• Linguistische Treffen in Wrocław •

The connections between gender as a biological category sexus, grammatical genus and socio-politicalcultural gender and language have always been present in scientific discussions to a greater or lesser extent. In the 1970s and 1980s, programmatic contributions by feminist linguists, such as Senta Trömel-Plötz (1978, 1982) and Luise F. Pusch (1979, 1984), sparked numerous controversies that led to the polarization of position and the so-called family dispute “Familienstreit” among German linguists. The differences of opinion were most often due to a misunderstanding or non-acceptance of the opponents’ assumptions, who accused themselves above all of the unscientific nature of their arguments. The debate on gender and language that has been going on in German-speaking scientific circles for over forty years not only refers to well-known issues such as systemic asymmetries or generic masculinum. Significant importance is attributed to interdisciplinary research that broadens the research horizon of gender linguistics to date.