Gender Theorists Flashcards
Otto Jesperson (1922)
Deficit Approach
Women talk more, use half-finished sentences, use ‘and’, use too many adverbs and adjectives and have smaller vocabularies.
Robin Lakoff (1975)
Deficit Approach
Women speak less, use listening sounds, use hyper-correct grammar and exaggerated intonation, use more politeness features such as hedges, apologies, tag questions and empty adjectives.
Zimmerman and West (1975)
Dominance Approach
Study in University of California showed men used 46 interruptions and women only 2 in 11 conversations.
Geoffrey Beattie (1982)
Against Zimmerman and West’s study
Women and men interrupted the same amount.
Pamela Fishman (1980)
Dominance Approach
Women use tag questions to gain conversational power.
Deborah Tannen (1990)
Difference Approach
Independence vs. intimacy Status vs. support Information vs. feelings Orders vs. proposals Advice vs. understanding Conflict vs. compromise
The University of California
Both men and women use uptalk, but women use it twice as much.
Uptalk
A speech pattern in which phrases and sentences habitually end with a rising sound
Long Island University
People judged women using vocal fry as less educated, competent, trustworthy, attractive and hireable than men who used it.
Geoffrey Leech (1936)
Marked terms and suffixes are trivialising to women.
Semantic derogation between marked terms ‘master’ and ‘mistress’
Julia Stanley (1977)
There are more words that apply only to men, and more positive words. 220 words to describe a promiscuous female, 20 a promiscuous male.
Koenraad Kuiper (1998)
Men’s competitive style is a way of achieving solidarity.
William Labov (1966)
New York Department Stores: women were more likely to use the ‘correct’ pronunciation of the ‘r’ phoneme in ‘floor’.
Mary Talbot (1997)
Synthetic Sisterhood: teenage magazine ‘Jackie’ creates an intimate relationship between the producer and audience, producing an imagined sisterhood.
Deborah Jones (1990)
House talk, scandal, bitching, chatting
Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger
Community of practise model:
Mutual engagement
Joint negotiated enterprise
Shared enterprise.
We all belong to multiple communities, and our gender may inform which we join.
Jenny Cheshire
Girls are more likely to use prestige forms, especially ‘good girls’.
Sapir-Wharf (1958)
An individual’s thoughts and actions are determined by the language that individual speaks.
Muriel Shulz (1975)
There are more negative words for women because we live in a patriarchal society.
Sara Mills (1995)
Many of the female terms are marked as indicative of sexual promiscuity.
Janet Homes (1994)
Animal metaphors for women are pervasive.
Dale Spender (1980)
Wrote ‘Man Made Language’ highlighting areas of sexism such as the word ‘man’ to mean all humans.
Jane Sutherland (2004) RSCP
Gender discourses have certain functions: resistant, subversive, conservative or progressive.
They can be competing, dominant, co-existing or alternative.
Erving Goffman
“the feminine touch” – use of women’s hands in advertising is dehumanising. Positioning of women in advertising promotes social roles.
Raewyn Connell (1987)
“hegemonic masculinity”… Language associated with the idolised male group that is seen as having the most status and power in society.
Kate Bornstein (1998)
Pyramid of Power: hegemonic, subordinate, complicit, marginalised
Robin Lakoff (1973)
Claims that gay men deliberately “imitate” female speech.
