germany
EDITORIAL BOARD ADDRESS 6 Miklukho-Maklay Str., 117198 Moscow, Russian Federation
EDITORIAL BOARD POSTAL ADDRESS 6 Miklukho-Maklay Str., Office 97, 117198 Moscow, Russian Federation
PHONE +7 (925) 585-67-46
EMAIL info@tlcjournal.org
Training, Language and Culture is accessible online at https://rudn.tlcjournal.org/ and https://icc-languages.eu/tlcjournal/.
Publication schedule: four issues per year coming out in March, June, September and December.
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AIMS AND SCOPE Training, Language and Culture (TLC) is a peer-reviewed journal that aims to promote and disseminate research spanning the spectrum of language and linguistics, education and culture studies with a special focus on professional communication and professional discourse. Editorial Board of Training, Language and Culture invites research-based articles, reviews and editorials covering issues of relevance for the scientific and professional communities. FOCUS AREAS Training, Language and Culture covers the following areas of scholarly interest: theoretical and practical perspectives in language and linguistics; culture studies; interpersonal and intercultural professional communication; language and culture teaching and training, including techniques and technology, testing and assessment. LICENSING All articles and book reviews published in Training, Language and Culture are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Li- cense (CC BY 4.0). 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ETHICAL PRINCIPLES In selecting (review process included), preparing (editing) and publishing manuscripts, editors of Training, Language and Culture are guided by inter- national standards of publication ethics. TLC Editorial Board will carefully and responsibly consider all reasonable complaints regarding violations found in published materials. Journal publisher, RUDN University, is a co-founder and member of the Association of Science Editors and Publishers (ASEP) and supports the ASEP Declaration on Ethical Principles for Scientific Publications. The journal also adheres to the policies promoted by the Committeee on Publication Ethics (COPE). COPYRIGHT NOTICE The right of authorship belongs to the authors of articles. The authors transfer the rights to use the article (including the use and distribution of an art- icle in the Open Access) to the publisher of the journal on a non-exclusive license (Publishing Agreement (Public Offer) available on TLC website). 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Training, Language and Culture doi: 10.22363/2521-442X-2020-4-3
Volume 4 Issue 3, 2020 rudn.tlcjournal.org
CONTENTS
5 About our contributors
7 Introduction to Issue 4(3) by Barry Tomalin
Original Research
9 DO SAUDI ACADEMIC WOMEN USE MORE FEMINISED SPEECH TO DESCRIBE THEIR
PROFESSIONAL TITLES? AN EVIDENCE FROM CORPUS
by Reem Alkhammash and Haifa Al-Nofaie
21 SOUBRIQUET NOMINATION AS REFERRED TO CULTURAL AWARENESS AND INTERCULTURAL
COMPETENCE
by Elizaveta A. Vishnyakova and Olga D. Vishnyakova
31 ‘SAFE’ POLITICAL DISCOURSE: LINGUO-CULTURAL AND PRAGMA-LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVES
by Ludmila L. Baranova and Natalia L. Kriakina
43 CLAIMING AND DISPLAYING NATIONAL IDENTITY: A CASE STUDY OF CHINESE EXCHANGE
STUDENTS IN RUSSIA
by Wei Ye and Ni’ao Deng
55 LANGUAGE AND THE PANDEMIC: THE CONSTRUCTION OF SEMANTIC FRAMES IN GREEK-
GERMAN COMPARISON
by Nikolaos Katsaounis
66 LANGUAGE AND COGNITIVE SCIENCE: HOW LANGUAGE AFFECTS REASONING AND MEMORY
by Jean Langlois
Book Reviews
77 Close encounters of a cultural kind: Lessons for business, negotiation and friendship (a review)
original work by Richard D. Lewis reviewed by Barry Tomalin
79 Soft power: The new great game for global dominance (a review)
original work by Robert Winder reviewed by Dominique Vouillemin
News & Events
82 ICC News by Barry Tomalin
83 EUROLTA News by Myriam Fischer Callus
83 RUDN University News by Elena Malyuga
4 Training, Language and CultureTraining, Language and Culture doi: 10.22363/2521-442X-2020-4-3
Volume 4 Issue 3, 2020 rudn.tlcjournal.org
process development, abbreviation as referred to
About our LSP and business communication. Research in-
terests cover linguistics and semiotics, semiotics of
contributors electronic communication, teaching methods, LSP,
intercultural communication and cognitive lin-
guistics.
Reem Alkhammash
Assistant Professor of Linguistics and the Vice-Di- Olga D. Vishnyakova
rector of the English Language Centre at Taif Uni- Doctor of Linguistics, Full Professor. Graduated
versity, Saudi Arabia. Obtained her PhD from from Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia.
Queen Mary University of London. Cambridge Has taught English, Russian and Linguistics at uni-
certified teacher trainer, holds an MA in Applied versities in Russia, the USA, Vietnam and the
Linguistics from Essex University, and taught Eng- Czech Republic. Currently Professor at the Dpt of
lish and Linguistics courses at Taif University. Has English Linguistics at Lomonosov Moscow State
obtained the status of Fellow from Advance HE, University and Professor of School of Foreign Lan-
UK. Has broad interests in discourse analysis, me- guages at Higher School of Economics, lecturing
dia linguistics and language and gender. Has parti- on Cultural studies and Linguistics, Semiotic and
cipated in many international conferences and has Cognitive studies, Discourse analysis, Linguodi-
published in international journals. dactics, Linguo-culturological basics of intercultur-
al communication. Author of over 150 academic
Haifa Al-Nofaie publications dealing with language, cultural, cog-
Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics. Holds a nitive and semiotic studies, as well as intercultural
PhD in Applied Linguistics from Newcastle Uni- communication. Academic supervisor of the Inter-
versity, UK. Fellow of the Higher Education Aca- national scientific seminar Language, Literature
demy, UK, since August 2018. Academic interests and Culture as Domains of Intercultural Commu-
include conversation analysis and teaching English nication in the Czech Republic. Member of
through critical thinking pedagogies. Was a series LATEUM, NATE, NOPRIL.
