1

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN DISCRIMINATORY LANGUAGE USE IN THE TVSITCOM "Everybody Loves Raymond" Our use of language embodies attitudes as well as referential meanings. Robin Lakoff, 19731 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1. Social Implications of Discriminatory Language "Language both shapes and reflects social reality. Discriminatory language is therefore both a symptom of, and a contributor to, the unequal social status of women, people with a disability and people from various ethnic and racial backgrounds."2 This means that language may not be seen as simply a neutral tool for the transmission of referential meaning, because it is an important instrument of social practice, which contributes to the communication, maintenance and change of ideologies, attitudes and stereotypes. You may include or exclude other people from social occurrences only by means of language, or its potential to build and protect or disrupt social relations.3 Discriminatory language is the one aimed at a range of different identity features like sex and gender, sexuality, race, class, age, physical or mental disability, religious or political beliefs, socio-economic status and background. It is used in order to create or intensify differences and intolerance among people. The complex social category of identity has great
1

Lakoff, R., Language and woman's place, Language in Society, Vol. 2, No. 1, Cambridge University Press, April 1973, pp. 45-80
2

The University of Salford: A GUIDE TO NON-DISCRIMINATORY LANGUAGE . Taken from: http://policies.salford.ac.uk/display.php?id=186, 15 November, 2011 3 Cfr. Hellinger, M., Guidelines for Non-discriminatory Langauge Use, The Sage Handbook of Sociolinguistic,sage Publications Inc., UK, 2011, p.565

37 implications for language, which becomes the most successful way of transferring a discriminatory message. Discriminatory language4 may have the following forms:

a) Stereotypes A stereotype is a conventional and simplistic image of a person or a particular group, usually formed by isolating or exaggerating certain featuresphysical, intellectual, cultural, national, religious, occupational, personal, customary, and so onwhich seem to characterize a group or person, thus making that group or person extravagant or odd in a positive or negative sense. These are some of the common stereotypes5: Jews are greedy, nit-picky, stingy misers. Italians are delinquent, tolerant of violence and political corruption. Physically attractive people also possess other socially desirable personality traits. Nurses are commonly expected to be female and so male nurses are stereotyped as effeminate and homosexual. Females should marry and have children. They should also be loving, compassionate, caring, nurturing, sympathetic and attractive.

Cfr. What is discriminatory language? At: http://www.equity.uts.edu.au/language/inclusive/why.html, 15 November 2011

5

Cfr. STEREOTYPE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype, 15 November 2011

37 Males are financial providers. They are usually assertive, competitive, independent, courageous, career-focuses, unemotional and authoritarian.

Derogatory labels A derogatory label is an offensive term used to mark an individual or a group, usually having unforeseen consequences, adversely affecting not only the person aimed at but also the society as a whole. As with stereotypes, labels are in most cases inaccurate, reductive and overly simplistic. Usual examples include the imposed label queue jumpers to refer to refugees or asylum seekers, welfare cheats for the unemployed, wogs for European immigrants and their children, poofters for gay men, abos for Indigenous Australians, bimbos for blondes, spazzes for people living with cerebral palsy, and geriatrics for older people.

Offensive language Sometimes discussions and debates over particular topics get heated, which results in shouting and offences among participants. Such forms of language are referred to as expletives- exclamations, swearwords or oaths and sounds expressing an emotional reaction rather than any particular meaning (the F-word, but also dummy subjects like it is, there are etc.). Trivializing language

37 Language that trivializes and makes the other person inferior. It reinforces differences in power between the in-group and the out-group by using patronizing and demeaning terms, comments and jokes such as:

a) Girls in the office, just a housewife, and checkout chick: trivialisation along gender lines often disparages womens work. Alternatives are: office worker, homeworker, salesperson. b) Dear, love, sweetie, for women, or gran for an older person: which are inappropriate if there is no established familiarity between speaker and addressee. Extra-visibility Mentioning peoples sex, sexuality, race, ethnic or national background, accent, or disability, or drawing attention to their physical characteristics or features however unintentionally or unwittingly contributes to the negative ways by which these people are regarded and treated.

Invisibility Discriminative language may also be noticed through invisibility. For example, the word man used to refer to all people erases women from the category of people. Another form of discriminatory invisibility is the false generic, denoting that the word is used generically when it refers to all the members of a class. But, while implying to refer to all

37 those members, actually leaves some members out. For example, the following statement by a woman comes from a daytime television show: All the women in our audience will be thrilled by the firemens calendar this year. This claim uses women as a false generic by assuming that the audience is composed of heterosexual women only; lesbians are made invisible by the statement, as are any men in the audience who might be interested in the calendar.

