Can changing language structures change social relationships? – 09/30/2024 – Thaís Nicoleti

It is always interesting to observe how the language behaves in the face of the tensions that are reflected in it. For some time now, many people have started to be corrected in public on live broadcasts on the internet by an audience committed to tracking the signs of racism, machismo, homophobia and other prejudices that would be inscribed in the language. There were many who began to monitor not only other people’s speech but also their own, aware that changing words is a way of changing the world. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Time will tell.

Soap opera characters, who generally appear in the plot merchandising products, also began to sell the civilizing lessons of “woke” culture. “Black clouds” that heralded bad weather were replaced with “gray clouds” and many other examples were incorporated into the scripts. At the same time, minister Anielle Franco highlighted that terms such as “black box” and “black hole”, which seemed unsuspecting, also had a charge of racial prejudice.

The verb “denigrate”, even though it has been used since Latin in the sense of tarnishing one’s reputation, was one of the main targets of racial literacy primers that appeared on the internet, associated with people’s skin color, always with the warning that it was very It is important to change linguistic habits. The motivation is the best; We just don’t know yet whether this will actually contribute to the end of racism and other prejudices.

The other day, I heard someone being corrected on a live stream when using the expression “single mother”, which should be replaced by “solo mother”. The explanation was that “single mother” is a prejudiced expression because marital status has nothing to do with motherhood. Perfect. In this case, perhaps the ideal would be to delete the adjective: since we don’t say “married mother” or “widowed mother”, why say “single mother”? Just say “mother”.

However, apparently, it remains necessary, for several reasons, to distinguish between women who carry out motherhood alone. Therefore, the appropriate term is “solo mother”, which would be free from the negative connotation in a world in which women are no longer economically dependent on a man and can choose to be a mother alone. Being a solo mother, however, is not always an option; most of the time, it is a very difficult and even heroic undertaking – and the prejudice against women, stronger than words, did not cease to exist even with the adoption of the new expression, according to reports published in the press.

Another interesting case is that of the expression “person with disability”, which would replace “disabled”, as no human being should be defined by their disability – the use of the word “person” would have an important role in raising awareness that possible disabilities do not impede someone to have a normal life. Indeed, but what we see today is that the expression was reduced to an acronym (PwD) and read “pê-cê-dê”. It is likely that this simplification occurred due to the principle of economy, which is very important in communication.

For some time now, electoral courts have been insistently using the construction “voters” and also “voting person”. It seems like things have been changing. In academic works, especially in the area of ​​humanities, the use of so-called “inclusive” language became “mandatory”, so that, where one read “the historians”, one began to read “the historians” – and so on, always with both words, masculine and feminine. In academia, use has become common.

One thing, however, we must recognize. This practice, in addition to making the text boring, is completely unnecessary. The reason is very simple: the form “historians”, in the masculine, generalizes the people who carry out this activity. It is the condition of “historian” that matters when we use the term in general (for example, “historians of the last century”), not the identity of the human being. The term feminine exists for situations in which we are dealing with one or more women in particular (“a historian of the period”). This applies to any term that indicates function, condition, profession, etc., but it does not apply, obviously, to men and women. No one ever said “men present here” with the intention of encompassing “men and women”, right?

The tongue is wise. She selects what works. For example, in the teachers’ room, people who teach at the school (teachers and professors) gather; the bank workers’ union brings together people who work in banks (banks and bank employees); In these cases, as in many others, people’s profession matters, which is what unifies them (teachers, bank employees). Have you ever thought about duplicating all terms all the time? No one can do it, no one can handle it.

Perhaps this explains the unusual choice that an important college made when publishing the list of students enrolled in a subject. Under the title “enrolled students”, came the names: Adão, Artur, Eduardo, Fabiana, etc. The reasoning must have been that feminine grammatical gender could – why not? – play the role of generic.

The problem is that it is not within our power to make a change of this nature, of a structural nature. Language is a self-managed collective construction. It is the collective represented by the speakers that determines what changes and what does not, what is appropriate and what is not. It is easy to see this in the case of neologisms, which, when useful or functional, become part of the language, even if some reject them out of attachment to tradition or for other reasons.

It wasn’t so long ago that the verb “acessar” was frowned upon by grammarians (in Portugal, “aceder” is used), but today, although it still appears in the “Houaiss” dictionary as “informal”, it is frequently used in the press and media. university students. Regarding the “politically correct terms” primers, their value lies in mobilizing discussions and awareness processes, but, in practice, they are insufficient to determine definitive changes in the language. It is always the group of speakers who define what works – and, obviously, this occurs naturally, not through some type of poll.

The pronoun “all”, for example, is an indefinite pronoun that indicates inclusive totality (all people). It is one of the most inclusive words in the language (alongside “everything”), but the inclusion guide recommends greeting “all”, reducing the scope of “all”, which would be restricted to the male gender. It can be said that this greeting formula was well accepted and ended up becoming a rule of etiquette in some places. You greet “everyone” and then you are free to continue talking in an economical way.

Older people will remember the speeches of President José Sarney (term from 1985 to 1990), which invariably began with the slogan “Brazilians and Brazilians”. Paying attention to grammar, he took care to use the feminine before the masculine so that the masculine would not be taken as generic. Had Sarney already awakened to the need for inclusive language?

Time will tell if society has changed in the wake of the words or if the movement is exactly the opposite. Let’s wait.