Article published in:
Gender, Language and the Periphery: Grammatical and social gender from the margins
Edited by Julie Abbou and Fabienne H. Baider
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 264] 2016
► pp. 65–88

A poststructuralist approach to structural gender linguistics

Initial considerations

This article attempts to counter the contemporary marginalisation of structural gender linguistics within the field of language and gender. It argues that, in order to make structural gender linguistics compatible with recent developments in the field, it is necessary to initiate a conceptual shift from treating language structures as stable parts of a language system to viewing them as unstable and ever-changing in linguistic performance. This theoretical move towards a poststructuralist approach to structural gender linguistics also has methodological consequences. Its central aim is the de-essentialisation of gendered language structures by documenting their heterogeneity, instability and incoherence. This can be achieved in three major ways: cross-linguistic comparison, historical linguistic description and analysis of the usage patterns of particular forms. The three methods are illustrated using language material from English, German and Croatian.

Keywords: contrastive linguistics, de-essentialisation, grammatical gender, historical linguistics, lexical gender, poststructuralism, referential gender, social gender, structural gender linguistics
Published online: 16 December 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.264.04mot
References
Attaviriyanupap, Korakoch
2015 “The linguistic representation of gender in Thai.” In Gender Across Languages. The Linguistic Representation of Women and Men. Vol. 4, ed. by Marlis Hellinger, and Heiko Motschenbacher, 369–399. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Baker, Paul
2002 Fantabulosa. A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Baron, Dennis
1986 Grammar and Gender. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
2014 Facebook multiplies genders but offers users the same three tired pronouns. http://​illinois​.edu​/blog​/view​/25​/110232​?displayType​=month​&displayMonth​=201402 (accessed: 12 March, 2014).Google Scholar
Bodine, Ann
1975 “Androcentrism in prescriptive grammar: Singular ‘they’, sex-indefinite ‘he’, and ‘he or she’.” Language in Society 4(2): 129–146. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Braun, Friederike, and Geoffrey Haig
2010 “When are German ‘girls’ feminine? How the semantics of age influences the grammar of gender agreement.” In Language in its Socio-Cultural Context: New Explorations in Global, Media and Gendered Uses, ed. by Markus Bieswanger, Heiko Motschenbacher, and Susanne Mühleisen, 69–84. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith
1990 Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
1993 Bodies that Matter. On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan, and Paul Hopper
2001 “Introduction to frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure.” In Frequency and the Emergence of Linguistic Structure, ed. by Joan Bybee, and Paul Hopper, 1–24. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Clancy, Steven J
1999 “The ascent of guy.” American Speech 74(3): 282–297.Google Scholar
Corbett, Greville G
1991 Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Derrida, Jacques
1988 Limited Inc. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Duke, Janet
2008 The Development of Gender as a Grammatical Category: Five Case Studies from the Germanic Languages. Heidelberg: WinterGoogle Scholar
Harvey, Keith
2002 “Camp talk and citationality: A queer take on ‘authentic’ and ‘represented’ utterance.” Journal of Pragmatics 34(9): 1145–1165. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hellinger, Marlis, and Hadumod Bußmann
2001 “Gender across languages: The linguistic representation of women and men.” In Gender Across Languages. The Linguistic Representation of Women and Men. Vol. 1, ed. by Marlis Hellinger, and Hadumod Bußmann, 1–25. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(eds) 2001–2003 Gender Across Languages. The Linguistic Representation of Women and Men. Vol. 1–3. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hellinger, Marlis, and Heiko Motschenbacher
(eds) 2015 Gender Across Languages. The Linguistic Representation of Women and Men. Vol. 4. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hollmann, Willem B
2009a “Semantic change.” In English Language. Description, Variation and Context, ed. by Jonathan Culpeper, Francis Katamba, Paul Kerswill, Ruth Wodak, and Tony McEnery, 301–313. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
2009b “Grammatical change.” In English Language. Description, Variation and Context, ed. by Jonathan Culpeper, Francis Katamba, Paul Kerswill, Ruth Wodak, and Tony McEnery, 314–333. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J
1998 “Emergent grammar.” In The New Psychology of Language. Cognitive and Functional Approaches to Language Structure, ed. by Michael Tomasello, 155–175. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hornscheidt, Antje
2002 “Die Nicht-Rezeption poststrukturalistischer Gender- und Sprachtheorien der Feministischen Linguistik im deutschsprachigen Raum.” In Neue Ergebnisse der empirischen Genderforschung, ed. by Tamara Faschingbauer, 5–51. Hildesheim: Georg Olms.Google Scholar
Janse, Mark, Brian D. Joseph, and Gunther de Vogelaer
2011 “Changing gender systems: A multidisciplinary approach.” Folia Linguistica 45(2): 237–244. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Jobin, Bettina
2011 “Semantically driven change in German(ic) gender morphology.” Folia Linguistica 45(2): 317–353. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Hyoungsup
2010 “The use of collective numeral phrases in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian: Morphosemantic approach.” Journal of Foreign Studies 6: 235–256.Google Scholar
Luraghi, Silvia
2011 “The origin of the Proto-Indo-European gender system: Typological considerations.” Folia Linguistica 45(2): 435–463. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Marcato, Gianna, and Eva-Maria Thüne