cultural advisor to ELT Oxford University Press be-
tween 2014 and 2015. Was one of the series ad- Ludmila L. Baranova
visors of Q: Skills for Success, a special edition for Dr. habil. in Linguistics, Full Professor, Lomonosov
Saudi Arabia. Worked as a volunteer researcher in Moscow State University, Russia. Graduated from
global citizenship education for the UNESCO be- Lomonosov Moscow State University. Author of 64
tween May 2017 and Dec 2017. Has published re- articles and 14 books and monographs, took part
search studies in international journals produced in 31 international conferences. Former President
by well-known publishers (Elsevier, Taylor and of the Linguistic Association of Teachers of English
Francis and EQUINOX). at the University of Moscow (LATEUM). Former
learned secretary of the specialised academic
Elizaveta A. Vishnyakova council (Germanic and Romance Linguistics) at
PhD in Philology, Associate Professor, Head of the Lomonosov Moscow State University. Research in-
English Language Dpt at the Faculty of Foreign terests cover American studies, corpus linguistics,
Languages, Tula State Lev Tolstoy Pedagogical Uni- discourse analysis and cognitive linguistics.
versity, Russia. Teaches English for Special Pur-
poses (ESP), Translation, Semiotics of Electronic Natalia L. Kriakina
Communication. Author of academic publications MA in Linguistics, Saint Petersburg State Univer-
on linguistic approaches to electronic communica- sity, Russia. Research interests cover euphemisms,
tion studies, current trends in the communicative word-building, phonetic markers of speech acts.
Training, Language and Culture 5Training, Language and Culture doi: 10.22363/2521-442X-2020-4-3
Volume 4 Issue 3, 2020 rudn.tlcjournal.org
Wei Ye making, New Trends in Decision Making Science:
PhD in Education, Associate Professor in the Transdisciplinary and Transcultural Perspectives,
School of Foreign Studies, Huanggang Normal with Zydney Wong at SciencesPo (2019). Presen-
University, China. Research interests cover multi- ted at the University of Lyon on Strategic Intercul-
cultural education and sociolinguistics with books tural Logics and currently works on the translation
and articles published on these issues. of several Chinese classics on strategy with Cana-
dian translator Xiaoman Yang. Holds a Certifica-
Ni’ao Deng tion in Sanskrit from Karl Jaspers Centre for Ad-
Graduated from Huanggang Normal University, vanced Transcultural Studies (Heidelberg Univer-
China. Currently takes a pre-master’s course at sity), a Masters in Cognitive Science and Psycho-
Lomonosov Moscow State University. Research in- logy from Paris VIII University and a PhD in Math-
terests cover intercultural communication and na- ematical Economics from PSL/EHESS. Currently a
tional identity issues. student of the Executive Global Master in Manage-
ment from LSE (London/Beijing/Bangalore). Re-
Nikolaos Katsaounis search interests cover cognitive science, languages
Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics at the and culture.
Department of German Language and Literature,
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece). Mem- Barry Tomalin
ber of the Committee of the Panhellenic National Joint Managing Editor of TLC and a board member
Examinations for the German language. Research of ICC. A specialist in international communica-
interests include semantics, neurolinguistics, first tion, cultures, soft power and media. Founder and
and second language acquisition and bilingualism. facilitator of the Business Cultural Trainers Certi-
Fields of teaching are Phonetics, Semantics, Text ficate. Teaches at Glasgow Caledonian University
Linguistics and Language Acquisition. London, the Academy of Diplomacy and Interna-
tional Governance at Loughborough University.
Jean Langlois
Former associate researcher at CHART Research Dominique Vouillemin
Center (Human & Artificial Cognition, EPHE/Paris Teacher and teacher trainer at International House
VI/Paris VIII), and a researcher at the National Insti- London, specialising in language learning and in-
tute for Research in Digital Sciences and Techno- ternational communication and cultures. Tutor on
logy-INRIA. Taught one of the first courses in the IH Business Cultural Trainers Certificate. Runs
France on the impact of language on decision Cambridge University Cert IBET courses.
6 Training, Language and CultureTraining, Language and Culture doi: 10.22363/2521-442X-2020-4-3
Volume 4 Issue 3, 2020 rudn.tlcjournal.org
US and UK government speeches. In the paper
Introduction to titled ‘Safe’ political discourse: Linguo-cultural and
pragma-linguistic perspectives, the authors use ex-
Issue 4(3) amples from international corpora of American
and British English to demonstrate how politicians
from both countries use set expressions, refer to
by Co-Editor Barry Tomalin ‘milestone’ events and try to make a positive im-
pression, the Americans tending towards slightly
Welcome to Issue 3(4) of Training, Language more informal style than most of their British
and Culture. This issue offers insightful research on counterparts. The study concludes by noting the
Arabic, Chinese, Greek, German and English lan- degree to which speeches depend on a traditional
guages and cultures drawing on a diverse range of style of discourse while adding on new forms and
methodological frameworks and an impressive peculiarities to suit the times.
