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Language, Technology, Gender, and Power

Department of Management, University of St. Andrews, Kennedy Gardens, St. Andrews, Fife KY169DJ, Scotland.

This paper stems from a concern with how women are linguistically excluded in organizations. The paper will focus mainly on the form of language associated with technical change. Using research data the paper explores how metaphors are used within organizations which are in the process of adopting new technical systems, and what their use achieves. It is argued that men seek, knowingly or unknowingly, to facilitate the technological change process by drawing upon linguistic resources which reproduce relations of power. These resources are constituted as discourses of "battle," "maleness," and of "religious evangelism," expressed through metaphor. The language also serves the function of providing a vehicle for change; it marks out the "rules" as to how change is to be achieved; it not only helps differentiate "saints" from the "sinners" but helps re-enforce the power and all-encompassing dominance of male ideology in organizations. Language creates a reality which is gender-biased.

Key Words: language • technology • gender • power

Human Relations, Vol. 45, No. 9, 883-904 (1992)
DOI: 10.1177/001872679204500902


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