Language and Gender

Catalog description

In this course, we will explore the relationship between language and gender: how ideologies about gender shape language, and, conversely, how language is used to construct gender and gendered identities. To accomplish this, we will pair the tools of linguistic analysis with social theory on gender. Topics include historical developments in the field of language and gender, speech act theory and performativity, grammatical gender, and sociolinguistic style and indexicality. Throughout the course, we will consider how intersections with other social identities – such as race, class, sexuality, and age – inform how people construct gender through language and how these intersections impact which communities have historically been prioritized in research in this area.