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Article published In:
Language and Dialogue
Vol. 10:3 (2020) ► pp.422–442

Dialogic construction of authority in Hebrew women’s writing from the 19th century

| Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Israel
The article discusses quotations as linguistic means for constructing authority. It seeks to attenuate two accepted premises regarding quotations and authority in linguistic research: firstly, that the source of quotation is the (single) source of authority, and secondly, the writer’s dichotomic attitude toward it: reliance or refutation. Two opinion essays in Hebrew were examined, authored by a woman and published in a Maskilic periodical during the 19th century – a time when women were denied the social license to write in Hebrew. The pragmatic micro-analysis shows that the writer uses various linguistic means to construct her authority by means of dialogical conflicts between several external sources: the Jewish canonical texts, her educated peers or prevailing viewpoints of the time.
Keywords: reliance quotations, refutation quotations, constructing authority, women’s writing
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Historical and social background
  • 3.Literature review
    • 3.1Linguistic means for construction of authority
    • 3.2Bakhtin’s dialogism theory
  • 4.Data and methodology
  • 5.Analysis
    • 5.1Examples where the salient source of authority is a Jewish canonical text
    • 5.2Examples where the salient source of authority is a prevailing viewpoint of the time
  • 6.Summary
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 December 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00077.coh
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