1.2.

Motivation This paper grew out of a desire to investigate the relation of gender and discriminatory

language in the American TV-sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond . A situation comedy or sitcom is a TV- show in which "setting and a group of characters provide the opportunity for a comic narrative, usually resolved in 25-30 minutes (although the situation remains open to future disruption), and broadcast in a series of five or more episodes."6 Everybody Loves Raymond Everybody Loves Raymond is an American TV- sitcom that originally ran on CBS from September 13, 1996, to May 16, 2005. Situations from the show mainly present the reallife experiences of the main actor Ray Romano, creator/producer Phil Rosenthal and the show's writing staff. The main characters on the show are also created on Romano's and Rosenthal's real-life family members.
6

Stafford, R.: TV Sitcoms and Gender, Media Education Magazine, Riddlesden, Keighley, 2004, pp. 1-5; http://www.mediaculture-online.de, 23 October, 2011

37 The sitcom describes the life of an Italian-American newspaper sportswriter called Raymond Barone, who lives with his family in Lynbrook, Long Island, New York. Disorganized and light-minded, Raymond makes jokes all the time, no matter how troubling or problematic the situation were, and constantly avoids responsibilities as a husband and father. 1.3. Area of Investigation Language is one of the most notable features that sets Everybody Loves Raymond apart from many other similar American sitcoms. The language of the five main characters reflects everyday expectations about masculine and feminine ways of speaking, but also how discriminatory utterances may affect people around us. Theories on language and gender, but also on depricating humor use keep pace with this assumption. The five main characters of the show are completely different from each other in their behavior and personality. "Is it possible to distinguish different linguistic behavior in the characters? Are the individual characters personalities manifested through their language? " 7 These are only a few of the questions that made the author interested in investigating and analyzing the language used in this TV-sitcom. Another important motive is the action on the screen as a representation of the real world.

1.4. Hypotheses a) There are some preconcieved ideas about women and men incorporated into the script of the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. b) Men and women do act differently in discriminatory language use.

Skov, Andersen M. L. at al : Blurred Sex and the City - An Analysis of Language and Gender in Sex and the City, http://rudar.ruc.dk/handle/1800/1653, 23 October 2011

37 1.5. Research Questions a) How is gender represented through the main characters use of discriminatory language? b) Does the language in Everybody Loves Raymond reflect how women and men talk to each other in reality?

1.6 Methodology

Exploring the gender differences in discriminatory language used in the TV-sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond required several methodological proceedures described as follows: Preparation for this sociolinguistic analysis included watching 10 randomly chosen episodes of the show found on the Internet. It also required re-watching the episodes and taking notes into a special coding sheet. In addition, we went through a detailed linguistic analysis of the discriminatory features in the characters' language, which led us to giving some suggestions and discussing a few implications for the future reseach.

1.7.

Limitations

37 The purpose of this paper is to investigate the discriminatory language features in the language of the 5 main characters of the sit-com "Everybody Loves Raymond, so other conversational elements including pauses, interruptions and nonverbal communication, are left out of this study. The paper analyzes only 10 different episodes, so we are aware of the fact that it cannot portray the series as a whole in terms of language. But the scenes that were chosen seemed as valuable examples of meaningful gender characteristics within discriminatory language use. Finally, the series "Everybody Loves Raymond," was produced in the USA and reflects the cultural reality of an American family. If it were a British or other production, there would certainly be some cultural differences, but, in this context, they would probably be negligible.

2. THEORETHICAL FRAMEWORK "Watching television is a way to both escape from physical reality and learn social actions. People may or may not admit imitating behaviors they are exposed to on television, but (...), there is modeling occurring constantly."8

Hummel, L.; Shake, S.:Exploring gender differences in deprecatory humor use: Discriminatory utterances aimed at women. Hanover College, April 2007 AT: http://psych.hanover.edu/research/thesis07/HummelShakePaper.pdf

