Item Details

An exploratory review of gender ideologies and sexism in the Ga language

Issue: Vol 11 No. 2 (2017)

Journal: Gender and Language

Subject Areas: Gender Studies Linguistics

DOI: 10.1558/genl.19614

Abstract:

Although research on language and gender has focused largely on gendered languages, not much attention has been given to genderless languages. The current study attempts to explore gender ideologies and sexism in Ga, which is a genderless language. Based on an interdisciplinary approach to this multifaceted problem, the author aims at critically reviewing the construction and representation of gender identities through language using Glick and Fiske’s ambivalent sexism theory and feminist critical discourse analysis of data collected from focus group discussions and interviews. Among other things, this study shows how discourses of biological essentialism are used to justify what is presented as a natural gender order.

Author: Benedicta Adokarley Lomotey

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