Gender, Sexuality, and Meaning Linguistic Practice and Politics

This volume offers a representative selection of Sally McConnell-Ginet's publications on language, gender and sexuality, which circle around the following themes: language users are actively engaged in making meanings, both as speakers and listeners; languages and socio-political institutions constrain, but do not determine, communicative possibilities; attention to language deepens understanding of gender and sexuality, including connections to ethnicity, class, race, and other dimensions of social identity and inequality.

Prelude; Chapter 1 Gender, sexuality, and meaning: An overview; Part I Politics and scholarship; ; Chapter 2 Language and gender; Chapter 3 Feminism in linguistics; Chapter 4 Difference and language: A linguist's perspective; Part II Social practice, social meanings, and selves; ; Chapter 5 Communities of practice: Where language, gender, and power all live; Chapter 6 Intonation in a man's world; Chapter 7 Constructing meaning, constructing selves: Snapshots of language, gender, and class from Belten High; Part III Constructing content in discourse; ; Chapter 8 The sexual reproduction of meaning: A discourse-based theory; Chapter 9 Prototypes, pronouns, and persons; Chapter 10 "What's in a name?": Social labeling and gender practices; Chapter 11 "Queering" semantics: Definitional struggles; Coda; Chapter 12 Breaking through the "glass ceiling": Can linguistic awareness help?

Sally McConnell-Ginet is Professor Emerita of Linguistics at Cornell University.