On Dictionaries and Gender Representations

Abstract

Placed at the interface between metalexicography and gender studies, this short article discusses issues concerning gender representations in present-day dictionaries. Evoking recent controversies regarding the representation of gender-related terms such as “cisgender” or “woman” in The Oxford English Dictionary, the essay goes on to discuss the prescriptive/descriptive opposition concerning lexicographical representations, taking its cue from previous approaches, which suggest re-envisaging the prescriptive/descriptive dyad as a continuum (Straaijer, 2009; Wilton 2014), or replacing this traditional binary model with a nonbinary approach (Nossem, 2018; Turton, 2020).

Keywords

• dictionary
• metalexicography
• gender representations
• prescriptive
• descriptive
• normativity