repertoire of scientific approaches. In Claiming and displaying national identity: A
Two articles explore language use, one among case study of Chinese exchange students in Russia,
female university teachers in Saudi Arabia and the Wei Ye and Ni’ao Deng examine the emerging per-
other the use of soubriquets or nicknames and the ceptions of national identity within the context of
importance of being familiar with them as aids to Covid-19 among Chinese exchange students in
building cultural awareness. In Do Saudi academic Russia. The study answers two key questions of
women use more feminised speech to describe whether the experience of studying in Russia has
their professional titles? An evidence from corpus, changed Chinese students’ national identity, and
Reem Alkammash and Haifa Al-Nofaie examine whether the Covid-19 pandemic has influenced
how female Saudi academics describe their occu- their own perceptions about their country as it
pational titles. In a study of CVs extracted from relates to China’s success in combatting the virus.
two Saudi universities they found that more female The discussion falls into four themes, which are
academics use male gender markers to describe sense of belonging, national pride, national superi-
themselves, because they feel it gives them more ority, and critical reflection, and concludes by
credibility in the academic market but the practice stressing that international students’ perception of
does not vary according to academic discipline. national identity could offer valuable analysis and
The authors compare this practice with the gender recommendations for the suitable design of inter-
markers in other languages, such as French, Ger- ventions and future training programmes.
man and Polish, and stress the danger of feminine We live in challenging times, when we are not
gender markers as impeding the empowerment of sure about the status of schools and universities re-
women in gender-specific languages. convening as more cases of Covid-19 appear pos-
In Soubriquet nomination as referred to cultural sibly leading to a second wave of the pandemic.
awareness and intercultural competence, Elizaveta Nikolaus Katsaounis is timely in his paper on Lan-
A. Vishnyakova and Olga D. Vishnyakova examine guage and the pandemic: The construction of se-
the origins and functions of soubriquets and how mantic frames in Greek-German comparison. In
they are used to give insights into national and re- the paper, based on Greek and German native
gional culture, and illustrate that teachers’ and stu- speakers in Greece, he analyses the differences
dents’ knowledge of them is a significant addition and commonalities of structuring concepts in the
to cultural awareness. face of the Coronavirus, using a frame-semantic
Politically correct political discourse is the sub- approach.
ject of Ludmila L. Baranova and Natalia L. Kriaki- Last but definitely not least, Language and cog-
na’s paper which analyses the general and specific nitive science: How language affects reasoning
use of what they call ‘safe’ political language in and memory by Jean Langlois examines the influ-
Training, Language and Culture 7Training, Language and Culture doi: 10.22363/2521-442X-2020-4-3 Volume 4 Issue 3, 2020 rudn.tlcjournal.org ence of neuroscientific research and how it has Another exciting issue featuring new scholar- clarified the relationship between language and ship from Russia, Western Europe and the Middle culture, particularly in how we remember and East, complemented by recent book reviews and, how we express what we remember. Cognitive sci- as is customary, ICC, EUROLTA and RUDN Uni- ence has become an increasingly important part of versity news. linguistic and cultural research in recent years (see Training, Language and Culture welcomes con- the review of Mai Nguyen-Phuong-Mai’s Cross-cul- tributions in the form of articles, reviews and cor- tural management: With insights from brain sci- respondence. As always, the journal offers Plati- ence in TLC Vol. 3 Issue 4), and Jean Langlois thor- num Open Access to its content with a 100% free oughly analyses its influence through case studies, access to the published material. Details are avail- especially in what linguists and neuroscientists de- able online at rudn.tlcjournal.org. Feel free to con- scribe as the Verbal Overshadowing Effect. tact us at info@tlcjournal.org. 8 Training, Language and Culture
Training, Language and Culture doi: 10.22363/2521-442X-2020-4–3-9-20
Volume 4 Issue 3, 2020, pp. 9-20 rudn.tlcjournal.org
Original Research
Do Saudi academic women use more feminised speech to
describe their professional titles? An evidence from corpus
by Reem Alkhammash and Haifa Al-Nofaie
Reem Alkhammash Taif University reem.alkhammash@gmail.com
Haifa Al-Nofaie Taif University haifa.a@tu.edu.sa
Received 14.06.2020 | Revised 23.08.2020 | Accepted 18.09.2020
Recommended citation format: Alkhammash, R., & Al-Nofaie, H. (2020). Do Saudi academic women use more
feminised speech to describe their professional titles? An evidence from corpus. Training, Language and Culture, 4(3),
9-20. Doi: 10.22363/2521-442X-2020-4-3-9-20
The use of gendered occupational titles by women in higher-education settings has rarely been discussed
either in the Saudi context or at the international level. This study investigates how Saudi women academics
tend to represent themselves in their titles, in particular whether they use Arabic feminine or masculine
markers. A corpus of 558,474 CVs was extracted from CVs published on Saudi women academics’ websites
at the two largest Saudi universities: King Saud University and King Abdulaziz University. The data gathered
was analysed quantitatively. The frequencies of gender markers attached to positions’ titles were analysed by
adopting a corpus-based variationist linguistics. The findings reveal that the majority of Saudi women aca-
demics use more masculine markers in their academic titles than feminine gender markers. The study finds
that both type of institution and the hierarchy of the academic discipline plays a significant role in the tend-
ency to use masculine markers with the professional title, however, the academic discipline has no signifi-
cant effect on the usage of masculine form. This study provides a cross-linguistic review of the use of
gendered markers in other languages, such as French, German and Polish. It compares its findings with the
findings of available international studies, a point that contributes to the significance of this study. It is hoped
that this study will shed light on linguistic practices that should be reflective of policies that aim to empower
Saudi women. This study contributes to a growing research of language and gender that focused on the lin-
guistic representation of the titles of professional women and how grammar can be reflective of practices
that are hindering women’s empowerment in gender-specific languages.