37 TV-sitcoms mostly deal with situations that are familiar to the ordinary people like making and having dinner, dating, shopping, working and spending free time, which makes them very popular source of entertainment. However, a few studies discussed that such shows might breed and encourage social inequality, especially due to the fact that modern society is mostly consisted of people in higher and lower positions. This social inequality is rather evident considering the discriminatory language used in tv-sitcoms. Hummel and Shake9 say: Television is one medium that allows reality to be both reflected and later afected, which makes it a great source of information for sociolinguists. The use of discriminatory utterances aimed at different social groups, has probably been a major problem since the invention of sitcoms.10 Most theorists report that this kind of humorous language has extremely negative consequences for the society as a whole. Berger11 says: the ability to direct laughter at individuals, groups, institutions, ideas, what you will, is really a form of power... However, this "power" might be dangerous in cases where it breeds and encourages social inequality and intolerace towards social differences. This has been well-described by Ford and Ferguson12, who developed the Prejudiced Norm Theory claiming that "when exposed to prejudical jokes, people may begin to accept the norm of prejudice implied by the joke." 13
9

Ibidem, p. 9

10

Pinwright's Progress was a British sitcom that aired on the BBC Television Service from 1946 to 1947 and was the world's first regular half-hour sitcom. Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinwright's_Progress:Pinwright's Progress, 11 January 2011
11

Berger, A.A., The Anatomy of Humor, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA, 1993,p. 9; At:http://books.google.hr/, 22 November 2011
12

Viki Tendayi, G. at al,The Effect of Sexist Humor and Type of Rape on Men's Self-reported Rape Proclivity and Victim Blame, Current Reseach in Social Psychology, Vol. 13, No. 10, Iowa University, 2007; At: http://www.uiowa.edu, 22 November 2011, pp.123-124 13 Ibidem, p.124

37 This leads to uncriticalness considering the discriminatory jokes aimed at different social groups. For example, men become more tolerant of a sexist event after being exposed to sexist humor.14 Breeding and encouraging social inequality or prejudices through humor

"communicates a message of tacit approval of tolerance of discrimination against members of the targeted group."15 Kaschak gives a perspective that is focused on society's role in shaping gender inequality, claiming that "men grow and develop in societies that give them power in the household and in the workplace; women grow and develop in these societies where they are viewed as subservient and as males' possessions."16 Hummel and Shake present a new way of exploring depricatory humor use, with a special accent on gender-specific humorous language features, showing that popular tvsitcoms, which greatly influence young generations, do encourage and perpetate social (especially gender) ineaquality.17 Newman at al pointed out that "gender differences in language use likely reflect a complex combination of social goals, situational demands, and socialization" 18, which is, actually, taken as the guiding principle of the current study.

14

Ibidem, p.124.

15

Ford, T. E., Ferguson, M. A., Social Consequences of Disparagement Humor: A Prejudiced Norm Theory, Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2004, Vol. 8, No. 1, 79-94. Taken from: http://psr.sagepub.com at UNIV OF MINNESOTA DULUTH on February 19, 2008 16 Hummel, L.; Shake, S.:Exploring gender differences in deprecatory humor use: Discriminatory utterances aimed at women. Hanover College, April 2007 AT: http://psych.hanover.edu/research/thesis07/HummelShakePaper.pdf 17 Ibidem,
18

Newman, M. at al, Gender Differences in Language Use:An Analysis of 14,000 Text Samples, Discourse Processes, No 45, Routledge, 2008, pp. 211236

37 This particular study investigated discriminatory humor used in the TV-sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond", also trying to indicate the possible negative effects of such humor on the future generations.

3. ANALYSIS

Investigating the discriminatory language used in the TV-sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond", with a special review of the gender differences in application of such utterances, required a few analytical proceedures: watching the sitcom, recording and re-listening the characteristic utterances, completing the forms adopted from the Hummel and Shake coding scheme19, doing statistical analysis and, finally, discussing the findings. While doing the total analysis of the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond we bore in mind the fact that comical situations in the sitcom are actually created through interpersonal conflict defined as a struggle between two people because they have conflicting goals or needs or because of some misunderstanding.20 Interpersonal conflicts are an interesting " part of everyday life and may be seen from minor disagreements with friends, families, spouses, and others to major disputes, which may be deciding factors for the future of certain
19

Ibidem,

20

Fernandez, A., Conflict Analysis on Everybody Loves Raymond, Farquhar Student Journal, Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2008, p.2 At: www.fcas.nova.edu/arts/...fall/Fernandez.pdf -

37 relationships."21 These conflicts are represented through the language, as the most important vehicle of discriminatory humor in the sitcom mentioned, which will be shown in the further analysis.

