THE WOMAN’S PLACE IN LISPECTOR’S AND VERÍSSIMO’S WRITING

Abstract

Triggered by Robin Lakoff with the text "Language and Woman's Place", we conducted an analysis of short stories by Clarice Lispector and crônicas by Luis Fernando Veríssimo in order to reflect upon the possible existence of sexism in the Portuguese language. We focused on lexical choices in the representation of the characters regarding different gender, seeking to understand how women are linguistically depicted. We verified that Lispector’s instances of nouns/adjectives used for women’s representation were superior to Veríssimo’s, regarding the same gender. A more extensive study of linguistic representation should be carried out to reflect upon patriarchal culture impact on language and if this culture is yet reinforced by language.