Premium Essay

Vulgar Language

In:

Submitted By mom2cameron
Words 964
Pages 4
Workplace Vulgar Language as a form of Sexual Harassment
ETH 321/Ethical and Legal Topics in Business
Lisa Pollock
Valentine Castillo
September 14, 2015 Workplace Vulgar Language as a form of Sexual Harassment
The possible defenses in the case could be that the words that were being used in C.H. Robinson which were considered vulgar were just non-specified gender words which are general vulgarities words commonly used in various workplaces. One can speak swear words like s…t and f…k which are not unlawful. The words can also be used while cracking jokes and not specified for a given gender. Defense may also argue that the words were being used even before Reeves was employed in the company hence they are common terms used in the company. The company can also defend the use of the terms/words by indicating that it was not gender specific since the terms can be used to refer to any gender in local languages.
However, the court ruling was based on gender specificity of the words used such as b…ch, c..t and w…re. The words and conducts of the speakers were directed towards the female gender which created a hostile and abusive workplace environment for a reasonable person. According to Oppenheimer (2014), the verbal conducts that creates hostile environment at the workplace have been prohibited by the Supreme Court through interpretation of the Title VII of Civil Rights Act of 1964. When the conduct or the acts of an individual in the workplace is adequately pervasive and severe to an extent that can alter the employment condition of a plaintiff hence creating workplace environment that the said plaintiff reasonably consider as abusive and; when a reasonable person in the position of the said plaintiff would consider such conduct, phrase or word as sufficiently severe and pervasive to an extent of altering his/her employment hence creating abusive workplace

Similar Documents

Free Essay

Origen Y EvolucióN de La Lengua Castellana

...la lengua castellana Antes del siglo III a.C. Periodo Pre Románico En el territorio español se ubicaron distintas tribus primitivas con sus respectivas lenguas. Algunas eran los íberos (de dónde proviene el nombre de península ibérica), celtas, ligures, griegos, cartaginenses, griegos, vascos, y fenicios, que llamaron a España Hispania. Solo perduró la lengua vascuence. Siglo III a.C. (Hasta siglo V) Invasión romana o período de romanización A partir de la invasión del Imperio Romano en España, se impone la cultura grecolatina, religión, organización política (todos dependían del emperador), moneda, leyes y lengua del mismo: el latín. La necesidad de comunicarse entre conquistadores y conquistados determinó que se adoptara el latín vulgar (excepto la región vasca), era la lengua del pueblo. Había un latín culto, literario, que era escrito y usado solamente por escritores. Siglo V Invasión de los bárbaros o germanos (caída del imperio) Los germanos (vikingos, grandes guerreros), empujados por el jefe de los hunos, invaden el Imperio, destruyen y abandonan caminos provocando así que cada región se aislara y perdiera contacto con Roma. No provenían del mismo lugar y no hablaban la misma lengua, por lo que no la impusieron, pero dejaron en la nuestra algunas palabras como yelmo, casco, espuela, guerra, escudo y bandera. Siglo IX a XII Nacimiento de las lenguas romances o neolatinas La cultura de los conquistadores era inferior a la de los conquistados, por lo que no lograron...

Words: 1519 - Pages: 7

Free Essay

Topics in Cultural Studies

...Romance is the native language of Europe that I chose to discuss. The term ”Romance” come from the Vulgar Latin adverb romanice, comes from Romanicus as an example the expression romanice loqui, “to speaking roman, that is the Latin Vernacular as well as with latine loqui, to speak in Latin that is Medival Latin and with Barbarice loqui this is to speak in Barbarian a non- Latin language from the people living outside the Roman Empire. The word Romance novel and love affair, Popular Tales that focused on Love in the medieval literature of Western Europe were composed in the vernacular and come to be called romances. The origins of romance languages are the continuation of Vular Latin. It was spoken by the soldiers, settlers, and merchants of the Roman Empire. The expansion of the Empire between 350 BC and AD 150, made Latin the dominant native language in the Continental Western Europe with its administrative and educational policies. Latin has a strong influence in Southeastern Britain; the Roman province of Africa and the Balkans north of the Jirecek Line. The Empire decline and after it was destroyed in the fifth century. Several types of Latin began to spread within each local area at a fast rate and developed into a continuum of recognizably different geology. In the 15 century the Portugal, Spain and France known as the overseas empire spread their language to the other continents to where two thirds of Romance language speakesr today live...

