A corpus-based view of lexical gender in written Business English

Abstract This article investigates lexical gender in specialized communication. The key method of analysis is that of forms of address, professional titles, and ‘generic man’ in a 10 million word corpus of written Business English. After a brief introduction and literature review on both gender in specialized communication and similar corpus-based views of lexical gender in General English, the results obtained are explained. Mixed results were found. On the one hand, the ‘male-as-norm’ principle contributes to reinforcing typical gender stereotypes: for example, for each woman referred to in the corpus, there are more than 100 occurrences for man. On the other hand, advocates of non-sexist English have also influenced written Business English: for example, Ms is more than 9 times as frequent as Mrs. and Miss, which sustains the claim that equates Ms with professional settings. This article ends by discussing the ways in which the research findings of this study could positively impact upon the teaching of Business English.

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