Gender

Question 1

What is Amelioration?

Answer 1

The meaning of a word or phrase becomes increasingly positive over time.

Question 2

What does Bitching refer to?

Answer 2

The exchange of emotions by women, often expressing anger and complaints.

Question 3

What is the Deficit model?

Answer 3

The belief that language used by women is inferior to the language used by men.

Question 4

What is the Difference model?

Answer 4

The belief that men and women have innate differences in the style and function of their speech and writing.

Question 5

What is the Diversity model?

Answer 5

The belief that gender is not the only thing influencing men and women’s language use, rather their language behaviours are affected by the groups they belong to.

Question 6

What is the Dominance model?

Answer 6

The belief that the differences in language use by men and women can be explained by the hierarchical dominance of men within society.

Question 7

What is a Euphemism?

Answer 7

Words or phrases that are used to refer to things that others may find upsetting or embarrassing.

Question 8

What is a Filler?

Answer 8

A seemingly meaningless word, phrase or sound that marks a pause or hesitation in speech.

Question 9

What is Folk linguistics?

Answer 9

The opinions and beliefs that non linguists hold about language use.

Question 10

What are Gender neutral terms?

Answer 10

Words or phrases that avoid bias towards a particular gender.

Question 11

What is Genderlect?

Answer 11

The particular dialect used by men and women depending on their gender.

Question 12

What is a Hedge?

Answer 12

A word or phrase that makes a statement less forceful or assertive.

Question 13

What is Hegemonic masculinity?

Answer 13

Language and behaviour associated with an idealised male group that is seen to have the most power and status within society.

Question 14

What is Heteronormativity?

Answer 14

The belief that heterosexuality is the norm or default sexual orientation.

Question 15

What is House talk?

Answer 15

The discussion of the female role as an occupation.

Question 16

What is Hypercorrection?

Answer 16

A pronunciation, word form or grammatical construction produced by mistaken analogy with standard usage in a desire to be correct.

Question 17

What is an Interruption?

Answer 17

Speaking at the same time as another speaker with the intention of taking the turn from them.

Question 18

What are Marked terms?

Answer 18

The unusual form of a term, often shown by an additional suffix e.g. ladette. The unmarked term would be the regular form e.g. lad.

Question 19

What is a Minimal response?

Answer 19

Short sounds or words that are used to maintain a conversation. Shows the listener is listening.

Question 20

What is Pejoration?

Answer 20

The meaning of a word or phrase becomes increasingly negative over time.

Question 21

What is a Pejorative term?

Answer 21

A judgemental term that usually implies disapproval or criticism.

Question 22

What is Performativity?

Answer 22

Using speech and other communication methods to construct or perform an identity.

Question 23

What is Rapport talk?

Answer 23

Attempting to build relationships through speech. Typically associated with female speech.

Question 24

What is Reclamation?

Answer 24

The cultural process of removing negative associations with a particular word or phrase that have been used against a less powerful social group by a more powerful one.

Question 25

What is Representation?

Answer 25

The portrayal of events, people and circumstances through language (and image and sound) to create a way of seeing the world.

Question 26

What is Social constructivism?

Answer 26

Places importance on social interaction as constructing identity and people coming together to create a shared construction of the world.

Question 27

What is the Socialisation process?

Answer 27

Learning to be a participating member of a society.

Question 28

What is a Stereotype?

Answer 28

A fixed generalised set of characteristics that are widely believed to represent a particular type of person or thing.

Question 29

What is a Tag question?

Answer 29

A short question added at the end of a sentence, often inviting agreement with the speaker. Sometimes seen to be used as seeking reassurance.

Question 30

What is Up talk?

Answer 30

Rising intonation used at the end of declarative statements.

Question 31

What is a Variable?

Answer 31

A contextual factor that can influence speech and writing.

Question 32

What is Verbal hygiene?

Answer 32

The effort to improve or correct speech and writing to arrest change in language.

Question 33

What is Robin Lakoff's Deficit theory?

Answer 33

Women are socialised into behaving like ‘ladies’ (linguistically and within society) and that this subordinate position within society stops them being powerful.

Question 34

What is Dale Spender's Dominance theory?

Answer 34

Believes that a male dominated society has structured and regulated language to reflect men’s best interests.

Question 35

What did Zimmerman and West find about Dominance?

Answer 35

Men are more likely to interrupt women in a mixed sex conversation, suggesting their dominance.

Question 36

What was Geoffrey Beattie's critique of Zimmerman and West?

Answer 36

Critical of Zimmerman and West. In his own study found that whilst men interrupted more it was by such a slight margin that it wasn’t statistically significant.

Question 37

What is Pamela Fishman's view on Dominance?

Answer 37

Women do more of the conversational work, due to their inferior position within society.

Question 38

What is Deborah Tannen's Difference theory?

Answer 38

Women use language differently from men not out of inferiority, but because they have been socialised differently and have different conversational goals. They are aiming to keep a conversation going through their use of tag questions.

Question 39

What did Jennifer Coates find about Difference?

Answer 39

Found that boys and girls tended to belong to same sex friendship groups and subsequently developed different styles of speaking.

Question 40

What did Deborah Jones categorize women's talk into?

Answer 40

Categorised women’s talk into four main groups; house talk, scandal, bitching and chatting.

Question 41

What did Jane Pilkington find about Difference?

Answer 41

Women in same sex conversations are collaborative and used positive politeness strategies. Men in same sex conversations were less collaborative, less complimentary and less supportive than women.

Question 42

What did Penny Eckert suggest about Diversity?

Answer 42

Suggested that we need to explore other reason for language variation such as class.

Question 43

What is Deborah Cameron's view on Diversity?

Answer 43

The gender ‘template’ doesn’t fit everyone; suggesting that there can be as many differences in communication between two men as there could be between a man and a woman.

Question 44

What did Janet Holmes research about tag questions?

Answer 44

Researched tag questions; discovering they could be used to express solidarity, or that they could weaken a command or criticism.

Question 45

What did O’Barr and Atkins find in their study?

Answer 45

Studied courtrooms and the speech of witnesses. Found that language differences are based on situation specific authority or power, rather than gender.

Question 46

What is Janet Hyde's Gender similarities hypothesis?

Answer 46

Men and women are similar on most, but not all, psychological variables. This includes speech.

Question 47

What did Judith Butler suggest about gender?

Answer 47

The way we present ourselves, such as our speech and body language, and continually repeat these presentations, constructs our gender rather than reflecting it.

Question 48

What did Victor Seidler find about conversation topics?

Answer 48

Men and women tend to discuss different topics in single sex conversations.

Question 49

What did Jenny Cheshire find about gender and social attitude?

Answer 49

Males are more susceptible to covert prestige, but social attitude is more of a determining factor than gender.