Gender

Question 1

What are the three key areas of the gender theory?

Answer 1

1. Dominance
2. Difference
3. Deficit

Question 2

The Dominance Model

Answer 2

The dominance model denotes the idea that men are more dominant in language.

Question 3

Spender

Answer 3

Introduced the idea of ‘male as norm’ - women are extensions of men. For example, men are always introduced first (Mr and Mrs).

Question 4

Stanley

Answer 4

There are 220 negative terms to describe a promiscuous woman, but only 20 to describe an equivalent male.

Question 5

Holmes

Answer 5

Women are often referred to as food and animals, for example, ‘cow’, ‘sugar’.

Question 6

Zimmerman and West

Answer 6

Men interrupt 96-100% of the time in mixed-sex conversations.

Question 7

Beattie

Answer 7

Zimmerman and Wests study wasn’t accurate because their sample was far too small. Beattie’s study uses 10 times as many participants and states that men and women interrupt with equal frequency.

Question 8

The Deficit Model

Answer 8

This model looks at the idea that women’s language is inherently weak.

Question 9

Lakoff

Answer 9

Lakoff believes that women’s language contains many different features which make it weak. For example:
- Intensifiers - ‘very’ , ‘so’ , ‘really.
- Hedging - expressing weak opinion - ‘sort of’.
- Avoiding swearing
- Weak adjectives - ‘nice’
- Back channelling - passively agreeing and supporting - ‘yeah’ , ‘umhum’.

Question 10

O’Barr and Atkins

Answer 10

Men use deficit language features in the courtroom. This suggests that it’s more about powerless language than it is about gendered language.

Question 11

Jesperson

Answer 11

Women’s language is littered with non-fluency features in the because they speak before thinking.

Question 12

The Difference Model

Answer 12

The difference model believes that women and men communicate differently.

Question 13

Tannen

Answer 13

Tannen believes that there are six different ways that men and women communicate differently.
1. Advice vs Understanding
2. Conflict vs Compromise
3. Independence vs Intimacy
4. Information vs Feelings
5. Orders vs Proposals
6. Status vs Support

Question 14

Coates

Answer 14

All-male conversations are competitive whereas all-female conversations are co-operative.

Question 15

Cameron

Answer 15

Bitching is a part of female talk, but not male, because covertly dominant behaviour is more acceptable.

Question 16

Pilkington

Answer 16

Male house talk is characterised by insults.

Question 17

Howe

Answer 17

Men and women play different roles in conversation.
- Men are active participants, keen to respond and provide their opinion.
- Women are active listeners, responding through backchannelling.

Question 18

Hyde

Answer 18

There are more similarities between the genders than there is difference.