What do you think?
Rate this book
Language and Gender: Making the Difference
This book deals with the use of language to actively create difference and inequality between men and women. Stressing the necessity of looking beyond "sexist" words for an understanding of how language creates difference, Poynton pays particular attention to grammatical and textual structure
in both speech and writing. She contends that girls and boys become different kinds of people in the process of learning to use language differently in achieving different kinds of social goals.
in both speech and writing. She contends that girls and boys become different kinds of people in the process of learning to use language differently in achieving different kinds of social goals.
120 pages, Paperback
First published May 25, 1989
6 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 23, 2022
Language and gender - making the difference
Cate Poynton
Review in English 🫶🏻
Written in 1978 this book is quite old.
However , the the theories on feminism and linguistics are still relevant.
I recommend this book if you are already familiar with linguistics because it talks about syntax, phonology,lexicology…
Obviously we talk about the impact of education in those gender norms
The only limits that I could point out is about gender it was the early time of questioning what is gender.
In this book gender is a social construct (which is true) however this social construct based on the book is more masculine or feminine which we know it is not accurate anymore nowadays.
Thus:
On a feminist and linguistics point of view it is a very interesting and complete book.
However, I would not recommend it for gender studies.
I think the term gender in the title is more male and female related.
But we can’t really blame the author gender fluidity was very few or even not introduced in academic discussions.
Cate Poynton
Review in English 🫶🏻
Written in 1978 this book is quite old.
However , the the theories on feminism and linguistics are still relevant.
I recommend this book if you are already familiar with linguistics because it talks about syntax, phonology,lexicology…
Obviously we talk about the impact of education in those gender norms
The only limits that I could point out is about gender it was the early time of questioning what is gender.
In this book gender is a social construct (which is true) however this social construct based on the book is more masculine or feminine which we know it is not accurate anymore nowadays.
Thus:
On a feminist and linguistics point of view it is a very interesting and complete book.
However, I would not recommend it for gender studies.
I think the term gender in the title is more male and female related.
But we can’t really blame the author gender fluidity was very few or even not introduced in academic discussions.
Displaying 1 of 1 review