Work

Gendered body language in children’s literature over time

Year: 2022

Type: article

Abstract: In this paper, we study gendered patterns of body language descriptions in children’s fiction. We compare a corpus of 19th-century children’s literature with a corpus of contemporary fiction for children. Using a corpus linguistic approach, we study gendered five-word body part clusters, that is, repeated sequences of words that contain at least one body part noun and a marker of gender. Our aim is to identify and describe differences between the description of male and female body language across both corpora. We find that in the 19th century, there are not only fewer clusters for female characters, but the functional range of these clusters is also limited. The contemporary data suggests a trend for male and female clusters to become more similar with the clusters illustrating an increasing range of options for the description of female characters and their interactional spaces.

Source: Language and Literature International Journal of Stylistics

DOI: 10.1177/09639470211072154

Authors: Anna Čermáková, Michaela Mahlberg

Institutions: University of Cambridge, University of Birmingham

Language: English

Topic: Gender Studies in Language

Subfield: Gender Studies

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Gender equality

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,250