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Language and Woman's Place: Text and Commentaries
The 1975 publication of Robin Tolmach Lakoff's Language and Woman's Place , is widely recognized as having inaugurated feminist research on the relationship between language and gender, touching off a remarkable response among language scholars, feminists, and general readers. For the past thirty years, scholars of language and gender have been debating and developing Lakoff's initial observations.
Arguing that language is fundamental to gender inequality, Lakoff pointed to two areas in which inequalities can be Language used about women, such as the asymmetries between seemingly parallel terms like master and mistress , and language used by women, which places women in a double bind between being appropriately feminine and being fully human. Lakoff's central argument that "women's language" expresses powerlessness triggered a controversy that continues to this day.
The revised and expanded edition presents the full text of the original first edition, along with an introduction and annotations by Lakoff in which she reflects on the text a quarter century later and expands on some of the most widely discussed issues it raises. The volume also brings together commentaries from twenty-six leading scholars of language, gender, and sexuality, within linguistics, anthropology, modern languages, education, information sciences, and other disciplines. The commentaries discuss the book's contribution to feminist research on language and explore its ongoing relevance for scholarship in the field.
This new edition of Language and Woman's Place not only makes available once again the pioneering text of feminist linguistics; just as important, it places the text in the context of contemporary feminist and gender theory for a new generation of readers.
Arguing that language is fundamental to gender inequality, Lakoff pointed to two areas in which inequalities can be Language used about women, such as the asymmetries between seemingly parallel terms like master and mistress , and language used by women, which places women in a double bind between being appropriately feminine and being fully human. Lakoff's central argument that "women's language" expresses powerlessness triggered a controversy that continues to this day.
The revised and expanded edition presents the full text of the original first edition, along with an introduction and annotations by Lakoff in which she reflects on the text a quarter century later and expands on some of the most widely discussed issues it raises. The volume also brings together commentaries from twenty-six leading scholars of language, gender, and sexuality, within linguistics, anthropology, modern languages, education, information sciences, and other disciplines. The commentaries discuss the book's contribution to feminist research on language and explore its ongoing relevance for scholarship in the field.
This new edition of Language and Woman's Place not only makes available once again the pioneering text of feminist linguistics; just as important, it places the text in the context of contemporary feminist and gender theory for a new generation of readers.
328 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
February 15, 2025
Although I recognize that this book had to appeal to the masses to become a groundbreaking work and the beginning of linguistic studies of gendered language use, at times its points were too anecdotal and too exaggerated to feel serious, let alone scientific. I would have appreciated actual evidence for Lakoff's observations and less "all or nothing" statements.
January 13, 2026
Mission 2026: Binge reviewing all previous Reads, I was too slothful to appraise, back when I read them
Lakoff’s book still burns. It burns in a way that polite scholarship never does, in a way that cannot be archived into neat footnotes or safely historicized as “important for its time.” ‘Language and Woman’s Place’ is unfinished, impatient, alive—alive in the most unsettling sense.
Reading it felt less like reading a book and more like interrupting someone mid-sentence, mid-thought, mid-anger.
You are not handed conclusions; you are handed a wound and asked to look at it without flinching.
I first encountered Lakoff after years of being trained to admire distance. Linguistics, I had learned, was supposed to be cool-headed, antiseptic, abstract.
Arguments were to be scrubbed clean of biography. Emotion was a contaminant. Lakoff violates all of that with almost reckless honesty. She writes as someone who is not merely observing language but suffering under it.
The book carries the impatience of someone who knows that waiting for perfect evidence is itself a political luxury. That impatience is precisely what gives the work its enduring power.
Yes, some arguments age poorly. The essentialism grates. The category “women” sometimes feels flattened, overgeneralized, too eager to speak in unison. Intersectionality is conspicuously absent. Later feminist linguistics would complicate, challenge, even dismantle parts of Lakoff’s framework.
But none of that extinguishes the book’s fire. If anything, it clarifies what kind of book this is. This is not a monument. It is a flare.
What struck me most, rereading it now, was how openly wounded the text is. Lakoff does not hide behind methodological neutrality. She does not pretend her questions emerged in a vacuum. Her analysis of hedges, tag questions, politeness strategies, and “women’s language” is inseparable from lived frustration—from being interrupted, dismissed, softened into irrelevance.
The book carries the exhaustion of having to sound “nice” in order to be heard at all. That exhaustion pulses beneath every page.
In academic training, we are taught to distrust anger. Anger is said to cloud judgment, to bias analysis, to weaken rigor. Lakoff exposes that doctrine as a convenient myth.
Her anger sharpens rather than dulls her insight. It directs her attention to phenomena that “neutral” scholars had simply not deemed worthy of study. Who decided politeness was trivial? Who decided emotional labor was linguistically uninteresting? Lakoff’s fury reveals that those decisions were never neutral. They were aligned with power.
Reading this book taught me—painfully, indelibly—that objectivity often serves those already comfortable.
Neutrality is easiest when language already fits you. If you are not routinely interrupted, diminished, or linguistically disciplined, you can afford to pretend that speech norms are natural rather than enforced. Lakoff refuses that comfort.
