Deborah Cameron

Popular assumptions about gender and communication--famously summed up in the title of the massively influential 1992 bestseller Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus--can have unforeseen but far-reaching consequences in many spheres of life, from attitudes to the phenomenon of "date-rape" to expectations of achievement at school, and potential discrimination in the work-place. In this wide-ranging and thoroughly readable book, Deborah Cameron, Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication at Oxford University and author of a number of leading texts in the field of language and gender studies, draws on over 30 years of scientific research to explain what we really know and to demonstrate how this is often very different from the accounts we are familiar with from recent popular writing. Ambitious in scope and exceptionally accessible, The Myth of Mars and Venus tells it like it is: widely accepted attitudes from the past and from other cultures are at heart related to assumptions about language and the place of men and women in society; and there is as much similarity and variation within each gender as between men and women, often associated with social roles and relationships. The author goes on to consider the influence of Darwinian theories of natural selection and the notion that girls and boys are socialized during childhood into different ways of using language, before addressing problems of "miscommunication" surrounding, for example, sex and consent to sex, and women's relative lack of success in work and politics. Arguing that what linguistic differences there are between men and women are driven by the need to construct and project personal meaning and identity, Cameron concludes that we have an urgent need to think about gender in more complex ways than the prevailing myths and stereotypes allow.

The Myth of Mars and Venus

'Feminism' wrote Marie Shear in 1986, 'is the radical notion that women are people'. But, simple and powerful though this definition is, feminism is not a single, clear narrative. It doesn't begin with a specific event at a particular moment in time, it can't be identified with any one political organization or movement, and it isn't defined by the contributions of a handful of great thinkers.Here, Professor Deborah Cameron unpicks the various strands that constitute one of history's most important intellectual and political movements. In her clear and incisive account, she discusses oppression, sexuality, violence, academic theory and practical activism, shows how feminism can be a way of viewing the world and provides an overview of its history. In an era of #metoo, pay gap scandals and online harrassment, it's impossible to deny that gender inequality is a fact of life. And as long as that continues to be true, we will need to understand and engage with the ideas and history of the feminist movement.

Ideas in Profile

Feminism

This edition has been thoroughly updated to take into account new developments in feminist thought about language, including sexist language and political correctness, and gender and language on the internet.

A Reader

The Feminist Critique of Language

Elizabeth Frazer

A Feminist Investigation of Sexual Murder

The Lust to Kill

eine feministische Analyse von Sexualmorden

Lust am Töten

Working with Spoken Discourse provides a comprehensive account of the expanding multidisciplinary field of discourse analysis. It discusses current approaches, concepts and debates in the field of spoken discourse and provides a grounding in the practical techniques of discourse analysis and how to apply them to real data.

Working with Spoken Discourse

The Feminist Critique of Language provides a wide-ranging selection of writings on language, gender, and feminist thought. It serves both as a guide to the current debates and directions and as a digest of the history of twentieth-century feminist ideas about language. This edition includes extracts from Felly Nkweto Simmonds, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Luce Irigaray, Sara Mills, Margaret Doyle, Debbie Cameron, Susan Ehrlich, Ruth King, Kate Clark, Sally McConnell-Ginet, Deborah Tannen, Aki Uchida, Jennifer Coates and Kira Hall.

Don Kulick

This lively and accessible textbook provides a clear introduction to the relationship between language and sexuality.

Language and Sexuality

Come definire il femminismo, cos’è questo movimento? Non sarebbe preferibile usare il plurale, “femminismi”? E quanto ha coinvolto le donne e appartiene alla conoscenza diffusa? Come ricorda Barbara Mapelli nella sua prefazione, sono questi alcuni degli interrogativi sempre attuali con cui si confronta questo denso volume, coraggioso e generoso, che con un linguaggio piano e comprensibile discute di oppressione, sessualità e femminilità, violenza, teorie accademiche, cultura e attivismo, diritti e lavoro. In un’era di #metoo, sperequazioni retributive e molestie on line, è impossibile negare che la diseguaglianza di genere rappresenti una realtà di fatto della nostra cultura. E finché ciò resterà vero, avremo bisogno di studiare, capire e fare i conti con le idee e la storia del Movimento femminista. Che – come ricostruisce efficacemente l’autrice – non inizia con un evento specifico e in un momento particolare, non può essere identificato con una particolare organizzazione o movimento politico, e non è definito dalle riflessioni di qualche grande pensatrice o pensatore, ma rappresenta uno dei movimenti intellettuali e politici più importanti della storia.

Femminismo

The Language and Sexuality Reader is the first of its kind to bring together material from the fields of anthropology, communication studies, linguistics, medicine and psychology in an examination of the role of sexuality in written and spoken language. Organized into thematic sections, the Reader addresses: early documentation of vocabulary used by male homosexuals and later work on the existence of a discourse style signifying gay identity the use of language by individuals to present themselves as sexual and gendered subjects the way language reflects, reinforces or challenges cultural norms defining what is 'natural' and desirable in the sphere of sex the verbal communication of sexual desire in different settings, genres and media. The Language and Sexuality Reader includes extracts from: Hideko Abe, Laura M. Ahearn, Rusty Barrett, Deborah Cameron, Kathryn Campbell-Kibler, Donald W. Cory, Justine Coupland, Louie Crew, James Darsey, Penelope Eckert, Susan Ehrlich, Joseph J. Hayes, Scott F. Kiesling, Celia Kitzinger, Don Kulick, William L. Leap, Gershon Legman, Momoko Nakamura, Sally McConnell-Ginet, Julia Penelope, Robert J. Podesva, June Machover Reinisch, Sarah J. Roberts, Stephanie A. Sanders, David Sonenschein, and David Valentine.

