JOSETECH

Empirical and theoretical research on gender and language has demonstrated how issues of power and identity are communicated by the way in which women and men are referred to in language. To broaden and update past work on s*x bias in language, the present study investigated references to men and women in prompted but impromptu discussions of a popular television program. The content of the descriptions was examined for evidence of s*x bias. There was some indication that the form and content of descriptions varied depending on the s*x of the referent. However, the language used was not as overtly or pervasively sexist as had been expected. It is suggested that an important task is to document how linguistic bias is routinized or legitimated in different conversational contexts. In that way, language use can lead to a better understanding of the creation and maintenance of power hierarchies in