gender theories Flashcards
Zimmerman and West(1975) theory
dominance
Men deny equal status to women as conversational partners - they engineer female silence
- men were responsible for 96% of the interruptions in cross-sex conversations
- men talk for greater lengths of time, had more frequent turns, interrupted more and were interrupted less
What did Esther Grief (1980) add to Zimmerman and West’s findings?
both parents interrupt daughters more than sons but fathers interrupt more than mothers
Criticisms of Zimmerman and West’s theory?
It was a small study: the subjects were all white, middle class and under 35 - it wasn’t representative of all men and women
What was Geoff Beattie’s criticism of Zimmerman and West’s theory? (1982)
He questioned the meaning of interruptions - ‘do interruptions necessarily reflect dominance?
Beattie found that women and men interrupted with more or less equal frequency, men did interrupt more but only by a margin so slight
Spender (1980) theory
dominance
The male as normal, language is man made and therefore mainly under male control
- language is patriarchal and has been made by men for men in such a way as to ensure their continued dominance
Pamela Fishman’s theory (1983 and 1990)
dominance
- Women often use tag questions like ‘isnt it’ following a thought or suggestion - argues that women use questions to gain conversational power
- Women use 4 times as many yes/no tag questions to keep a conversation going
- Women did more than men in order to upkeep a conversation
- The success rate of topics brought up by men > those brought up by women
Lakoff’s theory (1975)
deficit
- Women have a different way of speaking than men:
women’s language gave the impression that women are weaker and less certain than men.
- She distinguished women’s language in a number of ways:
- hedging, super polite forms, hypercorrect grammar, tag questions, exaggerated intonation, empty adjectives approval e.g. divine, lovely, use of implication, special lexicon, question intonation in declarative statements, sense of humour lacking, speak less frequently, indirect speech, avoid coarse language and apologies.
Jespersen’s theory (1922)
deficit
-women have a smaller and less sophisticated vocabulary
- women use empty and weak adjectives
- women fail to finish sentences
- men are responsible for adding new words to language
- women use adverbs too much and tend towards hyperbole
- women talk a lot
- women are more indirect
Deborah Tannen’s 1990 theory
difference
Men and women use language in different ways that reflect and reinforce their gender roles and power relationships in society. She identifies 6 main contrasts:
- Status vs support
- advice vs understanding
- information vs feelings
- orders vs proposals
- conflict vs compromise
- independence vs intimacy
Jennifer Coates 1993 theory
difference
Girls and boys develop different styles of speaking due to their different interactions in their all boys and all girls friendship groups.
- topic choice: men talk about impersonal topics vs women who talk about more sensitive aspects
- dominance: men hold the floor for a long time
- rapid fire: men exchange comments in a short, snappy style
- no overlaps: men prefer to talk one at a time
What did Julia Stanley find in 1977?
there are around 220 terms for a promiscuous woman but only 20 for males
What did Muriel Schulz argue in 1975?
the more negative words for women represents patriarchal order and ‘marked’ words for women become pejorated
Anne Bodine’s 1975 gender theory
- dominance
- the generic ‘he’ = he is used as a pronoun to describe men and women
- language is androcentric = male centered
e.g. mankind implies that men are more important, humankind should be used instead
Shulz’s gender theory
dominance
- the semantic derogation of women = a once neutral term of reference undergoes pejoration e.g. ‘lady’ is undergoing pejoration compared to ‘gentleman’
- the derogation shows the attitudes and rears that men hold about women
Jenny Cheshire’s 1982 theory
difference
- looked at the grammatical variations in the speech of young children: boys used non-standard forms more than girls did
-concluded that variation is controlled by both social and linguistic factors
- boy’s speech = variation is governed by norms that are central to the vernacular culture that are transmitted through the peer group
- girl’s speech = appears to be a more personal process and less rigidly controlled by vernacular norms
Deborah Jones’ 1990 theory
difference
When a conversation included only females, there was an abundance of:
- house talk = info connected to the female role as an occupation
- scandal = judging the behaviour of others(women in particular), usually made in terms of domestic morality
- bitching = overt expression of women’s anger at their restricted role and inferior status
-chatting = mutual self-disclosure
Keith and Shuttleworth(1999) theory
difference
- men and women display different traits when talking in spontaneous conversation
- women: talk more than men, talk too much, are more polite, indecisive, complain and nag, ask more questions, support each other and are more cooperative
- men: swear more, don’t talk about emotions, talk about sport more, talk about women and machines in the same way, insult each other, are competitive in conversation, dominate conversation
Kuiper(1991) theory
difference
- all male talk uses insults to express solidarity and doesn’t worry about saving face
Pilkington (1992) theory
difference
- women in same-sex talk = more collaborative then men were in all-male talk
- women aim for more positive politeness but men are less complimentary and supportive in all male talk
- men like to challenge each others point of view and disagree
Deborah Cameron (1995) theory
diversity
- difference is a myth
- men and women communicate in ways that are fundamentally different from one another
- any noticeable differences are due to societal expectations not biological factors
- verbal hygiene = the ways in which people regulate their language and communication to conform to societal expectations and norms
Janet Holmes (1992) theory
diversity
- the discrepancies in male-male and female-female complimentary language may be due to differences in perception concerning the purpose of compliments
- women use more tag questions
O’Barr and Atkins (1980) theory
diversity
- studied language in the courtroom = language associated with women was exhibited by both men and women whenever they were in a powerless situation
- renamed women’s language to powerless language
Pennebaker’s study (2007)
diversity
- Pennebaker’s electronically activated recoder/EAR samples 30 seconds of ambient noise every 12.5 mins
- researchers used the EAR to collect data on the chatter patterns of 396 university students
- the avg number of words spoken by men and women were about the same
- men showed a slightly wider variability in words uttered
in the end they came out just about even in daily averages: women=16,215 and men=15,669
- found more differences within genders than between them
Trudgill(1974) theory
diversity
- using the non-standard form was a result of social class rather than gender + men used the non-standard form more than women, across all social classes
- women are more susceptible to overt prestige
- language changes depending on how conscious a person was of their speech
