Gender Flashcards
(37 cards)
What is coarse language?
Subset of language considered impolite, rude or offensive
What are address terms?
Men are usually only Mr whereas women can be Mrs, Miss or Ms. Women’s address terms are therefore impacted by marriage
What are generic terms?
“man” tends to be used to mean all people e.g. mankind
What are marked/unmarked terms?
We have to say female doctor because people assume all doctors are men. It’s the same with male nurse, but there isn’t a suffix we can add to the word to denote it as masculine or feminine
What are empty adjectives?
An adjective that adds little meaningful content
What is semantic derogation?
The process by which the meaning of a word becomes worse over time. The opposite is amelioration
What is hyper-correct?
Non-standard use of grammar that results from over application of perceived rule
What are diminutive suffixes?
Using “ess” or “ette” on the end of words to make them “feminine” and therefore smaller or weaker
What is lexical asymmetry?
Pairs of words which ought to be equal are often not because the female version of the word has negative connotations
What are hedges?
Terms which tend to include modal expressions and vague terms. Non-absolute language
What are tag questions?
A question added to the end of a statement but does not change the statement
What is order of precedence?
The order in which supposedly equivalent terms are placed is important.
What are the 4 Ds?
- Deficit
- Difference
- Diversity
- Dominance
What is the deficit model?
The way that men speak is the “norm” and that women are socialised into society to act and talk in different ways to men
Which theories are part of the deficit model?
- Lakoff (1975)
- Dubois and Crouch (1975)
- O’Barr and Atkins (1980)
- Jesperson (1922)
What is the book by Lakoff called?
Language and Women’s place
What was Lakoff’s belief?
Gender inequality and language are linked
What were Lakoff’s ‘findings’?
- women do not draw attention to themselves
- women don’t swear
- use tag questions (uncertainty as asking for reassurance)
What did Lakoff say women use?
- superpolite forms
- empty adjectives
- overuse qualifiers and intensifiers
- use different semantic fields than men
What are the findings of Dubois and Crouch?
Women are not more likely to use tag questions in all social situations and if people do, it shows they don’t want to commit to their statement or are unsure of themselves
What did O’Barr and Atkins do?
They conducted a 30-month study of courtroom footage in North Carolina
- almost all lawyers were male
- witnesses and defendants were equally distrubuted
What were OB and A’s findings?
Women who used the lowest frequency of Lakoff’s ‘women’s language traits’ had a high status
- Women were well-educated professionals
Less to do with gender and more with perceived power in society
What is Jesperson’s research?
Women know their smaller vocab so well that they are more fluent in speaking and less hesitant than men who search for the precise word in their large vocabs
What are J’s findings?
- women use adjectives too much
- use too many adverbs and hyperboles
- prefered veiled and indirect expressions
Overall, men are responsible for introducing new words into the language
