Language And Gender Flashcards
(28 cards)
What are 4 kinds of lexical inequality in gender?
Marked terms, ‘generic’ he, sexism in word order and semantic derogation
What are marked terms?
A term is marked when there are multiple variations of a word with one considered standard/’normal’, e.g. Actor/actress.
What is lexical asymmetry?
Where two ‘equivalent’ words do not have similarly positive/negative connotations e.g. Bachelor/spinster
What is the ‘generic’ he?
The phenomenon by which the unmarked term in a pair is typically male, applies to pronouns e.g. “Every student should bring his books to class”
What is a potential solution to the generic he and what do critics say about it?
The use of “they/their”, which is objected to by prescriptivists as grammatically incorrect, despite the fact that it has a history of use in this way. Bodine says prescriptivists have argued that “number agreement is more important than representing both sexes”
What we Baronowski’s findings about the generic he?
“He is no longer the preferred singular epicene pronoun in English”
What can be said about inequality of word order?
Motsenbacher found that the male form of words almost always comes first in a pairing e.g. Brother and sister. She also found that marked terms such as “lady doctor” imply masculine/feminine domains
What is the main theoretical contribution of Motsenbacher?
That since word order was also found to correspond with power relations, this may indicate that women are less powerful in most areas of society
What is semantic derogation?
The peroration of meanings of words over time, e.g. “Slut” which was not initially linked to loose sexuality.
What was Lakoff’s study about?
“Language and women’s place” found that the language used by women relative to that of mean featured an extensive list of identifiable characteristics such as avoidance of swear words, hedges, empty adjectives and tag questions.
What perspective is helpful when considering Lakoff’s work?
That the features Lakoff’s identifies might typify an ‘ideal’ woman against whom the language of real individuals can be measured.
What analysis of tag questions came out of Lakoff’s work?
Subsequent scholars observed that contrary to the expectation that women use tag questions out of uncertainty (the modal function), they also have an ‘affective’ function whereby a person invited a response or agreement, and that this was the variety of tag question women used more often.
What can we learn from the new analysis of tag questions?
That we mustn’t jump to conclusions as we can’t be certain of conventional analysis
Who attempts to gossip and as what?
Jones - “a way of talking between women in their roles as women, intimate in style, personal and domestic in topic and setting”
What does Coates have to say about Jones’ definition of gossip?
That it isn’t centred quite so strongly on women’s roles
What does Coates find out about gossip that is different from the popular conceptions?
Rather than being scathing and malicious, it helps to facilitate an understanding within a group, also, men engage in gossip as much as women even though their focus may be on things rather than feelings.
What does Coates observe as some of the more prevalent features of all-women talk?
A shared floor, minimal responses to indicate listening - “back-channelling”, hedging e.g. “I mean”
What are Coates’ conclusions around women’s gossip?
That in this context women tend to be cooperative and to carefully manage disagreement.
What can be said about men’s talk?
Referred to as ‘sports talk’, similar to women’s talk it involves reflection on social norms and is not only limited to sports
What does Cameron say about the nature of men’s talk?
It is “competitive, hierarchically organised, centres on “impersonal” topics and the exchange of information, and foregrounds speech genres such as joking, trading insults and sports statistics”
What are the linguistic features of men’s talk that differ from women’s?
They tend to prefer a one at a time floor and silence is more acceptable of an indication of listening
What caveat might be added about the “impersonal” nature of men’s talk?
The topics might be personal to the men in question
What is the “androcentric rule”?
It is Coates’ suggestion as part of linguistic subordination, whereby everything women do linguistically is considered negative whereas the linguistic contributions of men is considered normal
Do women talk more?
No, in contrast to the popular claim that men use 7,000 words per day while women use 20,000, Studies have found that while women might talk more in the private sphere, men talk more in a public, competitive sphere, which is more esteemed
