"Language and Sexual Difference" aims to introduce the innovative, radical, and challenging theories of French feminism to non-French speakers.

An accessible introduction to French feminist theory and contemporary French women's writing for non-French speakers. The book offers a context to this challenging, controversial body of work by giving clear accounts of the philosophical, post-structural and psychoanalytic debates which have had such an impact on French intellectual life in recent years, and to which French feminist writers offer a response.

Luce Irigaray (1932-) is the foremost thinker on sexual difference of our times. In An Ethics of Sexual Difference Irigaray speaks out against many feminists by pursuing questions of sexual difference, arguing that all thought and language is gendered and that there can therefore be no neutral thought. Examining major philosophers, such as Plato, Spinoza and Levinas, with a series of meditations on the female experience, she advocates new philosophies through which women can develop a distinctly female space and a "love of self". It is an essential feminist text and a major contribution to our thinking about language.

A history of feminism and women's rights in Italy. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Essays discuss feminist criticism, attitudes toward sexual difference, female identity, and the works of Eliot and Stein

Language pervades everything we do as social beings. It is, in fact, difficult to disentangle language from social life, and hence its importance is often missed. The emergence of new communication technologies makes this even more striking. People come to "know" one another through these interactions without ever having met face-to-face. How? Through the words they use and the way they use them. The Oxford Handbook of Language and Social Psychology is a unique and innovative compilation of research that lies at the intersection of language and social psychology. Language is viewed as a social activity, and to understand this complex human activity requires a consideration of its social psychological underpinnings. Moreover, as a social activity, the use and in fact the existence of language has implications for a host of traditional social psychological processes. Hence, there is a reciprocal relationship between language and social psychology, and it is this reciprocal relationship that defines the essence of this handbook. The handbook is divided into six sections. The first two sections focus on the social underpinnings of language, that is, the social coordination required to use language, as well as the manner in which language and broad social dimensions such as culture mutually constitute one another. The next two sections consider the implications of language for a host of traditional social psychological topics, including both intraindividual (e.g., attribution) and interindividual (e.g., intergroup relations) processes. The fifth section examines the role of language in the creation of meaning, and the final section includes chapters documenting the importance of the language-social psychology interface for a number of applied areas.

This collection of articles presents a selection of Deborah Cameron’s work on language, gender and sex in one single volume. Arranged thematically, this book covers major developments in Anglo-American feminist linguistics, and Cameron’s responses to these, spanning the last twenty years. The collection’s overarching theme is the political relationship between language and gender: four distinctly themed sections demonstrate that a variety of forces affect gender relations, and gender representations, in different times and places. Cameron examines the connections between language and the (mis)representation of reality, and the role language plays in reproducing gender inequalities. More recent articles focus on representations of men and women as communicators, as well as the impact of sexuality on gender and gender relations, an increasingly prominent area of the author’s research. This timely study brings much of Cameron’s work together for the first time, and highlights characteristics of her work with which many readers will be familiar: a combination of linguistic and feminist political orientation; and a distinct focus on conflict in gender relations. Including a new introductory essay and eleven articles, three of which are previously unpublished, with short introductions to contextualize each piece, the collection is extremely useful for students and teachers on a variety of courses including English language and linguistics, women’s studies, gender studies and communication studies.