Words: 488 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Linguistics

...English Language Essay Topic: “Writing is a more prestigious mode of language than speaking.” Writing and speaking are important aspects of our lives. These modes of language share significant differences between each other. However, they both allow us to communicate to others in society effectively. Despite how vital it is to be able to write productively, speaking is a more essential mode of language than writing. Speaking allows us to socialise with the people around us and develop relationships. Although, we can convey more complex ideas through writing as it is more organised and structured. Ultimately, it is much more efficient to express emotions through speech than writing. Socialisation has played an important role since the beginning of human civilisation. Through speech, we are able to interact with one another and develop close relationships with others. When we begin our education in Prep, no one knows each other that well. Over time, students start to get to know each other a little better through speaking to one another about various topics. If a handful of people have a common interest in a certain toy such as Hot Wheels, they will talk about it amongst each other. Most friendships are often formed through individuals having similar interests. When you talk about it with people who share that interest, it indicates to them that you have a good knowledge of the particular interest. It also allows them to talk about it in more detail without anyone getting...

Words: 875 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Japanese Womens Language

...Japanese women’s language and then comparing it to the works written by Agha (2003), Moore (2007; 2011) and Kiesling (2004). Agha (2003) concerns himself on the subject of accent and standardised English within Britain, while Moore (2007 & 2011) looks at accent within the Irish context and how the media directly influences its production. The last of these, Kiesling (2004), looks at the origins of the word “dude” becoming an integral part of conversation among both young men and women. All of these contain the same element when it comes to the emergence of a linguistic discourse – a copy precedes the original. Japanese women’s language is first and foremost a series of linguistic constructs and meanings that are only exclusive to women (Inoue, 2006). It is associated with feminine characteristics, such as being delicate, polite, gentle and non-aggressive. All that is women’s language is strictly Japanese – it encompasses history, culture, tradition, and politics, while going against Western culture (Inoue, 2006). While being such an essential component to Japanese-ness, most women (especially those in regional areas and the working class) are not able to produce women’s language, nor have direct access to it (Inoue, 2006). Inuoe (2006) herself writes that she had never encountered direct contact with “women’s language”; all her experiences as a child with women’s language came from the media – mostly television. She explains that for her, women’s language was strictly something...

Words: 1224 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Can Language Be Said to Hinder Thought?

...Can language be said to hinder thought? What is language? It is a mean of communication. It must involve someone to communicate, and someone to receive the communication. What is thought? It is an idea, result or cause of the process of thinking. (Try to structure your writing as a proper essay, not as a question and answer session.) I think that spoken language is the important focus point, because other type of language are either with the same construction and structure than spoken language, either fully linked to the culture in which their being used. The effects of culture upon thought are obviously present and important no one would discuss it.( I’m not really clear about what you mean here… are you arguing against the Sapir-Whorf position, that what determines our worldview is not so much the language itself but rather the cultural associations that go with it? ) I think that the relationship between thinking (thought) and language is to be seen as a cycle rather than one coming before the other. (Interesting. But you need to demonstrate this, not just take it for granted.) Therefore, any concern in language should have an effect on though. We are used to express our self with language. But can language describe what we mean with perfection? We are limited to our vocabulary and grammatical construction since we do need language to think, in depth at least: whatever you think, there is a word; whatever you conceive there is reason. You must speak it...

