For up to date research see: https://cv.hal.science/ann-coady I am a lecturer in English linguistics at Paul Valéry University, Montpellier. My research focuses on gender and language, more specifically feminist linguistic reform in English and French, the discourses and ideologies used in debates on sexist language in the media.
Using the concepts of iconization, fractal recursivity, and erasure (Irvine & Gall, 2000)... more Using the concepts of iconization, fractal recursivity, and erasure (Irvine & Gall, 2000), I analyse the emergence of sexist grammar in French, i.e. the processes through which the masculine was conventionalised as the generic form.
Gender, Discourse and Ideology in Italian Federica Formato (2019) Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Mac... more Gender, Discourse and Ideology in Italian Federica Formato (2019) Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 297pp.
Gender, Discourse and Ideology in Italian Federica Formato (2019) Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Mac... more Gender, Discourse and Ideology in Italian Federica Formato (2019) Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 297pp.
Public Attitudes Towards Gender-Inclusive Language: A Multilingual Perspective., 2024
In her chapter, Coady analyses some of the metaphors employed in the gender-fair language debate ... more In her chapter, Coady analyses some of the metaphors employed in the gender-fair language debate in France. These metaphors express the language ideologies (Woolard 1998) that underlie the debate. This article combines critical discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, pragmatics, and cognitive linguistics (Charteris-Black 2004) in order to examine three of the metaphors and one of the metonyms identified in a corpus of French online newspapers: THE GENDER-INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE DEBATE IS A BATTLE, LANGUAGE IS A PERSON, LANGUAGE FOR NATION, and THE FRENCH LANGUAGE IS A WOMAN,
A corpus of just over 2000 newspaper articles (approximately 1.5 million words) was built from French online newspapers, dating from 2000 to 2022. A corpus linguistics approach was used in order to extract keywords, followed by a closer critical discourse analysis (Baker 2014), in particular a critical metaphor analysis (Charteris-Black 2004).
The results show that the metaphor THE GENDER-INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE DEBATE IS A BATTLE is used by both supporters and detractors. For supporters, the battle is against gender discrimination, whereas detractors are fighting an existential battle to save the nation from the influence of “foreign barbarisms”, promoted by “woke ideology”. In this battle, language is frequently conceptualised as being under attack, which is based on the metaphor LANGUAGE IS A LIVING ENTITY and in particular LANGUAGE IS A PERSON. Language has played such an important role in the French nation-building project, that it is intimately bound up in questions of national identity, which thus gives rise to the metonymic relation LANGUAGE FOR NATION. Nations are frequently conceptualised as women needing to be protected, which, along with the metaphors LANGUAGE IS A PERSON and the metonym LANGUAGE FOR NATION, result in the metaphor THE FRENCH LANGUAGE IS A WOMAN. Examples found in the corpus confirm that this interpretation is coherent in the gender-inclusive language debate in France. Overall, the analysis demonstrates that these metaphors and metonym are part of a network of ideas, that need to be understood in relation to one another rather than separately.
Baker, Paul. 2014. Using Corpora to Analyze Gender. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Charteris-Black, Jonathan. 2004. Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Woolard, Kathryn A. 1998. Language ideology as a field of inquiry. In Bambi B. Schieffelin, Kathryn. A. Woolard & Paul V. Kroskrity (eds.), Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory, 3–49. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Using the concepts of iconization, fractal recursivity, and erasure (Irvine & Gall, 2000)... more Using the concepts of iconization, fractal recursivity, and erasure (Irvine & Gall, 2000), I analyse the emergence of sexist grammar in French, i.e. the processes through which the masculine was conventionalised as the generic form.
Gender, Discourse and Ideology in Italian Federica Formato (2019) Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Mac... more Gender, Discourse and Ideology in Italian Federica Formato (2019) Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 297pp.
Gender, Discourse and Ideology in Italian Federica Formato (2019) Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Mac... more Gender, Discourse and Ideology in Italian Federica Formato (2019) Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 297pp.
Public Attitudes Towards Gender-Inclusive Language: A Multilingual Perspective., 2024
In her chapter, Coady analyses some of the metaphors employed in the gender-fair language debate ... more In her chapter, Coady analyses some of the metaphors employed in the gender-fair language debate in France. These metaphors express the language ideologies (Woolard 1998) that underlie the debate. This article combines critical discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, pragmatics, and cognitive linguistics (Charteris-Black 2004) in order to examine three of the metaphors and one of the metonyms identified in a corpus of French online newspapers: THE GENDER-INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE DEBATE IS A BATTLE, LANGUAGE IS A PERSON, LANGUAGE FOR NATION, and THE FRENCH LANGUAGE IS A WOMAN,
A corpus of just over 2000 newspaper articles (approximately 1.5 million words) was built from French online newspapers, dating from 2000 to 2022. A corpus linguistics approach was used in order to extract keywords, followed by a closer critical discourse analysis (Baker 2014), in particular a critical metaphor analysis (Charteris-Black 2004).
