Language and woman's place

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ROBIN LAKOFF

LANGUAGE AND WOMAN'S PLACE "Our use of language embodies attitudes as well as referential meanings. Woman's language has as its foundation the attitude that women are marginal to the serious concerns of life. which are preempted by men. "-from the book

In this original investigation. Robin Lakoff uncovers those roots of our lanq,Jage that classify and delineate the sex~s. Why are paraliel words-one applying to masculine beings. the other to feminine-not also parallel in their range of use and connotation? Why have· ·bachelor I spinster' or·· master I mistress" come to mean such widely different things? Language and Woman's Place points out this parallelism as symptomatic of the nonparallelism in the roles of the sexes and as further reinforcement of a social disparity.

HARPER & ROW. PUBLISHERS

ROBIN LAKOFF

LANGUAGE AND WOMAN'S PLACE

60 ·ES 1 50 L 192

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