Gender & Language Flashcards
Verbal Hygiene
Young boys and girls are taught to act in a certain way due to stereotypes. Like gendered toys and clothing.
Jesperson’s deficit approach
Seeing men or women’s language as the result of sex and gender differences.
Lakoff - Deficit approach
The difference in language between males and females represents the roles they play in society.
Zimmerman and West - Dominance approach
Based on university conferences. Studies how women are often overlooked and interrupted.
Dale Spender - Man made language
Based upon Z&W theory. Women’s silence is a form of oppression, men have more chance of being listened to.
Tannen - Difference approach
Genderlect: There is a difference between how men and women talk known. Men are deemed as superior.
Milroy & Milroy
Meme era of a community are connected to each other in a social network. Close networks: personal contacts all know each other. Open networks: contacts who don’t necessarily know each other.
Trudgill’s Norwich Study
People from the same area may have a different way of speaking compared to another area.
Judith Butler - Gender trouble
Gender is something we do, it is malleable. A woman may change her gender status to appear more masculine for dominance.
Keisling - playing the straight man
The idea that men feel the need to act heterosexual around other men as a way of proving dominance.
Deborah Jones
Based off of Lakoff’s study. Women’s speech is split into 4 categories, house talk, scandal, bitching and chatting.
Joining the dots - case study
Women were seen to be more sexual and sexualised in the media. Men engaged in dominant and aggressive behaviour.
Mulvey - Sexual objectification and the male gaze
Presence of women is purely for the purpose of display. Females are passive and objectified for the male gaze.
Tannens comparisons
• information v feeling
• conflict v compromise
• independence v intimacy
• order v proposal
• status v support
• advice v understanding
