Staubsaugen mit Mama und Gärtnern mit Papa – Eine genderlinguistische Studie zur sprachlichen Konstitution heteronormativer Familienmodelle in der Conni-Pixibuchreihe

Abstract

Children’s and young adult literature has so far been largely excluded from linguistic research. This article addresses this research gap and focuses on the verbalization of gender and gender-related stereotypes in heteronormative family models in children’s literature. The corpus of the study consists of 64 Pixi-books from the children’s book series “Meine Freundin Conni” by Liane Schneider and represents 57359 tokens. Within this children’s book series, the aim is to identify patterns of language use in the lexis that are based on stereotypical and heteronormative thought patterns. A mixed methods approach that combines a collocation analysis with a content-structuring qualitative content analysis revealed significant gender-related differences in the representation of mother and father figure. While motherhood is directly linked to the provision of care work on a lexical level, the language used constitutes an image of a father who, despite his physical absence, is idealized through the positively connoted participation in family rituals on weekends and holidays.