3.1. Data collection As mentioned earlier, the study of discriminatory humor in the American TV series "Everybody Loves Raymond", included watching some randomly chosen episodes from different seasons of the sitcom. We watched at a total of 10 randomly chosen episodes from the first 5 seasons. During the preliminary watching of these episodes, special attention was devoted to relation of the discriminatory statements and gender. Due to the needs of the research, selected episodes were watched again in order to carefully record each characteristic linguistic behavior of the characters. Discriminatory statements were recorded in the so-called coding scheme, adapted from the scheme that had been made by Shake and Hummel, whose work dealt with a similar linguistic issue. 3.1.1.Coding scheme Development of the Coding Scheme (see Appendix 1) has greatly facilitated this study because we recorded all the characteristic discriminatory statements of the characters, taking into account the time when something was spoken, gender of the speakers and interlocutors and the discriminatory contents of the statement. All these items are shown in tables in separate columns in order to facilitate the readers reference. 3.1.2.Data

21

Ibidem, p.2

37 The sit-com "Everybody Loves Raymond" was selected for this study because it shows almost a typical middle class family of the father, who is the familys bread-provider, and a full-time housewife and mother, who live in a typical American home with their three children. An emphasis is put on marital relations of Raymond and Debra and their everyday family life, which is regularly violated by Raymonds demanding and intolerant parents and unmarried and historically jealous older brother. The fact that there are stil re-runs of this sitcom in many European countries is very important because this means that it is very close to the ordinary people for reflecting their own everyday family lives, which also makes it a very appropriate material for investigation in social sciences and humanities.

3.1.3.Apparatus The total of 10 episodes of the series were watched via the Internet service YouTube, which has proven as an extremely useful source of information, since it contained almost all episodes of the series with the English subtitles included. In addition, the reproduction of the series on YouTube may be paused when necessary, which greatly facilitated the recording of the characteristic discriminatory statements that were investigated in this study. 3.1.4.Data Analysis

a) Coding schemes analysis

37 After coding the data relevant to the analysis of discriminatory language spoken in the series "Everybody Loves Raymond", we presented the total number of characteristic utterances in a table, as well as the number of such utterances in relation to the speaker and addressee's gender. From this review it is evident that the males in the series speak in a discriminatory way more often than the females, as shown in the table below:

Table 1: The number of discriminatory utterances according to gender and aim

COMPLETE NUMBER

SPOKEN OF BY MALES

SPOKEN BY FEMALES

AIMED AT MALES 32

AIMED AT AIMED FEMALES AT BOTH 37 4

UTTERANCES 73 47

26

We may also notice that discriminatory utterances in this series are more addressed to females than to males. After that we looked at the topics that were mostly discussed by the characters and classified them according to gender of the speaker and frequency of occurrence. We have also chosen the topics mutually used by both male and female characters in order to compare their occurrence. This comparison also showed that males were more apt to speak in a discriminatory way, which may be seen from the table and diagram below:

Table 2: The topics mutually used by both male and female characters MALES masculinity vs femininity 9 FEMALES 3

37

sexual orientation one's personality

4 31

2 11

Chart 1: The graphical presentation of the topics mutually used by both male and female characters

b) Language analysis In this section a qualitative analysis of discriminatory language is given regarding the following components of such a language: stereotypes, derogatory labels, offensive language, trivializing language, extra-visibility and invisibility. All these elements were analyzed taking into account the gender of the speakers and "targets" to which discriminatory remarks were addressed.

Male Language

37 The analysis of the particular statements given by the male characters from the series "Everybody Loves Raymond" shows that they often use discriminatory language, mentioning gender, sexual orientation, age, disability or physical appearance of the person to whom the statement is addressed, which is usually a woman. In these statements, one might notice stereotypical views that men are the measure of all things, and that their physical and mental characteristics as well as their deeds, thoughts and beliefs make the image of the human race in general. We will take a few expressions in order to show how language may act as a "vehicle for discrimination".22 Some statements of the male characters go deep into the area of basic human rights, promoting inequality among people, especially gender inequality. Man stands out as the head of the family and masculine as the superior gender, which is best seen from the following example:

SEASON 4 EPISODE 2: YOU BET Frank: Well, let me tell you something. God programmed man to sow his seed where he may. He programmed woman to limit the crop to one farmer.This broad didn't get with the programme. The whole utterance above is totally discriminatory towards women, but the usage of the personal pronoun he is the most important indicator of gender stereotyping in this case. It is obvious that he in this particular utterance is used on purpose in order to emphasize that even God is a male, so that the masculine gender must be the generic gender.

