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Gender, Language and the Periphery: Grammatical and social gender from the margins
Edited by Julie Abbou and Fabienne H. Baider
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 264] 2016
► pp. 285–322

“Moldovan” and feminist language politics

Two distinct peripheral linguistic markets

The notion of “peripheral linguistic market” accounts for linguistic practice common to a non-dominant group of speakers with endogene rules that are set up in opposition to the “official linguistic market”, yet dependent on them. Against this background, the practice of Moldovan / Romanian and antisexist linguistic practices can be considered as distinct peripheral markets that hardly interact with each other. Explanations for the absence of antisexist linguistic practices and research on language and gender in Moldova could start from this hypothesis. Despite its inflectional complexity and conservative linguistic practices, the grammatical structure of Romanian/Moldovan offers multiple opportunities for anti-sexist interventions. However, research has shown that becoming aware of the multiple dimensions of grammatical gender in Romanian/Moldovan is a challenge, even for speakers with elaborated registers and metalinguistic knowledge. Examples of feminization and double gendering strategies developed by participants in an experimental workshop are presented and discussed in this article.

Keywords: feminism antisexist linguistic practices, linguistic insecurity, linguistic market, Romanian / Moldovan, Russian
Published online: 16 December 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.264.11wei
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