She insists that what counts as “proper” speech is inseparable from who is allowed authority, seriousness, and credibility.
There is something almost embarrassing about the book’s honesty. Lakoff admits uncertainty. She admits frustration. She admits that she is writing from inside the problem.
This is precisely what makes the work feel dangerous, even now. It does not allow the reader to hide behind abstraction. You are implicated. You are forced to ask not only how language works, but whom it works for.
What I found most unsettling was realizing how much of my own education had trained me to dismiss exactly this kind of writing. I had learned to admire elegance over urgency, polish over pressure. Lakoff made me see how those aesthetic preferences were themselves political. The demand for refinement often functions as a gatekeeping device.
Speak calmly. Speak rationally. Speak like someone who has never been harmed by the system you are describing. Lakoff refuses that demand. Her prose vibrates with the refusal to be patient any longer.
The book is also deeply lonely. You can feel Lakoff writing into a field that did not yet know how to receive her. There is a sense of isolation in the way arguments are laid out, tentatively but defiantly, as if she knows she will be misunderstood, caricatured, or dismissed.
And in many ways, she was. The label “deficit model” would later be used to reduce her work to a straw figure, flattening its nuance and its rage. But even that backlash testifies to the book’s disruptive force. It touched a nerve.
What Lakoff gave me, more than any specific claim, was permission. Permission to believe that describing language is never innocent. Permission to see linguistic norms as social weapons. Permission to acknowledge that scholarship emerges from bodies, from histories, from wounds.
Before Lakoff, I thought politics entered linguistics only at the level of application. After Lakoff, I understood that politics enters at the level of what we even notice.
The book also forced me to reconsider the very idea of “women’s language.” Initially, I resisted it. The category felt too blunt, too dangerous. But over time, I realized that Lakoff was not offering a timeless taxonomy so much as naming a condition—a set of pressures that shape speech in unequal contexts.
The problem was never that women speak a certain way by nature; the problem was that certain ways of speaking are punished unless softened, hedged, minimized. Lakoff’s analysis is less about women than about constraint.
That realization made the book feel less dated than critics often claim. The surface terminology may belong to the 1970s, but the underlying dynamics persist. Who is called “shrill”?
Who is told to calm down? Whose authority is questioned when their voice lacks the right tonal compromise? Lakoff’s questions remain painfully current.
There is also something profoundly anti-disciplinary about this book. It refuses to stay within linguistic borders. It bleeds into sociology, psychology, feminism, ethics. It is uninterested in defending the purity of the field.
That impurity felt threatening when I first encountered it. Now it feels necessary. Lakoff understood that language does not respect departmental boundaries. Power certainly doesn’t.
I remember finishing the book not with clarity, but with agitation. It did not resolve my questions; it multiplied them. It made me suspicious of my own speech, my own listening habits. It made me aware of how often I mistook confidence for competence, authority for truth. It made language feel dangerous again, after years of treating it as an object.
Perhaps the most radical thing about ‘Language and Woman’s Place’ is that it refuses closure. It does not settle. It does not conclude gracefully. It ends the way anger often does: unresolved, still demanding attention.
That lack of neatness is not a flaw. It is the book’s ethical stance. To tidy it up would be to betray it.
Lakoff did not give me a theory I could comfortably apply. She gave me a discomfort I could not easily escape. She taught me that scholarship can be an act of exposure rather than mastery.
That to write about language is to write about who is allowed to speak, who is believed, who is silenced, and at what cost.
In that sense, the book still burns because the conditions that produced it have not been extinguished. The anger has not gone stale. It has simply found new vocabularies. Lakoff’s work remains a reminder that before language becomes data, it is lived. And before theory becomes elegant, it must sometimes be honest enough to hurt.
Most recommended.
Lakoff’s book still burns. It burns in a way that polite scholarship never does, in a way that cannot be archived into neat footnotes or safely historicized as “important for its time.” ‘Language and Woman’s Place’ is unfinished, impatient, alive—alive in the most unsettling sense.
Reading it felt less like reading a book and more like interrupting someone mid-sentence, mid-thought, mid-anger.
You are not handed conclusions; you are handed a wound and asked to look at it without flinching.
I first encountered Lakoff after years of being trained to admire distance. Linguistics, I had learned, was supposed to be cool-headed, antiseptic, abstract.
Arguments were to be scrubbed clean of biography. Emotion was a contaminant. Lakoff violates all of that with almost reckless honesty. She writes as someone who is not merely observing language but suffering under it.
The book carries the impatience of someone who knows that waiting for perfect evidence is itself a political luxury. That impatience is precisely what gives the work its enduring power.
Yes, some arguments age poorly. The essentialism grates. The category “women” sometimes feels flattened, overgeneralized, too eager to speak in unison. Intersectionality is conspicuously absent. Later feminist linguistics would complicate, challenge, even dismantle parts of Lakoff’s framework.
But none of that extinguishes the book’s fire. If anything, it clarifies what kind of book this is. This is not a monument. It is a flare.
What struck me most, rereading it now, was how openly wounded the text is. Lakoff does not hide behind methodological neutrality. She does not pretend her questions emerged in a vacuum. Her analysis of hedges, tag questions, politeness strategies, and “women’s language” is inseparable from lived frustration—from being interrupted, dismissed, softened into irrelevance.