22

Cfr. Inclusive Language

at :www.adcet.edu.au/StoredFile.aspx?...

37 The pronoun woman is also used as a marker of female inferiority and ignorance, as shown in the example below: SEASON 4 EPISODE 10: LEFT BACK Frank: That's right. I schmoozed her. Hey, she is a human being. And a woman. Ray: Oh, no. Frank: And being a woman...she's a sucker for the old look how many photos of the children grandpa has in his wallet bit. What may also be noticed in the language of the male characters in the sitcom analyzed is an opened discriminatory portrayal of sexual identity, especially referred to males. SEASON 2 EPISODE 13: CIVIL WAR Frank to his pall Jeb: Yeah. You know what my son's doing while I'm out fighting? He's going to a baby shower. Jeb: Oh, yeah? Back in Civil War days we had names for guys like you. They're prettly much like the names we have for you today. SEASON 2 EPISODE 13: CIVIL WAR Frank (to Ray): Have a nice shower, Nancy! SEASON 3 EPISODE 14: PANTS ON FIRE Ray (to Frank): I'm cold, too.

37 Frank: Oh, you cupcake. The descriptive expressions guys like you, Nancy, or cupcake from the examples above appear in order to present sexual identity as an indicator of interests or abilities, which is totally unacceptable in contemporary world. Offensive, ironic and derogatory utterances or expressions at the expense of women, homosexuals and everything else that is unusual or "different" in any sense act as a spice added to the true "male humor" in the series, as follows from the lower examples:

Derogatory labels SEASON 4 EPISODE 3: THE CAN OPENER Robert to Ray: You stick to your guns, Deb, OK? Raymond's a jerk. I know the whole story, jerk. One little drop of fish juice, and you squeal like a stuck pig.

SEASON 4 EPISODE 10: LEFT BACK Ray: Ha, ha. Very funny. You have a stupid kid, you don't even care. SEASON 4 EPISODE 11: THE CHRISTMAS PICTURE Robert: Excuse me , Ray, can I ask you something? Ray: what? Robert: Amy (Robert's girlfriend) can't be in the picture, but there's plenty of room for hoity and toity (Debra's parents)?

37 SEASON 4 EPISODE 13: BULLY ON THE BUS Ray: See? Right there. That's what I'm talking about. That attitude. That smarty-pants, stick up for yourself... ... Ray: That's right. Every jerk I ever met was self-confident. ... Ray: See? You're bringing Ally into the family business. Debra Barone's Ass Kicking Incorporated. Pushing people down since 1972. .... Ray: Bully! You bully! ... You're stupid, idiot, stinker BM!

SEASON 5 EPISODE 8: FIGHTING IN-LAWS Ray: Either way, your perfect little Connecticut cut the crust of my cucumber sandwich parents are frauds.

37 Offensive language SEASON 2 EPISODE 13: CIVIL WAR Ray: Couples? Well, since when does the guy have to go to that? Oh, come on , they're screwing with nature now. SEASON 4 EPISODE 3: THE CAN OPENER Frank: RayI'm going to give you the secret to marital bliss. You see, son, when your mother got pregnant with Robert, the hormones turned her into a nut case. She'd cry for no reason, two seconds later she'd want to cuddle. She was, like, demented. Frank: Did it bother me? No. Because you cannot get upset with a crazy person. I decided fro that day on never to waste time on trying to understand your mother. I just accept she's insane. SEASON 4 EPISODE 10: LEFT BACK Frank: And being a woman...she's a sucker for the old look how many photos of the children grandpa has in his wallet bit. SEASON 4 EPISODE 14: PRODIGAL SON Frank: We don't need you part-timers droppin' by whenever you feel like it. It screws up the parking.

37 Male characters are also prone to using expressions which bring extra-visibility into the conversation, which means that they include irrelevant information about the addressee. Including irrelevant information can be discriminatory where that information: Overemphasizes a particular characteristic that is irrelevant or of minor importance, or sensationalizes aspects of a person's life or life style.23 The following examples show how extra-visibility may give a lot of importance to irrelevant information, and put the person in the background, emphasizing the persons physical appearance or sexual orientation, which have no impact on the quality of ones personality. SEASON 3 EPISODE 14: PANTS ON FIRE Marie: I'm freezing. (to Frank) What is it with you, we all have to get pneumonia so you can save 3 cents? Frank (to Marie):You know, most of the bodies heat escapes through the head, so you might want to seal up any large openings. SEASON 4 EPISODE 2: YOU BET Ray: I was in the Giants' locker room. I ended up in shower with Joe Taggert. ...and you know what he says to me? Frank: Do my back?