The results show that the metaphor THE GENDER-INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE DEBATE IS A BATTLE is used by both supporters and detractors. For supporters, the battle is against gender discrimination, whereas detractors are fighting an existential battle to save the nation from the influence of “foreign barbarisms”, promoted by “woke ideology”. In this battle, language is frequently conceptualised as being under attack, which is based on the metaphor LANGUAGE IS A LIVING ENTITY and in particular LANGUAGE IS A PERSON. Language has played such an important role in the French nation-building project, that it is intimately bound up in questions of national identity, which thus gives rise to the metonymic relation LANGUAGE FOR NATION. Nations are frequently conceptualised as women needing to be protected, which, along with the metaphors LANGUAGE IS A PERSON and the metonym LANGUAGE FOR NATION, result in the metaphor THE FRENCH LANGUAGE IS A WOMAN. Examples found in the corpus confirm that this interpretation is coherent in the gender-inclusive language debate in France. Overall, the analysis demonstrates that these metaphors and metonym are part of a network of ideas, that need to be understood in relation to one another rather than separately.
Baker, Paul. 2014. Using Corpora to Analyze Gender. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Charteris-Black, Jonathan. 2004. Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Woolard, Kathryn A. 1998. Language ideology as a field of inquiry. In Bambi B. Schieffelin, Kathryn. A. Woolard & Paul V. Kroskrity (eds.), Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory, 3–49. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The field of gender and language has gradually abandoned studies of gender-fair language, perhaps... more The field of gender and language has gradually abandoned studies of gender-fair language, perhaps considering that there is little left to say on the subject. However, the debate over gender-fair language rages on in the media. Language bodies spend a significant amount of time and money on producing guidelines, yet there have been woefully few studies on what speakers think of these reforms, and the few studies that have been carried out have tended to focus on small groups. In addition, there have been very few analyses of how sexism gets debated and defined within media texts themselves, whereas examining social evaluations of language is essential in understanding the motivating force of language change. There is also a dearth of comparative studies in gender and language, which would allow conceptions of language in general, as well as feminist linguistic reforms, to be framed in their cultural and historical perspectives.
This thesis aims at filling this gap in the field of gender and language by examining discourses on feminist linguistic reform in the media from a cross-linguistic perspective. A corpus of 242 articles (approx. 167,000 words) spanning 15 years (2001-2016), whose main topic is (non-)sexist or gender-fair language was collected from British and French on-line national newspapers. Apart from the obvious fact that the media have an enormous influence on public opinion, this is where the debate on sexist language has traditionally been carried out, and thus the media play a special role in the debate. On-line newspaper texts were therefore chosen in an effort to find discourses that readers are exposed to on a regular basis, and that could be classed as widespread and familiar to the general public.
A corpus-based analysis was employed as a starting point to identify traces of discourses that are used to frame arguments in the gender-fair language debate. Frequency lists, keyword lists, and word sketches were carried out in order to indicate possible directions for analysis. Hypotheses based on the literature review were also followed up with searches for particular semantically related terms relating to discourses found in other studies. Finally, a CDA analysis was carried out on relevant concordance lines.
Twelve main discourses were identified in the two corpora, based on six principle ideologies of language. Findings indicated that the overwhelming majority of these discourses and language ideologies are found in both the English and the French corpus, and across the political spectrum of newspaper groups. However, differences in quantitative and qualitative use may indicate on the one hand, deeper cultural differences between the UK and France, and on the other, core political and moral values between the right and left wing.
The main contribution to knowledge that this thesis makes is in helping to revitalise research on sexist language through an analysis of the discourses and language ideologies that determine the success, or failure, of non-sexist language, as well as a novel analysis of the origin of sexism in language (Chapter 3).
Language Policies in the Light of Anti-Discrimination and Political Correctness: Tendencies and C... more Language Policies in the Light of Anti-Discrimination and Political Correctness: Tendencies and Changes in the Slavonic Languages
21st March 2018, Vienna
https://prezi.com/view/lxzs4Nje3JgXrMsqyStL/
Using the concepts of iconization, fractal recursivity, and erasure (Irvine & Gall, 2000), I anal... more Using the concepts of iconization, fractal recursivity, and erasure (Irvine & Gall, 2000), I analyse the emergence of sexist grammar in French, i.e. the processes through which the masculine was conventionalised as the generic form.
