Language + Gender Flashcards
(25 cards)
Deborah Cameron (1990), Sara Mills (1995) and Schulz (1975)
• ‘bachelor’ and ‘spinster’ have the same meaning
• ‘bachelor’ is an unmarried male, this has positive
connotations of a happy life
• ‘spinster’ is an unmarried female, this has negative
connotations of a sad, lonely life
Sara Mills (1995) and Julia Stanley (1975)
• There is a disproportionate number of taboo words used to describe women in contrast to men
• More words for women that contained sexual overtones. 220 words referring a promiscuous female (e.g. ‘slut’), than 20 for a promiscuous male.
Janet Holmes (1994)
1) The chicken metaphor
• There are more derogatory animal names used for women than there are for men.
2) Difference approach
• Women use compliments with each other more than with men
• Women using compliments shows that women use language to signify mutual support, rather than men’s competitive approach to communication
3) Tag questions can be used for different reasons:
o Referential: because of factual uncertainty
o Affective (facilitative): to reflect solidarity/intimacy
o Affective (softening): to weaken a command or
criticism
Jenny Cheshire (1982)
• Boys use non-standard forms more frequently than girls
• In boy’s speech, variation is encouraged through peer
groups
• Variation in girls’ speech is a personal process and less
controlled by norms
Jane Pilkington (1992)
• Women in same-sex conversations were more collaborative than men were in a same-sex conversation
• Women aim for more positive politeness strategies, but men are less complimentary and supportive in all-male talk
Koenraad Kuiper (1991)
• Men use insults to express solidarity and friendship and do not need to save their face
Deborah Cameron
• The stereotypical differences between the sexes are disappearing
• Biological differences do not determine linguistic differences, they are due to social conditioning
• Contrasts between genders are due to societal expectations
• The way that men and women think that they are supposed to speak is called ‘verbal hygiene’
Janet Hyde (2005)
Gender similarities hypothesis
• Men and women are more similar than old research
suggests
• Old research expected an outcome and got that outcome,
there is newer technology today
• Women only speak 0.11% more than men
• Not all differences in language are down to gender
• Men + women are more alike than they are different
Judith Butler
• Gender is a social construct and is not determined by one’s sex
Peter Trudgill (1974)
• Men use more non-standard forms than women, regardless of social class
• Men deliberately adopt non-standard forms for covert prestige
Edina Eisikovits (1998)
• Studied two groups of males and two groups of females
• The younger adolescents of both sexes used non-standard
forms widely
• Older females used non-standard forms less
• Older males used non-standards form the most
Robin Lakoff (1975)
Women’s linguistic characteristics:
o Tag questions to signify uncertainty
o Hedges or fillers
o Empty adjectives
o Intensifiers
o Precise colour terms
o Hyper-correct grammar
o More polite forms than men (euphemisms)
o Avoidance of taboo lexis
o Rising intonation
o Emphatic stress on specific words
o Use direct quotations
o Give minimal responses
o Apologise more
o Have a lack of a sense of humour
o Avoid using slang
Explain the Dominance Approach.
The dominance approach: in mixed gender conversations, men dominate the conversations as they interrupt and speak more due to the cultural construction of gender in society.
Zimmerman and West (1975)
Dominance approach
• They conducted 31 conversations, 10 males only, 10
women only and 11 mixed conversations
• Men interrupted a total of 46 times, women interrupted 2 times
• 96% of interruptions in mixed-sex conversations were
made by males
• Men are a more dominating gender
Explain the Difference Approach.
• The difference approach: this approach suggests that men and women use language differently
Christine Howe (2013)
Difference approach
• Women are active listeners, they use minor interjections,
they don’t use offensive language and aren’t competitive
• Men want to gain conversational power and are likely to
respond in a conversation rather than backchannel, this makes it harder for other participants to talk
Deborah Tannen (1992)
Difference approach
• Difference starts in childhood; parents use more words
about feelings to girls + use more verbs to boys
• There are six main differences in the way that men +
women use language
o Status vs support: men are competitive + want
the ‘upper hand’ in a conversation, women are more supportive + speak for confirmation when talking to men.
o Advice vs understanding: men seek solutions, women give sympathy and show understanding
o Information vs feeling: men speak to inform, women’s language is more emotive and verbose
o Orders vs proposals: men use direct imperatives to order; women suggest + propose using an off- record indirect approach
o Conflict vs compromise: men resist and oppose others openly; women don’t oppose openly but will in private or with other women
o Independence vs intimacy: men focus on status + are independent, women see language as a way to perpetuate intimacy or preserve it
• Men have more ‘airtime’, they negotiate their status + speak asymmetrically in a conversation
• Women’s language is long winded, they speak in private and speak symmetrically in a conversation
Ann Weatherall (2005)
Difference approach
• Women use tag questions and hedging to support other
speakers
• Women speak less and interrupt less
• Women’s talk is co-operative, whilst men’s talk is competitive.
Michael Halliday
Ideational Metafunction
• The Ideational Metafunction helps people deconstruct
how gender has been constructed through language
• Identify:
o Who and whom: participants, actors who do things or have things done to them (nouns/pronouns)
o Is doing what: processes (verbs)
o When, where and how: circumstances (adverbs,
prepositions)
Raewyn Connell (2002)
Traditional stereotypes of gender
• Men + women have different roles in the family
• Women are maternal + do housework
• Men are the head of the house + the breadwinner (bring in the income)
• Women are expected to show emotion + affection, men
are expected to show little emotion
• Aggression, being rational + tough are seen as positive
characteristics for men
• Women are judges on their looks, men are judged on
intelligence + skills
• Men can be sexual, women can’t as it is seen as unusual
behaviour
Statham (1986)
• By the age of 5, most children have got a clear gender
identity, they know their own gender + know what
appropriate behaviour for their gender is
Appropriate behaviour is determined through:
o Colour codes: blue for boys, pink for girls
o Appearance codes: clothes, hairstyles, jewellery,
+ cosmetics are gendered
o Toy codes: girls get maternal toys (baby dolls),
boys get action toys or creative toys
o Play codes: boys are expected to play rough; girls are expected to be nice.
Jennifer Coates (1980)
• Women’s language is more supportive + uses hedges to
express epistemic modality in an attempt to respect their
face
• Men reject a topic of conversation introduced by a
woman, but a woman almost always accepts a topic
introduced by a man
• Women are more likely to initiate conversations, but men
take control
Dale Spender
- Men are always introduced first (Mr + Mrs, Lord + Lady)
- ‘Mankind’ associates humanity with men first + foremost
- ‘Patriarchy is a frame of reference, a particular way of classifying + organs in the objects + events of the world’
Otto Jesperson
Dominance model
* Women think before they speak, use unfinished sentences + are more emotional.
* Educated women are less likely to use slang + taboo language, but educated men still will.
