La féminisation linguistique en Belgique, en France, au Québec et en Suisse: état des lieux

This work deals with linguistic feminization in the French language. The focus is put not only on the word formation of feminine nouns as it is in many (socio)linguistically oriented works, but also on discussing some more complex (socio)linguistic issues such as the equality of the linguistic genders. Thus, the linguistic feminization is perceived here as a complex issue that has already become a part of linguistic researches. This work aims at describing the linguistic feminization in the context of four French-speaking countries (Belgium, France, Quebec and Switzerland) and identifying the mutual influences and tendencies among these countries or territories where the French language is an official and/or national language. The text is divided, roughly according to the content, into ten chapters - some of them introduce the theoretical background in order to answer the question what is the linguistic feminization?, and in order to become familiar with the basic terms in such a work. Then, some of them deal with the linguistic means of feminization, neutralization and gender mixing in diachronic and synchronic point of views.