Has Ms backfired? Rather than producing the desired effect of erasing Miss and Mrs, does it not s... more Has Ms backfired? Rather than producing the desired effect of erasing Miss and Mrs, does it not simply force women to choose between three different titles, revealing even more about their private lives and political persuasions than before? Does it not enforce a male/female dichotomy, rather than challenge it? The French government decided in 2012 to erase Mademoiselle from official government forms. Has this initiative tolled the death knell for Mademoiselle? What are the results of these two feminist linguistic reforms today in English and French?
Using corpus linguistics, two French broadsheets are analysed. The analysis is based on the written press as this offers a certain representation of society as well as being a site where the discursive construction of social (and therefore gendered) identities take place. The corpus linguistics perspective allows for a quantitative and qualitative examination of the data: how frequently are courtesy titles used, and what types of discourses can be uncovered in the collocations, concordances, and semantic preferences of a text? The negotiability of the meaning of words in specific contexts is taken into account, but without forgetting their wounding potential.
A survey with over 1000 French and English speakers completes the analysis of newspaper texts. How do women negotiate their identities on a daily basis by the titles they chose to employ, and according to their communities of practice which frame their choices at any given moment?
Le champs du langage et genre est beaucoup plus développé dans les pays anglo-saxons qu'en France... more Le champs du langage et genre est beaucoup plus développé dans les pays anglo-saxons qu'en France. Depuis la publication de Language and Woman's Place par Lakoff en 1975 (souvent cité comme l'oeuvre fondatrice de ce champs), on a vu un bourgeonnement d'études sur le rapport entre le langage et le genre en anglais. Dans les années 70, les études (dites de « deuxième vague ») se concentraient sur le sexisme dans le langage, suivi dans les années 90 par les études (de « troisième vague ») qui avaient une perspective plus postmoderniste et se focalisaient sur le langage utilisé dans des contextes spécifiques. Aujourd'hui on assiste à une volonté d'unir les deux perspectives pour faire du langage et genre un champs solide à la fois sur le plan scientifique (avec un appui sur des méthodologies attestés ex CDA, la linguistique de corpus, l'analyse de conversation...), et sur le plan politique avec une application concrète (les études ne devraient pas rester dans les « tours d'ivoire » du monde académique, mais devraient être accessibles et utiles au grand public). Bien que le champs du langage et genre soit beaucoup plus développé dans les pays angosaxons, il y a néamoins une recherche continuelle de légitimité scientifique, comme en témoigne le nombre important de publications récentes qui traitent la question de la méthodologie et qui réclament plus de transparence en ce qui concerne la méthodologie employée dans les études (par exemple Harrington, Litosseltit, Sauntson, & Sunderland (2008)).
Pour ce qu'il est de la situation en France, les études de genre en général (et pas seulement langage et genre) n'y ont pas été accueillies de façon très chaleureuse par rapport aux pays anglo-saxons, mais aussi par rapport au Québec. Certain-e-s chercheur-e-s dans le domaine du genre ont parlé des « cloisonnements disciplinaires et d'esprit de clocher » en France (Geneviève Sellier, professeure en études cinématographiques).
À quoi ces blocages sont-ils dus ? Selon Sellier, « l'origine "politique" de cette discipline académique » et l'attribution de « l'ensemble de ces orientations de recherche, sans autre forme de procès, aux spécificités culturelles anglo-saxonnes ou aux "dérives communautaristes" américaines » font qu'en France le genre n'a pas de légitimité scientifique. Ce sont deux points importants pour un pays comme la France qui se vante de protéger ses propres traditions contre le colonialisme culturel et linguistique. En effet malgré de nombreuses œuvres pionnières sur le féminisme et le genre (Simone de Beauvoir, French Feminism), les études de genre sont toujours vues comme une importation anglo-saxonne.
Cette résistance au genre est-elle un phénonmène purement français ? Selon le chercheur allemand Heiko Motschenbacher, il y aurait aussi des réticences dans d'autres pays européens. Celui-ci parle d'une « reluctance to adopt poststructuralist approaches in linguistics » (5 : 2010) en Europe continentale. Il serait intéressant de comparer les études de genre dans d'autres pays européens pour voir en effet si ce phénomène se limite à la France.
