'Men in Grey Suits': Androcentric Language in the House of Commons : A Corpus-Assisted Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract: Whilst the number of women in the British Parliament increases in line with social progress towards gender equality, androcentric language use in the House of Commons prevails and perpetuates a harmful outdated hierarchical order of gender. The aims of this study are two-fold, (1) to gain insight into how androcentric occupational titles are used to negotiate the hierarchical structure of the Chamber, (2) to explore how MPs’ male bias is reflected by their use of androcentric generic nouns. From a gender perspective with the theoretical framework of feminist critical discourse analysis (CDA), this study analyses debates from the Hansard at Huddersfield Corpus. The analysis found that the term chairman can be used to ascribe rank as it contains an additional level of authority that the gender-neutral chair lacks. Through the use of androcentric generic nouns, the analysis uncovered how a male bias is internalised from various linguistic constructions such as conventional expressions and quotations that portray man as the norm. Stereotypical associations to denominators of professions, subject areas, and their hierarchical order determined by the hegemonic relationship between women and men were found to influence lexical choices. As a result of MPs’ use of androcentric generic nouns, non-male people are misrepresented and constrained by the implications of their connotated gendered meanings.