The Language and Sexuality Reader

Sex-difference Science and the Study of Language

More Heat Than Light

Penelope Harvey

Kay Richardson

M. B. H. Rampton

Originally published in 1992. This book discusses the possibilities of developing the research process in social science so that it benefits the subjects as well as the researcher. The authors distinguish between ‘ethical’, ‘advocate’ and ‘empowering’ approaches to the relationship between researcher and researched, linking these to different ideas about the nature of knowledge, action, language, and social relations. They then use a series of empirical case studies to explore the possibilities for ‘empowering research’. The book is the product of dialogue between researchers from a range of disciplines (anthropology, cultural studies, sociology and linguistics) and is for those working across the social sciences. Through combination of philosophical discussion, methodological recommendation and case-study illustration, it provides guidance that is practical without being simplistic.

Issues of Power and Method

Researching Language

Performing Gender Identity

Jennifer Coates

This collection of essays presents a picture of research on women and language in Britain. The contributors cover a range of British speech communities, linguistic events and settings using approaches from sociolinguistics and discourse analysis.

Women in Their Speech Communities

Joan Scanlon

A collection of the best and most enduring articles published in Trouble and Strife: The Radical Feminist Magazine between 1983 and 2002.

The Trouble and Strife Reader

A systematic, critical analysis of sexual murder and its relation to the question of gender. The authors examine a wide range of literature which deals with sexual murder - from criminology and the sociology of deviance to popular journalism and lurid paperbacks.

Ivan Panovic

"An outstanding introduction to discourse analysis of written language in an age that is more and more characterized by multilingual, digital, and generically hybrid texts. In an accessible style, Working with Written Discourse illustrates how these texts can be analyzed employing a wide variety of approaches that are critical, multidisciplinary, and productive." - Professor Jaffer Sheyholislami, Carleton University "Comprehensive and up-to-the-minute in its discussion of areas like multimodality and the new media, without overlooking ‘older’ media and more conventional writing. I will recommend it highly to students at all levels." - Dr Mark Sebba, Lancaster University Addressing the practicalities of research, and embracing the complexity and variety of written forms of language, this book: grounds readers in a broad range of concepts, debates and relevant methods focuses on both theoretical questions and the ‘how to’ of analysis is loaded with practical activities and advice on the design and execution of research highlights computer-mediated communication and new media discourse, from text messages and tweets to mobile phone novels and online encyclopedias draws on data from international and multilingual communities. The perfect companion to Deborah Cameron's best-selling Working with Spoken Discourse, this book equips readers with practical and conceptual tools to ask questions about written discourse, and to analyse the huge variety of texts that make up our linguistic landscape. It is the essential guide for students of discourse analysis in linguistics, media and communication studies, and for social researchers across the social sciences.

Working with Written Discourse

"An exemplary textbook. Making even the most complex ideas fully accessible, it is grounded in an extensive literature, filled with engaging examples, and offers ample suggestions for independent research. It’s been a key text in my classes for over a decade and, as fresh and relevant as ever, will continue to buttress my graduate seminars and undergraduate courses alike.” - Professor Crispin Thurlow, University of Washington Comprehensive, practical, lively and accessible, Working with Spoken Discourse is the much-loved benchmark for learning to do discourse analysis. It combines theory and practice to give students the grounding they need in practical techniques of analyzing talk and how to apply them to real data. Begins with the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of doing discourse analysis Packs examples into every chapter to help explain complex concepts Uses exercises and activities to reinforce what you’ve learned Leads you through the practicalities of designing your own project Exceptionally clear, and perfect for undergraduates starting a project, this is the essential guide to spoken discourse.

Literary Nonfiction. Gender Studies. In the Sedgewick lecture for 2012, Professor Deborah Cameron investigates the age-old question of whether men and women are different kinds of beings, both physically and intellectually. She begins by noting that in the 19th century that most writers saw men as being intellectually superior to women in their use of language. But she also observes that this position was gradually modified in the 20th century, that is, until the 1990s, when there was a sudden resurgence of the essentialist idea, this time with many writers concluding that women were programmed to be the better language users. Cameron examines closely the claims of a number of popular self-help books on the subject, and then proceeds to show how many of the more supposedly scientific books rely on a form of "neurobabble" to make similar claims about the alleged hard-wired intellectual differences between men and women. The question then becomes, why is it that this essentialist view has caught on? Cameron suggests that it is in part a way of responding to the pervasive anxiety brought about by massive social changes in the roles of men and women. She also cautions that this new essentialism is having potentially drastic consequences on the theories and practice of how boys and girls, men and women, are educated.

Deborah Cameron

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