Après avoir abordé les résistances académiques aux études de genre, je me propose d'examiner la résistance des Français aux réformes linguistiques féministes. Regarder les réticences des Français pourrait peut-être nous donner quelques pistes de réfléxion sur les blocages académiques. Je passerai en revue quelques explications aux blocages des Français (par rapport à l'anglais mais aussi au français du Québec) face aux réformes linguistiques anti-sexistes, et à l'innovation linguistique en général. J'évoquerai également les raisons pour lesquelles les anglophones semblent être plus sensibles à ces questions de genre et de sexisme linguistique et plus innovants au niveau de la langue.
Références :
LAKOFF, Robin. (1975). Language and a Woman's Place. New York: Harper & Row.
MOTSCHENBACHER, Heiko. (2010). Language, Gender and Sexual Identity: Poststructuralist Perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
HARRINGTON, K., LITOSSELITI, L., SAUNTSON, H., & SUNDERLAND, J. (2008). Gender and Language Research Methodologies. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
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Papers by Ann Coady
A corpus of just over 2000 newspaper articles (approximately 1.5 million words) was built from French online newspapers, dating from 2000 to 2022. A corpus linguistics approach was used in order to extract keywords, followed by a closer critical discourse analysis (Baker 2014), in particular a critical metaphor analysis (Charteris-Black 2004).
The results show that the metaphor THE GENDER-INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE DEBATE IS A BATTLE is used by both supporters and detractors. For supporters, the battle is against gender discrimination, whereas detractors are fighting an existential battle to save the nation from the influence of “foreign barbarisms”, promoted by “woke ideology”. In this battle, language is frequently conceptualised as being under attack, which is based on the metaphor LANGUAGE IS A LIVING ENTITY and in particular LANGUAGE IS A PERSON. Language has played such an important role in the French nation-building project, that it is intimately bound up in questions of national identity, which thus gives rise to the metonymic relation LANGUAGE FOR NATION. Nations are frequently conceptualised as women needing to be protected, which, along with the metaphors LANGUAGE IS A PERSON and the metonym LANGUAGE FOR NATION, result in the metaphor THE FRENCH LANGUAGE IS A WOMAN. Examples found in the corpus confirm that this interpretation is coherent in the gender-inclusive language debate in France. Overall, the analysis demonstrates that these metaphors and metonym are part of a network of ideas, that need to be understood in relation to one another rather than separately.
Baker, Paul. 2014. Using Corpora to Analyze Gender. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Charteris-Black, Jonathan. 2004. Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Woolard, Kathryn A. 1998. Language ideology as a field of inquiry. In Bambi B. Schieffelin, Kathryn. A. Woolard & Paul V. Kroskrity (eds.), Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory, 3–49. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
A corpus of just over 2000 newspaper articles (approximately 1.5 million words) was built from French online newspapers, dating from 2000 to 2022. A corpus linguistics approach was used in order to extract keywords, followed by a closer critical discourse analysis (Baker 2014), in particular a critical metaphor analysis (Charteris-Black 2004).
The results show that the metaphor THE GENDER-INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE DEBATE IS A BATTLE is used by both supporters and detractors. For supporters, the battle is against gender discrimination, whereas detractors are fighting an existential battle to save the nation from the influence of “foreign barbarisms”, promoted by “woke ideology”. In this battle, language is frequently conceptualised as being under attack, which is based on the metaphor LANGUAGE IS A LIVING ENTITY and in particular LANGUAGE IS A PERSON. Language has played such an important role in the French nation-building project, that it is intimately bound up in questions of national identity, which thus gives rise to the metonymic relation LANGUAGE FOR NATION. Nations are frequently conceptualised as women needing to be protected, which, along with the metaphors LANGUAGE IS A PERSON and the metonym LANGUAGE FOR NATION, result in the metaphor THE FRENCH LANGUAGE IS A WOMAN. Examples found in the corpus confirm that this interpretation is coherent in the gender-inclusive language debate in France. Overall, the analysis demonstrates that these metaphors and metonym are part of a network of ideas, that need to be understood in relation to one another rather than separately.
Baker, Paul. 2014. Using Corpora to Analyze Gender. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Charteris-Black, Jonathan. 2004. Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Woolard, Kathryn A. 1998. Language ideology as a field of inquiry. In Bambi B. Schieffelin, Kathryn. A. Woolard & Paul V. Kroskrity (eds.), Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory, 3–49. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
This thesis aims at filling this gap in the field of gender and language by examining discourses on feminist linguistic reform in the media from a cross-linguistic perspective. A corpus of 242 articles (approx. 167,000 words) spanning 15 years (2001-2016), whose main topic is (non-)sexist or gender-fair language was collected from British and French on-line national newspapers. Apart from the obvious fact that the media have an enormous influence on public opinion, this is where the debate on sexist language has traditionally been carried out, and thus the media play a special role in the debate. On-line newspaper texts were therefore chosen in an effort to find discourses that readers are exposed to on a regular basis, and that could be classed as widespread and familiar to the general public.