KEYWORDS: Arabic, self-representation, gender marking, occupational title, professional identity, higher
education, sociopragmatics
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is
properly cited (CC BY 4.0)
1. INTRODUCTION wherein women are perceived to hold a lower po-
The use of generic masculine forms to refer to sition than men in the social hierarchy (Cheshire,
women is indicative of asymmetric usage of gen- 2008). Damanhouri (2013) investigates the per-
der marking and is an example of masculine bias, ception of Saudi women based on linguistic rep-
© Reem Alkhammash, Haifa Al-Nofaie 2020
This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License Training, Language and Culture 9Training, Language and Culture doi: 10.22363/2521-442X-2020-4-3-9-20
Volume 4 Issue 3, 2020, pp. 9-20 rudn.tlcjournal.org
resentations and whether this perception is reflect- vidual, collective, social, situational or personal –
ive of their position in society. In particular, she in- we have learned that the processes of identity
vestigates terms of address and references to wo- formation are subsumed by many discursive prac-
men as well as the use of generic masculine forms tices such as indexicality, local occasioning, posi-
to refer to professional women and other women tioning, dialogism and categorisation (De Fina,
in the Arabic language. The qualitative study uses 2011). As Bucholtz and Hall (2005) note, such
interviews to understand the perception of females processes aid researchers in unravelling ‘how hu-
and finds the existence of linguistic sexism in Ara- man dynamics unfold in discourse, along with rig-
bic to be the result of the marginalisation of wo- orous analytic tools for discovering how such pro-
men, which in turn is a product of social norms. cesses work’ (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005, p. 607). In-
Arabic poses a complex case in which masculine dexicality refers to the indexing of specific perso-
forms prevail in both everyday speech and formal nas and groups, such as the use of stance markers
correspondence (e.g. Damanhouri, 2013), while and style features, in the analysis of some linguist-
more classical Arabic resources tend to distinguish ic features (see Johnstone, 2009). Other linguistic
between males and females. For example, many means of self-representation include the use of en-
Quranic verses address males and females sepa- tire linguistic systems to index certain identities
rately by their masculine (Almuminoon, meaning (see Gal & Irvine, 1995; Schieffelin et al., 1998). In
male believers) and feminine (al muminaat, mean- sum, the construction of identity in discourse is a
ing female believers) forms. On the other hand, we common research strand which articulates the lin-
still find classical evidence of the use of the ge- guistic means which formulate discursive practices
neric masculine plural form referring to both males of identity formation.
and females. For instance, the masculine form
Almuminoon surah (meaning believers) is directed 2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
at both males and females. 2.1. Construction of professional identity
Hellinger and Bußmann’s (2001, 2002, 2003) Investigating professional identity has been the
Gender Across Languages series offers linguistic focus of many studies, namely, experimental, lon-
analyses of masculine generics used in more than gitudinal studies as well as studies investigating
30 languages from various language families. Ger- the professional identity in gendered workplaces.
man is one such language, using masculine nouns In longitudinal studies, the focus has been on self-
to refer to mixed-gender groups; for example, the conception and the development of gendered pro-
masculine plural einige Lehrer (several teachers) is fessional identities (Cech, 2015). Cech (2015) finds
used to refer to a group of male and female teach- that women engineers’ conception of their profes-
ers. Hellinger and Bußmann (2001, 2003, 2003) sion is affected by the professional culture around
find that feminine forms refer exclusively to fe- them. In any professional culture, there are sys-
males in German. Formanowicz and Sczesny tems of meanings, rituals and symbols that are
(2016) argue that there are two strategies for redu- linked to traits of professional identity (Cech,
cing gender stereotyping in language use: neutral- 2015). The formation of professional identity is af-
isation and feminisation. Neutralisation refers to fected by individual differences, graduate training,
the use of gender-unmarked forms to replace mas- cultural perspectives and ideology (McGowen &
culine forms, for example, the use of police officer Hart, 1990). Some research has found that linguist-
instead of policeman. Feminisation refers to the ic forms affect how children and adolescents per-
use of a feminine form to increase the visibility of ceive professions. For example, Vervecken et al.
female referents, for example using he or she in- (2015) find that, in French, when professions are
stead of the applicant. presented in the masculine form, men are viewed
Through traditional, discourse-oriented studies to be more successful in stereotypically masculine
of discursive-constructed identities – be they indi- jobs and women are more successful in stereotyp-
10 Training, Language and CultureDo Saudi academic women use more feminised speech to describe their professional titles? An evidence from corpus
by Reem Alkhammash and Haifa Al-Nofaie
ically feminine jobs. The results of their study, ona (2009) finds that the feminisation of job titles
which used word pairs to learn more about the has become more tangible in higher education
perception of stereotypical feminine and mascu- (HE). The improved gender equality reported in
line professions, show more balance between the this study is attributable to the increased number
genders in ratings of competency; both genders of women working in HE. However, a thorough
are found to be competent. However, the study search reveals no studies on the feminisation of
finds that children and adolescents perceive ste- job titles in HE in Saudi Arabia. The purpose of this
reotypically masculine professions to be less warm paper is to examine the feminisation of academic
than stereotypically feminine professions (Verveck- job titles in the Saudi Arabian context, where wo-
en et al., 2015). Feminisation of occupation has men have been receiving more support recently.
