LÁADAN I EDAN - LÁADAN AND LINGUISTICS: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE CONSTRUCTED LANGUAGE LÁADAN THROUGH A FEMINIST LINGUISTICS PERSPECTIVE
LÁADAN I EDAN - LÁADAN AND LINGUISTICS: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE CONSTRUCTED LANGUAGE LÁADAN THROUGH A FEMINIST LINGUISTICS PERSPECTIVE

Summary/Abstract: Second wave feminism manifested in most things social and cultural. One of the domains fiercely debated was that of language, bringing into conversation the ways in which language is used to condition or even suppress one segment of the population or another. The intersection of two academic phenomena, namely the resurgence of the interest in the linguistic relativity theory and a peak in the social movement for women’s equality, became fertile ground for a new type of conversation as well as artistic expression of the topics investigated under the academic microscope. Among these expressions, science fiction author and linguist constructed a language meant to express the perceptions and life experience of women, Láadan. As a fictional mirror of reality, as literature often finds itself to be, the universe she created follows a small group of women as they create this language. Initially only women speak it for the majority of the story spanning a trilogy, but it is not designed exclusively for women as some men eventually learn it as well. This paper will briefly analyze the language and attempt to understand the thought experiment its author, Suzette Haden Elgin, proposes with the creation of Láadan and the universe to which it belongs.

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