<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>The in-betweenness of my research is the indeterminate space between being a man and talking like one and being a woman and talking like one. The control of that space is power-driven, and it consists of a permanent struggle to impose one’s discourse as a strong marker of one’s gender. Subliminally, gender takes control of one’s discourse, impregnating it with the linguistic readily inherited data of manhood and womanhood. My research is an investigation of the discursive strategies that both men and women retort to when asked to state their opinion on different matters. Speech acts, vocabulary choices, liaising or showing empathy or, on the contrary, showing disinterest or taking distance will be interpreted in the framework of gender studies. The study has demonstrated that largely-held opinions of what is gender-specific talking are partially contradicted by the participants in the study, which proves my hypothesis right. Different factors, such as education or family background, influence personal speaking policies to the point of sharing features of the opposite gender. Far from being an issue that needs a clear separation, in-betweenness aims at mapping gender-specific and, if any, overlapping strategies in discourse.</p></abstract>

The in-betweenness of my research is the indeterminate space between being a man and talking like one and being a woman and talking like one. The control of that space is power-driven, and it consists of a permanent struggle to impose one’s discourse as a strong marker of one’s gender. Subliminally, gender takes control of one’s discourse, impregnating it with the linguistic readily inherited data of manhood and womanhood. My research is an investigation of the discursive strategies that both men and women retort to when asked to state their opinion on different matters. Speech acts, vocabulary choices, liaising or showing empathy or, on the contrary, showing disinterest or taking distance will be interpreted in the framework of gender studies. The study has demonstrated that largely-held opinions of what is gender-specific talking are partially contradicted by the participants in the study, which proves my hypothesis right. Different factors, such as education or family background, influence personal speaking policies to the point of sharing features of the opposite gender. Far from being an issue that needs a clear separation, in-betweenness aims at mapping gender-specific and, if any, overlapping strategies in discourse.

Sharing the Indeterminate Space of Gender

Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Sharing the Indeterminate Space of Gender"}

The in-betweenness of my research is the indeterminate space between being a man and talking like one and being a woman and talking like one. The control of...

Sharing the Indeterminate Space of Gender

Published Online: Jan 21, 2020

Page range: 159 - 173

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2019-0032

Keywords
gender in-betweenness, linguistic indetermination

© 2019 Cristina Silvia Vâlcea, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Sharing the Indeterminate Space of Gender

Published Online: Jan 21, 2020

Page range: 159 - 173

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2019-0032

Keywordsgender in-betweenness, linguistic indetermination

© 2019 Cristina Silvia Vâlcea, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
gender in-betweenness, linguistic indetermination