been correlated with occupation devaluation (Ca-
couault-Bitaud, 2001), and the use of masculine 2.2. Saudi women in higher education
titles is correlated with prestige (Glick et al., Since 2013, Saudi Arabia has undergone social
1995). and political changes, with the number of female
Similar to many male-dominated enterprises leaders increasing. There are now 34 Saudi uni-
such as finance or law enforcement, academia is versities at which women comprise at least 40 per-
found to be perceived as a male-dominated work- cent of the academic staff (Darandari, 2018). The
place. Some studies have looked at the use of fem- recent Saudi trend of placing women in academic
inine forms in women’s representation of their pro- leadership positions has given them greater au-
fessions in higher education. For example, Lipov- thority and contributed to the shifting position of
sky (2015) finds that French women have become women in the workplace. Male and female aca-
more willing to use feminine job titles on their CVs demics are now given equal opportunities to pur-
and that the use of masculine job titles by females sue higher education. As a result of women’s
is determined by type of institution, occupational change in position, the use of masculine forms has
field and profession. In another context, Forma- changed. The topic of gendered job titles in HE is
nowicz and Sczesny (2016) find that Polish wo- therefore timely, due to the rapid political and so-
men psychologists prefer to use masculine profes- cial changes in Saudi Arabia.
sional titles because they may be devalued if they It is worth noting that women’s dissatisfaction
represent themselves as using feminine marker. with the low number of women leaders in higher
This is common in languages where feminisation is education has been a universal issue and is not
novel (Formanowicz & Sczesny, 2016). In terms of linked to a particular country or culture (Burkin-
hiring, Formanowicz et al. (2013) investigate how shaw & White, 2017). Haifa Jamal Al-Lail (2020) of
the evaluation of Polish women applicants is influ- ACE commented on Vision 2030: ‘Vision 2030, a
enced by the grammatical form in which their pro- roadmap to the future created by King Salman and
fession is presented. Across three studies, female Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, specifically
applicants using a job title in the grammatically calls for a vast improvement in the status of wo-
feminine form on their CVs were evaluated less fa- men, driven by a new focus on education, open-
vourably than both male and female applicants us- ness, and equality. No one is so naïve as to think
ing a grammatically masculine form. that the status of women in Saudi Arabia will
According to previous research, academia is change overnight, but Vision 2030 is not a public
perceived as a male-dominated workplace in relations campaign. It truly offers real hope and en-
which success is associated with stereotypically couragement for Saudi women’.
male traits (Wynn & Correll, 2017). The feminisa- Since the government’s announcement of its
tion of job titles in academia has not received suf- strategic goal of women’s empowerment, many
ficient attention, and research on this topic is governmental institutions have increased in
scarce. One study conducted in Argentina by Per- female-occupied leadership roles. In Saudi higher
rudn.tlcjournal.org Training, Language and Culture 11Training, Language and Culture doi: 10.22363/2521-442X-2020-4-3-9-20
Volume 4 Issue 3, 2020, pp. 9-20 rudn.tlcjournal.org
education, new positions have been created and
women have participated more in decision- ‘Since the government’s announcement of
making. Of the newly created titles, the Vice Presi- its strategic goal of women’s
dency for Female Student Affairs is one of the most
empowerment, many governmental
remarkable. To fill the position, the Ministry of
Education asked Saudi universities for nomina- institutions have increased in female-
tions. The Minister of Education then announced occupied leadership roles. In Saudi higher
the appointment of 14 Vice Presidents for Female education, new positions have been
Student Affairs, and the new position was the
highest position for women in Saudi Universities. created and women have participated
The main responsibility of the Vice President for more in decision-making’
Female Student Affairs is to supervise administra-
tive and academic work on female campuses and terest due to the variability in the principles of po-
to coordinate with other Vice Presidents at each liteness – and states that its sociopragmatic ana-
Saudi university. A recent study conducted by Al- lysis should account for various social situations
subaie and Jones (2017) and based on data from and social classes. He distinguishes general prag-
the Saudi Ministry of Education found 61 female matics from sociopragmatics, stating that the latter
deans at Saudi universities, compared to 330 male is concerned with ‘how communication of prag-
deans; this indicates a high gender gap of 269. The matic meaning involves speakers’ presentation of
status of each Saudi university in terms of female their identities’ (Leech, 1983, p. 159). Linguistic
dean appointments is determined by its president’s strategies such as word choice, prosody, tone of
decision to empower female leadership. A female voice, degree of grammatical complexity and in-
dean is the head of the deanship or college and is teractional routines transmit the identities of
in direct contact with male and female staff and speakers while they perform identity. In self-repre-
students. These developments in Saudi women’s sentations, people display their identity by con-
position in higher education raise questions as to structing themselves through pragmatic choices
how Saudi women academics (i.e. professors, as- (LoCastro, 2013), and they do so by self-represent-
sociate professors, assistant professors, lecturers ations of features such as social roles (e.g. project
and teaching assistants) represent themselves. manager) or group memberships (e.g. female, aca-
Therefore, the goal of the present study is to invest- demic or Muslim) (Spencer-Oatey, 2007).
igate this phenomenon as it concerns the use of The theoretical framework which underpins the
job titles in CVs. field of sociopragmatics is interactional sociolin-
guistics (IS) (Bailey, 2008; Schiffrin, 1995). IS, de-
2.3. Sociopragmatics and pragmatic variability veloped by John Gumperz in his efforts to estab-
The focus of sociolinguistics is the relation of lish a general theory of language and society, gen-
variations in linguistics to social and cultural erally focuses on the meanings of face-to-face in-
factors, such as age, class, gender and ethnicity. teractions, taking into consideration the sociocul-
Sociolinguists have paid attention to the pragmatic tural knowledge of interlocutors (Bailey, 2008).