2002 “Gender and female visibility in Italian.” In Gender Across Languages. The Linguistic Representation of Women and Men. Vol. 2, ed. by Marlis Hellinger, and Hadumod Bußmann, 187–217. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Martyna, Wendy
1983 “Beyond the ‘he/man’ approach: The case for nonsexist language.” In Feminist Frontiers. Rethinking Sex, Gender, and Society, ed. by Laurel Richardson, and Verta Taylor, 10–17. Reading: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Matasović, Ranko
2004 Gender in Indo-European. Heidelberg: Winter.Google Scholar
Meyerhoff, Miriam
2006 Introducing Sociolinguistics. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mills, Sara
2004 “Third wave feminist linguistics and the analysis of sexism.” Discourse Analysis Online 2: http://​www​.shu​.ac​.uk​/daol​/articles​/open​/2003​/001​/mills2003001​-paper​.htmlGoogle Scholar
2008 Language and Sexism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Bruce, and Fred C. Robinson
2007 A Guide to Old English (7th edition). Malden: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Motschenbacher, Heiko
2008 “Structural linguistic gender categories and discursive materialization: A deconstructionist analysis.” Indiana University Working Papers in Linguistics 8(3): 21–46.Google Scholar
2010a Language, Gender and Sexual Identity: Poststructuralist Perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2010b “Female-as-norm (FAN): A typology of female and feminine generics.” In Language in its Socio-Cultural Context. New Explorations in Gendered, Global and Media Uses, ed. by Markus Bieswanger, Heiko Motschenbacher, and Susanne Mühleisen, 35–67. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
2011 “Taking Queer Linguistics further: Sociolinguistics and critical heteronormativity research.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 212: 149–179.Google Scholar
2012 An Interdisciplinary Bibliography on Language, Gender and Sexuality (2000–2011). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2014 “Grammatical gender as a challenge for language policy: The (im)possibility of non-heteronormative language use in German vs. English.” Language Policy 13(3): 243–261. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2015 “Some new perspectives on gendered language structures.” In Gender Across Languages. The Linguistic Representation of Women and Men. Vol. 4, ed. by Marlis Hellinger, and Heiko Motschenbacher, 27–48. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2016 “A discursive approach to structural gender linguistics.” Gender and Language 10(2): 149–169. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Motschenbacher, Heiko, and Marija Weikert
2015 “Structural gender trouble in Croatian.” In Gender Across Languages. The Linguistic Representation of Women and Men. Vol. 4, ed. by Marlis Hellinger, and Heiko Motschenbacher, 49–95. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Nakassis, Constantine V
2013 “Citation and citationality.” Signs and Society 1(1): 51–77. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Nissen, Uwe Kjaer
2002 “Gender in Spanish. Tradition and innovation.” In Gender Across Languages. The Linguistic Representation of Women and Men. Vol. 2, ed. by Marlis Hellinger, and Hadumod Bußmann, 251–279. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Norde, Muriel
2009 Degrammaticalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Norri, Juhani
1998 “Gender-referential shifts in English.” English Studies 79(3): 270–287. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Prewitt-Freilino, Jennifer L., T. Andrew Caswell, and Emmi K. Laakso
2012 “The gendering of language: A comparison of gender equality in countries with gendered, natural gender, and genderless languages.” Sex Roles 66(3/4): 268–281. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schulz, Muriel R
1975 “The semantic derogation of woman.” In Language and Sex: Difference and Dominance, ed. by Barrie Thorne, and Nancy Henley, 64–75. Rowley: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Siemund, Peter, and Florian Dolberg
2011 “From lexical to referential gender: An analysis of gender change in medieval English based on two historical documents.” Folia Linguistica 45(2): 489–534. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, Michael
2005 “Axes of evals: Token versus type interdiscursivity.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15(1): 6–22. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Thorne, Barrie, Cheris Kramarae, and Nancy Henley
(eds) 1983 Language, Gender and Society. Rowley: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Trousdale, Graeme, and Muriel Norde
2013 “Degrammaticalization and constructionalization: Two case studies.” Language Sciences 36(1): 32–46. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Trudgill, Peter
2013 “Gender maintenance and loss in Totenmålet, English, and other major Germanic varieties.” In In Search of Universal Grammar: From Old Norse to Zoque, ed. by Terje Lohndal, 77–108. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Vezzosi, Letizia
2008 “Gender assignment in Old English.” In English Historical Linguistics 2006. Volume I: Syntax and Morphology, ed. by Maurizio Gotti, Marina Dossena, and Richard Dury, 89–108. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Waksler, Rachelle
1995 “She’s a mensch and he’s a bitch: Neutralizing gender in the 90s.” English Today 11(2): 3–6. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wasserman, Benjamin D., and Allyson J. Weseley
2009 “¿Qué? Quoi? Do languages with grammatical gender promote sexist attitudes?” Sex Roles 61(9/10): 634–643. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Kumar Kashyap, Abhishek
2016.  In Gender, Language and the Periphery [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 264], ► pp. 165 ff. Crossref logo
Steriopolo, Olga
2021. Grammatical gender reversals: A morphosyntactic and sociopragmatic analysis. Open Linguistics 7:1 ► pp. 136 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 may 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.