The book carries the exhaustion of having to sound “nice” in order to be heard at all. That exhaustion pulses beneath every page.
In academic training, we are taught to distrust anger. Anger is said to cloud judgment, to bias analysis, to weaken rigor. Lakoff exposes that doctrine as a convenient myth.
Her anger sharpens rather than dulls her insight. It directs her attention to phenomena that “neutral” scholars had simply not deemed worthy of study. Who decided politeness was trivial? Who decided emotional labor was linguistically uninteresting? Lakoff’s fury reveals that those decisions were never neutral. They were aligned with power.
Reading this book taught me—painfully, indelibly—that objectivity often serves those already comfortable.
Neutrality is easiest when language already fits you. If you are not routinely interrupted, diminished, or linguistically disciplined, you can afford to pretend that speech norms are natural rather than enforced. Lakoff refuses that comfort.
She insists that what counts as “proper” speech is inseparable from who is allowed authority, seriousness, and credibility.
There is something almost embarrassing about the book’s honesty. Lakoff admits uncertainty. She admits frustration. She admits that she is writing from inside the problem.
This is precisely what makes the work feel dangerous, even now. It does not allow the reader to hide behind abstraction. You are implicated. You are forced to ask not only how language works, but whom it works for.
What I found most unsettling was realizing how much of my own education had trained me to dismiss exactly this kind of writing. I had learned to admire elegance over urgency, polish over pressure. Lakoff made me see how those aesthetic preferences were themselves political. The demand for refinement often functions as a gatekeeping device.
Speak calmly. Speak rationally. Speak like someone who has never been harmed by the system you are describing. Lakoff refuses that demand. Her prose vibrates with the refusal to be patient any longer.
The book is also deeply lonely. You can feel Lakoff writing into a field that did not yet know how to receive her. There is a sense of isolation in the way arguments are laid out, tentatively but defiantly, as if she knows she will be misunderstood, caricatured, or dismissed.
And in many ways, she was. The label “deficit model” would later be used to reduce her work to a straw figure, flattening its nuance and its rage. But even that backlash testifies to the book’s disruptive force. It touched a nerve.
What Lakoff gave me, more than any specific claim, was permission. Permission to believe that describing language is never innocent. Permission to see linguistic norms as social weapons. Permission to acknowledge that scholarship emerges from bodies, from histories, from wounds.
Before Lakoff, I thought politics entered linguistics only at the level of application. After Lakoff, I understood that politics enters at the level of what we even notice.
The book also forced me to reconsider the very idea of “women’s language.” Initially, I resisted it. The category felt too blunt, too dangerous. But over time, I realized that Lakoff was not offering a timeless taxonomy so much as naming a condition—a set of pressures that shape speech in unequal contexts.
The problem was never that women speak a certain way by nature; the problem was that certain ways of speaking are punished unless softened, hedged, minimized. Lakoff’s analysis is less about women than about constraint.
That realization made the book feel less dated than critics often claim. The surface terminology may belong to the 1970s, but the underlying dynamics persist. Who is called “shrill”?
Who is told to calm down? Whose authority is questioned when their voice lacks the right tonal compromise? Lakoff’s questions remain painfully current.
There is also something profoundly anti-disciplinary about this book. It refuses to stay within linguistic borders. It bleeds into sociology, psychology, feminism, ethics. It is uninterested in defending the purity of the field.
That impurity felt threatening when I first encountered it. Now it feels necessary. Lakoff understood that language does not respect departmental boundaries. Power certainly doesn’t.
I remember finishing the book not with clarity, but with agitation. It did not resolve my questions; it multiplied them. It made me suspicious of my own speech, my own listening habits. It made me aware of how often I mistook confidence for competence, authority for truth. It made language feel dangerous again, after years of treating it as an object.
Perhaps the most radical thing about ‘Language and Woman’s Place’ is that it refuses closure. It does not settle. It does not conclude gracefully. It ends the way anger often does: unresolved, still demanding attention.
That lack of neatness is not a flaw. It is the book’s ethical stance. To tidy it up would be to betray it.
Lakoff did not give me a theory I could comfortably apply. She gave me a discomfort I could not easily escape. She taught me that scholarship can be an act of exposure rather than mastery.
That to write about language is to write about who is allowed to speak, who is believed, who is silenced, and at what cost.
In that sense, the book still burns because the conditions that produced it have not been extinguished. The anger has not gone stale. It has simply found new vocabularies. Lakoff’s work remains a reminder that before language becomes data, it is lived. And before theory becomes elegant, it must sometimes be honest enough to hurt.
Most recommended.
August 18, 2025
A ‘CLASSIC’ IN THE FIELD OF STRIVING TO ACHIEVE GENDER-NEUTRAL LANGUAGE
Robin Lakoff (1942-2025) was a linguist and professor emerita at UC Berkeley. [NOTE: I am reviewing the original 1975 edition of this book, not the later ‘Text and Commentaries’ edition.’]
