Vocabulary from Forums about Pregnancy and Medically Assisted Procreation: Representations of the Norm and Communities
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Some French discussion forums devoted to pregnancy or medically assisted procreation show that commenters—all of them women—may sometimes use words such as brybry, gygy, fofos, zozos, or zhom to speak about the embryo, gynecologist, follicles, sperm, or their male companions.This article investigates how these commenters conceive of the use of such a vocabulary in relation to what they may consider the linguistic norm as well as in relation to the community that they may identify with. The folk linguistics approach allows us to identify several perspectives: on the one hand, this vocabulary, which has not yet incorporated the system of linguistic standards, may still be perceived as normal or even as prescriptive insofar as the mode of communication (the discussion forum) used by commenters is concerned; on the other hand, this same vocabulary can sometimes be considered morally blameworthy given the perceived rectitude of the standard language; finally, it can be thought of as an important element that ensures the cohesion of a discursive community, which is defined here by the mode of communication, but also and especially by gender and the bodily experience, real or desired, of pregnancy.
Réseaux sociaux