I don’t understand, what’s the deal with this gender thing then: some insights into the research of gender in Estonian
Every language provides means to distinguish referents of different genders. In the case of Estonian, a grammatically genderless Balto-Finnic language, these distinctions lie in lexical resources. In this presentation, I will introduce my research, which focuses on gender-marked vocabulary in Estonian and on language users' perception of gendered words and generic masculinity. More specifically, I will discuss several of my previous studies that explore different gender-marked words in various corpora – for instance, I will examine gendered vocabulary in sports news and describe who exactly are aunts and uncles in Estonian. More broadly, through my presentation, I aim to shed light on how gender dynamics are reflected in a genderless language, to discuss the issue of gender-neutral language, and the public's perspective on all of these topics.
Every second Thursday of the month, Grammar & Cognition invites a speaker to give a presentation about their research. Everyone is welcome to join this event (no sign-up required), so feel free to share this with anyone you think might be interested.