Word and Gender

A dialogical movement orchestrated by plasticity and coercivity

Abstract

This article aims to present a theoretical-discursive analysis on the functioning of the word and its relationship with gender in which it appears, highlighting the inseparability of the aspects of plasticity and coercivity. According to Bakhtinian theory, the word constitutes an arena where plasticity is established, but, at the same time, it is confronted by the coerciveness of the genre. It is also registered that there are varying levels of plasticity that permeate the tongue. There are more coercive genres, which impose a more stable discursive functioning on the word, in which the coexistence of different social voices is restrained. In contrast, there are extremely plastic genres, which provide greater mobility to the word, which, in turn, prints malleability to the genre. However, even if the word is essentially plastic, its functioning is always conditioned by gender. In order to demonstrate how these assumptions work in the concrete materiality of the language, possible orientations are presented for the analysis on the functioning of the word and its intimate relationship with gender, having as theoretical scope some of the philosophical and linguistic concepts postulated by Bakhtin and his Circle.