ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the theoretical underpinnings of feminist views on the relationship between culture and language. Linguistic relativity has been of great interest to feminist linguists. If language can be shown to influence or determine thought, then sexist language will influence speakers in the direction of sexist thought. During the 1970s and early 1980s, feminists began voluntarily to alter language to reflect and to draw attention to the masculist inflections of our vocabulary. Etymologically, woman does not derive from man in the way feminists have often thought, and the word man has not always referred to both the species and the male of the species. One of the main reasons for writing a feminist dictionary is to correct the omissions and distortions of traditional lexicographers. Feminist coinages have been opposed and challenged in the home, in universities, at work, and, crucially in the press.
