Discursive Routines: Gender Variations and Norms

This article imagines the question of the norm from the point of view of discourse analysis, connecting variation to the “type of discourse” within a corpus of educational reports produced on the topic of child endangerment. Indeed, the study of “discursive routines”—in the sense of semi-fixed segments fulfilling a discursive function—make it seem that sometimes implementation of these routines varies in relation to common usage. We show how one can connect this implementation to the functions and determinacy peculiar to gender. We therefore consider gender a site where norms emerge at the intersection of language, socioprofessional determinacy, and pragmatic and discursive determinacy.