Last edition winners
-
1
Discourses on Female Speech in Contemporary Brazil
Amanda Batista Braga & Carlos Piovezani
This article analyses both discourses that preserve the stigmatisation and depreciation of women’s speech and those that counter such stigmatisation and depreciation. Drawing on theoretical and methodological principles of Discourse Analysis, it examines statements produced in contemporary Brazil regarding women’s oratory. The aim is to demonstrate that, despite the profound historical transformations brought about by Western culture and the resulting shifts in the conditions of discourse production, discrimination against women’s speech has become so deeply entrenched and powerful that it continues to be perpetuated today, regardless of the various media, vehicles, and textual genres in which it materialises. In parallel, the article also highlights the emergence, within contemporary Brazilian society, of egalitarian and feminist positions that resist and refute these long-standing discriminations — and that now make themselves heard.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.25189/rabralin.v19i1.1694 -
2
The Genitalia of Grammar
Danniel da Silva Carvalho
Gender as a grammatical category, according to a European tradition, can reveal much about what we have been led to understand as grammar. It transparently illustrates the partiality embedded in its historical and institutional constructions. This article seeks to reflect on the anthropomorphising role of certain grammatical categories — such as gender — and their consequences for the establishment of a vernacular. More specifically, it discusses how the definition of gender as a Greek-based grammatical category constrains the classification of nouns in relation to their referents. It also examines the pragmatic and political roles of gender, based on data involving forms of address (both pronominal and nominal) and referential expressions in languages such as Japanese, Igbo, and Brazilian Portuguese. These examples transcend grammatical boundaries in associating person and gender, while still operating within their structural limits — thus also constituting grammatical attitudes. This critical and queer provocation towards the category of gender foregrounds a difference that refuses to be assimilated or tolerated within grammatical discourse.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.25189/rabralin.v19i1.1693