Words Against Women

Area 10 – Scienze dell'antichità, filologico-letterarie e storico-artistiche

Words Against Women: The Discourse of Gender Violence consists of a series of studies on the relationship between language and gender. The volume addresses the question of the derogatory way in which the English language represents women. Through an analysis of texts, ranging from popular aesthetic forms like film-scripts to institutional protocols like courtroom trials, the study uncovers a biased discourse structure, which encodes gender discrimination and thereby risks justifying various forms of violence towards women. In its search for a common discursive pattern behind the complexity and diversity of violence–related issues in feminist scholarship, the volume is useful to students and researchers who are interested in language and gender studies.Diane Ponterotto is Professor of English language and English linguistics at the University of L'Aquila, Italy Her research interests are primarily in the area of discourse analysis, cognitive linguistics and gender studies.

SINTESI