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In the 40 years of research on sexist language practices, studies have moved from assessing the effects of androcentric language for English speakers to examining gender specific and gender neutral language practices in a variety of languages in a range of cultural contexts. This article adopts a cultural communication approach to attend to the meaningfulness of everyday uses of a gender-neutral pronoun, "co," in an intentional community. The evolution of co is analyzed using historical documents and field notes on contemporary social interaction. The study shows that functions of co have expanded from its early use as a substitute for sex-specific pronouns to current uses that mask individual identity, celebrate a communal identity, and act as an "ideological conduit" that reinforces feminist ideology in the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online conversations addressing Sarah Palin and her vice-presidential candidacy, as well as attempts to consider both in the context of popular understandings of feminism, are often grounded in a longstanding history of anti-feminist discourse, one in which women and feminists are often depicted as contradictions and stereotypes. Palin herself becomes an oxymoron-she is not only a woman politician, but she is a conservative feminist, a "pretty" feminist who defies long-held stereotypes of feminists' appearance, and one who casts other women's feminism in an oxymoronic light. As oxymoronic, Palin's candidacy operates as a (re)definitional moment: a rhetorical opportunity to play with the meaning of feminism, its intersection with politics, and understandings of who can be a feminist. Out of this play develops a new concept, what I call "Socially Conservative Feminism," a term and practice enabled by the rhetorical operations of oxymoron and redefinition. As Palin and her candidacy defied definition, both offered discursive opportunities to redefine feminism, including engaging stereotypes, delineating in-groups and out- groups, appropriating the legacy of feminism within the United States, and prescribing what constitutes feminist action and support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between use of personal pronouns and the articulation of gender stereotypes in written assignments of undergraduate students at a university in the southeastern United States. Specifically, this paper examines which pronoun students use to refer to the female narrator in their written summaries of a first-person narrative essay and how pronoun assignment often coincides with sexist depictions of women's and men's capabilities. When students use the masculine third-person pronoun, they describe the narrator in active heroic terms. In contrast, when students use the feminine third-person pronoun, they describe the narrator as passive and vulnerable. Given the students' explicit instruction regarding the sex of the narrator and how her sex influences interpretations of her story, both the use of the third-person masculine pronoun and students' characterization of Plumwood's experience present questions about the influence of gender stereotypes at the societal-level in local communities of practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many students use the library resource Masterplots as a means of summary, as a method to enhance their comprehension of the text, and as a source of literary commentary. This paper presents findings from an analysis of linguistic sexism in the indexing of Masterplots, particularly the 1976 revised edition but also the "Women's Literature Series," published almost two decades later (1995). Certain editions of "Masterplots" have an indexing system in the table of contents of last name first, first name last for male authors; however, a different system (first name first, last name last) is applied for female authors, specifically poets. This exclusionary indexing method is an example of linguistic sexism. My analysis of indexing and cataloging of women in "Masterplots" reveals that linguistic sexism is an area that still needs and demands our attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the practical impact of research on sex bias and sex differences in language. Theoretical currents of gender and language research; Similarities in the way that the boys and girls used language; Importance of gender categories in coordinating the play activity of the children; Use of spontaneous language as data to benefit from research on sex bias in language.

Editorial. Comments on the need to continue emphasizing women before conjunctions in sentences as part of efforts to remove sexism in language. Importance of word order in connoting importance and equality; Significance of removing perceptions that women are just appendages that come after men as connoted in the phrase `men and women'.

This editorial recounts the beginning of "Women & Language" and the goals of its first editors Pam Tiedt and Pat Nichols. The main reason for starting the newsletter was to seek and share information about women's language. Since 1976, the attention of women's language has turned to gender rather than sex; perceptions in addition to use; communication as well as expression; and the social contexts in which communication, gender and language are embedded. Over the years, the newsletter has achieved an interdisciplinary theory in its approach to the study of women's language.

Discusses the abstract of the article 'Contemporary arguments against nonsexist language: Blaubergs (1980) revisited,' by Janet B. Parks and Mary Ann Robertson, which appeared in the Summer 1999 issue of the periodical 'Women Studies Abstracts,' Volume 28, (2).

Discusses the abstract of the study 'Influence of Age, Gender and Context on Attitudes Toward Sexist/Nonsexist Language: Is Sport a Special Case?,' by Janet B. Parks and Mary Ann Robertson, which appeared in the Spring 1999 issue of the periodical 'Women Studies Abstracts.'

Discusses the research paper `Ideology in Inflection?--Sexism in a Russian Declensional Class,' by Tore Nesset, presented at the 44th Annual Conference of the International Linguistics Association in New York University in New York on April 16-18, 1999.

Discusses the research paper `The Common-Gender in French: A Promising Way to Eliminate Sexism,' by Celine Labrosse, presented at the 44th Annual Conference of the International Linguistics Association in New York University in New York on April 16-18, 1999.