Gender Flashcards
lakoff 1975
women's language weak hypercorrect grammar e.g avoiding double negatives over-apologising empty adjectives e.g lovely tag questions e.g arent you? overuse of intensifiers e.g so special lexicon e.g colour less swearing lack a sense of humour
kira hall
phone sex workers used lakoff’s features to seem more feminine
economic and social research council 2017
500% increase in the word ‘fuck’ by women since the 1990s
otto jespersen
investigated non-fluency features such as pauses and fillers
relies on evidence from literature and travellers
speculative and often dismissed as folk linguistics
otto jespersen attitudes
women have a smaller vocab
women use ‘weak’ and ‘empty’ adjectives
women fail to finish sentences because they haven’t thought about what they’re going to sya
men are responsible for adding new words to the language
women have a damaging effect
deficit model
women’s language is weak or contains weak traits
theory originates from otto jespersen’s book in 1922
men have more superior place within society - women’s speech inferior
women have a lack of something which makes their speech more inferior to men’s as theres’ is more desirable
women’s responsibility to change their language contradicts lakoff’s feminist views
men’s language is more powerful as unmarked forms are the norm biased towards men
deficit features
women speak less
softer modal auxiliary verbs to express uncertainty
polite forms e.g euphemisms
indirect requests
question intonation in declarative statements to express uncertainty
hedging e.g sort of
o’barr and atkins courtroom study
challenges lakoff
lower class men use lakoff’s language features
implies it is potentially got nothing to do with gender but power
‘powerless language’
weakness of lakoff’s research
based purely on own observations
own experiences and opinions
didn’t carry out linguistic rigorous testing
janet holmes
looked into way women are referred to affectionate nominatives
predominately from semantic fields of food and animals
‘sugar’ ‘cow’
dale spender
culture of ‘male as norm’
men are dominant and women are add ons
men are introduced first, symoblic of their role
‘mothers and fathers’ women maternal role
‘mankind’ add to the norm
gender neutral words
backlash of ‘history’
claim history is story of men
caused reshuffling and reclaiming of words e.g headteacher
dominance model
examine language use in respect to men being more dominant
schulz and lakoff
research into terms that women and men are referred to
terms to identify them as different
‘-ess’ suffix marks fenimine equivalent
semantic derogation - negative connotations e.g mistress conotation of prostitution
zimmerman and west 1975
interruptions between men and women
men interrupted 96-100% of the time
small number of subjects; white, middle class, under 35
zimmerman and west weakness
not a representative sample - research flawed and not necessarily investigating what they think they are investigating research shows traits typical of middle-class conversations but maybe atypical of all conversations
beattie
considered over 10 times the corpus of z and w
pretty much equal number of interruptions by men and women
much larger sample and representative - more accurate
pamela fishman
conversations between men and women fail because of how men act
men use 1/3 of questions as women and minimal responses
women doing ‘conversational shitwork’
stanley 1970s
number of insults for women against men
220 insults to describe promiscuous women
20 insults for promiscuous man
tyger drew honey 2015
asked people in the street how they would describe a woman who slept with over 30 men vs man sleeping with over 30 women
men and women described the woman as ‘slag’ and ‘slut’
man was labelled ‘lad’
jennifer coates
researched all male and all female groups
converse differently although topics similiar
techniques used by women to maintain conversation arent signs of inferior signs of intelligence
victoria bergvall
discussing so called differences reinforces views they exist
susan githens
women treated on norms of men
supports tannen
women invading seen as unfeminine
‘women and men have different styles, male is standard’ hurting both
deborah jones
gossiping amongst women - ‘house talk’
scandal - discuss behaviours of others
bitching - expression of anger, just as relief
chatting - intimate form of gossiping where mutually disclose and nurturing takes place
kuiper
all male talk amongst rugby team
challenges idea men are less supportive as they are in different ways
using insults to show solidarity
kate millett
‘tone and ethos of men’s house culture is sadistic, power-orientated and latently homosexual, frequently narcissistic in its’ energy and motives’
jane pilkington 1992
women aim for positive politeness
men are less supportive
holmes research to development of model 1984
challenged lakoff affective tag questions used for care and consideration
referential tag questions softening and facilitative 51 women 39 men
70% compliments given 76% women
men other men 10%
women complimented on appearance
men on abilities and possessions
tannen
high involvement (men) active role - leading ,back channeling ( yep, uh-uh) high considerateness (women) speak more slowly and avoid talking at the same time as someone else report talk (men) direct - reporting on something rapport talk (women) - create and sustain friendships
tannen sub cultures
advice v understanding - men find a solution rather than understand
orders v proposals - men use more imperatives, women use more ameliorated requests
status v support - men in control, women be supported
information v feelings - men factual information, women emotional overview
independence v intimacy - men independent, women intimacy
conflict v compromise - men conflict, women compromise
difference model
different sub-cultures
men and women are inherently different
hyde 2005
no significant differences in the difference in verbal ability between men and women
the female brain book
women almost talk 3x as much as men
liberman
the female brain book has no statistics to back it up
people ignored liberman’s views as the book already backed up stereotypes
janet hyde
psychology of women and focused on gender differences in adolescences
technique of meta-analysis (combining findings from independent studies)
looked at whether same sex schools are better
differences in gender in certain areas but results negligible
deborah cameron
gender only makes up lingusitic identity different situations different gender performing gender gender must be viewed differently to sex so many variables so it is hard to construct research
judith butler
theory of performativity
construct gender based on how you behave and language you use
language linguistically determines you
northwestern uni in 2004
supports valentova and havlicek findings
lesbian gay and bisexual people showed no difference at birth in vowel production
chose to selectively adopt vowel productions of certain social groups
gay/bisexual men did not adopt vowel sounds from women
lesbian/ bisexual women did not adopt vowel sounds from men
valentova and havlicek
czech linguists investigated someone’s perceived sexual orientation
whether or not tell a man sexuality based on aesthetics and voice
could detect based on voice and appearance
certain feminity in the voice of homosexual men elongated vowel /l/ e.g towel
pennebaker 2007
396 uni students 186 men 210 women 30 secs ambient noise every 12.5 mins in conversations using EAR estimated total number of words spoken assuming 17 hrs awake most verbose - man 47000 daily most economic - man 500 daily sexes came out evenly 16,215 men, 15,669 women average number about the same depends on context wider variation between same sex lot of data - valid collected data on chatter patterns
william leap
‘lavender linguistics’
sociolect of homosexuals
whole other language when homosexuals interact with heterosexuals and homosexuals with other homosexuals
diversity model
more differences between genders than between them
