Purpose. Based on actualization of gender discursive features, the current piece aims to clarify and accentuate the manifestation of gender-philosophical ideas interaction: feminism in the framework of objectivism. The source material for the current article is a novel by Ayn Rand "Atlas Shrugged", which is a philosophical work on objectivism. Theoretical basis. The development of the gender discourse, in particular the discourse of feminism is researched from the retrospective angle. This piece is an attempt to underline peculiarities of female artistic (...) images representation in Rand’s work and the way Rand’s novel influenced the logical development of feminist discourse. Discourse of feminism is a rather peculiar notion for Objectivism, where the notion of gender is, theoretically, annihilated as far as gender is irrelevant for both personal and professional growth, however, practically, gender representation and actualization is ubiquitous in Rand’s philosophy. Originality. The distinctive features of gender discourse in Objectivism are highlighted in this piece; the results are based on the application of comparative analysis. It is argued that philosophy itself may well be perceived through a literary work of fiction, thus making artistic images prototypes of philosophy functionaries. Conclusion. "Atlas Shrugged" is not merely a literary fiction, but rather a philosophical treatise on Objectivism, which is a philosophy of individual struggle and achievement. The main female protagonist of "Atlas Shrugged", Dagny Taggart, is a staunch supporter of Objectivism. In Rand’s opinion Dagny Taggart is a prototype of a true woman of utopian American capitalist society, and it is her artistic image that was misinterpreted by supporters of feminist movement ideas and Dagny Taggart became an icon of feminism, whereas in reality Dagny’s discourse is rather a discourse of femininity, for Dagny despises everything that is connected with feminist ideas and practices, and, it is an error to weave her discourse into a much wider feminist discourse. (shrink)

This article outlines a ‘feminist critical discourse analysis’ at the nexus of critical discourse analysis and feminist studies, with the aim of advancing rich and nuanced analyses of the complex workings of power and ideology in discourse in sustaining hierarchically gendered social orders. This is especially pertinent in the present time; it is recognized that operations of gender ideology and institutionalized power asymmetries between groups of women and men are complexly intertwined with other social identities and are variable across cultures. (...) Gender ideology and power asymmetries in late modern societies also have become increasingly more subtle and, at the same time, as a result of backlash against feminism, have re-emerged with a new blatancy. The article offers a rationale for highlighting a feminist perspective in CDA, and proposes five key principles for a feminist discourse praxis. In concluding, a brief analysis and discussion of some data on postfeminism is provided, illustrating some of the current concerns in feminist critical discourse analysis. (shrink)

I argue that Irigaray's linguistic research is not merely supplementary to her theoretical writing, but, in its depiction of sexed linguistic “styles,” illuminates Irigaray's call for a new syntax. I show the effect of this research on her analysis of the unconscious meaning of interrogative expressions. 1 address the question of Irigaray's standing as a social scientist and argue that attention to her method reveals her positive program in this domain.

In feminist linguistic analysis, women's speech has often been characterized as "powerless" or as "over-polite"; this paper aims to challenge this notion and to question the eliding of a feminine speech style with femaleness. In order to move beyond a position which judges speech as masculine or feminine, which are stereotypes of behavior, I propose the term "discourse competence" to describe speech where cooperative and competitive strategies are used appropriately.

This paper investigates interdiscursivity in talk about gender norms in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer community. Drawing from field work conducted among gay and lesbian parents, transgender people, and the Drag King community, I show how accounts like les hommes sont comme ça or les femmes sont comme ça emerging in discourse about pregnancy reveal gender-based norms and their relationship to social conditions. Adopting a linguistic anthropology perspective, while paying particular attention to agency, categorization, circulation, and recontextualization processes, I (...) show how gender norms are constructed and deconstructed through interactional, semantic, and morphosyntactic patterns found in a variety of multisemiotic mediums and in a diversity of contexts. In addition to its contribution to the study of gender and language, this article takes new steps in the ongoing development of membership categorization analysis and queer linguistics. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article:Theory competition and intercultural articulation: methodological reflections on Louts and Legends: Essay reviewSeeking a rationale for schooling: A review of Why go to school?:James Marshall.Positivism or pragmatism: Philosophy of education in New Zealand. Marshall, James D.Educating reason.Hobbes and….

The Oprah Winfrey Show provides an interesting set of contradictions. On the one hand, it appears to challenge common-sense assumptions about relationships, specifically heterosexual relationships (for example, by consistently raising issues of sexual violence within a heterosexual context). Yet, at the same time, Oprah's presentation often works to reinforce precisely the norms she seeks to challenge. Through a close analysis of a selection of programme clips from one particular programme among many about relationships, sexuality and families, this article will consider (...) the ways in which the Oprah Winfrey Show both problematizes and yet normalizes the boundaries of heterosexuality. Here we shall discuss both the resolute exposure and exploration of what could be termed the casualities of normative (and compulsory) heterosexuality and, paradoxically, its recuperation as a ‘rational’ ideal. In exploring the ways in which this recuperation takes place, we shall begin with a brief consideration of two of the key discourses which shape the show: the discourse of therapy and that of kinship. Our analysis of the sexual politics of the Oprah Winfrey Show in these terms will focus on the programme, ‘How to Make Love Last’ (18 January 1993). Like so many other programmes, ‘How to Make Love Last’ intends to highlight and deal with problems within heterosexual relationships as distressing but solvable (through the medium of therapeutic self-help). At another level, however, the programme also (unwittingly) reveals a different order of problems which, ironically, can only be reinforced by the mode of rescue proposed and staged. (shrink)

A controversial question in critical discourse analysis has been whether and how discourse may manifest or at least implicate the ideologies of the discourse participants. This question should be seen in the context of the long history of uneasiness concerning whether ideology can be an object of inquiry for science, whose stance of authority and objectivity implies a claim to be freed of all ideology. This claim has been quite emphatic in formalist linguistics, which has even proposed to investigate human (...) language in isolation from human society. By restoring the focus upon discourse in society, critical discourse analysis offers an occasion to subject ideology to new methods of investigation, and to formulate an explicit ideology for the field itself. As a new source of evidence, large corpus data can be collated for expressions which are presumed to undergo ideological contestation, such as `liberal' and `liberalism', which are examined here in data from the UK, the US, and South Africa. (shrink)

The relevance of the work is determined, first of all, by a new perspective on the speech variability analysis depending on the influence of selected extralingual factors: gender, ethnicity, social status and age, which, of course, corresponds to the current state of the linguistic development and growing interest in disclosure of the influence of social factors on the functioning of language in different territories, as well as the application of an ecolinguistic approach to the analysis of Pittsburgh dialect sociolinguistic differentiation. (...) Second, our study is quite interesting in response about the sociocultural role importance of the Pittsburgh dialect in the overall linguistic picture of the United States of America. The aim of the work is to determine the main parameters of the concept of “language behaviour of Pittsburgh residents” and to establish patterns of language unit’s variation of the Pittsburgh dialect in accordance with the impact on their functioning of extralingual factors: gender, ethnicity, social status and age. The language behaviour of Pittsburgh residents is due to the influence of non-linguistic factors. The functioning of speech in this area, the implementation of phonetic processes and lexical units in communication directly depends on the social impact on speech. The novelty of the study is that for the first time on the material of the modern Pittsburgh dialect the regularities of variation of language mean of phonetic and lexical levels from the point of view of ecolinguistic approach to studying sociolinguistic differentiation of speech of Pittsburgh dialects speakers are determined. An analytical study was conducted and the variation of certain language tools used by Pittsburgh speakers according to their social affiliation was established. (shrink)