The term dogwhistle, meaning a political message with a hidden or coded meaning, only entered mainstream usage in the mid-1990s, but today it seems to be everywhere. Accusations of dogwhistling fly in every political direction, and the meaning of the term has broadened to encompass an ever-expanding range of words, images, actions and objects.This book investigates the rise of the dogwhistle as a key cultural and political reference point, arguing that it's a sign of our political ...

Communications academic Deborah Cameron explores the history and diversity of Feminism as an ideology and political movement.Beneath the nonstop cacophony of voices across social media, online forums, and news outlets lie the stubborn facts at the heart of the everyday struggles of women today: more than a third of single moms live in poverty; the United States sees more maternal deaths than anywhere else in the developed world; one in five women will be ra...

In this vitally important and engaging text, leading feminist linguist Deborah Cameron explores the role of language and discourse in perpetuating sexism and misogyny in the twenty-first century.Covering how the linguistic expression of prejudice against women has evolved during the last fifty years, the author of the blog Language: A feminist guide pays attention both to the persistence of familiar problems, such as the dominance of men in many interactional settings, and...

Popular assumptions about gender and communication - famously summed up in the title of the massively influential 1992 bestseller Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus - can have unforeseen but far-reaching consequences in many spheres of life, from attitudes to the phenomenon of 'date-rape' to expectations of achievement at school, and potential discrimination in the work-place. In this wide-ranging and thoroughly readable book, Deborah Cameron, Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and ...

The Teacher's Guide to Grammar is unique in focusing directly on the aspects of grammar that teachers need to know. Assuming little or no formal linguistic education, this concise and accessible book provides the necessary background knowledge required in the classroom context. There are detailed chapters on the nuts and bolts of language: words, morphology, sentences, phrases, verbs, and clauses. Other important educational issues concerned in the teaching of English are discussed: the gr...

In Verbal Hygiene, Deborah Cameron takes a serious look at popular attitudes towards language and examines the practices by which people attempt to regulate its use. Instead of dismissing the practice of ‘verbal hygiene’, as a misguided and pernicious exercise, she argues that popular discourse about language values – good and bad, right and wrong – serves an important function for those engaged in it. A series of case studies deal with specific examples of verbal hygiene: the reg...

In the Sedgewick lecture for 2012, Professor Deborah Cameron investigates the age-old question of whether men and women are different kinds of beings, both physically and intellectually. She begins by noting that in the 19th century that most writers saw men as being intellectually superior to women in their use of language. But she also observes that this position was gradually modified in the 20th century, that is, until the 1990s, when there was a sudden resurgence of the essentialist i...

It′s good to talk is one of the great clich[ac]es of our time. The benefits of talk to individuals, families and organizations are proclaimed by pop psychologists, television talk show hosts, and management gurus. The importance of talk is talked about endlessly.`Good to Talk? is an attempt to look critically at what lies behind this upsurge of concern about talk in our workplaces, classrooms and private lives, and it places these developments in historical context...

This collection of articles presents a selection of Deborah Cameron’s work on language, gender and sex in one single volume. Arranged thematically, this book covers major developments in Anglo-American feminist linguistics, and Cameron’s responses to these, spanning the last twenty years.The collection’s overarching theme is the political relationship between language and gender: four distinctly themed sections demonstrate that a variety of forces affect gender relations, and gende...

"An exemplary textbook. Making even the most complex ideas fully accessible, it is grounded in an extensive literature, filled with engaging examples, and offers ample suggestions for independent research. It’s been a key text in my classes for over a decade and, as fresh and relevant as ever, will continue to buttress my graduate seminars and undergraduate courses alike."- Professor Crispin Thurlow*, University of Washington*Compr...

Originally published in 1992. This book discusses the possibilities of developing the research process in social science so that it benefits the subjects as well as the researcher. The authors distinguish between ‘ethical’, ‘advocate’ and ‘empowering’ approaches to the relationship between researcher and researched, linking these to different ideas about the nature of knowledge, action, language, and social relations. They then use a series of empirical case studies to explore the possibil...

Using language - speaking and understanding it - is a defining ability of human beings, woven into all human activity. It is therefore inevitable that it should be deeply implicated in the design, production and use of buildings. Building legislation, design guides, competition and other briefs, architectural criticism, teaching and scholarly material, and the media all produce their characteristic texts. The authors use texts about such projects as Berlin's new Reichstag, Scotland's new P...