gender Flashcards
Julia Stanley
Studied language around promiscuous behaviour
Found 26 promiscuous nouns for men
220 for women
Men’s words = approving connotations e.g stud whereas women’s words were disaproving e.g slut
Shirley russel
Studied how insults are used to maintain male power and exercise control over women
Sue lees
Argues that men control female behaviour around sexual activity by linguistic terms such as slag
-language police’s women’s behaviour
Marked/unmarked terms
Terms for females are often marked with suffix/prefix
E.g actor/actress
Lexical asymmetry
Words for men/women should denote the same role/value but actually have different connotations e.g witch/wizard
Politically correct language
Evidence that our language is changing as we recognise the discrimination inherent in terms
E.g headteacher / head master
Order of precedence
Suqential heircharcy of nominal importance e.g mr and mrs
Androcentric
Dominated by or emphasising masculine interests or masculine pov
Generic use of man
‘Man’ previously referred to both men and women as but not just adult males
Peroration
A change for the worse (connotative status of a word declines
Epicene
Having the same form for male and female e.g cousin
Diminutives
‘Cute’ version of a word e.g duckling for duck
Diminutive suffix
Suffix added to a word to add affection e.g dog to doggie
Difference model - Deborah tannen
Six contrasts:
Status v support
Independence v intimacy
Advice v understanding - male v female
Info v feelings
Orders v proposals
Conflict v compromise
Sees men and women belonging to different sub cultures - we are socialised differently from birth
Deficit model - Lakoff
Women’s language is lacking - women’s language is weak
-hedging
-politness
-empty adjectives
-Question intonation \
Powerlessness of women is reflected in how we speak and how men speak about women
Defecit model: Otto jeperson
Men’s language was the standard and ‘norm’ women’s = deficient
Women - talk a lot, small vocab, emotional not grammatical, indirect therefore ineffective
Men - large vocabs, difficult words, in charge of establishing new words
Pamela fish man
Similar to lakoff - viewed the work that women do in conversation
‘Interactional shitwork’
George Kieth and John shuttleworth
Women = talk more/too much, cooperative, polite, polite
Men = swear, emotionless, talk about women and machines in similar ways, competitive and dominant
Dominance model: Zimmerman and west
99% if interruptions are male
Interruptions are a device of exercising power and control in a conversation
Research shows that in 11 conversations men interrupted 46 times whilst women only twice
Men typically enjoy more status and assume they’re entitled to take over conversation
Dominance model: dale spender
Men control language
Man made language
Men not women who control knowledge
Gendered job titles
“Changing terms is the tip of the iceberg in shifting social attitudes for a more fair and equal society”
Suzanne Berne: need to drop gendered job titles
Judith Baxter: sexist language perpetuates gender biased attitudes by defining what we see normal for men and women
Job titles are implied sexism
Motschenbacher
Order of precedence
Men- occupational roles
Women - kinship and family roles
His findings link to traditional gender discourse:
Men dominate during marriage (husband/wife) - breadwinner
Female dominate pre marriage (bride/groom)
HOWEVER- syllables are key in order e.g ladies/ gentlemen and prince/ princess
Verbal hygiene theory
Women are socialised to be feminine so their language must reflect that e.g not being taboo - they must have verbal hygiene
Language used about female politicians is used to question their authority- links to domestic sphere or ‘mummy’
Insults are socially policing
