Gender studies in Chinese linguistics

The article discusses the development of gender studies in Chinese linguistics. In China gender research started in the late 1970s - early 80s. The article shows two interconnected periods of the development of the research in Chinese linguistics: at the first stage, Chinese linguists got acquainted with works on gender by European and American linguistics; at the second stage, they began studying Chinese language sources from a gender perspective. The article covers the main issues studied by Chinese linguists in the field of gender. It provides an overview of the main subject matters related to gender studies, such as analysis of speech and language differences between men and women at the levels of phonetics, vocabulary and strategies in verbal behavior, analysis of gender asymmetry and discrimination in word formation, word order and vocatives in the Chinese language.