gender theories

Question 1

Zimmerman and West(1975) theory

Answer 1

dominance
Men deny equal status to women as conversational partners - they engineer female silence
- men were responsible for 96% of the interruptions in cross-sex conversations
- men talk for greater lengths of time, had more frequent turns, interrupted more and were interrupted less

Question 2

What did Esther Grief (1980) add to Zimmerman and West’s findings?

Answer 2

both parents interrupt daughters more than sons but fathers interrupt more than mothers

Question 3

Criticisms of Zimmerman and West’s theory?

Answer 3

It was a small study: the subjects were all white, middle class and under 35 - it wasn’t representative of all men and women

Question 4

What was Geoff Beattie’s criticism of Zimmerman and West’s theory? (1982)

Answer 4

He questioned the meaning of interruptions - ‘do interruptions necessarily reflect dominance?
Beattie found that women and men interrupted with more or less equal frequency, men did interrupt more but only by a margin so slight

Question 5

Spender (1980) theory

Answer 5

dominance
The male as normal, language is man made and therefore mainly under male control
- language is patriarchal and has been made by men for men in such a way as to ensure their continued dominance

Question 6

Pamela Fishman’s theory (1983 and 1990)

Answer 6

dominance
- Women often use tag questions like ‘isnt it’ following a thought or suggestion - argues that women use questions to gain conversational power
- Women use 4 times as many yes/no tag questions to keep a conversation going
- Women did more than men in order to upkeep a conversation
- The success rate of topics brought up by men > those brought up by women

Question 7

Lakoff’s theory (1975)

Answer 7

deficit
- Women have a different way of speaking than men:
women’s language gave the impression that women are weaker and less certain than men.
- She distinguished women’s language in a number of ways:
- hedging, super polite forms, hypercorrect grammar, tag questions, exaggerated intonation, empty adjectives approval e.g. divine, lovely, use of implication, special lexicon, question intonation in declarative statements, sense of humour lacking, speak less frequently, indirect speech, avoid coarse language and apologies.

Question 8

Jespersen’s theory (1922)

Answer 8

deficit
-women have a smaller and less sophisticated vocabulary
- women use empty and weak adjectives
- women fail to finish sentences
- men are responsible for adding new words to language
- women use adverbs too much and tend towards hyperbole
- women talk a lot
- women are more indirect

Question 9

Deborah Tannen’s 1990 theory

Answer 9

difference
Men and women use language in different ways that reflect and reinforce their gender roles and power relationships in society. She identifies 6 main contrasts:
- Status vs support
- advice vs understanding
- information vs feelings
- orders vs proposals
- conflict vs compromise
- independence vs intimacy

Question 10

Jennifer Coates 1993 theory

Answer 10

difference
Girls and boys develop different styles of speaking due to their different interactions in their all boys and all girls friendship groups.
- topic choice: men talk about impersonal topics vs women who talk about more sensitive aspects
- dominance: men hold the floor for a long time
- rapid fire: men exchange comments in a short, snappy style
- no overlaps: men prefer to talk one at a time

Question 11

What did Julia Stanley find in 1977?

Answer 11

there are around 220 terms for a promiscuous woman but only 20 for males

Question 12

What did Muriel Schulz argue in 1975?

Answer 12

the more negative words for women represents patriarchal order and ‘marked’ words for women become pejorated

Question 13

Anne Bodine’s 1975 gender theory

Answer 13

• dominance
• the generic ‘he’ = he is used as a pronoun to describe men and women
• language is androcentric = male centered
  e.g. mankind implies that men are more important, humankind should be used instead

Question 14

Shulz’s gender theory

Answer 14

dominance
- the semantic derogation of women = a once neutral term of reference undergoes pejoration e.g. ‘lady’ is undergoing pejoration compared to ‘gentleman’
- the derogation shows the attitudes and rears that men hold about women

Question 15

Jenny Cheshire’s 1982 theory

Answer 15

difference
- looked at the grammatical variations in the speech of young children: boys used non-standard forms more than girls did
-concluded that variation is controlled by both social and linguistic factors
- boy’s speech = variation is governed by norms that are central to the vernacular culture that are transmitted through the peer group
- girl’s speech = appears to be a more personal process and less rigidly controlled by vernacular norms

Question 16

Deborah Jones’ 1990 theory

Answer 16

difference
When a conversation included only females, there was an abundance of:
- house talk = info connected to the female role as an occupation
- scandal = judging the behaviour of others(women in particular), usually made in terms of domestic morality
- bitching = overt expression of women’s anger at their restricted role and inferior status
-chatting = mutual self-disclosure

Question 17

Keith and Shuttleworth(1999) theory

Answer 17

difference
- men and women display different traits when talking in spontaneous conversation
- women: talk more than men, talk too much, are more polite, indecisive, complain and nag, ask more questions, support each other and are more cooperative
- men: swear more, don’t talk about emotions, talk about sport more, talk about women and machines in the same way, insult each other, are competitive in conversation, dominate conversation

Question 18

Kuiper(1991) theory

Answer 18

difference
- all male talk uses insults to express solidarity and doesn’t worry about saving face

Question 19

Pilkington (1992) theory

Answer 19

difference
- women in same-sex talk = more collaborative then men were in all-male talk
- women aim for more positive politeness but men are less complimentary and supportive in all male talk
- men like to challenge each others point of view and disagree

Question 20

Deborah Cameron (1995) theory

Answer 20

diversity
- difference is a myth
- men and women communicate in ways that are fundamentally different from one another
- any noticeable differences are due to societal expectations not biological factors
- verbal hygiene = the ways in which people regulate their language and communication to conform to societal expectations and norms

Question 21

Janet Holmes (1992) theory

Answer 21

diversity
- the discrepancies in male-male and female-female complimentary language may be due to differences in perception concerning the purpose of compliments
- women use more tag questions

Question 22

O’Barr and Atkins (1980) theory

Answer 22

diversity
- studied language in the courtroom = language associated with women was exhibited by both men and women whenever they were in a powerless situation
- renamed women’s language to powerless language

Question 23

Pennebaker’s study (2007)

Answer 23

diversity
- Pennebaker’s electronically activated recoder/EAR samples 30 seconds of ambient noise every 12.5 mins
- researchers used the EAR to collect data on the chatter patterns of 396 university students
- the avg number of words spoken by men and women were about the same
- men showed a slightly wider variability in words uttered
in the end they came out just about even in daily averages: women=16,215 and men=15,669
- found more differences within genders than between them

Question 24

Trudgill(1974) theory

Answer 24

diversity
- using the non-standard form was a result of social class rather than gender + men used the non-standard form more than women, across all social classes
- women are more susceptible to overt prestige
- language changes depending on how conscious a person was of their speech