Women and Language

Melissa Ames is an assistant professor of English at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston. Her work has been published in a variety of anthologies and journals, and she is the author of two books. Sarah Himsel Burcon teaches composition and literature at Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan. She specializes in feminist theory and 20th century American literature.

• Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION: WOMEN AND ORAL CULTURE      Melissa Ames and Sarah Himsel BurconPART I. SPOKEN SPACES: THE HISTORICIZATION, EVOLUTION, AND GENDERING OF “GOSSIP”1. Pandora’s Voice-Box: How Woman Became the “Gossip Girl”      Giselle Bastin2. Just Like a Woman: Misogynistic Gossip in the Correspondence Between John Chamberlain and Sir Dudley Carleton      Emily Ross3. “Paper cannot blush”: Martha Fowke, an 18th-Century Abandoned Woman      Earla WilputtePART II. LITERARY SPACES: THE CONVERGENCE OF ORALITY AND PRINT IN WOMEN’S WRITING4. Delete as Appropriate: Writing Between the Lines of Female Orality in The Wife’s Lament      Miriam Muth5. Voicing the Feminine and the (Absent) Masculine in The Concealed Fancies      Lindsay Yakimyshyn6. The Wartime Diaries of Dang Thuy Tram: Extolling and Gendering the Heroine’s Voice in Postwar Vietnam and Beyond      Hanh N. Nguyen and R. C. Lutz7. When Talk Meets Page: The Feminist Aesthetic of Adapted Narration and Language Play      Melissa Ames8. Blurred Boundaries and Re-Told Histories: Julia Alvarez’s How the García Girls Lost Their Accents      Sarah Himsel BurconPART III. PERFORMATIVE SPACES: CONSTRUCTING AND INSTRUCTING GENDERED BEHAVIOR9. Bodies in Dialogue: Performing Gender and Sexuality in Salsa Dance      Aleysia Whitmore10. “Tell me, does she talk during sex?” The Gendering of Permissible Speech on Dr. Phil      Diana York Blaine11. Read My Profile: Internet Profile Culture, Young Women, and the Communication of Power      Ashley M. DonnellyPART IV. TECHNOLOGICAL SPACES: TRANSFORMING “TALK” IN THE 21ST CENTURY12. Women, Kin-Keeping, and the Inscription of Gender in Mediated Communication Environments      Julie Dare13. Gendering the Construction of Instant Messaging      Koen Leurs and Sandra Ponzanesi14. Gender Blogging: Femininity and Communication Practices on the Internet      Adriana BragaABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS      Index