She wrote in the Preface, “In this book I have tried to see what we can learn about the way women view themselves and everyone’s assumptions about the nature and role of women from the use of language in our culture, that is to say, the language used by and about women… By looking at the way we customarily talk if we are women, or talk about women whoever we are, we can gain insight into the way we feel---about ourselves, about women---through close analysis of what we say and how we say it until in the end we can ask and perhaps even answer the question: WHY did I say it? It is my hope, then, to look at some of these linguistic issues and see what they tell us.” (Pg. 1)
She observes, “If a little girl ‘talks rough’ like a boy, she will normally be ostracized, scolded, or made fun of. In this way society, in the form of a child’s parents and friends, keeps her in line, in her place. This socializing process is… harmless and often necessary, but in this particular instance---the teaching of special linguistic uses to little girls---it raises serious problems… the acquisition of this special style of speech will later be an excuse others use to keep her in a demeaning position, to refuse to take her seriously as a human being. Because of the way she speaks, the little girl---now grown to womanhood---will be accused of being unable to speak precisely or to express herself forcefully.” (Pg. 5-6)
She notes, “It is of interest… to note that men’s language is increasingly being used by women, but women’s language is not being adopted by men… This is analogous to the fact that men’s jobs are being sought by women, but few men are rushing to become housewives or secretaries. The language of the favored group, the group that holds the power… is generally adopted by the other group, not vice versa.” (Pg. 10)
She states, “Allowing men stronger means of expression than are open to women further reinforces men’s position of strength in the real world: for surely we listen with more attention the more strongly and forcefully someone expresses opinions, and a speaker unable… to be forceful in stating his views is much less likely to be taken seriously.” (Pg. 11)
She comments concerning “the use of ‘lady’ in job terminology. For at least some speakers, the more demeaning the job, the more the person holding it (if female, of course) is likely to be described as a ‘lady.’ Thus, ‘cleaning lady’ is at least as common as ‘cleaning woman’… But one says, normally, ‘woman doctor.’ To say ‘lady doctor’ is to be very condescending: it constitutes an insult. For men, there is no such dichotomy. ‘Garbageman’ or ‘salesman’ is the only possibility, never ‘garbage gentleman.’ And of course, since in the professions the male is unmarked, we never have ‘man (male) doctor.’” (Pg. 22-23)
She continues, “the term [may] seem polite at first, but … these implications are perilous: they suggest that a ‘lady’ is helpless, and cannot do things for herself… [This] is parallel to the act of opening doors for women---or ladies. At first blush it is flattering… but by the same token, she is considered helpless and not in control of her own destiny. Women who protest that they LIKE receiving these little courtesies, and object to being liberated from them, should reflect a bit on their deeper meaning and see how much they like THAT.” (Pg. 25)
She points out, “While sharp intellect is generally considered an unqualified virtue in a man, any character trait that is not related to a woman’s utility to men is considered suspect, if not downright bad. Thus the word ‘brainy’ is seldom used of men; when used of women it suggests (1) that this intelligence is unexpected in a woman; (2) that it isn’t really a good trait. If one calls a woman ‘smart,’ outside the sense of ‘fashionable,’ either one means it as a compliment to her domestic thrift and other housekeeping abilities or, again, it suggests a bit of wariness on the part of the speaker.” (Pg. 32)
She argues, “a man may be considered a bachelor as soon as he reaches marriageable age: to be a bachelor implies that one has the choice of marrying or not, and this is what makes the idea of a bachelor existence attractive… He has been pursued and has successfully eluded his pursuers. But a spinster is one who has not been pursued… she is old unwanted goods. Hence it is not surprising to find that a euphemism has arisen for ‘spinster’ … ‘bachelor girl,’ which attempts to capture for the woman the connotations ‘bachelor’ has for a man. (Pg. 32-33)
She explains, “‘widow’ commonly occurs with a possessive preceding it, the name of the woman’s late husband. Though he is dead, she is still defined by her relationship him. But the bereaved husband is no longer defined in terms of his wife. While she is alive, he is sometimes defined as Mary’s husband (though less often … than she is … ‘John’s wife’). But once she is gone, her function for him is over, linguistically speaking.” (Pg. 34-35)
She points out, “The change to ‘Ms.’ will not be generally adopted until a woman’s status in society changes to assure her an identity based on her own accomplishments. Perhaps even more debasing than the Mrs./Miss distinction is the fact that the woman in marrying relinquishes her own name, while the man does not. This suggests even more firmly that a woman is her husband’s possession, having no other identity than that of his wife. Not only does she give up her last name… but often her first name as well, to become ‘Mrs. John Smith.’” (Pg. 41)
What about pronouns? (e.g., he/she/they/them): “MY feeling is that this area of pronominal neutralization is both less in need of changing and less open to change than many of the other disparities… and we should perhaps concentrate our efforts where they will be moist fruitful. But many nonlinguists disagree…” (Pg. 45)
This book will be of great interest to those wanting to use ‘inclusive’ language.
Robin Lakoff (1942-2025) was a linguist and professor emerita at UC Berkeley. [NOTE: I am reviewing the original 1975 edition of this book, not the later ‘Text and Commentaries’ edition.’]
