What’s Gender – and to Whom Belongs its Interpretation?

What’s Gender – and to Whom Belongs its Interpretation? – Les genres récrits: chronique n° 6

The term gender is used today with different meanings in linguistics, but also more generally in social and human sciences. It applies to nouns, human beings and “glasses” through which social facts are studied. It is not always clear what “gender" means in studies on language and its use, and we can also observe that its interpretation is made in very different ways: is it inherent to the facts observed, the result of self-determination or that of decoding by others? If polysemy is not problematic as such, care should be taken to clarify the underlying interpretative processes.

Keywords:

• gender
• lexical gender
• gender identity
• gender studies
• interpretation