Linguistics 156: Language and Gender

WINTER 2007

MWF 11:00-11:50 in Hewlett102

---

Instructor: Penny Eckert eckert@stanford.edu 108 Margaret Jacks Hall (Bldg. 460) Tel: 725-1564. Office hours: Tues 1:30-2:30

TA:Lauren Hall-Lew dialect@stanford.edu 030 Margaret Jacks Hall (Bldg. 460) Tel:650-725-7647 Office hours: Thurs. 2:00-3:00

TA: Stacy Lewis sllewis@stanford.edu.edu 180 Margaret Jacks Hall (Bldg. 460) Tel: 725-7278 Office hours:Monday 12:00-1:00

---

Sections Wednesday 6:30-7:20 PM   rm. 260-007 Friday 10:00-10:50 AM      rm. 160-323

Useful Links Mary Bucholtz's Language and Gender Page International Gender and Language Association Program in Feminist Studies Department of Linguistics

Upcoming Events

• The major purpose of this course is to teach you to think analytically about gender, about sexuality, and about language; and about the relations among them. The goals are inseparably intellectual and political: Responsible scholarship and citizenship require the ability and eagerness to go beyond stereotype, common belief and the popular press, to evaluate claims for oneself in a knowledgeable way. This course will provide facts, theory, and analytic tools with which to consider issues related to gender and sexuality, and their relation to language.
• There are two texts for this course:
  Language and Gender by Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet
  Language and Sexuality by Deborah Cameron and Don Kulick
  Both are available at the bookstore. Other readings will be available for your personal use online.
• There will be a series of assignments designed to get you thinking about the issues in the course, and collecting and analyzing data related to those issues. An important goal of these assignments is to get you to observe the construction of gender and sexuality around you, and to draw your attention to particularly interesting dynamics that you might not have noticed otherwise. Some of these assignments will be done individually, and some will be done in groups.
• Some of the research you will be learning about this quarter is based on laboratory experiments. We therefore ask you to participate in some linguistic experiments as part of this course. All students must register with the subject pool during the second week of the course. You will have the choice of participating in two experiments or watching two videos. Here is information on the subject pool.

Class slides will be posted on the web after each class. By clicking on the dates in the following table, you can access the lecture slides, reading assignments, and pointers to other relevant material. The homework assignments are also linked into this table. Readings and homework assignments are linked to the day on which they are DUE, so be sure to look ahead.

Monday	Wednesday	Friday
	1/10 Introduction	1/12 Dichotomous Thinking
1/15 Martin Luther King's Birthday No Class	1/17 The Discursive Construction of Gender	1/19 Film: Bombay Eunoch Assignment due
1/22 The Print Media Guest Lecture: Miyako Inoue	1/24 Studying and Theorizing Language, Gender and Sexuality	1/26 The Organization of Speech Activities Assignment due
1/29 Conversation	1/31 Interactional Style	2/2 Speech Acts
2/5 Review	2/7 Midterm	2/9 Status, Politeness, Respect and Deference Assignment due
2/12 Presupposition and Metaphor	2/14 Grammatical Gender	2/16 Linguistic Relativity Guest Lecture: Lera Boroditsky Assignment due
2/19 Presidents' Day No Class	2/21 Categories and Labels	2/23 Gender and the Sounds of English
2/26 Gendered Voices 1	2/28 Gendered Voices 2	3/2 The McGurk Effect Guest Lecture: Elizabeth Strand Extra Credit Assignment due
3/5 Gender and the Linguistic Market	3/7 Gender and Dialect Variation	3/9 Performativity Revisited
3/12 Dead Week:TBA	3/14 Dead Week:TBA	3/16 Dead Week:Review

(Back to top of page)

Assessment