Since obtaining the vote in 1945, there has been an evolution in the condition of women's lives in France. Women have brought about far-reaching legislative change and have gained their say in French politics through the Ministry of Women's Rights. The philosophy and ideology of the French Women's Movement has exerted a powerful influence on feminist thinkers in Europe and America.

Feminist Stylistics introduces readers to a range of issues and skills in the analysis of texts from a feminist perspective. Sarah Mills uses close language study and linguistic theory to set out the rationale for feminist text analysis. She examines sexism, political correctness, reader positioning, narrative, agency, discourse, character and role analysis - and sets the examination of literary texts alongside texts such as newspapers, pop songs and advertisements. Feminist Stylistics presumes no prior knowledge of either feminist or stylistic theory. Each chapter shows how the issue has...

This work sets out to challenge students with an interactive strategy for successful textual intervention. The subjects considered are: re-centring and re-genreing; the generation of parallel; alternative and counter-texts; exercises in imitation; and parody and adaption. Pope uses analyses of advertising, news reporting and poetry to introduce the principles of choice and combination, creativity and constraint, difference and preference. The main body of the text considers topics such as: drama and dialogue; narrative and narration; auto/biography, hi/story and faction; selves and others.

In Literature About Language Valerie Shepherd brings together linguistic theory and literary criticism and examines languages as a theme in a range of literary texts. By looking at the work of writers such as Swift, Joyce and Sontag she discusses the power of story-telling and metaphor to shape our thinking and examines the communicative capacities of non-standard English and the strengths of women's writing in a male language world. By turning to the work of writers such as Hardy, Cummings, Lodge and Gordimer, however, she also demonstrates the ways in which language can be...

Combining insight from a variety of linguistic perspectives including Hallidayan functional linguistics and relevance theory, Tony Bex demonstrates how written texts operate within society to convey meaning. This book: -
* looks at a wide variety of written genres - advertisments, letters, poetry and literature
* provides an accessible and comprehensive survey of genre theory
* proposes a challenging new way of analysing genre which emphasises communicative function
* unusually, considers the relevance of linguistic theories of genre to the study of literary texts.
*...

This is a textbook for the times, which addresses itself brilliantly to the twin phenomena of expanding horizons and diminishing resources of English studies.' - David Lodge