LINGUIST List 9.744

Tue May 19 1998

Books: Sociolinguistics

Editor for this issue: Anita Huang <anitalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Simon Collins, Sociolinguistics

 WOMEN CHANGING LANGUAGE
 ANNE PAUWELS,
 Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Linguistics at the 
 University of New England, Armidale, Australia.
 
 Paper 0-582-09962-5
 Hardback 0-582-09961-7
 280 pages 1998
 Real Language Series 
 Longman
 ------------------------
 'Women Changing Language' documents and discusses feminist language 
 reform, looking at the initiatives and actions of women around the 
 world to change the biased representation of the sexes in language. 
 The book pays tribute to the activities of many women who have helped 
 debunk myths about the relationship between women and language, for 
 example that women are 'consumers' of language and men are 'makers' of 
 meaning and creators of language rules. The study reverses this view, 
 concentrating on women as meaning 'makers'.
 
 Women are shown to be language activists who readily challenge sexist 
 language assumptions and practices. The discussion around feminist 
 language reform is approached from a language planning perspective, 
 which has until now been given little recognition. Moreover, for the 
 first time, this study adopts multilingual and multicultural 
 dimensions, drawing examples from Europe and Asia. The extensive 
 collection of multilingual data reveals diversity as well as 
 similarities between languages in the expression and coding of sexism. 
 The study also stresses the need to bear in mind that different 
 cultural attitudes can have varied effects on the acceptance and 
 success of language reform.
 
 This book is highly recommended for students and lecturers in 
 sociolinguistics, women's studies, critical discourse analysis as well 
 as the sociology of language.
 
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