She wrote in the Preface, “In this book I have tried to see what we can learn about the way women view themselves and everyone’s assumptions about the nature and role of women from the use of language in our culture, that is to say, the language used by and about women… By looking at the way we customarily talk if we are women, or talk about women whoever we are, we can gain insight into the way we feel---about ourselves, about women---through close analysis of what we say and how we say it until in the end we can ask and perhaps even answer the question: WHY did I say it? It is my hope, then, to look at some of these linguistic issues and see what they tell us.” (Pg. 1)
She observes, “If a little girl ‘talks rough’ like a boy, she will normally be ostracized, scolded, or made fun of. In this way society, in the form of a child’s parents and friends, keeps her in line, in her place. This socializing process is… harmless and often necessary, but in this particular instance---the teaching of special linguistic uses to little girls---it raises serious problems… the acquisition of this special style of speech will later be an excuse others use to keep her in a demeaning position, to refuse to take her seriously as a human being. Because of the way she speaks, the little girl---now grown to womanhood---will be accused of being unable to speak precisely or to express herself forcefully.” (Pg. 5-6)
She notes, “It is of interest… to note that men’s language is increasingly being used by women, but women’s language is not being adopted by men… This is analogous to the fact that men’s jobs are being sought by women, but few men are rushing to become housewives or secretaries. The language of the favored group, the group that holds the power… is generally adopted by the other group, not vice versa.” (Pg. 10)
She states, “Allowing men stronger means of expression than are open to women further reinforces men’s position of strength in the real world: for surely we listen with more attention the more strongly and forcefully someone expresses opinions, and a speaker unable… to be forceful in stating his views is much less likely to be taken seriously.” (Pg. 11)
She comments concerning “the use of ‘lady’ in job terminology. For at least some speakers, the more demeaning the job, the more the person holding it (if female, of course) is likely to be described as a ‘lady.’ Thus, ‘cleaning lady’ is at least as common as ‘cleaning woman’… But one says, normally, ‘woman doctor.’ To say ‘lady doctor’ is to be very condescending: it constitutes an insult. For men, there is no such dichotomy. ‘Garbageman’ or ‘salesman’ is the only possibility, never ‘garbage gentleman.’ And of course, since in the professions the male is unmarked, we never have ‘man (male) doctor.’” (Pg. 22-23)
She continues, “the term [may] seem polite at first, but … these implications are perilous: they suggest that a ‘lady’ is helpless, and cannot do things for herself… [This] is parallel to the act of opening doors for women---or ladies. At first blush it is flattering… but by the same token, she is considered helpless and not in control of her own destiny. Women who protest that they LIKE receiving these little courtesies, and object to being liberated from them, should reflect a bit on their deeper meaning and see how much they like THAT.” (Pg. 25)
She points out, “While sharp intellect is generally considered an unqualified virtue in a man, any character trait that is not related to a woman’s utility to men is considered suspect, if not downright bad. Thus the word ‘brainy’ is seldom used of men; when used of women it suggests (1) that this intelligence is unexpected in a woman; (2) that it isn’t really a good trait. If one calls a woman ‘smart,’ outside the sense of ‘fashionable,’ either one means it as a compliment to her domestic thrift and other housekeeping abilities or, again, it suggests a bit of wariness on the part of the speaker.” (Pg. 32)
She argues, “a man may be considered a bachelor as soon as he reaches marriageable age: to be a bachelor implies that one has the choice of marrying or not, and this is what makes the idea of a bachelor existence attractive… He has been pursued and has successfully eluded his pursuers. But a spinster is one who has not been pursued… she is old unwanted goods. Hence it is not surprising to find that a euphemism has arisen for ‘spinster’ … ‘bachelor girl,’ which attempts to capture for the woman the connotations ‘bachelor’ has for a man. (Pg. 32-33)
She explains, “‘widow’ commonly occurs with a possessive preceding it, the name of the woman’s late husband. Though he is dead, she is still defined by her relationship him. But the bereaved husband is no longer defined in terms of his wife. While she is alive, he is sometimes defined as Mary’s husband (though less often … than she is … ‘John’s wife’). But once she is gone, her function for him is over, linguistically speaking.” (Pg. 34-35)
She points out, “The change to ‘Ms.’ will not be generally adopted until a woman’s status in society changes to assure her an identity based on her own accomplishments. Perhaps even more debasing than the Mrs./Miss distinction is the fact that the woman in marrying relinquishes her own name, while the man does not. This suggests even more firmly that a woman is her husband’s possession, having no other identity than that of his wife. Not only does she give up her last name… but often her first name as well, to become ‘Mrs. John Smith.’” (Pg. 41)
What about pronouns? (e.g., he/she/they/them): “MY feeling is that this area of pronominal neutralization is both less in need of changing and less open to change than many of the other disparities… and we should perhaps concentrate our efforts where they will be moist fruitful. But many nonlinguists disagree…” (Pg. 45)
This book will be of great interest to those wanting to use ‘inclusive’ language.
November 12, 2016
Completely forgot I read this - 1.5*
I remember studying this for AS Level English Language and hating it. For language, there was a focus on: gender, power and technology. I hated gender and analysing the difference between 'women's' and 'men's' questions, which I hated it. I personally preferred 'language and power' by Norman Fairclough.