features of language in interaction, a focus now Language use and identity form an important so-
known as sociopragmatics. The term ‘socioprag- ciopragmatic topic of IS, and the focus of IS is not
matics’ was first adopted by Leech (1983) to illus- limited to interactional meanings obtained from
trate how pragmatic meanings reflect ‘specific lo- audio- or video-recorded data, but also includes
cal conditions on language use’ (Leech, 1983, p. communicative written works which express the
10). Leech (1983) provides the example of polite- participants’ identities. For example, Martiny
ness as investigated across different cultures and (1996) investigates forms of address in French and
language communities – a study of particular in- Dutch from a sociopragmatic angle. The forms of
12 Training, Language and CultureDo Saudi academic women use more feminised speech to describe their professional titles? An evidence from corpus
by Reem Alkhammash and Haifa Al-Nofaie
address studied include nicknames, generic proper fessional identity with feminised nouns means that
names, occupational titles, honorific titles, kin ‘linguistic and social equality for women in the
titles, terms of endearment, offensive terms and workplace’ has been achieved in France (Lipovsky,
common, generic nouns. Employing a model of 2015, p. 97).
sociopragmatic variability, in particular the state-
ment that ‘language varies according to speakers’ 3. MATERIAL AND METHODS
age, class, education, religion, ideology, sex, This paper investigates whether Saudi women
etc.’ (Braun, 1988, p. 18), Martiny (1996) argues academics tend to use language to represent their
that variability in address forms is affected by so- professional titles using gender-fair language by
cial class and can show ‘language-specific and using the feminine morpheme or gendered lan-
subgroup-specific tendencies’ (Martiny, 1996, p. guage by using the masculine morpheme in their
774). Recent sociopragmatic research has investi- choice of professional title. The paper specifically
gated the relationship between gender and lan- analyses the gender-marking selection of Saudi
guage. Research following the interactional strand women academics in light of recent developments
investigates the use of sociopragmatic strategies in in Saudi policy empowering women in the work-
workplace interactions (Baxter, 2010; Holmes, place. Considering recent research in language
2006). Many such strategies are analysed in terms and gender indicating that the prevalent use of
of perceived masculine norms associated with es- feminine nouns in gendered languages is indica-
tablishing powerful status, such as leading meet- tive of a changing society (Formato, 2019), this
ings, authorising decisions, issuing bald directives study explores whether the changes in Saudi soci-
and disputing others’ statements. Other socioprag- ety have any bearing on the language use of Saudi
matic strategies are viewed as following perceived academic women. The extent to which demo-
feminine norms, meaning that they lean towards graphic factors (i.e. Saudi women academics) may
acting politely, for example, expressing approval, explain the practice of gender marking in Saudi
hedging to express disagreement and providing women’s academic discourse will be investigated.
positive feedback (see Holmes & King, 2017). A corpus of 558,474 CVs was extracted from CVs
Palander-Collin and Nevala (2011) investigate published on the websites of Saudi women aca-
the sociopragmatic aspect of references to people demics at the two largest Saudi universities. The
in texts. They state that the choice to refer to a per- frequency of gender markers attached to academic
son by their first name (e.g. Mary) or by their aca- titles in these CVs was analysed.
demic position title (e.g. Professor Smith) takes A corpus of CVs of Saudi women academics
into consideration people’s social roles and rela- was compiled. CVs were chosen for the study be-
tions. cause they contain self-representation in the form
Lipovsky (2015) investigates whether legislative of the professional identities of their authors (De
reforms in France (namely, antidiscrimination and Fina et al., 2006; Dyer & Keller-Cohen, 2000). This
equal-opportunity laws) have an effect on French study’s analysis of CVs is meant to test whether
women’s selection of occupational titles. The focus Saudi women academics prefer to use masculine
of Lipovsky’s (2015) study was to investi-gate the or feminine gender markers attached to their aca-
selection from a second-wave feminism perspect- demic professional titles. As previous studies have
ive. In other words, since French nouns may be found that quantitative analyses may reveal vari-
feminine or masculine, are professional women ation of use, the present study considers whether
more inclined to use feminised occupational the variation is statistically significant and whether
nouns to represent themselves? The study finds certain demographic variables may affect certain
that, in the selection of occupational titles, French preferences of gender markers. As the study adopts
women present their professional identity by how a corpus linguistic approach, it follows Baker’s
they construct their gender. Representing their pro- (2010) holding that, in studying linguistic varia-
rudn.tlcjournal.org Training, Language and Culture 13Training, Language and Culture doi: 10.22363/2521-442X-2020-4-3-9-20
Volume 4 Issue 3, 2020, pp. 9-20 rudn.tlcjournal.org
tion, language users may be categorised by demo- versity’s website for the purposes of networking. In
graphic. These categories serve as explanatory order to analyse CVs systematically, a corpus was
variables in sociolinguistic studies. Baker (2010) established as follows: (1) Saudi universities were
provides examples of demographic variables used stratified by region, and the largest universities
to explain results in sociolinguistic studies, includ- with CVs available online were chosen; (2) relev-
ing gender, age, social class, occupation, geo- ant data were collected from the university web-
graphical location and sexual orientation. sites, and two corpora were created and stored off-
It is standard practice at Saudi universities for line for accessibility; (3) CVs were cate-gorised by
teaching faculties to publish their CVs on the uni- pertaining colleges.
