Glamour magazine has a favourite word: ‘hot’. Everything is ‘hot’. Stylish women are ‘hot’, denim is ‘hot’, accessories are ‘hot’; spring style is ‘super-hot’. ‘Grazia’ is fanatical about this word too; its pages are positively smoking with the adjective. Of course the word doesn’t actually mean anything, and neither do the plethora of other empty adjectives which plague women’s magazines (see also: ‘totally cool’, ‘super-pretty, ‘sooo fabulous’).

However they are demonstrative of a certain type of language which infiltrates a whole spectrum of magazines, from the weekly throwaways like ‘Grazia’, to supposedly highbrow offerings such as ‘Vogue’. This is the linguistic domain of abbreviation, exaggeration and exclamation, where expression is unacceptable until exploded into hyperactive outbursts or saccharine digressions (‘OMG!’- ‘Grazia’; ‘sugar coated jewels offer sweet pickings this summer’- ‘Vogue’) But the linguist Robin Lakoff, amongst others, long ago identified these characteristics as specific to language used by women. So surely these magazines are right to engage in ‘women-speak’, their readers’ native language?

Except that most women don’t communicate in this way, and to suggest that they do immediately assumes one type of identity for the modern woman, and a rather dangerous one. For a language formed by erratic and slippery signifiers suggests that the users of this language, too, have unstable identities which are only ever reactive and emotional. The superfluous use of exclamation marks is particularly humiliating, evoking an infantilised, hysterical female culture which communicates in high pitched squeals. But their usage also implies nervousness; they are the punctuation of an anxious, eager to please communicator, rather than an interlocutor who is confident in asserting her ideas and concerns.

Certainly this language isn’t gendered; lads’ mags also engage gleefully in their own form of sensationalised banter. But the big difference is that women’s magazines are read and taken more seriously. Not confined to the top shelf in the newsagent, they attempt to combine their frivolity with sincere topics (an interview with the country’s leading female politicians; an article following a woman’s recovery from breast cancer) but when these pieces are surrounded by declarations such as, ‘Like a Krispy Kreme binge, he’s irresistible but makes you feel a bit sick afterwards’, it’s hard to break through the sugar coated language barrier. These concerns are important, and should be of interest to the whole of society, not just a female readership. Instead, they are degraded by the language used to discuss them, as though they do not deserve to be addressed properly.

Histrionic taglines encourage a female readership to engage in this same demeaning mind-set. These magazines are popular- ‘Glamour’ prides itself on being ‘Britain’s No. 1 Women’s Magazine’- and have come to stand as representatives for modern womanhood. But this representation is not one with which we should feel comfortable; how can women be taken seriously when the language they appear to use is that of excitable adolescents rather than intelligent individuals? These publications should be a platform for exploring the varying and complex forms of the female identity; let’s have women’s magazines that converse in a language that articulates the ingenuity and intellect of their readers. Now that’s something that would be worth exclaiming about.