gender Flashcards
julia stanley male as the norm
The use of masculine pronoun after such nouns was simply a
matter of convenience, a way of avoiding the long-winded “he or
she”, the clumsy “s/he”, or the ungrammatical “they”(Man and
mankind are both singular nouns and so should grammatically be
followed by a singular pronoun.)
lakoff dominance theory
Robin Lakoff noted assumptions that categorised women’s speech as including the following:
• Hedge: using phrases like “sort of”, “kind of”, “it seems like”,and so on.
• Use (super)polite forms: “Would you mind…”,“I’d appreciate it if…”, “…if you don’t mind”.
• Use tag questions: “You’re going to dinner, aren’t you?”
• Speak in italics: intonational emphasis equal to underlining words - so, very, quite.
• Use question intonation in declarative statements: women make declarative statements into questions by raising the pitch of their voice at the end of a statement, expressing uncertainty. For example, “What school do you attend? Eton College?”
• Use “wh-” imperatives: (such as, “Why don’t you open the door?”)
• Speak less frequently
• Overuse qualifiers: (for example, “I Think that…”)
• Apologise more: (for instance, “I’m sorry, but I think
that…”)
• Use modal constructions: (such as can, would, should, ought
- “Should we turn up the heat?”)
• Avoid coarse language or expletives
• Use indirect commands and requests: (for example, “My, isn’t
it cold in here?” - really a request to turn the heat on or
close a window)
• Use more intensifiers: especially so and very (for instance,
“I am so glad you came!”)
• Lack a sense of humour: women do not tell jokes well and
often don’t understand the punch line of jokes
• Use on.
• Use
empty adjectives: divine, lovely, adorable, and so
direct quotation: men paraphrase more often.
• Have a special lexicon: women use more words for things like colours, men for sports.
pamela fishman dominance theory
Women made more effort to create an inclusive conversational atmosphere, encouraging male participation by offering subjects of interest or that involved the male participant. Men tended to become more ‘involved’ in the conversation upon encountering a topic that interested them, from which point, they would ‘dominate’ the discourse.
zimmerman and west
The dominance theory is that men are more
likely to interrupt than women when engaged
in mixed-sex conversation. Again, this study
was conducted in 1975 on a small sample of
conversations, which were undertaken at the
University of California. All participants
were under 35, white and middle class.
Unsurprisingly, the conclusion than men are
more dominant because of the fact that in 11
conversations between men and women, men
used 46 interruptions whilst women used only
two, has led to criticisms of the study and
its claims.
dale spender dominance theory
Spender suggests that women are trapped in a world of language that is not
of their making, because men had historically controlled the meanings, to
the extent that even the most taboo word in the language, and therefore
one avoided by women, referred to a part of their own bodies.
Spender suggests that language differences between the sexes is evidence
of a system of patriarchal dominance, where one sex controls the other and
language is the tool to do so.
deborah tannen difference theory
Tannen argued that men and women are socialised to see themselves as having different roles and positions in life, and that they are trained to use different linguistic
strategies in interactions.
• Men - monitor interactions for signals of power and status.
• Women - monitor interactions for signals of alignment and solidarity.
trudgill difference theory
Women tend to value aspects of life that embody “overt prestige”, showing more affinity with social conformity and standardised forms of the language.
• Men tend to value aspects of life that embody “covert prestige” (individualism, going against social conventions etc), hence tendencies to exhibit language behaviours less bound by conventions of politeness etc.
maltz and borker difference theory
They also argue that girls learn to do three things with words in their formative years:
• to create and maintain relationships of closeness and equality
• to criticise others in acceptable ways
• to interpret accurately the speech of
other girls.
Boys, on the other hand, learn to do the following when they speak:
• to assert a position of dominance
• to attract and maintain an audience
• to assert themselves when another speaker has the floor.
Maltz and Borker (1982) characterise girls’ talk as collaboration- oriented, boys’ talk as competition-oriented.
