Language, Gender and Sexuality
Autumn 2012, MW 1:30-3:20
Gail Stygall

Texts:
Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, Language and Gender, Cambridge, 2003
Bucholtz, ed. and Lakoff, Language and Woman’s Place: Text and Commentaries, Oxford, 2004
Cameron and Kulick, Language and Sexuality, Cambridge, 2003.
Cameron and Kulick, eds. The Language and Sexuality Reader, Routledge, 2006

A methodology text, either Sara Mills and Louise Mullany’s Language, Gender and Feminism (Routledge, 2011) or Kate Harrington, Lia Litosselti, Helen Sauntson and Jane Sunderland’s Gender and Language Research Methodologies (Palgrave, 2008)

Description

This course will introduce both the history of and contemporary work in language, gender and sexuality, as well as introducing research on the topical subjects. We will begin with two articles, one explicitly on feminism and language, one explicitly on sexuality and language. From these two articles, we will begin to discuss what topics, what methodologies, and what theoretical frameworks inform work in this area. In this first section, we’ll be reading Eckert and McConnell-Ginet and whichever methodology book I select. In the second section, we will move through the history of language, gender and sexuality research, using Mary Bucholtz’s collection and commentary on Robin Lakoff’s Language and Woman’s Place. We’ll follow that early history with Deborah Cameron and Don Kulick’s two books on language and sexuality, one more of a textbook, the other a collection. This body of research is remarkable for its ongoing conversation among researchers, both second generation feminists and those initiating work in the full spectrum of sexuality. There will be two short assignments along the way and a seminar paper at the end.