Linguistic prescription, ideological structure, and the actuation of linguistic changes: Grammatical gender in French parliamentary debates

We present a quantitative study of the linguistic and social factors conditioning the use of grammatical gender with reference to women, focusing on variation in the debates of the French parliament. Two prime ministers of similar political leanings regulated the use of feminine g-gender through identical policies in 1986 and 1998, with no effect on parliamentary speech in the first instance, and dramatic success in the second. We claim that the latter outcome resulted from changes in gender ideologies between these two dates. The 1990s saw the emergence of a new social type for female politicians, which only feminine g-gender can construct. We hypothesize that the 1998 policy was effective because it strengthened existing associations between feminine g-gender and a persona, while the original policy tried to build on ideological structure that was not widespread. We conclude that linguistic prescriptions are only successful if they build on existing ideologies. (Linguistic prescription, gender ideology, grammatical gender, ideological structure)*