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Language and Gender
Since its first publication in 1998, Mary Talbot’s Language and Gender has been a leading textbook, popular with students for its accessibility and with teachers for the range and depth it achieves in a single volume. This anticipated third edition has been thoroughly revised and updated for the era of #MeToo, genderqueer, Trump, and cyberhate.
The book is organized into three parts. An introductory section provides grounding in early ‘classic' studies in the field. In the second section, Talbot examines language used by women and men in a variety of speech situations and genres. The last section considers the construction and performance of gender in discourse, reflecting the interest in mass media and popular culture found in recent research, as well as the preoccupation with social change that is central to Critical Discourse Analysis. Maintaining an emphasis on recent research, Talbot covers a range of approaches at an introductory level, lucidly presenting sometimes difficult and complex issues. Each chapter concludes with a list of recommended readings, enabling students to further their interests in various topics.
Language and Gender will continue to be an essential textbook for undergraduates and postgraduates in linguistics, sociolinguistics, cultural and media studies, gender studies and communication studies.
The book is organized into three parts. An introductory section provides grounding in early ‘classic' studies in the field. In the second section, Talbot examines language used by women and men in a variety of speech situations and genres. The last section considers the construction and performance of gender in discourse, reflecting the interest in mass media and popular culture found in recent research, as well as the preoccupation with social change that is central to Critical Discourse Analysis. Maintaining an emphasis on recent research, Talbot covers a range of approaches at an introductory level, lucidly presenting sometimes difficult and complex issues. Each chapter concludes with a list of recommended readings, enabling students to further their interests in various topics.
Language and Gender will continue to be an essential textbook for undergraduates and postgraduates in linguistics, sociolinguistics, cultural and media studies, gender studies and communication studies.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 12, 1999
10 people are currently reading
145 people want to read
About the author
Mary M. Talbot
12 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