The story has lost little of its freshness and relevance, which is sad given that, as someone who was young at the time of its first publication, I would have hoped to be living currently in a world a little more like the utopia described. Indeed there is no hierarchy of any kind.

The utopian society into which the central character transports herself is an interesting one and is pertinent to our current time in its de-emphasis on biological sex differences, as illustrated by the use of 'per' in place of 'hers' or 'his'/'he' or 'she' and 'person' instead of 'her' or 'him', the crucial difference being that gender/sex choice is made not from a sexually unequal starting point, but from one in which everyone is treated with respect and regarded as of equal worth. I have always viewed it as an important book which provides a scathing attack on society at the time, in particular its treatment of economically and socially disadvantaged people, the mental health system and especially women and racial/ethnic minorities. Particularly in the context of education, Luck concludes, literary texts can be a valuable tool to promote inclusive language use.I read this book twice during the 1970s and 80s and referred to it as part of a dissertation I was planning to write on the subject of 'feminist utopias', but which was never completed. A focus group study provides empirical evidence for the effectiveness of the literary approaches and shows how literary texts can sensitise readers to the impact of biased language. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness and Verena Stefan’s Häutungen highlight the issues inherent in the linguistic status quo Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time and June Arnold’s The Cook and the Carpenter explore the possibilities and challenges of linguistic neutrality and Gerd Brantenberg’s Egalias døtre reverses linguistic norms to illustrate the link between language and imagination. But how to convince speakers of the importance of inclusive language? Rewriting Language provides one possible answer: by engaging readers with the issue, literary texts can help to raise awareness and thereby promote wider linguistic change.Ĭhristiane Luck analyses five iconic texts from a literary, linguistic and sociological perspective. Despite decades of empirical evidence and revisions of formal language use, many inclusive adaptations of English and German continue to be ignored or contested.

Woman on the edge of time