If you're a linguist/studying language then I'd definitely recommend Fairclough/Crystal over Lakoff.
I remember studying this for AS Level English Language and hating it. For language, there was a focus on: gender, power and technology. I hated gender and analysing the difference between 'women's' and 'men's' questions, which I hated it. I personally preferred 'language and power' by Norman Fairclough.
If you're a linguist/studying language then I'd definitely recommend Fairclough/Crystal over Lakoff.
June 22, 2016
This was an interesting read, but quite archaic.
November 28, 2021
در باب فمینیسمِ صرفاً نظری و تجربهی آکادمی!
به درستی میتوان اظهار داشت که هیچ کتاب، مقاله یا پایاننامهای، فاقد سوگیری یا گرایشهای غرضورزانه نیست و البته این موضوع نیز که قضاوت خواننده هم ناشی از برداشت مغرضانهی وی در مواجهه با متن پیش رویش بوده، حائز توجه است. کتاب زبان و جایگاه زن، خود برداشتی است از مختصات زنان در فرهنگِ رفتاریِ زبان انگلیسیِ آمریکا که به همت پروفسور لیکاف، استاد و پژوهشگر زبانشناسِ دانشگاه برکلیِ کالیفرنیا نوشته شده است. این کتاب عمده شهرت و اعتبار لیکاف را به ارمغان آرود؛ لیکافی که خود پرورشیافتهی عصر انقلابی آمریکا و متأثر از کلاسهای درس چامسکی است، به خوبی منش و پیشینهی زبانشناسی را میشناسد و کتاب حاضر از این حیث، کتابی آموزنده و آگاهکننده است. لیکاف با اشاره به تحولات اساسی و مهم سیر زبانشناسی و بخصوص حضور چامسکی در این وهلهی مهم، به شرح، نقد و واکاویِ علمیِ مفهوم زبان، رفتار زبانی و پیوستگی این دو مورد با زنان و زنانگی میپردازد. او خود واقف به این نکته است که این حیطه (مطالعات زنان)، نسبت به زمانی که او دست به نگارش کتاب زده، دستخوش تغییراتی در صورتها و شکلهای بیرونی خود است اما ریشهیابیهای دقیق او ما را متوجه غفلتهایی عظیم در ارتباط با درک و بسط نظام زبانشناسانهی زنان و صد البته فمینیسم میکند. این کتاب که به واقع در دو بخش کلی متمرکز است، در بخش آغازین که عنوان اصلی کتاب را نیز یدک میکشد، ما را با زبان خاص زنان آشنا میکند و مخاطب را متوجه گونهی مورد استعمالی از زبان میکند که در آن مردان و مردم، خودانگارهی زن را تعریف میکنند. در بخش دوم لیکاف از ماهیت این تعریف میگوید و فرهنگ، کلیشهها و شناسنامهی زیستهی خود و زنان دیگر را با ارائهی حقایقی آزمونشده و متحیّرکننده برای مخاطب شرح میدهد و به قصد ایجاد بستری تغییردهنده و مثبت، خواننده را با خود همراه میکند؛ خوانندهای که در پایان این بخش یا به نوعی پایان کتاب، با تقریب نسبتاً خوبی میتواند به این پرسش پاسخ دهد که «چرا زنان خانماند؟».
بهشاد فرجی/ زمستان ۱۳۹۹
به درستی میتوان اظهار داشت که هیچ کتاب، مقاله یا پایاننامهای، فاقد سوگیری یا گرایشهای غرضورزانه نیست و البته این موضوع نیز که قضاوت خواننده هم ناشی از برداشت مغرضانهی وی در مواجهه با متن پیش رویش بوده، حائز توجه است. کتاب زبان و جایگاه زن، خود برداشتی است از مختصات زنان در فرهنگِ رفتاریِ زبان انگلیسیِ آمریکا که به همت پروفسور لیکاف، استاد و پژوهشگر زبانشناسِ دانشگاه برکلیِ کالیفرنیا نوشته شده است. این کتاب عمده شهرت و اعتبار لیکاف را به ارمغان آرود؛ لیکافی که خود پرورشیافتهی عصر انقلابی آمریکا و متأثر از کلاسهای درس چامسکی است، به خوبی منش و پیشینهی زبانشناسی را میشناسد و کتاب حاضر از این حیث، کتابی آموزنده و آگاهکننده است. لیکاف با اشاره به تحولات اساسی و مهم سیر زبانشناسی و بخصوص حضور چامسکی در این وهلهی مهم، به شرح، نقد و واکاویِ علمیِ مفهوم زبان، رفتار زبانی و پیوستگی این دو مورد با زنان و زنانگی میپردازد. او خود واقف به این نکته است که این حیطه (مطالعات زنان)، نسبت به زمانی که او دست به نگارش کتاب زده، دستخوش تغییراتی در صورتها و شکلهای بیرونی خود است اما ریشهیابیهای دقیق او ما را متوجه غفلتهایی عظیم در ارتباط با درک و بسط نظام زبانشناسانهی زنان و صد البته فمینیسم میکند. این کتاب که به واقع در دو بخش کلی متمرکز است، در بخش آغازین که عنوان اصلی کتاب را نیز یدک میکشد، ما را با زبان خاص زنان آشنا میکند و مخاطب را متوجه گونهی مورد استعمالی از زبان میکند که در آن مردان و مردم، خودانگارهی زن را تعریف میکنند. در بخش دوم لیکاف از ماهیت این تعریف میگوید و فرهنگ، کلیشهها و شناسنامهی زیستهی خود و زنان دیگر را با ارائهی حقایقی آزمونشده و متحیّرکننده برای مخاطب شرح میدهد و به قصد ایجاد بستری تغییردهنده و مثبت، خواننده را با خود همراه میکند؛ خوانندهای که در پایان این بخش یا به نوعی پایان کتاب، با تقریب نسبتاً خوبی میتواند به این پرسش پاسخ دهد که «چرا زنان خانماند؟».