Words: 1354 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Catcher in the Rye

...The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, like many other great works, was met by scornful criticism and unyielding admiration. However, many literary critics also admired Salinger's use of language, which is used to make Holden Caulfield, the protagonist, extremely realistic. Such language includes repetition of phrases, blatant cursing, and bold statements in order to capture the informal speech of the average, northern American adolescent. Through Holden's thoughts and dialogues, Salinger successfully created a teenage boy that changed the literary world. The language used in The Catcher in the Rye has long been a topic of controversy to literary critics. Holden Caulfield's thoughts and comments serve to deepen his personality and to provide entertainment. Salinger wants to create a typical teenager while keeping Holden as an individual at the same time. Like most teenagers, Holden speaks in trite sentences. However, he also uses words in places that were then uncommon. Holden often leaves his sentences dangling with words like "and all" and "or anything." Salinger intentionally used such speech repetition to individualize Holden, and, at the same time, make him a believable teenager of the early 1950s. Moreover, Holden has other expressions that appear consistently throughout the novel. In some places, the expressions only serve to make Holden more realistic, while in other places Holden is trying to reinforce his values. Holden repeatedly comments on his hatred towards...

Words: 1295 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Not Just a Language the Beginning of Unity

...Not Just a Language the Beginning of Unity Martha Ferguson AIU Online Not Just a Language the Beginning of Unity What is Vernacular language, today we call it the language of romance. However, it is the language of the people. As the Roman Empire grew the language of the people changed. Latin became a language for everyone to understand, a common language between people. Latin was used by Christians, government, people of status, people of education. As languages became to develop with different regions, Latin became less used, and harder for different regions to understand. The government then began to transform Latin with different dialects. Which became known as Vulgar Latin. Vulgar Latin is not a language of obscenities, but a language that used dialect from different coulters and languages for their people to understand. Latin began to adapted and transform into to the languages of the people from a particular region, becoming less understandable to the people of other regions, eventually turning Latin into a dead language (The End of Europe's Middle Ages) Adaptation is very evident throughout history. As the common people began to drop syllables or terminal letters, beginning what is known today as slang, different languages and dialect began to form. Today even in different states of America we from different languages of our culture, using slang and thick accents, which are hard for some outsiders to understand. Much like soldiers in Roam, who traveled...

Words: 922 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Language Situation in Bangladesh

...Language Situation in Bangladesh Abstract This paper charts the state of language situation that exists in Bangladesh. Bangladesh has been known as a monolingual country since its independence in 1971, Bangla (or Bengali) being its only national and official language. Therefore multilingualism has not been a political issue in Bangladesh, though a situation beyond the monolingualism can be observed in the language situation of Bangladesh, if the three different scenes— a) distribution of regional varieties of Bangla, b) distribution of indigenous languages and c) trend of foreign language use in different social settings— are taken into consideration. Keywords Bangladesh, Language situation, Regional varieties of Bangla, Minority languages, Foreign language use Introduction The aim of this paper is to chart the present state of language situation beyond monolingualism that exists in Bangladesh. Bangladesh has been known as a monolingual country with the population of 150 million (approximately), Bangla (or Bengali) being its only national and official language since its independence in 1971. However, before the independence, the region now known as Bangladesh had been existed as a multilingual country for centuries throughout its social and political development. In the early period of history, there were various aboriginal speech communities including mainly the speakers of Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman languages distributed throughout the different regions...

Words: 3927 - Pages: 16

Premium Essay

Anthropology and Language

...system is often seen as the best for accurately conveying ideas and all others are somehow less clear or concise. This idea stems from the inherent belief that one’s culture is superior to others. In our culture, our orthographic and verbal universes often do not extend beyond the languages and writing systems with which we are familiar. Our egotism for our own culture and its linguistic systems (by no means a unique feature in the world) only becomes apparent when we choose to, or are forced to interact with other cultures. At a basic and reactionary level, these other cultures with which we interact often feel the same entitlement to chauvinism as ourselves. To objectify and quantify the superiority of ourselves over the “other”, we compare features of other languages with our own. Any feature present in our language but absent in another, is a deficiency in the other language, and any feature it possesses which our language lacks, is seen as superfluous, or an aberration. When we use autometry to measure other languages against our own, those most similar to ourselves inevitably appear better than those that are more dissimilar. If a culture is missing an entire category such as a written language system, then we assume that their deficiencies must be quite fundamental. The anthropological ideas of cultural relativity and linguistic relativity allow us a new perspective. (Duranti, 1997, p. 60) According to cultural relativism, the behaviors and patterns, such as writing...