23

Ibidem

37 SEASON 5 EPISODE 8: FIGHTING IN-LAWS Robert: There's something about Debra's mom. She gives me the willies. Frank: What about the husband? He's the weird one.He's got all that lotion on him.All slick and moist like a beaver running through the woods. Male characters in the sit-com mentioned use partial invisibility as their discriminatory language strategy as well. The word invisibility is used in here to indicate that a certain group of people (women, for example) is linguistically subsumed under a label, name or term predominantly used to describe another group. The use of words and phrases such as "chairman", businessman", "man in the street" and others, as well as the pronoun "he", makes the presence of women in language invisible. 24 The term partial invisibility refers to the example below: SEASON 1 EPISODE 22: WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE? Raymond (after Debra told him that they are having twin boys): Am I a man, or what?! Huh!Oh! From this example it is clear that the word man is the most prominent word in Raymonds sentence, and masculinity is restated as the best human attribute. So, women are not linguistically subsumed under the term, but the repeated and strong emphasis on the word man makes women invisible and unimportant in the whole picture.

24

Ibidem

37 Finally, we should say a few words about the trivializing language used by men in order to minimize the importance of women, their deeds and accomplishments.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 13: CIVIL WAR Debra: You can recite a poem, do a skit. The proud parents will tape it as a tribute to the child. Ray: A tribute? Who's she's got in there, a Gandhi? SEASON 4 EPISODE 2: YOU BET Frank: Well, let me tell you something. God programmed man to sow his seed where he may. He programmed woman to limit the crop to one farmer.This broad didn't get with the programme. SEASON 4 EPISODE 10: LEFT BACK Frank: That's right. I schmoozed her. Hey, she is a human being. And a woman. ... You know, those teachers don't make squat. SEASON 4 EPISODE 13: BULLY ON THE BUS Robert (to Ray):Yeah. All right, all right, here's the one you can use: Debra, Debra real good lookin', never wanna try her cookin'.

37 This kind of language trivializes females existence and portrays males as superior gender. If we take only the word broad from the second example below, we might be surprised at some of the definitions of the term in the Urban Dictionary25 which say: 1 broad A term originated in the 1930's meaning woman; derived from the fact that the most defining characteristic of all females are their hips, which are proportionally wider than the hips of their male counterparts. "Look at those broads." 2 broad A lot of Italians and Italian-Americans use this.

It is a word you use to describe a female. Used alot durring the 1930's - 1950's. Now it is not as popular because most guys aren't respectable anymore. There are some guys who still use the term today.

John:

Hey

you

see

that

broad

over

there?

Tommy: Yeah thats one good The above examples show how women in the series, but also women in general, are not treated as whole human beings and with equal respect and dignity as men.Women are mostly presented through bodily images, despite of their intellectual capacities or other qualities.

Female Language

25

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=broad

37 Generally speaking, women in the series "Everybody Loves Raymond" use discriminatory language less than men. However, they are not resistant to the use of stereotypical or insulting expressions if they come into conflict, especially with members of the opposite sex. Stereotypical remarks used by female characters in the series are less focused on the opposite sex, and more on the family relationships or perpetual conflict between the motherin-law and daughter-in-law, which is expressed in the examples below: SEASON 4 EPISODE 9: NO THANKS Debra: Yeah, today was nice. But I can't be in the kitchen with your mother. That's the belly of the beast. SEASON 5 EPISODE 8: FIGHTING IN-LAWS Marie: Aw, isn't that nice? Connecticut grandma and grandpa and regular grandma and grandpa. However, after watching some episodes of the series, we suggest that women characters are able to speak in a very powerful and innovative way considering the use of offensive or derogatory terms, which is supported by the following examples: Derogatory labels SEASON 4 EPISODE 13: BULLY ON THE BUS Ray: That's right. Every jerk I ever met was self-confident. Debra:Yeah. Not every jerk.

