Deborah Cameron

Deborah Jane Cameron (10 November 1958 – 20 January 2026) was a British linguist and feminist who held the Rupert Murdoch Professorship in Language and Communication at Worcester College, Oxford University.

Cameron was mainly interested in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. A large part of her academic research was focused on the relationship of language to gender and sexuality. She wrote the book The Myth of Mars And Venus: Do Men and Women Really Speak Different Languages?, which was published in 2007.

Life and career Before her post at Oxford University, Cameron taught at the Roehampton Institute of Higher Education, The College of William & Mary in Virginia, Strathclyde University in Glasgow and the Institute of Education in London.

Selected bibliography

Books Cameron, Deborah (1985). Feminism and Linguistic Theory. London Basingstoke: Macmillan. .

Cameron, Deborah; Shaw, Sylvia (2016). Gender, Power, and Political Speech: Women and language in the 2015 UK General Election. London: Palgrave Macmillan. . Cameron, Deborah (2025). The Rise of Dogwhistle Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press. .

Chapters in books

Journal articles (See also: and Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence)

Cameron, Deborah (2021) "Women, Civility, and the Language of Politics: Realities and representations" The Political Quarterly 1-7