Words: 1822 - Pages: 8

Free Essay

Historic Foundations-Latin America

...HUMA215-1302B-06 6/22/2013 Abstract Latin was the language of the Roman Empire. It is widely debated how Latin started to be spoken by the Romans. Latin is one of many of the Italic languages. The Romance languages are made up of the languages that are descended from Latin. Much of language today is still derived from Latin beginnings and influences the English language as well as other modern languages. Historical Foundations – Latin America Latin is one of the oldest languages known to man. Dating back with beginnings noted in 2nd century BC and continuing through the 18th century, the Latin language has spread and evolved, deriving much language used today from Latin origin. The history of the Latin language includes Archaic Latin, Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin, Medieval Latin, Renaissance Latin, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin. Archaic , or “Old Latin”, refers to all Latin that was used before 75 BC. The early Latin alphabet, known as the Etruscan Alphabet, was written from right to left but later got revised and was then written from left to right. Vulgar Latin was used from 200-900 BC. Although it is called Vulgar it is not filled with naughty words, but is quite the opposite. Vulgar Latin is how the Romance languages were developed. Medieval Latin was used from 900-1300 BC. Medieval Latin was the form of Latin used in the Middle Ages, it was how scholars spoke and used in the medieval Roman Catholic Church, but also as a language of science, literature, law, and administration...

Words: 478 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

The Study of Language

...This page intentionally left blank The Study of Language This best-selling textbook provides an engaging and user-friendly introduction to the study of language. Assuming no prior knowledge of the subject, Yule presents information in short, bite-sized sections, introducing the major concepts in language study – from how children learn language to why men and women speak differently, through all the key elements of language. This fourth edition has been revised and updated with twenty new sections, covering new accounts of language origins, the key properties of language, text messaging, kinship terms and more than twenty new word etymologies. To increase student engagement with the text, Yule has also included more than fifty new tasks, including thirty involving data analysis, enabling students to apply what they have learned. The online study guide offers students further resources when working on the tasks, while encouraging lively and proactive learning. This is the most fundamental and easy-to-use introduction to the study of language. George Yule has taught Linguistics at the Universities of Edinburgh, Hawai’i, Louisiana State and Minnesota. He is the author of a number of books, including Discourse Analysis (with Gillian Brown, 1983) and Pragmatics (1996). “A genuinely introductory linguistics text, well suited for undergraduates who have little prior experience thinking descriptively about language. Yule’s crisp and thought-provoking presentation of key issues works...

Words: 114096 - Pages: 457

Free Essay

A Linguistic Comparison

...A Linguistic Comparison Italian and Spanish are two romantic languages that still exist today. Their roots trace back to Vulgar Latin, which emerged in Europe from classic Latin as people mixed in their native languages with Latin. Vulgar Latin did not deviate too much away from Latin, but it is different from Classical Latin, in the sense that speakers of this new language dropped endings in words and prepositions and added “slang” to Classical Latin. Since they both derive from what became the Romance language, there are many similarities between the two including syntax, and morphology. Spanish and Italian like all human languages in the world have a noun phrase and verb phrase as the main syntactic categories in a sentence. When we break the sentence structure down even more, we see that similarities between the two languages. An example of this can be seen when we look at the placement of adjectives in the sentence. Take for example the sentence “the German shepherd was clean” (English, fig 1) translated into both languages. In Italian it translates to “Il pastore tedesco era pulito” (Italian, fig 2). In Spanish the same sentence translates to “El pastor aleman estaba limpio” (Spanish, fig 3). Here we see that the structure of the noun phrase head is shepherd, pastore (italian), and pastor (spanish). The noun phrase then is subcategorized to a determiner and N’, then N’ is further sub-categorized to N’ then adjective. Unlike in English where N’ comes...

