GENDER IDEOLOGIES AND LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES ON FACEBOOK FEMINIST PAGES

ABSTRACT: The present study deals with issues of relations between gender ideologies and language ideologies, with a view to discussing the hypothesis of the convergence between linguistic hegemonies and the hegemonic order of gender, underpinned by Western ethnocentric tradition. It has been developed using examples extracted from two feminist activist Facebook communities. These communities have been the object of a virtual ethnographic study since 2013. This research focuses on the metapragmatic function carried out by the comments of the participants in those communities. It is guided by an understanding of language as social action (BAUMAN; BRIGGS, 1990); and of the concepts of “language ideology” (WOOLARD, 1998), discursive conflict (BRIGGS, 1996) and “metapragmatic attack” (JACQUEMET, 1994). The understanding of processes of identity construction in relation to power dispute and control in the contexts of interaction and the social world (SIGNORINI, 1998; MOITA LOPES, 2010) also plays a key role. Gender/sexuality hegemonies as well as linguistic hegemonies are coarticulated in space-time, thereby fulfilling the purposes of (dis)crediting arguments, face-saving (or threatening), and (re)orientating interactions. This occurs particularly when attempting to develop a set of language-use norms, which evokes a school-related cultural model and is capable of establishing relationships between said model and the ability of individuals to understand the gender- and sexuality-related issues under discussion.