ABSTRACT
A crude historical-typological account of feminist linguistic approaches since 1973 would probably distinguish between three models of language and gender. A crude historical-typological account of feminist linguistic approaches since 1973 would probably distinguish between three models of language and gender. Chronologically speaking there has been considerable overlap between the three models, but during the 1980s Deborah Cameron think it is fair to say that the difference model gained ground while the dominance and deficit approaches lost it. The development, as she think, goes some way to explain why a self-help approach has recently become an option for feminist linguists. Deborah Tannen argues that we should acknowledge gender differences without making value judgements on their content. But when we are dealing with the sort of global discourse strategy that interests many language and gender researchers today, the questions become more complicated, because they relate not just to the forms but also to the functions of language.
