Ahad, 15 April 2012

Week 13

In week 13, we studied the Muted Group Theory. Kramarae stated in Griffin (2009, p.454) that language is constructed by man. What women's says and what they think, have been ignored in the society. When women tried to overthrow this state of being unequal, the male control over communication puts them at a great disadvantage. The reason why women has been considered as a muted group because the language that has been made by man "aids in defining, depreciating and excluding women." (Griffin, 2009, p.454).

According to Griffin (2009, p.455), Edwin Ardener gave the idea that women is a muted group, where he stated that "many ethnographers to claim to have "cracked the code" of a culture without ever making any direct reference to the half of society made up of women." Muted Group is defined as "people with little power who have trouble giving voice to their perceptions because they must re-encode their thoughts to make them understood by the public; e.g. women." (Griffin, 2009, p.455). The reason for mutedness is due to the lack of power that surrounds group of  people with low social status. In Griffin (2009, p.455), Ardener said that "muted structures are 'there' but cannot be 'realize' in the language of dominant structure." So they're neglected. suppress and unseen, in short, they are merely black hole to others universe. 

The main issue is that whether people could say what they want when or where? Or they should adjust their thoughts so that they could be understood by the public? Kramarae's extended Adeners first concept to why women are muted and how to free them. Kramarae argue in Griffin (2009, p.455) that "the ever-prevalent public-private distinction in language is a convenient way to exagerrate gender difference and pose separate sexual spheres of activity." 

Women sees the world in a different way than men. This is due to the different in experience and activities. Because of men political dominance, the system how men sees the world is dominant also thus blocking on how women sees the world. Again, because of this, there's a lot of offensive, gender-specific terms that refers to women, even the sexual active women. 

In Griffin (2009, p.457) even thought the public mode of expression has a lot of vocabulary to describe the feminine experience, but they would still be muted if their mode of expression is still being ignored. Even the cultural establishment exclude women media entertainment virtually from the society mass media. "Kramarae sees traditional mainstream communication as malestream expression." (Griffin, 2009, p.457). Women aren't even give their rightful place in history. 

Griffin (2009, p.459) stated that "in order to participate in society women must transform their own models in terms of the received male system of expression." The process of translation requires a steady effort and leaves the women wondering whether she had done it right or not.
In Griffin (2009, p.460-461), Kramarae stated "females are likely to find ways to express themselves outside the dominant public modes of expression used by males in both their verbal conventions and their nonverbal behavior." She labels this 'ways' as the female 'sub-version' that runs without the male beliefs. The men have more difficulty in understanding what the other gender means than female, this due the lack of effort. Also, the reason why men don't listen to women because it would be a resignation of their privileged position. The main aim of this theory is too change the man-made linguistic system that abuses the women, but this include in challenging the sexist dictionary. Sexual harassment is a popular term that represents a grand victory to the feminist communication scholars. 

I am going to use the "House Bunny" movie. Where even among those multiple group of sorority, there's one sorority that is considered as Muted. This sorority house is called the "Zeta Alpha Zeta". The reason on why they are muted because they are socially awkward. There sorority was going to be shut down unless they have 30 pledges. Shelley (played by Anna Faris) decided to help the sorority out by changing them. This means that they have "translate" themselves so that they could be accepted so they would receive this pledges. During the day of taking the pledges, they decided to change themselves again, this time, their personality is half themselves and half-shelley. Below is the video where they had to change themselves 


References

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. (7th ed.). Glencoe, IL: McGraw Hill.

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