Gender Flashcards
What is reappropriation
Reclaiming a word or phrase that has come to mean something negative, to use it as complimentary or normal
What is folklinguistics
Attitudes and assumptions about language that have no real evidence to support them
What was robin Lakoff’s theory?
1975
- Lakoff suggested women’s language was viewed as powerless
- book met widespread criticism
Key features:
- specific colour words
- empty adjectives
- weaker expletives
- speaking in italics
- hypercorrection
- super polite forms
Politeness and face theory
Lakoff- 1973 Most speakers are concerned with politeness, we follow three maxims: • don’t impose • give options • make the receiver feel good
Explain Brown and Levison’s theory
Face theory 1978 There are two aspects: Positive- Need to be liked and accepted •shared dialect •informal lexis •giving compliments •use first names •diminutives (nicknames) Negative- • hedging •apologising •deference •indirectness •hinting •pluralising responsibility
Explain Janet holmes’ theory
Tag questions- 1980
Explored lakoff’s work
There are different types of tag questions:
•referential- signal factual uncertainty
•facilitative- express solidarity
•softening- soften threatening nature of statement
What were the findings of Janet Holmes’ theory?
Support lakoffs idea that women use more tag questions
Men use tag questions to find something out
Women use them to aid conversation in social situations
What is zimmerman and West’s theory?
Focused on interruptions, overlaps and minimal responses
Taped 31 casual conversations between student friends in coffee shops. 10 both female, 10 both male, 11 male and female
What were the findings of Zimmerman and West’s theory?
Same sex conversations had equal interruptions
In cross gender discussions, 96% of interruptions were by men, 4% by women
What were the criticisms of Zimmerman and west’s theory?
Locations were all similar
Participants were the same age
All participants were friends
Outdated research
What was Pamela Fishman’s theory?
She taped 52 hours of conversation from three married couples, aged 25-35
What was Fishman’s findings?
Men introduced 29 topics, 28 were accepted
Women introduced 47, 17 were accepted
Topics were similar so that wasn’t the cause of the discrepancy
Men nipped topics in the bud by introducing their own topic or interrupting
Women introduced topics with a question, often tag questions
Women responded with: minimal responses, enthusiasm, did the shitwork
What were the criticisms of Pamela Fishman’s theory?
Old
Only married couples
Limited age range
Only 3 couples
What was Deborah Cameron’s theory?
Published the ‘myth of men and mars’
Criticised the idea of innate differences in male and female speech
Supports the idea of ‘performing gender’
Puts forward research by Janet Hyde which shows moderate difference in spelling and smiling but close to zero difference in the rest studied, including pronunciation, vocabulary and verbal reasoning.
What was Jennifer coates’ theory?
1989
Girls and boys tend to belong to same sex friendship groups so develop different styles of speaking.
She theorises that female language is co-operative
She views tag questions and modality as characteristics that help make it cooperative