بهشاد فرجی/ زمستان ۱۳۹۹
July 14, 2018
I enjoyed reading this for a linguistics class focusing on gender and sexuality. While Lakoff's text has been rightfully contested for some points, including the validity of her research methods and some comments that she makes regarding language used by gay men (and academic men), her argument serves as a valuable landmark for the beginning of an investigation of Women's Language. The commentary at the end serves to contextualize Lakoff's work with this criticism in mind, and to attach some more contemporary thinking to substantiate and sometimes dismantle her points. I did not find all of the back matter to be useful (some of it mostly describes the personal impact that Lakoff's work has had on the author of the article), but each piece generally offers a perspective that rounds out the whole.
May 27, 2019
Demasiado repetitivo. Me tuve que leer por encimita varias páginas y aún así seguía hablando de lo mismo.
Es increíble ver cómo en aproximadamente 40 años la sociedad no ha cambiado mucho para que este libro escrito en los años setenta siga siendo relevante. A pesar de ser un poco anticuado creo que es un libro adecuado para llevar a cabo una investigación más reciente sobre el tema, con diferentes métodos de investigación que no sea "yo creo," "yo siento," etc.
Me lo leí en español y la verdad lo recomiendo en inglés, su idioma nativo, ya que como hablante nativa del inglés me pareció demasiado difícil comprender los ejemplos traducidos.
Es increíble ver cómo en aproximadamente 40 años la sociedad no ha cambiado mucho para que este libro escrito en los años setenta siga siendo relevante. A pesar de ser un poco anticuado creo que es un libro adecuado para llevar a cabo una investigación más reciente sobre el tema, con diferentes métodos de investigación que no sea "yo creo," "yo siento," etc.
Me lo leí en español y la verdad lo recomiendo en inglés, su idioma nativo, ya que como hablante nativa del inglés me pareció demasiado difícil comprender los ejemplos traducidos.
October 6, 2023
توقعم بالاتر بود. کتاب چنان درباره زبان حرف نزده بود. بیشتر حقایق فمینیستی بود که به ندرت اشاره ای به زبان داشتن و برخی از اونها هم به نظر من بدبینانه می اومدن. به هر حال کتاب متعلق به سال 1970 هست و از اون زمان تا حالا خیلی چیزها فرق کرده و این جای شکرگزاری داره. زبان واقعیت دنیای پیرامون ما رو منعکس میکنه. اینکه میبینیم زبان به شدت جنسیت زدۀ سال 70 الان تا حدی تغییر کرده یعنی برابری اجتماعی بیشتری بین زنان و مردان به دست اومده و این یه پیشرفت بزرگه
July 26, 2022
شاید امروز این کتاب حرف نویی در این حوزه نداشته باشد اما باتوجه به زمان انتشار، کتابی بسیار قابل تامل و خواندنی در زبانشناسی و مطالعات ترجمه و ... محسوب میشود
April 22, 2024
This sums up my future dissertation
December 5, 2025
“These two choices which a woman has— to be less than a woman or less than a person— are highly painful,” (6).
November 10, 2023
though outdated and highly based in introspection, a searingly good read.
November 30, 2022
This book heralded the beginning of the linguistic subfield of language and gender studies, as well as ushered in the study of language and gender in related disciplines such as anthropology, communication studies, education, psychology, and sociology. Since its appearance, it has been widely read, reviewed, and discussed, as well as inspiring a vast body of research. The clarity and wit with which Lakoff presents her ideas has made the book both enjoyable and indispensable. It occupies canonical status in linguistics. (Above text excerpted from "Language and Woman's Place: Text and Commentaries" revised and expanded edition, edited by Mary Bucholtz, Oxford UP, 2004.)
On a more personal note, this book was a gas. While it shows its age, it is also a classic in the sense that nothing much has changed--its arguments still hold water. I think what I love most about this book is Lakoff's authentic voice. She is simply reporting what she knows by way of moral authority. It is free of citation because Lakoff isn't standing on the shoulders of others to make her observations but is making them with boots on the ground. She is direct, sassy, and someone I'd really like to be friends with. I'd buy this book--a used copy (mine is the first edition booya!), for all my friends and bribe them to read it before taking them to lunch where we'd discuss it. I'd love to chat about other peoples' take on Lakoff's observations made almost 50 years ago; they're so uncanny. We just don't realize the soup we swim in, People, and how we're really just treading water (soup). I share Lakoff's hope--largely unrealized all these years later--that society fix gender inequality evidenced in and perpetuated by our language. BTW, this book is part of my PhD dissertation on gender and genre. Facinating. So much fun--not just for lit/rhet geeks like me, but pretty much for every thinking human who likes to laugh at themselves (and others). Enjoy.
