Gender and Language Flashcards
Who wrote the “Dominance Approach”?
Otto Jespersen
What does the Dominance Approach claim?
- Women don’t know as many words
- Women don’t understand complex language
- Women read slower than men
What language feature does (Pamela) Fishman base her theory on?
Questions
What does Fishman claim?
- Women use tag questions when following a suggestion
- Women use questions to gain conversational power
- Questions don’t show uncertainty but are used to keep a conversation going.
Who wrote the “Deficit Approach”?
Robin Lakoff
What does the Deficit Approach claim?
- Women’s language is weak
- Women’s language lacks authority
This is because they use- - Precise cleaning terms
-Specific colour terms - Weak expletives
- Empty adjectives
- Tag questions
- Polite and apologise
-Hedges - Intensifiers
- Indirect command questions
-They avoid slang
Which theorist focuses on gender similarities?
(Janet) Hyde- Gender Similarities Hypothesis
What does Hyde’s theory claim?
- Men and women are more alike then they are different
- Sexuality can influence gender differences
- Gender differences vary at different ages
Which 2 theorists also proved the Dominance Approach?
(Don) Zimmerman and (Candace) West
What did Zimmerman and West find?
- They found that most interruptions/overlaps are made predominantly by men especially in mixed sex conversations
- In same sex conversations interruptions are equal between the people in the conversation.
- This proves that males obtain power and authority in conversations.
What was (Koenraad) Kuiper’s theory bases on?
Insults
What did he discover?
- When men are talking they are less likely to pay attention
- Use insults as a way of expressing solidarity
- All male talk has a heightened difference in cooperation amongst all male groups.
What does (Deborah) Tannen’s Difference theory cover?
Male and Female contrasts
What did Tannen find and conclude?
- Males and females miscommunicate because they have a different way of communicating.
- Men favour independence while Females seek intimacy
What did Coates theory suggest?
- Males and Females develop different speaking styles as they have different interactions
- She examined the functionality of language development
- Makes comparisons between different age groups
- Men interact based on power
- Women interact based on solidarity and support
Who wrote a theory on interruptions?
(Geoffrey) Beattie
What did Beattie find?
- In a 10 hour conversation there were 557 interruptions
- Men and Women interrupted at pretty much equally (Men 34.1 and Women 33.8)
(William) O’Barr and (Bowman) Atkins wrote there theory on
Powerless Language
O’Barr and Atkins found?
- Language is specific depending on who has authority in the situation rather than the gender
