Introduction to the study of language and gender

Abstract

The development of the study of language and gender The beginning In 1973, Robin Lakoff published an article entitled “Language and woman's place,” which created a huge fuss. Two years later, she published a book with the same title, which included the original article and another piece entitled “Talking like a lady.” There were those who found the entire topic trivial – yet another ridiculous manifestation of feminist paranoia. And there were those – mostly women – who jumped in to engage with the arguments and issues that Lakoff had put forth. Thus was launched the study of language and gender in the US. It is important to see Lakoff's article in its historical context, as it was part of the second wave feminist movement. 1972 was the year that Title IX was passed, guaranteeing women equal access to educational benefits. Even by 1970, 39 percent of graduate students were women yet only 18 percent of faculty at research universities were women. As female graduate students became increasingly engaged with feminism, they became impatient with aspects of scholarship that seemed to suffer from a narrow white male perspective. What did it mean that social theory had been written primarily by people who had lived their lives in one restricted and privileged corner of society? The sheer fact that there had been no serious study of gender before women began to do it is evidence enough that a homogeneous research population can have serious intellectual consequences. Since the serious study of gender itself was only just beginning at the same time as the study of language and gender, the field has undergone rapid changes and many of the theoretical struggles in gender theory have been played out on the language front. In what follows, we provide an overview of the major developments from the publication of Language and Woman's Place to the present, locating them in the broader context of gender theory and social theory more generally.