Words: 1208 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Whatever

...In Other Words This book addresses the need for a systematic approach to the training of translators and provides an explicit syllabus which reflects some of the main intricacies involved in rendering a text from one language into another. It explores the relevance of some of the key areas of modern linguistic theory and illustrates how an understanding of these key areas can guide and inform at least some of the decisions that translators have to make. It draws on insights from current research in such areas as lexical studies, text linguistics and pragmatics to maintain a constant link between language, translation, and the social and cultural environment in which both language and translation operate. In Other Words examines various areas of language, ranging from the meaning of single words and expressions to grammatical categories and cultural contexts. Firmly grounded in modern linguistic theory, the book starts at a simple level and grows in complexity by widening its focus gradually. The author explains with clarity and precision the concepts and theoretical positions explored within each chapter and relates these to authentic examples of translated texts in a variety of languages, although a knowledge of English is all that is required to understand the examples presented. Each chapter ends with a series of practical exercises which provide the translator with an opportunity to test the relevance of the issues discussed. This combination of theoretical discussion and...

Words: 109520 - Pages: 439

Premium Essay

Syncretism

...INDIVIDUAL PROJECT #2 THE ORIGINS OF VERNACUALR LANGUAGES Florie Buerki HUMA215-1301D-01 Professor Laurie Sprankle April 14th 2013 American InterContinental University Abstract The following paper presents a brief history of the Latin language origin, providing a synopsis of the creation of the very first writing method that went through changes and how it spread out the world. In addition and where appropriate, it is indicated how Charlemagne had an influence on the continuity of Latin. Even thought Latin is defined as a dead language and has no real future it has a long history. Latin was commonly used until the twelfth century by educated people, in literature and also in Christian churches in the Roman Empire. Its use went through many changes and took different forms depending on the people using it as a written or spoken purpose and also due to the influences of other surrounding oral communication. (Sayre, 2010) However, Latin was not the first language created by the human being and learning the birth of a written form help to understand where Latin comes from. The very first language was introduced back in 3,000 BC by the very first ancient civilization, the Sumerians. The Sumerians lived in Mesopotamia – modern Southern Iraq – and were an active economical population. Because of a need to record their production and trade was becoming a problem of memory they invented a form of recording using soft clay tablets with the slanted edge...

Words: 1074 - Pages: 5

Free Essay

History of Venacular Language

...origins of the Spanish language and describe how the language spread. Latin has significantly influenced the creation of the Spanish language as well as the development of many other Western languages. I will also discuss the ways in which Latin has influenced Western language development. History of Vernacular Language Spanish has one of the richest and longest histories of any of the world’s languages. It is the fourth most-spoken language in the world after Chinese, Hindi and English. Native Spanish speakers exist throughout Europe, the United States, Pacific Islands and Africa (Penny, 2002). Spanish originated on the Iberian Peninsula which is located in the southwestern region of Europe. The vernacular language was not originally known as Spanish, it was referred to as Vulgar Latin. The Celts were a nomadic tribe from central Europe who moved into the peninsula towards the end of the sixth century. The Celts mixed with the peninsula’s residents, the Iberians resulting in a new people known as the Celtiberians who spoke a form of the Celtic language. By the nineteenth century B.C.E., the region in southwestern Europe was known as Hispania and the inhabitants learned Latin from Roman settlers, traders and soldiers. Soon after the people in Hispania learned Latin, a new language was created as a mixture of the Celtiberians language and classical Latin (Penny, 2002). The new language became known as Vulgar Latin which developed into modern Spanish. Vulgar Latin was similar...

Words: 918 - Pages: 4