Language and Gender

by Mary M. Talbot

Book Overview

This new edition of Language and Gender has been thoroughly revised and updated, including the addition of entirely new chapters that explore recent work in the field. A range of approaches is covered at an introductory level, presenting sometimes difficult and complex issues in an understandable way. Every chapter concludes with a list of recommended readings so that each topic can be taken further. Like the first edition, it will be popular with students for its accessibility and with teachers for the range and depth it achieves in a single volume.

As in the first edition, the book is organised into three parts. An introductory section provides preliminary grounding in early 'classic' studies in the field. In the second section, Talbot examines the language used by women and men in a variety of speech situation and genres. She addresses a range of issues and problems, including the difficulties arising from accounting for gender differences in terms of dichotomies like public vs private and informational vs affective and, not least, the trouble with looking for 'differences' at all.

Talbot's emphasis, however, is on recent research. The last and largest section examines not gender difference but the construction and performance of gender in discourse. It includes new chapters outlining recent research on women's talk in public contexts and on language, gender and sexualities. The section as a whole reflects both the high degree of interest in mass media and popular culture found in recent language and gender research and the preoccupation with discourse and social change that is central to Critical Discourse Analysis.

The second edition of Language and Gender will become a key textbook for undergraduates and postgraduates in linguistics, sociolinguistics, cultural and media studies, gender studies and communication studies. The book is usable by students for whom it their first, or only, contact with sociolinguistics.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0745646050
• ISBN13: 9780745646053
• Release Date: April 2010
• Publisher: Polity Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.4" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Good Textbook

As a college student who studied Introduction to Linguistics partly using this textbook, I found it very easy to read, yet loaded with interesting information, unique applications, and detailed references which were very helpful for tracking down other resources for research papers. The book is entitled: Langauge and Gender: An Introduction, and it is in fact an introduction, not delving too deep into the many issues, concerns, and concepts of gender issues in language. For my class (an introduction/survey sort of class), this book was perfect.

Great way to learn about gender and communication

This book offered an interesting look into how men and women communicate. It covered topics such as "women's language", "man made language", how men and women tell stories and some of the theories on why men and women talk differently. This book also analyzed previous studies done on language and gender. It was somewhat hard to read some parts of this book because I was not completely familiar with some of the terms. However, I would recomend this book to someone who wants to analyze the relationships between men and women.