37 ... Debra: That's better than working at Ray's House of Wuss. ... Debra: Hey, Lay-mond, gay-mond go away-mond! SEASON 5 EPISODE 8: FIGHTING IN-LAWS

Debra: Or, they're trying to work out some problems before their marriage turns into a screaming match, like your parents'. Arguing about how deep pan is before it's a pot. (Imitates Ray's parents) "If it's three inches, it's a pot, everybody knows that, Marie!" "If you can't boli an egg, then it's not a pot, you jackass!" ... Debra: If my parents lit an orphanage on fire on Christmass Eve, they wouldn't be as bad as your parents!

Offensive language SEASON 5 EPISODE 8: FIGHTING IN-LAWS

37 Debra: (Imitates Ray's parents) : Frank: "If it's three inches, it's a pot, everybody knows that, Marie!" Marie: "If you can't boli an egg, then it's not a pot, you jackass!" Women in the series are an endless source of sarcastic remarks and interesting metaphors that contribute to the quality of humor in the series. Specifically, comparing Frank and Maries marriage to a "screaming match" or make a whole lot of sarcastic derivatives from the name Raymond, as lay-mond, gay-mond, go-away-mond, serve as an evidence of the screenwriters sophisticated linguistic skills. However, we must not ignore the fact that these, seemingly harmless jokes, might have some far reaching consequences in terms of public attitudes towards the groups affected. Furthermore, we could say that women in the series are highly sophisticated and skilled considering the trivializing language. They put people down unmercifully with just a few simple words used in the right moment as follows from the examples below: SEASON 3 EPISODE 22: WORKING GIRL Debra: oh, my God. Oh, my God. I have to iron. Marie: Don't panic, dear. I'll walk you through it. ... Marie: Oh, yes, dear. I can't stop wondering about the children, though. They're already so thin. ...

37 And I'll wait for them here. Someone has to be home now they are latchkey children. ... Marie (to Debra): Oh, I'm sorry you've got fired. But, you know, it's probably for the best. If you want to expand your horizons, how about taking up gardening? I mean, you yard could use a lot of work. SEASON 4 EPISODE 9: NO THANKS Marie: Debra, I don't know why your rolls are all left. I liked them. The burnt part gave them some flavour. Oh, and don't worry about that pots and pans, honey. I know how to do those. SEASON 4 EPISODE 10: LEFT BACK Ray: Come on, don't you see? That's what I passed on to Michael. That's my legacy, the dumbness. Debra: No...You've passed on other things. You lack of tushie. The patronizing expressions above starting with oh or oh, dear, and fullfilled with false compassion, may be devastating considering the self-esteem and self-respect of the addressee. Female characters in the series are also prone to giving additional descriptions for each topic, even if it meant giving extra information that does not contribute to the quality of the expression: Extra-visibility

37 SEASON 2 EPISODE 13: CIVIL WAR Debra (to Ray): Oh, loook, as bad as this shower might be, it doesn't even compare to your dad's Civil War thing.... Can you imagine being stuck in a tent with your dad? That's where you need the ax. SEASON 4 EPISODE 13: BULLY ON THE BUS Debra: Listen. I know the idea of being independent is very different than your mother raised you. SEASON 5 EPISODE 8: FIGHTING IN-LAWS Debra: Would you just go to sleep? You should be happy to have normal people in the house for a change. ... Debra: And my parents, unlike yours, don't feel the need to everybody else. Debra: Or, they're trying to work out some problems before their marriage turns into a screaming match, like your parents'. Arguing about how deep pan is before it's a pot. (Imitates Ray's parents) "If it's three inches, it's a pot, everybody knows that, Marie!" "If you can't boli an egg, then it's not a pot, you jackass!" Debra: If my parents lit an orphanage on fire on Christmass Eve, they wouldn't be as bad as your parents! inflict their lives on

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5. Conclusive Remarks and Implications for Future Research

37 Although there were a few previuos research 26 considering the relationship of gender and discriminatory humor in tv-sitcoms, we might say there has been a gap in the existing bibliography in regards to the topic mentioned. In support to our first hypothesis supposing that there are some preconcieved ideas about women and men incorporated into the script of the sitcom Everybody loves Raymond, we did find many examples of such ideas incorporated into the text spoken by the characters in the sitcom, especially among the male characters. As opposed to Hummel and Shake's findings27, we found that males did say significantly more discriminatory utterances than females (see Table 1). We believe the reason for that lies in the fact that males exibit their social power and privileges over females through the language. "Just as male dominance is exhibited through male control of macro-institutions in society, it is also exhibited through male control of at least a part of micro-institutions" 28, which is, in this case, their linguistic ability to show power. Considering our second hypothesis, supposing that men and women do act differently in discriminatory language use, we revealed that there was a higher percentage of discriminatory utterances used by the male characters in the sitcom, wheteher aimed at females or different social groups, especially homosexuals. However, this may not be taken as a general truth, due to the fact that only one sitcom was analyzed, but might serve as an interesting basis for the future studies dealing with similar social issues.
26

