by Albertus Andito
How we talk about recycling might reveal more than we think. Beyond separating glass from paper or plastic, the words we use to describe recyclable items reflect how we understand the material world around us. A new study from the Concept Analytics Lab (by Justyna, Rhys, and Albertus) investigates whether men and women conceptualize recyclable household commodities in different ways and how those differences appear in language.
The research identifies systematic lexical and conceptual differences in how men and women refer to recyclable household objects. Women tend to use more specific terms, mentioning items such as bra, dress, or jar. This precision reflects a focus on domestic detail and the tangible aspects of household life. Men, in contrast, more often use broader, category-level terms such as clothing or container, suggesting a more generalized way of classifying the same kinds of objects. Although subtle, these differences highlight how language can encode distinct perspectives on everyday commodities.
The conceptual profile for commodity.n.01 among females is presented in Figure 1, while the male equivalent is presented in Figure 2.
Understanding how gendered patterns appear in language has practical implications for sustainability messaging. Environmental campaigns often rely on shared understandings of everyday objects and actions. However, if men and women conceptualize commodities differently, the same message may not resonate equally across audiences. By attending to these linguistic nuances, policymakers and communicators can design more inclusive and effective sustainability messages, encouraging greater engagement with recycling and waste reduction initiatives.
Pre-print version of this research can be accessed here.
This study ‘Conceptual variation: Gendered differences in the lexicalization of the concept of commodity in environmental narratives” is by Justyna Robinson, Rhys Sandow, and Albertus Andito. It will appear in Sociolinguistic Approaches to Lexical Variation in English, edited by Rhys Sandow and Natalie Braber (Eds).
We identify conceptual patterns and change in human thought through a combination of distant text reading and corpus linguistics techniques.
Sussex Digital Humanities Lab
University of Sussex
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