Lexical Asymmetry

Is an imbalance of two matching words. An example of this is man and woman should have opposite but equivalent meanings. However, by dictionary meanings, being manly or womanly carry very different meanings.

Manliness is seen as strength, womanly as weakness. Expressions equating to being female such as "take it like a man", " cry like a little girl", " run like a girl",  suggest lexical asymmetry within the words man and woman.

Semantic derogation

Negative meanings associated with certain words and how they're used to 'put down' or denigrate particular groups of people. Examples would be "spastic", "cripple", "nigger", "gypo", "bitch", or "faggot".  Words that carry negative connotations that are used to degrade and insult people/ groups of people.

Semantic reclamation 

Process in which a word previously carrying negative connotations can be reclaimed by the group it was turned against to turn into something positive. The most obvious example is "nigger", by which the term has a long history associated with it. The use of it in hip-hop and street slang has helped it turn into a wholy negative meaning into a more positive one for some sections of society. The same process has happened with a lesser extent with the terms "paki", "queer", and "bitch".


Semantic over-representation, lexical gaps and negative semantic space 

An idea that means there are more words to describe a particular concept or group of people than their equivalent. There are many words used to describe sexually active females compared to males; for example, slut, slag, tart, whore, hoe, sket etc.

Many of these terms dehumanise women (treat them as objects rather than people) or associate women with a particular body part or sexual function rather than treat them as complete people (this can be termed as metonmy or synecdoche). The equivalent terms for men usually carry more positive connotations; e.g stud, player etc.

Lexical gaps are when no equivalent terms can be found. For example there's no male equivalent of "sweetie" or female equivalent of "stud". In the work of linguists Dale Spender, Julia Stanley and Muriel Schulz, their ideas suggest that terms used to label women are attached to a negative space. Even moving the term into a male "space", they bring negative connotations which can only be distanced by adding male prefixes, such as "male slut" or "man whore". Muriel Schulz's "semantic rule" proposes that all words associated with women are pejorate (negative).