“My own sex, I hope, will excuse me”: Gender Performativity and Modal Verbs in the Corpus of English Philosophy Texts

Susana-Luisa Costa-Otero

doi:10.58859/rael.v23i1.576

Autores/as

Susana-Luisa Costa-Otero Universidade da Coruña

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.58859/rael.v23i1.576

Palabras clave:

lingüística de corpus, performatividad de género, verbos modales, discurso científico, siglo XVIII

Resumen

Gender is a social construction that determines how we behave and, consequently, how we communicate. Even though scientific writing is characterized by its objectivity, it is undeniable that authors use some strategies, consciously or unconsciously, that express their attitude towards their texts. Such strategies include, among others, the use of modal verbs. This paper analyses their use, modality and meaning in eighteenth-century English scientific writing and establishes a comparison between male and female philosophy texts to discover to what extent women contribute to or react against the canon. The data for this small-scale study are taken from the Coruña Corpus of English Scientific Writing, in particular, from the Corpus of English Philosophy Texts. Quantitative and qualitative techniques have been considered for the analysis.

Keywords: corpus linguistics; gender performativity; modal verbs; scientific writing; eighteenth century

El género es una construcción social que determina cómo nos comportamos y, consecuentemente, cómo nos comunicamos. Aunque el discurso científico se caracteriza por su objetividad, es innegable que los autores usan ciertas estrategias, consciente o inconscientemente, que expresan su actitud hacia sus textos. Dichas estrategias incluyen, entre otras, el empleo de verbos modales. Por tanto, en este artículo se analiza su uso, modalidad y significado en textos científicos ingleses del siglo XVIII. Además, se establece una comparación entre cómo los usaban los hombres y las mujeres filósofas del momento con el fin de descubrir hasta qué punto las mujeres contribuían a o reaccionaban frente al canon establecido. Los datos para el microanálisis han sido extraídos del Coruña Corpus of English Scientific Writing, en particular, del Corpus of English Philosophy Texts. Cabe señalar que se han aplicado técnicas tanto cuantitativas como cualitativas en el estudio.

Palabras clave: lingüística de corpus; performatividad de género; verbos modales; discurso científico; siglo XVIII

Biografía del autor/a

Susana-Luisa Costa-Otero, Universidade da Coruña

Susana-Luisa Costa-Otero is a PhD student at the University of A Coruna. She graduated in English and Spanish Language and Literature at that same university in 2021. In 2022, she obtained an MA from the University of Santiago de Compostela. She is interested in corpus linguistics and synchronic and diachronic grammar.

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