Gender and language use in Macau, 16th – 19th century

Abstract

This contribution traces the impact of gender (roles) in the dynamics of language genesis and shift in Macau, focusing on the city’s creole community. The hypothesis on which I elaborate is that most Asian, African, and Eurasian women living in the Portuguese-ruled part of Macau from the 16^th to the 19^th century found themselves in a social position that was out of the norm – a fact reflected in their language use. During this period, these women’s access to normative language use was systematically impeded by factors such as gender and ethnic origin. Considering these factors, I reconstruct the interrelatedness of speakers’ social position and communicative behaviour. To this end, I analyse metalinguistic data, such as glottonyms, metalinguistic statements, and descriptions of diverse types of speakers. I mostly rely on Portuguese and Macau Creole texts (henceforth: Maquista), which I approach within a framework informed by linguistic anthropology and historical sociolinguistics, with special regard to gender.