Introducing the special issue on gender and the Greek language

Abstract

As is well known, the bulk of research on language and gender is still produced with respect to English and in the English language. This comes as no surprise, given the hegemony of English in the academic landscape across the globe, but also the socio-political conditions in certain English-speaking countries (notably the USA), which historically enabled questions of gender to be articulated both within different disciplines and, interdisciplinarily, within gender studies earlier than elsewhere. The first aim of this special issue on gender and the Greek language is to expand our knowledge on the relationship between language and gender by taking into account research concerning a lesser-used language, Modern Greek (hereafter Greek), and to familiarise a wider audience with research that has largely remained inaccessible to non-Greek speakers.