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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Pronoun Envy: Literary Uses of Linguistic Gender

Pronoun Envy: Literary Uses of Linguistic Gender

Livia, Anna

Hardcover

Series: Studies in Language and Gender

LinguisticsWomen's Studies

ISBN10: 019513852X
ISBN13: 9780195138528
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Nov 30 2000
Pages: 248
Weight: 1.21
Height: 1.05 Width: 6.36 Depth: 9.24
Language: English
Controversy over gendered pronouns, for example using the generic he, has been a staple of feminist arguments about patriarchal language over the last 30 years, and is certainly the most contested political issue in Western feminist linguistics. Most accounts do not extend beyond policy issues like the official institution of non-sexist language. In this volume, Anna Livia reveals continuities both before and after the sexist language refore movement and shows how the creative practices of pronoun use on the part of feminist writers had both aesthetic and political ends. Livia uses the term pronoun envy ironically to show that rather being a case of misguided envy, battles over gendered language are central to feminist concerns.

Livia examines a broad corpus of written texts in English and French, concentrating on those texts which problematize the traditional functioning of the linguistic gender system. They range from novels and prose poems to film scripts and personal testimonies, and in time from the 19th century to the present. Some withhold any indication of gender; others have non-gendered characters. Livia's goal is two-fold; to help bridge the divide between linguistic and literary analysis, and to show how careful study of the manipulation of linguistic gender in these texts informs larger concerns. This fresh and highly interdisciplinary work lies at the intersection of several vital areas, including language and gender, sociolinguistics, and feminist literary analysis.

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