Language and Masculinities: History, Development, and Future

Abstract

In the past two decades, the field of language and masculinities studies has become an established part of language, gender, and sexuality research, growing in response to concerns about the limited criticality directed toward men and masculinities in sociolinguistics. In doing so, the field has added to the conceptual and theoretical tool kit of sociolinguistics, furthering both our understanding of the linguistic strategies used by men in a variety of contexts and the myriad links connecting language and the social performance of gender. This review surveys the historical trajectory of scholarship broadly concerned with men, masculinities, and language and charts its development from more critical work on men and masculinities within sociology to its emergence as an independent field of inquiry. I outline some of the key contributions this body of work has made to sociolinguistic theory, methodology, and knowledge and suggest some future research directions through which the field may engage with contemporary social issues.