Folia Linguistica Historica XVII/1-2 pp. 177-186 © Societas Linguistica Europaea UNIVERSAL VS. INDIVIDUAL: THE TENSIONS OF "WOMEN'S LANGUAGE" IN JULIAN OF NORWICH'S REVELAT1ONS OF DIVINE LOVE LILIANA SIKORSKA "Sociolinguists say that how you act depends on who you are; critical theory says that who you are (and are taken to be) depends on how you act" asserts Camerön in her recent book on Verbal Hygiene (1995: 16). This Statement can be referred to the problem of women's language and two contrastive approaches to it; while sociolinguists are inclined to claim that there exists a distinctive female language (spoken and written), literary theorists are more prone to attribute differences between male and female language to certain rethorical styles. Having in mind the con- temporary feminist assumption that female speech belongs to a private sphere while male Speech is always public, one may refer to the position of the author/ess and the acceptance of authority (which can be seen at the linguistic level äs the distinctively different choice of certain lexical äs well äs stylistic items which differentiates female from male style). Hence a correlation between universal—male and personal—female rhetoric connected with the taboo on women's public speech. This paper is a sample study of a well known late medieval text by Julian of Nor- wich, Revelations of Divine Love, in which the tensions between the universal vs. individual are particularly apparent. It is undoubtedly true that medieval mystical discourse touched upon a very private sphere of experience, still, the way the author positioned himself/herself within that discourse, the way he/she approached bis/her audience signifies different positions men and women occupied in the society. This is reflected in a language of a given text. It is clear Üiat a writer has little Chance to break with gendered subjectivity, still, the issue of women's language äs a distinctive rhetorical style of writing is a debatable one especially in the case of mystical writings. One way of approaching this problem in the written language is through acknow- ledging the tensions between general and individual. Medieval authors always confronted the interplay between the particular and the general. Particular achievements, such äs authorship of a work, were connected with personal piety, yet the System of meaning itself was stnictured in Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 6/10/15 1:22 AM