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Article published In:
Language and Gender in the Australian Context
Edited by Joanne Winter and Gillian Wigglesworth
[Australian Review of Applied Linguistics. Series S 10] 1993
► pp. 35–53

The representation of women in three medical texts

| Monash University
The theoretical framework of this paper is based on the literature on language and ideology as well as language and gender, focussing on the reflection of gender ideologies in medical texts. Three medical texts were analysed with regard to the linguistic representation of women. While one text is taken from a gynaecological textbook, the other two texts are representative of popular medical books. The main objective of the study was to determine how ideologies of gender are reflected in the authors’ choice of lexis, and the syntactic relations in the texts. The findings indicated that the use of language mirrors the ideological orientation of the authors, and that medical discourse is characterised to a large degree by sexist language.
Published online: 1 January 1993
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aralss.10.03har
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Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Lee, Jackie F.K. & Peter Collins
2009. Australian English‐language textbooks: the gender issues. Gender and Education 21:4 ► pp. 353 ff. DOI logo
de Crespigny, Lachlan
2003. Words matter. Clinics in Perinatology 30:1 ► pp. 17 ff. DOI logo

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