Gendered Discourse

Contents

Acknowledgements x
Part I Discourse and Gender 1
Introduction 3
1 Discourse, Discourse Analysis and Gender 5
Discourse and discourse analysis 5
Post-structuralist approaches to discourse analysis 9
Critical discourse analysis  10
Conversation analysis approaches to discourse 13
Gender 14
Gender and discourse/gendered discourse/gendering
discourse 20
Construction, performance, representation and indexing 22
Gendering: construction and performance 23
Representation 24
Indexing 24
2 Discourses, Discourse Identification and
Discourse Naming 27
Discourse and linguistic features 31
Two examples of ‘discourse spotting’ 32
Linguistic traces, intratextuality and intertextuality 36
‘A dream wedding’ 37
‘Why women are just first class’ 40
Relationships between discourses 45
Discourse naming 46
Existing named discourses 48
3 Some Gendered Discourses Identified to Date 51
The ‘Gender differences discourse’ 52
Adrienne Rich’s ‘Compulsory heterosexuality discourse’ 55
Wendy Hollway’s ‘Heterosexuality discourses’ 57
(1) Gender-differential subject positions 57
(2) Women’s heterosexual desire 60
viii Contents
Margaret Wetherell, Hilda Stiven and Jonathan Potter’s
‘Discourses concerning gender and
employment opportunities’ 62
Justine Coupland and Angie Williams’ discourses
of the menopause 64
Jennifer Coates’ ‘Consciousness-raising discourse’
in the talk of teenage girls 66
Conclusion 69
Part II Gendered Discourses: Empirical Studies 71
Introduction: the ‘fruitful epistemological site’ for
gender and discourse study 73
4 Gendered Discourses in the Classroom 79
In the background: the broad ‘Gender differences’ discourse 79
The ‘Equal opportunities discourse’ 81
An alternative gendered discourse of education: ‘Privileged
femininity’ 83
Non-education-specific classroom discourses 88
(a) ‘Boy-as-OK/Girl-as-not-OK’ 88
(b) Gendered classroom discourses in a study of
‘Teacher-talk-around-the-text’ 90
Education-specific gendered classroom discourses 92
(a) The ‘Neat girls discourse’ 92
(b) The ‘Girls as good language learners discourse’ 93
(c) The ‘Poor boys discourse’ 94
Post-structuralism and gendered classroom discourses 95
Conclusion 100
5 Fatherhood Discourses in Parenting Magazines 101
This study: parenting magazines 104
Data and preliminary observations 106
The language of parenting 107
Analysis and discussion 109
Formal linguistic features 110
A father-friendly environment? 112
Shared parenting? 116
Back to mothering … 118
The contribution of the reader 119
Conclusion 120
6 Celebrity Fatherhood: The ‘Blair Baby’ 122
Celebrity fatherhood 125
Contents ix
Fatherhood discourses in the news reports 127
(a) Construction by the ‘newsgivers’ 128
(b) Blair’s self-construction 132
Fatherhood discourses in the Editorials 134
Conclusion 140
7 Gendered Discourses in Children’s Literature 141
Gendered discourses in American award-winning
children’s books 147
Traditionally gendered discourses 149
Feminist discourses 154
Non-androcentric discourses 161
A subversive discourse? 162
Gendered literacies 163
Conclusion 164
Part III Theorizing Gendered Discourses and
Linguistic Intervention 165
Introduction 167
8 The Discoursal Construction of Gender 169
Construction and discourse 169
Self-construction 173
Negotiating construction in interaction 177
Construction ‘beyond words spoken or written’ 184
Performance 188
Conclusion 190
9 ‘Damaging Discourses’ and Intervention in Discourse 191
Damaging discourses? 191
Intervention in discourse 199
Early linguistic intervention and social change 199
Six types and some examples 202
Theoretical approaches to and issues for
discoursal intervention 209
Conclusion 216
Notes 218
Bibliography 225
Subject Index 242
Name Index 247