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Language and Gender: An Introduction
This is an up-to-date textbook in the growing area of language and gender. It will be popular with students for its accessibility and with teachers for the range and depth it achieves in a single volume. The book contains detailed discussion of work in the field, including recent research that has previously not been readily available to undergraduates or the general reader. A range of approaches is covered at an introductory level, presenting sometimes difficult and complex issues in an understandable way. Each chapter concludes with a list of recommended readings so that each topic can be taken further.
The emphasis is on recent research, with a preliminary grounding in early 'classic' studies in the field. Talbot examines the language used by women and men in a variety of speech situations and genres. For this, she draws on studies working within the Anglo-American tradition of research on language and gender. Issues and problems addressed include the difficulties arising from accounting for gender differences in terms of dichotomies like public vs private and informational vs affective - and, not least, the trouble with looking for 'differences' at all.
Another group of chapters present recent, critical perspectives on language and gender grounded in European theories of discourse and subjectivity, with particular attention to Critical Discourse Analysis. These chapters examine not gender difference but the construction of gender identities. They reflect both the high degree of interest in mass media and popular culture found in recent language and gender research and the preoccupation with discourse and social change that is central to Critical Discourse Analysis.
The book will become a key textbook for undergraduates and postgraduates in linguisitics, sociolinguistics, cultural and media studies, gender and women's studies and communication studies. The book is usable by students for whom it is their first, or only, contact with sociolinguistics.
The emphasis is on recent research, with a preliminary grounding in early 'classic' studies in the field. Talbot examines the language used by women and men in a variety of speech situations and genres. For this, she draws on studies working within the Anglo-American tradition of research on language and gender. Issues and problems addressed include the difficulties arising from accounting for gender differences in terms of dichotomies like public vs private and informational vs affective - and, not least, the trouble with looking for 'differences' at all.
Another group of chapters present recent, critical perspectives on language and gender grounded in European theories of discourse and subjectivity, with particular attention to Critical Discourse Analysis. These chapters examine not gender difference but the construction of gender identities. They reflect both the high degree of interest in mass media and popular culture found in recent language and gender research and the preoccupation with discourse and social change that is central to Critical Discourse Analysis.
The book will become a key textbook for undergraduates and postgraduates in linguisitics, sociolinguistics, cultural and media studies, gender and women's studies and communication studies. The book is usable by students for whom it is their first, or only, contact with sociolinguistics.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 12, 1999
10 people are currently reading
147 people want to read
About the author
Mary M. Talbot
14 books28 followersDr Mary Talbot is the author of the graphic novel Dotter of her Father’s Eyes (Jonathan Cape 2012), illustrated by her husband, award winning comic artist Bryan Talbot. She is an internationally acclaimed scholar who has published widely on language, gender and power, particularly in relation to media and consumer culture. Dotter is the first work she has undertaken in the graphic novel format. It went on to win the Costa Biography Award in January 2013.
Mary’s recent academic work includes a second edition of Language and Gender (Polity 2010), a book that continues to be popular with university lecturers and students worldwide. However, she’s probably still best known for her critical investigation of the “synthetic sisterhood” offered by teen magazines.
She has held academic posts in higher education for over twenty-five years, mostly in England, but also in Wales and Denmark. In 2004 she was invited as Visiting Professor to Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China. She has also done extensive consultancy work, including for the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Quality Assurance Agency.
Born in Wigan in 1954, Mary married Bryan and moved to Preston in 1972, where she brought up two sons, wrote poetry and short stories. She studied English Literature and Linguistics at Preston Polytechnic as a mature student, graduating in 1982 with a first class BA in Combined Studies. She later went on to study at Lancaster University, completing with a PhD on Critical Discourse Analysis in 1990. Employment as Reader in Language and Culture took her to Sunderland in 1997. She still lives in Sunderland, but has been a freelance writer since 2009.
Her second graphic novel, Sally Heathcote, Suffragette, is illustrated by Kate Charlesworth and Bryan and due for publication by Jonathan Cape in May 2014. It follows the fortunes of a maid-of-all-work as she is swept up the feminist activism of Edwardian England.
Mary’s recent academic work includes a second edition of Language and Gender (Polity 2010), a book that continues to be popular with university lecturers and students worldwide. However, she’s probably still best known for her critical investigation of the “synthetic sisterhood” offered by teen magazines.
She has held academic posts in higher education for over twenty-five years, mostly in England, but also in Wales and Denmark. In 2004 she was invited as Visiting Professor to Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China. She has also done extensive consultancy work, including for the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Quality Assurance Agency.
Born in Wigan in 1954, Mary married Bryan and moved to Preston in 1972, where she brought up two sons, wrote poetry and short stories. She studied English Literature and Linguistics at Preston Polytechnic as a mature student, graduating in 1982 with a first class BA in Combined Studies. She later went on to study at Lancaster University, completing with a PhD on Critical Discourse Analysis in 1990. Employment as Reader in Language and Culture took her to Sunderland in 1997. She still lives in Sunderland, but has been a freelance writer since 2009.
Her second graphic novel, Sally Heathcote, Suffragette, is illustrated by Kate Charlesworth and Bryan and due for publication by Jonathan Cape in May 2014. It follows the fortunes of a maid-of-all-work as she is swept up the feminist activism of Edwardian England.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 19, 2013
Very solid introduction to language and gender, especially the bits about critical discourse analysis. Useful for people from any disciplinary background.
May 7, 2017
Solid, informative, and easy-to-understand introduction to theories of Language and Gender - including deficit / dominance / difference / performativity / and some critical discourse analysis.
January 14, 2022
Didn’t finish the book because most of the chapters are criticizing scientific findings that contributes to male/female stereotypes on the topics of language. It’s a little bit boring.
June 29, 2016
How we choose words and converse is such a personal expression, and yet inexorably impacted by culture, and also, GENDER.
This is an introductory textbook, scratching the surface and starting to ask, what does it MEAN that language is shaped by the gender of the speaker.
I found this fascinating, although I read it outside of a women/gender studies course. So many specific studies of how women and men speak differently, attenuated for different cultures, with startling results!
Also as an audiobook narrator, the examination of differences between the speech patterns of men and women helped me think about how to better perform a male character, and made me think about how dialogue can seem vaguely inauthentic ... it happens when the author doesn't quite master the linguistic gender differences. Language is complicated!
This is an introductory textbook, scratching the surface and starting to ask, what does it MEAN that language is shaped by the gender of the speaker.
I found this fascinating, although I read it outside of a women/gender studies course. So many specific studies of how women and men speak differently, attenuated for different cultures, with startling results!
Also as an audiobook narrator, the examination of differences between the speech patterns of men and women helped me think about how to better perform a male character, and made me think about how dialogue can seem vaguely inauthentic ... it happens when the author doesn't quite master the linguistic gender differences. Language is complicated!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews