Gender In Language Flashcards
Lakoff (1975)
Deborah Tannen and the difference model
Status v Support - Men use language to show power and dominance
- Women are more likely to use language to support and agree with others
Independence v Intimacy - Men use language to show they don’t need to rely on others
- Women prefer to use language to connect and have closeness
Advice v Understanding - Men are more likely to be factual in their language choices
- Women’s language is less factual stem from an emotional viewpoint
Orders v Proposals - Men are more likely to be direct in their language (imperatives)
- Women avoid using commanding tones and more suggestive choices
Conflict v Compromise - Men are more likely to use language to argue a point
- Women use language to avoid conflict and reach solutions
Charles de Rochefort
Jenny Cheshire (1982)
Investigated the speech of adolescents in an adventure playground and found similar patterns to those which exist among adults (also Trudgill)
Suggests that some differences in male and female language use are already strongly evident during childhood.
Jennifer Coates (1989)
Girls and boys end to belong to the same-sex friendship groups when growing up, creating different styles of speaking.
Female language is more cooperative in single-sex conversations (e.g. tag questions)
Jane Pilkington (1992)
Women in same-sex conversations were more collaborative and used positive politeness strategies.
Men in same-sex talk were a lot less collaborative and less supportive than women (competitive)
Deborah Cameron (2008)
Criticises the idea that there are innate differences in male and female speech: “The idea that men and women… use language in very different ways and for very different reasons is one of the greatest myths of our time”
She argues that these myths have acted to shape our expectations of men and women, and the type of linguistic behaviour that we deem to be normal.
Focuses on how speakers construct themselves, which may either draw on or challenge perceived stereotypes. The idea that gender is something that speakers and writes “do” as part of a deliberate projecting of identity is critical of deficit and differences models of language.
Janet Hyde (2005)
Proposes a gender similarities hypothesis claiming that there are differences between male and female language and that where there are differences, these may be due to a number of other variables such as age, class, ethnicity, education, occupation, sexuality, politics etc.
Supports Deborah Cameron
Judith Butler (Gender Trouble 1990)
Gender “performativity” theory. Butler argues that it is a mistake to reinforce a binary view of gender and to assert that “women” are a group with common interests and characteristics.
Language is being used to project an identity rather than reinforcing gender stereotypes.
As Mary Talbot states….
“Gender…is socially constructed. People acquire characteristics which are perceived as masculine or feminine”
Is our language one such characteristic?
Janet Holmes (1992)
English language discriminates against women. The English metaphors available to describe women include an extraordinarily high number of derogatory images compared to men (e.g. chick, tart, bird) (men e.g. stud, unit)
Lexical Asymmetry - the words are unequal in associations and connotations
Julia Stanley (1977)
There was a negative semantic space for women. Women couldn’t be writers, surgeons, doctors, but instead, female surgeon, women writer.
It is suggested that male roles are more important because the standard, unmarked term refers to them. Stanley refers to this as NEGATIVE SEMANTIC SPACE
Spender (1980)
There are 220 terms for promiscuous females but only 20 for males
Anne Bodine (1975)
There is a bias in English to favour men (Androcentric language)
‘Man’ refers to species as a whole. The term is labelled as a false generic
What was the intention of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975
To protect people from sexual discrimination and harassment, especially at work and school
