On the article „Žena a vědec? To mi nejde dohromady.“ by Jana Valdrová Cover Image

K článku Jany Valdrové „Žena a vědec? To mi nejde dohromady.“
On the article „Žena a vědec? To mi nejde dohromady.“ by Jana Valdrová

Author(s): Jan Chromý
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: AV ČR - Akademie věd České republiky - Ústav pro jazyk český
Keywords: gender linguistics; markedness; generic masculine

Summary/Abstract: This paper reacts to the article by Jana Valdrová, Žena a vědec? To mi nejde dohromady (Naše řeč 1/2008). This reaction is based on some doubtful aspects of the research presented: 1. Jana Valdrová uses the concept of markedness in a nontraditional sense compared to the one known, for example, from Roman Jakobson. The problem with which she is concerned is not a question of whether a generic masculine noun is or is not unmarked, but rather, a question of the frequency of one of the meanings of the unmarked member of the correlation pair. 2. The selected method of testing the associations evoked by the generic masculine does not prove the statement that “generic masculine is usually associated with the image of a man”, because it leaves out the role of the context and does not analyze the plural forms of the professions examined. In this paper, I propose another test to prove the assumptions in a slightly more effective manner.

  • Issue Year: 2008
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 197-200
  • Page Count: 4
  • Language: Czech