A corpus-based analysis was employed as a starting point to identify traces of discourses that are used to frame arguments in the gender-fair language debate. Frequency lists, keyword lists, and word sketches were carried out in order to indicate possible directions for analysis. Hypotheses based on the literature review were also followed up with searches for particular semantically related terms relating to discourses found in other studies. Finally, a CDA analysis was carried out on relevant concordance lines.
Twelve main discourses were identified in the two corpora, based on six principle ideologies of language. Findings indicated that the overwhelming majority of these discourses and language ideologies are found in both the English and the French corpus, and across the political spectrum of newspaper groups. However, differences in quantitative and qualitative use may indicate on the one hand, deeper cultural differences between the UK and France, and on the other, core political and moral values between the right and left wing.
The main contribution to knowledge that this thesis makes is in helping to revitalise research on sexist language through an analysis of the discourses and language ideologies that determine the success, or failure, of non-sexist language, as well as a novel analysis of the origin of sexism in language (Chapter 3).
21st March 2018, Vienna
https://prezi.com/view/lxzs4Nje3JgXrMsqyStL/
Using corpus linguistics, two French broadsheets are analysed. The analysis is based on the written press as this offers a certain representation of society as well as being a site where the discursive construction of social (and therefore gendered) identities take place. The corpus linguistics perspective allows for a quantitative and qualitative examination of the data: how frequently are courtesy titles used, and what types of discourses can be uncovered in the collocations, concordances, and semantic preferences of a text? The negotiability of the meaning of words in specific contexts is taken into account, but without forgetting their wounding potential.
A survey with over 1000 French and English speakers completes the analysis of newspaper texts. How do women negotiate their identities on a daily basis by the titles they chose to employ, and according to their communities of practice which frame their choices at any given moment?
Pour ce qu'il est de la situation en France, les études de genre en général (et pas seulement langage et genre) n'y ont pas été accueillies de façon très chaleureuse par rapport aux pays anglo-saxons, mais aussi par rapport au Québec. Certain-e-s chercheur-e-s dans le domaine du genre ont parlé des « cloisonnements disciplinaires et d'esprit de clocher » en France (Geneviève Sellier, professeure en études cinématographiques).
À quoi ces blocages sont-ils dus ? Selon Sellier, « l'origine "politique" de cette discipline académique » et l'attribution de « l'ensemble de ces orientations de recherche, sans autre forme de procès, aux spécificités culturelles anglo-saxonnes ou aux "dérives communautaristes" américaines » font qu'en France le genre n'a pas de légitimité scientifique. Ce sont deux points importants pour un pays comme la France qui se vante de protéger ses propres traditions contre le colonialisme culturel et linguistique. En effet malgré de nombreuses œuvres pionnières sur le féminisme et le genre (Simone de Beauvoir, French Feminism), les études de genre sont toujours vues comme une importation anglo-saxonne.
Cette résistance au genre est-elle un phénonmène purement français ? Selon le chercheur allemand Heiko Motschenbacher, il y aurait aussi des réticences dans d'autres pays européens. Celui-ci parle d'une « reluctance to adopt poststructuralist approaches in linguistics » (5 : 2010) en Europe continentale. Il serait intéressant de comparer les études de genre dans d'autres pays européens pour voir en effet si ce phénomène se limite à la France.
Après avoir abordé les résistances académiques aux études de genre, je me propose d'examiner la résistance des Français aux réformes linguistiques féministes. Regarder les réticences des Français pourrait peut-être nous donner quelques pistes de réfléxion sur les blocages académiques. Je passerai en revue quelques explications aux blocages des Français (par rapport à l'anglais mais aussi au français du Québec) face aux réformes linguistiques anti-sexistes, et à l'innovation linguistique en général. J'évoquerai également les raisons pour lesquelles les anglophones semblent être plus sensibles à ces questions de genre et de sexisme linguistique et plus innovants au niveau de la langue.
Références :
LAKOFF, Robin. (1975). Language and a Woman's Place. New York: Harper & Row.
MOTSCHENBACHER, Heiko. (2010). Language, Gender and Sexual Identity: Poststructuralist Perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
HARRINGTON, K., LITOSSELITI, L., SAUNTSON, H., & SUNDERLAND, J. (2008). Gender and Language Research Methodologies. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
SELLIER, Geneviève. L'apport des gender studies aux études filmiques. http://www.tanianavarroswain.com.br/labrys/labrys1_2/sellier2.html"