Can the term "genderlect" be saved?

A postmodernist re-definition

Authors

  • Heiko Motschenbacher Johann Wolfgang Goethe University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v1i2.255

Keywords:

postmodernism, advertising discourse, stylisation, deconstructionism

Abstract

This article is an attempt to reclaim the term "genderlect" as a valuable sociolinguistic concept. It shows that "genderlect" in its traditional sense as a variety according to speaker sex is just as much a myth as are early sociolinguistic theorisations of "women's/men's language". From a postmodernist perspective, genderlects must be seen as stereotypical resources for gendered stylisation practices that are not to be equalled with how women and men actually speak. This is illustrated by using material from a comprehensive study on linguistic gender stylisation in advertising discourse. Moreover, it is suggested that the strictly binary genderlect concept is abandoned and replaced by another one that sees genderlects as heavily context-dependent, community-based and therefore infinite in number. A postmodernist genderlect concept should be able to deal with hegemonic as well as subversive gender styles and at the same time acknowledge that what is generally judged to be hegemonic in one context might be subversive in another (or vice versa).

Author Biography

  • Heiko Motschenbacher, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University

    Postdoctoral Research Assistant Institute for England and America Studies (IEAS), Linguistics Department Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Contact address: Mittelstr. 68a, 96052 Bamberg, Germany Heiko Motschenbacher is Assistant Lecturer and Research Assistant at the Institute for England and America Studies (Linguistics Department), Frankfurt University, Germany, where he teaches courses in English linguistics. His main research interests include language and gender, language & sexuality, European sociolinguistics, Critical Applied Linguistics, European language policy and advertising language. His PhD thesis 'Women and Men Like Different Things'? – Doing Gender als Strategie der Werbesprache ('Doing Gender as a Strategy of Advertising Language') takes a deconstructionist stance on linguistic gender stylisation. He is currently working on a post-doctoral research project of the title Staging Linguistic and Sexual Identities in the Eurovision Song Contest. Address: Institut für England- und Amerikastudien, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Grüneburgplatz 1, 60629 Frankfurt am Main, Germany [Email: [email protected]].

Published

2007-10-23

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Motschenbacher, H. (2007). Can the term "genderlect" be saved? A postmodernist re-definition. Gender and Language, 1(2), 255-278. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v1i2.255