Gender In Discourse: A Feminist Methodology By Judith Baxter

Positioning Gender in Discourse: A Feminist Methodology by Judith Baxter This book by Judith Baxter makes a valuable contribution to the debate surrounding theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of gender and language in the newly emerging field of feminist post-structural discourse analysis (FDPA). She uses her book both to show that FDPA has both “theoretical virtues as well as fundamental, practical value for empirical research” (Baxter, 1). Baxter, in particular wants to explore the way FDPA analyzes the ways in which “speakers negotiate their identities, relationships, and positions in their world according to the ways in which they are located by competing yet interwoven discourses” (1). I found this book to be particularly

The theoretical aspects of FDPA are explored in the first three chapters, and it is here where Baxter explores the important questions FDPA is concerned with. For example chapter one is concerned with the question: “How can the two independently powerful and theoretically diverse traditions of feminism and post-structuralism coexist under FDPA?” (Baxter, 14). The rest of the chapter results in a valuable discussion of how feminism and its values can be maintained even with post-structuralism 's rejection of universal causes. For my research I found chapter one to be the most relevant because it deals specifically with feminism and post-structuralism, the other two theoretical chapters of this book deal more with discourse analysis and where FDPA situates itself in that debate. The last section of the book describes two case studies one in a classroom setting and in a management meeting. This demonstrates that the theories of FDPA can be realized in practice and productively used in real-world settings. In conclusion, Baxter’s theoretical intervention and discussion of FDPA in the first half of her book is what I found the most useful, but overall, she made a convincing case for FDPA’s relevance in not only the

Talbot claims that the purpose of her book is to “enhance people’s awareness of language and gender, particularly their awareness of the significant role language plays in establishing and sustaining the divisions of gender” (3). This book is particularly useful because it provides an overview of the recent literature on this topic, as well as different perspectives and ‘schools of thought’ and the frameworks in which they operate. The discussion about gender stereotypes, gendered interaction and the discursive construction of gender in chapter one provides a good overview of the early work in the field as well as defining important key concepts that are still applicable in more recent research. Chapter six is where a discussion of a post-structuralist view of language is introduced. I found this chapter particularly compelling because this is where the construction of gender identities is examined as well as a critique against the difference and dominant framework. Although this chapter acts only as an introduction to poststructuralist thought, there is valuable information to take from it not only because of its view of language from this particular framework but also because of the critical review of the difference and dominance frameworks. The critique