Gender and genre: A dialogical approach to the writing in men's and women's periodical literature

Using Bakhtinian theory as a beginning point, this thesis argues that the gendered contexts of men's and women's popular magazines influence the forms of writing in the magazines and create distinctive genres of writing in each. To explore this idea, linguistic and rhetorical analyses were done on one men's magazine and one women's magazine. Random samples of writing from the magazines were analyzed for characteristics associated with masculine and feminine writing styles by past research in gender and writing. Chapter one begins to clarify the forms of writing in the magazines by looking at the occurrence of specific linguistic variables associated with gender and writing. Chapter two discusses the use of logical sequence indicators as reflections of gender-typical approaches to the presentation of ideas. Chapter three looks at the relationship the writer establishes with the reader, and chapter four observes the use of rhetorical structures usually associated with a masculine or feminine writing style.