Redoing Linguistic Worlds - (Critical Language and Literacy Studies) by Kris Aric Knisely & Eric Louis Russell (Paperback)

About the Book

This book explores the undoing of gender binaries in non-Anglophone communities and contexts, through their connected linguistic and social unscripting. This is an important step in scholarship in language and gender, one that will inform a public increasingly aware of these remakings, both within and beyond grammatical gender.

Book Synopsis

Language and gender are interconnected, social and relational acts through which we constantly remake our worlds. But what happens when our ways of doing gender cannot be neatly categorized into traditional binary systems, including not only the social groupings of roles, practices and identities, but also the forms and structures through which we do language? This book brings together a broad range of scholars to explore the undoing and redoing of gender binaries in non-Anglophone communities and contexts, in and through their linguistic and social reimaginings. Each of the contributions to this book reflects on this ongoing change and its place in our everyday lives, including the ways that its outcomes are both contested and fluid. This volume represents an important step in scholarship in language and gender, one that stands to inform a public increasingly aware of these remakings and one that calls on all of us to stand in the tensions of our own humanity and look through it for how our languaging might 'do' imaginary worlds that are more equitable, more connected, and more just for us all.

Review Quotes

...the book's refusal to fixed, totalizing categories honors the multiplicity of linguistic life in a gender-plural world. For sociolinguists and linguistic anthropologists, it offers both a conceptual toolkit and rich empirical data for approaching linguistic practices that are central to the politics of inclusion, belonging, and resistance.

-- "Jingshu Peng, University College London, UK, Language in Society, 2026"

...the gathered papers are illuminating regarding the processes of and barriers to (re)making identities through language [...] The nine collected papers describe both monolingual and multilingual linguistic worlds, and dip into a variety of spaces--including the media, academia, and government [...] The chapters are approachable for those without a background in linguistics or trans-studies, especially if the reader starts with Chapter 1 [...] Many readers will be able to find something of use in its pages, and the closing chapter comes highly recommended.

-- "Jonathan Donnellan, Sojo University, Japan, Journal and Proceedings of GALE 2025 Vol. 17"

This book is a must read for all who aspire to do decolonizing work, as oppressive (neo)colonial power marginalizes all non-white, able-bodied, middle class, heterosexual, cisgender, male languagers (Knisely, forthcoming). It cannot be understated: this volume demands that lifesustaining, gender-just practices be acknowledged and centered in applied linguistics. The contributors urge all language scholar-educators to begin doing the reflexive work that is necessary to take those next critical steps forward, asking: are you with us or against us?

-- "Angus Leydic, University of Arizona, USA, Critical Multilingualism Studies, 12:1"

At a time when far-right politicians and TERF scholars are fundamentally threatening trans and non-binary people's right to exist, this highly innovative edited collection offers an indispensable scholarly and political intervention illustrating the creative ways in which the gender binary is contested and reimagined. A must read!-- "Tommaso M. Milani, Pennsylvania State University, USA"

Knisely and Russell have produced a timely collection, bringing to the fore speakers' unmaking of limited and binary structures in language, and the remaking of inclusive interactions with the self and others. This volume is an exciting journey beyond the cis-only world, gifting the field with new and much-needed terminology, concepts and experiences.-- "Federica Formato, University of Brighton, UK"

This book highlights the exclusionary reality that many trans and gender non-conforming people face when learning and using languages with grammatical gender. Addressing contexts both within and outside the classroom, the authors offer innovative and methodologically diverse approaches that effectively challenge the ongoing dominance of English in conversations about trans language.-- "Lal Zimman, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA"

About the Author

Kris Aric Knisely is Assistant Professor of French and Intercultural Competence in the Department of French and Italian and affiliated faculty in the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching PhD program as well as in the Trans Studies Research Cluster at the University of Arizona. Knisely's research focuses on gender justice in language education and research.

Eric Louis Russell is Professor of French and Italian and affiliated faculty in both the Linguistics and Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies departments at the University of California, Davis. His research considers contemporary Italian, French, Dutch and English linguacultures, asking how gender and gender expression, masculinities, power, authority and hegemonies are realized and disrupted through languaging and discursive activity.