See: Hummel, L.; Shake, S.:Exploring gender differences in deprecatory humor use: Discriminatory utterances aimed at women. Hanover College, April 2007, p.15
27

Hummel, L.; Shake, S.:Exploring gender differences in deprecatory humor use: Discriminatory utterances aimed at women. Hanover College, April 2007 , p.15: "We found that females did say significantly more deprecating utterances than males (see Figure 1)." 28 Zimmerman, Don/West, Candice: "Sex Roles, Interruptions and Silences in Conversations". In: Thorne, Barrie/Henley, Nancy (eds.): Language and Sex: Difference and Dominance, 1975, p.125

37 In addition, the current study revealed that female characters in the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond do use discriminatory language in order to achieve humoristic effect, but they seem to do that in a more refined way than the male characters. Respecting the findings above, we could say that they do confirm our second hypothesis. Finally, the researcher found the analysis of the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond as an inspiring source of information about interpersonal relationships in a typical suburbian American family. However, the comical effect which is achieved mainly through crude and discriminatory humor should get more researchers interested in similar analyses, especially considering the influence of such television shows on younger generations, who are prone to identify with the shows' characters. So, the producers should bare in mind the influence of their work on the audience in general, especially children going through the sensitive period of puberty due to the fact that modern teenagers are being bombed with different information and influenced by the mass media representation of what is correct and socially accepted.

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6. Bibliography 1 Berger, A.A., The Anatomy of Humor, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA, 1993, p. 9 2 Fernandez, A., Conflict Analysis on Everybody Loves Raymond, Farquhar Student Journal, Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2008, p.2 3 Ford, T. E., Ferguson, M. A., Social Consequences of Disparagement Humor: A Prejudiced Norm Theory, Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2004, Vol. 8, No. 1, 79-94. 4 Hellinger, M., Guidelines for Non-discriminatory Langauge Use,The Sage Handbook of Sociolinguistic,sage Publications Inc., UK, 2011, p.565 5 Hummel, L.; Shake, S.:Exploring gender differences in deprecatory humor use: Discriminatory utterances aimed at women. Hanover College, April 2007

Lakoff, R., Language and woman's place, Language in Society, Vol. 2, No. 1, Cambridge University Press, April 1973, pp. 45-80

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Newman, M. at al, Gender Differences in Language Use:An Analysis of 14,000 Text Samples, Discourse Processes, No 45, Routledge, 2008, pp. 211236

Skov, Andersen M. L. at al : Blurred Sex and the City - An Analysis of Language and Gender in Sex and the City, RUDAR - Roskilde University Digital Archive, Projectreports and master thesis, 2005

Stafford, R.: TV Sitcoms and Gender, Media Education Magazine, Riddlesden, Keighley, 2004, pp. 1-5

10 Viki Tendayi, G. at al, The Effect of Sexist Humor and Type of Rape on Men's Selfreported Rape Proclivity and Victim Blame, Current Reseach in Social Psychology, Vol. 13, No. 10, Iowa University, 2007, pp.123-124 11 Zimmerman, Don/West, Candice: "Sex Roles, Interruptions and Silences in

Conversations". In: Thorne, Barrie/Henley, Nancy (eds.) (1975): Language and Sex: Difference and Dominance. Rowley; p 125.

WEB PAGES 1 The University of Salford: A GUIDE TO NON-DISCRIMINATORY LANGUAGE. Taken from: http://policies.salford.ac.uk/display.php?id=186, 15 November, 2011 2 What is discriminatory language? At:

http://www.equity.uts.edu.au/language/inclusive/why.html, 15 November 2011

37 3 STEREOTYPE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype, 15 November 2011 4 EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everybody_Loves_Raymond, 15 November 2011 5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinwright's_Progress:Pinwright's Progress, 11 January 2011 6 http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Gordon_Allport

7 Inclusive Language at: www.adcet.edu.au/StoredFile.aspx?...

8 http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=broad

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