Pronoun Envy

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.

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.

This book is a holistic exploration of personal pronouns in English and their development. In conversational prose and drawing on linguistic and psychological research, Helene Seltzer Krauthamer gives an overview of what pronouns are, why they are problematic, what they reveal about us, how they can be used effectively, where they came from, and where they are going. Assuming no specialized knowledge and with helpful real-world exercises at the end of each chapter, the book aids growth and inspires thought in students and other readers, spelling out the implications of these changes for teachers, writers, and all who write or speak in English.

Fragmented, buried, and largely lost, the classical past presents formidable obstacles to anyone who would seek to know it. 'Deep Classics' is the study of these obstacles and, in particular, of the way in which the contemplation of the classical past resembles – and has even provided a model for – other kinds of human endeavor. This volume offers a new way to understand the modalities and aims of Classics itself, through the ages. Its individual chapters draw fruitful connections between the reception of the classical and current concerns in philosophy of mind, cognitive theory, epistemology, media studies, sense studies, aesthetics, queer theory and eco-criticism. What does the study of the ancient past teach us about our encounters with our own more recent but still elusive memories? What do our always partial reconstructions of ancient sites tell us about the limits of our ability to know our own world, or to imagine our future? What does the reader of the lacunose and corrupted literatures of antiquity learn thereby about literature and language themselves? What does a shattered statue reveal about art, matter, sensation, experience, life? Does the way in which these vestiges of the past are encountered – sitting in a library, standing in a gallery, moving through a ruin – condition our responses to them and alter their significance? And finally, how has the contemplation of antiquity helped to shape seemingly unrelated disciplines, including not only other humanistic and scientific epistemologies but also non-scholarly modes and practices? In asking these and similar questions, Deep Classics makes a pointed intervention in the study of the classical tradition, now more widely known as 'reception studies'.

This study considers the use of they and he for generic reference in post-2000 written British English. The analysis is framed by a consideration of language-internal factors, such as syntactic agreement, and language-external factors, which include traditional grammatical prescriptivism and the language reforms resulting from second-wave feminism.

This is an up-to-date textbook in the area of language and gender. Mary Talbot examines the language used by women and men in a variety of speech situations and genres.

Like other composition readers, Counterbalance has as its primary purpose to improve thinking, reading and writing skills, recognizing throughout the degree to which these are inextricably interlinked. Where Counterbalance differs from almost all other composition readers is in the prominence it gives to writing by women. More and more of the writers in modern Western society are women and women now comprise a substantial majority of the students in many undergraduate courses. Yet most texts are eighty per cent or more comprised of writing by men. As its title suggests, this book acts as a counterbalance; over three-quarters of the essays are by women. The feminist stance of Counterbalance is unequivocal; an important aim of this text is to encourage students to question assumptions about gender. But for those to whom the word ‘feminist’ engenders immediate unease, it should be emphasised that the stance of the text is provocative and open-minded rather than strident or exclusionary; Audre Lorde and bell hooks are here, but so is George Orwell. The text is also designed as a counterbalance in other respects; many of the essays here explore issues of race, culture and class. Notions of correctness and issues of free speech and responsibility are also treated. As a whole the book is thus an invigorating and enormously wide-ranging spur to thought and discussion. Yet it avoids the scatter-gun approach so common to first-year collections; Counterbalance retains throughout a focus on language—perhaps the one area that all students, no matter what their backgrounds and interests, can connect to out of their everyday experience. The book’s thesis is that we can all think more clearly and use language more effectively if we know not only something about the traditional areas of composition and grammar but also something about how language influences us. The essays selected demonstrate a variety of expository styles, organizations and methods of development. They are organized into seven chapters so as to present a coherent progression, moving from simpler essays on more familiar topics to more difficult concepts and writing assignments.