On a more personal note, this book was a gas. While it shows its age, it is also a classic in the sense that nothing much has changed--its arguments still hold water. I think what I love most about this book is Lakoff's authentic voice. She is simply reporting what she knows by way of moral authority. It is free of citation because Lakoff isn't standing on the shoulders of others to make her observations but is making them with boots on the ground. She is direct, sassy, and someone I'd really like to be friends with. I'd buy this book--a used copy (mine is the first edition booya!), for all my friends and bribe them to read it before taking them to lunch where we'd discuss it. I'd love to chat about other peoples' take on Lakoff's observations made almost 50 years ago; they're so uncanny. We just don't realize the soup we swim in, People, and how we're really just treading water (soup). I share Lakoff's hope--largely unrealized all these years later--that society fix gender inequality evidenced in and perpetuated by our language. BTW, this book is part of my PhD dissertation on gender and genre. Facinating. So much fun--not just for lit/rhet geeks like me, but pretty much for every thinking human who likes to laugh at themselves (and others). Enjoy.
June 2, 2016
This book is great. I want to buy a dozen copies of it and carry them round with me to throw at people who refer to women as "ladies".
Despite the academic subject matter, I found Lakoff's writing engaging, and I didn't have to work very hard to follow her arguments, which for the most part are very convincing. It's also very short, so all in all, I don't think there's any need to be intimidated by this book.
It definitely isn't perfect. There are a few limits to it's scope which Lakoff mentions (such as the fact that she's only talking about the US, and only within a specific time period) and a couple of problems she doesn't mention (e.g. sometimes she talks as though the fight for civil rights has progressed further than the fight for women's rights). However there's an updated version of the book, which I haven't read, which contains a number of further essays, and might well address some of these points.
Overall this book is a real classic; you can see the roots of a lot of the ideas of modern day feminism within it, and so it's well worth a read for anyone with even a passing interest in feminism, gender, or language.
Despite the academic subject matter, I found Lakoff's writing engaging, and I didn't have to work very hard to follow her arguments, which for the most part are very convincing. It's also very short, so all in all, I don't think there's any need to be intimidated by this book.
It definitely isn't perfect. There are a few limits to it's scope which Lakoff mentions (such as the fact that she's only talking about the US, and only within a specific time period) and a couple of problems she doesn't mention (e.g. sometimes she talks as though the fight for civil rights has progressed further than the fight for women's rights). However there's an updated version of the book, which I haven't read, which contains a number of further essays, and might well address some of these points.
Overall this book is a real classic; you can see the roots of a lot of the ideas of modern day feminism within it, and so it's well worth a read for anyone with even a passing interest in feminism, gender, or language.
October 12, 2014
In language and woman's place, it strikes me as odd that at the end of part 1 Lakoff suddenly criticises amongst others the movement to change the pronomial neutralization away from the standard 'he' for both males and females. She writes that "[T]his area (...) is both less in need of changing and less open to change than many of the other disparities that have been discussed earlier (...)" p. 45. This is ironic to me as she's just written 44 pages just about the nonparallels in language like this, now dismissing something similar to the way her previous arguments would be waved away --> "it can't be changed".
Now I have the unfair advantace of reading this book almost 40 years after publishing while living in a country where a third genderneutral personal pronoun has been introduced, but all the examples that she gives like master/mistress, widow/widower to me, now in 2014, seem really just examples of the same thing. Or is this "theoretical linguism" (I'm not a linguist) providing a radically different point of view?
Now I have the unfair advantace of reading this book almost 40 years after publishing while living in a country where a third genderneutral personal pronoun has been introduced, but all the examples that she gives like master/mistress, widow/widower to me, now in 2014, seem really just examples of the same thing. Or is this "theoretical linguism" (I'm not a linguist) providing a radically different point of view?
February 13, 2013
I wonder how irked Lakoff was in using the general "himself" and "he". It seems hypocritical but completely understandable when you focus on the fact that she is trying to convey understanding and comprehension.
A lot of points seemed extreme.. and a little far-fetched. Being that this is from 1973, I feel that times have changed a lot. Quite a bit is still applicable to today's society still.
A lot of points seemed extreme.. and a little far-fetched. Being that this is from 1973, I feel that times have changed a lot. Quite a bit is still applicable to today's society still.
July 17, 2009
As others have noted, this book is now over 30 years old, so it's not as fresh as it once was, but it's still a brilliant piece of scholarship and was groundbreaking at the time.
March 24, 2012
3 stars for the original text, 4 for the text + commentaries.
August 19, 2018
A classic still, even if some of its arguments have been contested.
June 29, 2023
I got this book from the university library and someone wrote "ale jong" in the margins - accurate
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