Table 1
Corpus size
NAME OF UNIVERSITY NO. OF COLLEGES CORPUS SIZE
King Abdulaziz University 14 307,905
King Saud University 13 250,569
Table 1 represents the corpora of CVs of Saudi female ratio in these fields’ teaching staff. For hu-
women academics from the two largest Saudi uni- manities, education and social science fields, there
versities. Outdated CVs are a possible weak point are more female teaching staff than male teaching
in the data. Also, some CVs lacked the previous staff, and work opportunities are most likely to be
experience of women academics and listed only in segregated work environments (see El Nagdi &
their names and a brief description of their current Roehrig, 2019).
positions. The study took an inclusive approach The second variable is rank of academic posi-
and included any information which increased the tion. Policy reform which advocates for increasing
chances of finding linguistic variation in the use of work opportunities for Saudi women involves
titles. Some faculty members were more prone to blue-collar jobs (Alkhammash, 2016). These jobs
have an updated English CV and a short Arabic were occupied by females, and no evidence is
CV; these include those working in the depart- found for the use of masculine form in these job
ments of medicine, pharmacology and medical titles. Although the lowest ranks of such occupa-
science. The CVs for this study were collected tions are now feminised, academic occupational
from 14 colleges from King Abdulaziz University titles have never been linguistically investigated.
and 13 colleges from King Saud University. The third variable is type of university. The in-
With a sociopragmatic approach to analysing cluded universities, King Saud University and King
variation of the use of gender markers in academic Abdulaziz University, share the same status in
position titles, this study’s design applies corpus- Saudi higher education. Both are well-established
based variationist linguistics methodology (CVL) and top-ranked and are the oldest universities in
(see Baker, 2010; Szmrecsanyi, 2017). The vari- Saudi Arabia. Many studies have compared both
ables identified for this study are: academic fields, universities due to the similarities between them
rank of academic position and type of university. (see e.g. Shaker & Babgi, 2009). The research
The first variable of the study reported in this question for this study is: what gender-marking
paper is academic fields. Work opportunities in practices do Saudi women academics use in the
STEM fields are most likely to be in a mixed- selection of their titles at the two largest Saudi uni-
gender work environment. There is a high male-to- versities?
14 Training, Language and CultureDo Saudi academic women use more feminised speech to describe their professional titles? An evidence from corpus
by Reem Alkhammash and Haifa Al-Nofaie
In the construction of its hypotheses, this study
was informed by Lipovsky’s (2015) research, which ‘This study reveals that the masculine
finds that type of institution, field of work and pro- form used for academic positions is
fession determine gender-marking practices that dominant. Associate Professor is not used
professional women use to represent themselves in
in the feminine form; no evident feminised
their CVs. This study has one hypothesis for each
variable. variation is witnessed in the corpus for
Hypothesis 1 concerns the field of work vari- Associate Professor. There are rare cases
able: women academics who work in the fields of of feminising the title Full Professor and
engineering, computer science, science, medical
science and health science use different gender-
even rarer cases of feminising Assistant
marking practices than those who work in the Professor. Only the titles Assistant
fields of the humanities, education and social sci- Teacher and Lecturer have been used
ences.
variably in the corpus’
Hypothesis 2 concerns the variable of rank of
academic position: women academics who are as- and masculine self-representation. The results were
sistant professors, associate professors and full pro- explained in terms of how linguistic practices are
fessors use different gender-marking practices than reflective of social practices.
those occupying the assistant teacher and lecturer
positions. 4. STUDY AND RESULTS
Hypothesis 3 concerns the type of university This study reveals that the masculine form used
variable: women academics who work at King Ab- for academic positions is dominant. Associate Pro-
dulaziz University use different gender-marking fessor is not used in the feminine form; no evident
practices than those who work at King Saud Uni- feminised variation is witnessed in the corpus for
versity. Associate Professor. There are rare cases of femin-
The semiotic factor is about significant variation ising the title Full Professor and even rarer cases of
of linguistic expressions in accordance with the feminising Assistant Professor. Only the titles As-
paradigms, objectives, concurrence, and incongru- sistant Teacher and Lecturer have been used vari-
ity of perceptions about linguistic options used to ably in the corpus. However, it is clear that mascu-
designate objects and phenomena, awareness and line marking dominates feminine marking in aca-
adjustment of choices by communicating entities. demic titles across all disciplines. The main results
The first step to the system of data analysis was are summarised in Tables 2, 3 and 4.
determining the frequency of feminine and mascu- Table 2 shows the results pertaining to the pro-
line titles (that refer to women) in the corpora of fessional field variable. Clearly, there are no signi-
this study. Sketch Engine analysis software was ficant differences in the use of gender marking for
used to upload each college corpus in the two uni- academic titles between types of academic field.
versities. Each professional title was than searched, This means that Saudi women academics’ prefer-
and concordance lines were checked manually to ence for particular, gendered academic titles (mas-
validate the feminine or masculine use. Frequen- culine or feminine) is not determined by their dis-
cies of feminine and masculine forms were repor- ciplines. This refutes Hypothesis 1 stating that Sau-
ted. In determining the frequency of occurrence of di women academics in the fields of engineering,
feminine and masculine professional titles, tokens computer science, science, medical science and
were counted manually and then double-checked health science use different gender-marking prac-
via a computer search. Cross-tabulations and a tices in professional titles compared to those who
chi-squared test were employed to identify the work in the humanities, education and social sci-
statistical differences (if any) in the use of feminine ences.
