Dead, but Won’t Lie Down? Grammatical Gender among Norwegians

Bibliographic Data

ID21722782
AuthorsToril Opsahl (0009-0005-0711-3619, University of Oslo, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume33
Issue1
Pages122-146
Publication date2021-03-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Germanic Linguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1470-5427 • E-ISSN: 1475-3014
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1470542720000070
OpenAlexW3128059685
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited31

This paper examines grammatical gender from the sociolinguistic perspective. The question pursued is to what extent exponents of grammatical gender are tied indexically to identity categories. Building on literature and corpus data, I claim that within the Norwegian context, grammatical gender is associated with sociolinguistic dimensions such as the urban/rural distinction, political views, class, ethnicity. The traditional three-gender system is being replaced by a two-gender system in several dialects, resulting in the loss of the feminine gender. Indexical values associated with the feminine gender features are still valid, though, and some forms take on new pragmatic functions. Once grammatical gender is viewed through a sociolinguistic lens, with the agency of speakers being recognized, it becomes clear that it may not be fully understood without taking into account the context of interaction at a micro-level, and the sociohistorical characteristics of—for instance—regions with language contact at a macro-level

Epistemology · Geography · Grammatical Gender · Indexicality · Linguistics · Norwegian · Sociolinguistics · Sociology · Gender Studies · Gender Studies in Language · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Mathematics · Multilingual Education and Policy · Psychology

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