Language, Gender and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe

This volume is the first book-length collection of research on language, gender and sexuality in the societies of central and eastern Europe. Spanning a range of languages and political contexts, the chapters shed light on the intense debates that connect language use, gender equality, sexuality, history and belonging in this region today, while advancing perspectives on semiotic resignification that complicate some western-dominated frameworks in the discipline. Focused on a space increasingly described as a hub of 'anti-gender' hostility as we currently witness in the curtailing of abortion rights, removal of gender from curricula and institutionalisation of anti-LBGTQ rhetoric the book also foregrounds the rich continuities of feminist theory and protest in post-socialist societies, and their import for rethinking transnational sociolinguistic perspectives on heteronormative patriarchy, 'anti-genderism', neoliberalism, imperialism and conflict. Showcasing a range of approaches, themes and angles of inquiry, the book will be of interest to scholars and postgraduate students researching the topics of gender and sexuality within linguistics, but also within other interdisciplinary areas of the humanities and social sciences.

Highlights the intersectional nature of a range of gender and language topics Addresses the complexities of gender ideology in post-socialist societies Explores the symbolic roles of language in today's new solidarities and resistance

Autorentext

Ksenija Bogeti holds a PhD in Linguistics (University of Belgrade, Serbia, 2018) and MA in English (University of Oxford, UK, 2013). She works at the intersections of corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, gender and language, and cognitive linguistics, in both anglophone and Slavic/Eastern European contexts. Since October 2022, she has been leading a Horizon 2020 project on crisis discourse, unfolding at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana and previously Lancaster University, UK.

Inhalt

Chapter 1: Introduction: Linguistic approaches to gender and politics in eastern and central Europe.- PART I: Gender in language: Between language structure, policy and social transformation.- Chapter 2: Gender-sensitive language and the '(in)visible Others': The case of Slovenia.- Chapter 3: The gender and language debate in Lithuania.- Chapter 4: Language change in times of turbulence: A corpus-based investigation of the rise of feminine personal nouns in Ukrainian.- PART II: Gender in discourse: (Re)framing gender in contexts of social transformation.- Chapter 5: The language of the 'family-friendly state': An emerging rhetoric of gender equality subversion in Hungary.- Chapter 6: The unlikely role of gender in the legitimization of war: The case of Russia-Ukraine conflict and Russian pro-war poetry.- Chapter 7: Gender and language in doing 'entrepreneurial womanhood' in Serbia: Women's agency between neoliberal capitalism and ethics of care.- PART III: The language of anti-gender mobilizations.- Chapter 8: The language of anti-genderist takeover of space: The case of 'LGBT-free' zones in Poland.- Chapter 9: Toxifying gender: A Bulgarian dictionary joins the anti-genderism register.- Chapter 10: Anti-gender discourse and the 'dictatorship of tolerance': Insights from Ukraine, Slovenia and Croatia.- Chapter 11: Semiotic process in the politics of anti-gender.- PART IV: Language, gender and protest: New resistance, new solidarities.- Chapter 12: From streets to Sejm: Discourses of feminist protest and political change in Poland.- Chapter 13: 'Pumpkins for the dictator': Belarus protests and the semiotic strategies of feminist resistance.