rudn.tlcjournal.org Training, Language and Culture 15Training, Language and Culture doi: 10.22363/2521-442X-2020-4-3-9-20 Volume 4 Issue 3, 2020, pp. 9-20 rudn.tlcjournal.org Table 2 Observed frequencies in the use of gender marking in academic positions by type of scientific field TYPES OF SCIENTIFIC FIELDS MASCULINE MARKING FEMININGE MARKING ROW TOTAL Engineering, computer science, science and 2,067 390 2,457 medical and health sciences Humanities, education and social sciences 1,950 791 2,351 COLOUMN TOTAL 4,017 1,181 4,804 Note: The chi-square statistic is 1.2244. The p-value is .2685. The result is not significant at p < .05 The results concerning the variable of academic such as Assistant Teacher and Lecturer. The femin- rank are shown in Table 3. The level of academic ine marker for the titles of Professor, Associate Pro- rank is found to significantly influence the use of fessor and Assistant Professor is used only 8 times gender marking (p-value < .00001). This confirms across the corpora, while the masculine marker is Hypothesis 2, which states that Saudi women aca- used 1,822 times. Although the feminine marker is demics who occupy top academic levels such as used more frequently with lower academic posi- Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Full tions (Assistant Teacher and Lecturer, 783 in- Professor positions used different gender-marking stances), masculine position titles remain domin- practices than those who occupy lower positions ant for these positions (2,206 instances). Table 3 Observed frequencies in the use of gender marking in academic positions by academic ranks ACADEMIC RANK MASCULINE MARKING FEMININGE MARKING ROW TOTAL Top level: assistant professor, associate 1,822 8 1,830 professor and full professor Lower level: assistant teacher and lecturer 2,206 783 2,989 COLOUMN TOTAL 4,028 791 4,819 Note: The chi-square statistic is 548.9369. The p-value is < .00001. The result is significant at p < .05 Table 4 Observed frequencies in the use of gender marking in academic positions by type of university TYPE OF UNIVERSITY MASCULINE MARKING FEMININGE MARKING ROW TOTAL King Abdulaziz University 3,017 409 3,426 King Saud University 1,016 380 1,396 COLOUMN TOTAL 4,033 789 4,822 Note: The chi-square statistic is 169.2716. The p-value is < .00001. The result is significant at p < .05 16 Training, Language and Culture
Do Saudi academic women use more feminised speech to describe their professional titles? An evidence from corpus
by Reem Alkhammash and Haifa Al-Nofaie
As seen in Table 4, there is significant variation which claims that type of position affects women’s
in using feminine markers between the two uni- choice of masculine or feminine titles on their
versities investigated (p-value < .00001). Clearly, CVs. Lipovsky’s (2015) analysis finds that French
masculine marker use is statistically different women associate the use of masculine markers in
between women academics at King Abdulaziz job titles with prestigious occupations, and ex-
University and King Saud University. This supports plains that women tend to prefer the masculine
Hypothesis 3, which states that Saudi women aca- form as a way to valorise their occupation. Simi-
demics who work at King Abdulaziz University larly, Saudi academics who hold higher academic
use different gender-marking practices compared degrees prefer to use masculine titles rather than
to those who work at King Saud University. feminine ones. This could be due to a perception
of prestige associated with the masculine titles as
5. DISCUSSION found in other research (e.g. Glick et al., 1995).
Since the increasingly-prevalent use of feminine The findings may indicate a hierarchy of perceived
nouns in gendered languages is indicative of a prestige which leads to the prevalence of mascu-
changing society (Formato, 2019), this study in- line forms in higher academic positions. Also, con-
vestigates whether the changing Saudi society – trary to the belief that the feminisation of job titles
particularly, the attention paid to women’s status in cultivates agency for professional women in highly
the country – has influenced the language use of regarded professions, this finding may suggest that
Saudi women in academia regarding CVs. The Saudi academic women might not be aware of the
quantitative analysis of gender representation in effect of feminising their titles when it comes to
professional identity is useful in describing trends representing their professional identity. It might
in Arabic language usage. Furthermore, such also mean that there is a prestigious association of
quantitative analysis determines which factors may top-level academic positions with masculinised
have contributed significantly to variation of titles, a belief that might be held by Saudi women
usage. This method of analysis is not without limit- academics.
ations. For one, the analysis in this study did not In testing the second hypothesis, regarding the
consider the views of Saudi women academics relation between type of gender marking and aca-
and their justification for the predominant use of demic field, the results show that Saudi women
masculine language. Interviewing a sample of academics in scientific fields do not use gender
Saudi women academics could contribute to an markers differently than those in the humanities,
understanding of their awareness of their language education or social science. This finding is in con-
choices and their attitudes towards the feminisa- trast with studies suggesting that women in STEM
tion of job titles in general. fields are more aware of gender bias in the work-
The results of this study reveal that the majority place (El Nagdi & Roehrig, 2019).
of Saudi women academics tend to use masculine This study found a significant relationship
markers in their job titles. The overall trend in us- between type of institution and the use of
age relies heavily on masculine markers in aca- gendered job titles. King Saud University, one of
demic titles in these women’s CVs, with some fluc- the oldest universities in the country, was estab-
tuation of usage in the lower ranks, where the fem- lished in 1957, and King Abdulaziz University was
inisation of titles is more common. The study finds established later in 1967. The two universities are
that academic women who are in the lower rank in different locations, which does seem to influ-
in the academic career use feminised professional ence their female employees’ use of gendered
titles, while academic women who are in higher titles. It could be that the two universities bear
rank in their academic career use masculine forms many similarities, as they are located in the largest
in their professional titles. These findings seem to cities of Saudi Arabia and have the largest number
be in accordance with Lipovsky’s (2015) study, of Saudi academics. This finding is also in line
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