Language and Woman's Place Text and Commentaries

by Lakoff, Robin Tolmach; Bucholtz, Mary

• ISBN13: 9780195167573
• ISBN10: 0195167570
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-07-22
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

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 pastthirty 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 found: 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 bindbetween 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 togethercommentaries 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 ongoingrelevance 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.

Author Biography

Robin Tolmach Lakoff is Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. Widely regarded as the founder of language and gender studies, she writes extensively about gender and power and is the author or coauthor of seven books and nearly one hundred articles.
Mary Bucholz is Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has coedited several books on language and gender and is the author of numerous articles on race, class, and youth identities.

Table of Contents

Editor's Introduction

Author's Introduction

Language and Woman's Place: The Original Text with Annotations by Author

Context

Changing Places: Language and Woman's Place in Context

"Radical Feminist" as Label, Libel, and Laudatory Chant: The Politics of Theoretical Taxonomies in Feminist Linguistics

Positioning Ideas and Gendered Subjects: "Women's Language" Revisited

Language and Woman's Place: Picking Up the Gauntlet

Concepts

Power, Lady, and Linguistic Politeness in Language and Woman's Place

Cultural Patterning in Language and Woman's Place

The Good Woman

Language and Marginalized Places

Femininities

Exploring Woman's Language in Japan

"Woman's Langugae and Martha Stewart: From a Room of One's Own to a Home of One's Own to a Corporation of One's Own

Public Discourse and the Private Life of Little Girls: Language and Woman's Place and Language Socialization

Mother's Place in Language and Woman's Place

Power

Doing and Saying: Some Words on Women's Silence

Computer-Mediated Communication and Woman's Place

Linguistics Discrimination and Violence against Women: Discursive Practices and Material Effects

What Does a Focus on "Men's Language" Tell Us about Language and Woman's Place?

Women's Place

Gender, Identity, and "Strong Language" in a Professional Woman's Talk

The New Language and Place of Women in Japan: Reflections on Language and Woman's Place

"I'm Every Woman": Black Women's (Dis)placement in Women's Language Study

The Anguish of Normative Gender: Sociolinguistic Studies among U.S. Latinas

Contradictions of the Indigenous Americas: Feminist Challenges to and from the Field

Sexualities

Language and Woman's Place: Blueprint Studies of Gay Men's English

They Way We Wish We Were: Sexuality and Class in Language and Woman's Place

"I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar": The Importance of Linguistics Stereotype for Lesbian Identity Performances

As Much as We Use Language: Lakoff's Queer Augury

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