Gender, Language and Discourse

Women and Psychology

by Ann Weatherall

Is language sexist? Do women and men speak different languages?
Gender, Language and Discourse uniquely examines the contribution that psychological research - in particular, discursive psychology - has made to answering these questions. Until now, books on gender and language have tended to be from the sociolinguistic perspective and have focused on one of two issues - sexism in language or gender differences in speech. This book considers both issues and develops the idea that they shouldn't be viewed as mutually exclusive endeavours but rather as part of the same process - the social construction of gender. Ann Weatherall highlights the fresh insights that a social constructionist approach has made to these debates, and presents recent theoretical developments and empirical work in discursive psychology relevant to gender and language.
Gender, Language and Discourse provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date discussion of the gender and language field from a psychological perspective. It will be invaluable to students and researchers in social psychology, cultural studies, education, linguistic anthropology and women's studies.

188 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Titus Hjelm · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't quite what I thought it would be (a solid intro to the discursive psychology take on gender), but interesting nevertheless. A bit too much space was spent of reviewing theories of gender differences in speech, but of course this is the field the book tries to argue against.