Gender Linguistics in Croatia - Where Did We Start from and Where Are We Headed?

Abstract

The study of what is masculine and feminine in language is entering its sixth decade. Ever since Robin Lakoff’s 1973 seminal paper Language and Woman’s Place, there is talk of women’s language, i.e. differences between men’s and women’s language, which, as Lakoff argues, stem from male domination in society, i.e. female lack of power therein. Subject to strict social control, women’s language is thus taken to encompass both language restricted in use to women, and that used to describe women. It is the latter that had sparked the initial probes into gender-related linguistic topics in Croatia. The 1970s, and much more the 1980s had seen a rise in writing on gender-marking word formation, i.e. the formation of female counterparts of terms denoting professions, which has quietly ushered „women’s topics“ into Croatian linguistics. This paper gives an overview of research on the relationship of language and gender in Croatia from its inception to the present day. Studies focusing on language and gender published in Croatia are analysed and discussed from the perspective and various linguistic levels and disciplines- grammar, phraseology, terminology, pragmalinguistics and sociolinguistics.