Gender theorists for women

Question 1

Jennifer Coates

Answer 1

• Found that many cases women use terms such as ‘perhaps’, ‘sort of’, ‘probably’ to avoid face threatening acts when talking to other females
• Offer speaker support

Question 2

Sara Mills

Answer 2

• Male terms have positive connotations, but female terms are negative
• Female terms often suggestive of promiscuity

Question 3

Deborah Tannen

Answer 3

• Difference Model
• Men and women do speak differently
• Came up with 6 contrasts in male and female speech;
  
  • Status vs Support ( men grow up in competitive world and so use their language to dominate and receive upper hand in conversation)
  • Independence vs Intimacy
  • Advice vs Understanding
  • Information vs Feelings
  • Orders vs Proposals
  • Conflict vs Compromise
  • Report vs Rapport ( men speak factually, women build relationships)
• Men and women seek to achieve different purposes when speaking so when mixed won’t understand

Question 4

Jane Pilkington

Answer 4

• Women aimed for more positive politeness strategies in conversation
• Men tended to be less complimentary and supportive in all male talk

Question 5

Robin Lakoff

Answer 5

• Deficit Model, 18 basic assumptions
• Women use different features compared to men and therefore deemed weaker
• hedging of modal auxiliaries, ‘may’ or ‘might’ instead of deontic modal verbs ‘will’
• Tag questions, ‘It’s hot today, isn’t it?’
• fewer expletives
• Empty adjectives

Question 6

Janet Holmes

Answer 6

• Tag questions are used as a device to maintain discussion or to be polite
• Lexical hedges and fillers
• All- female groups, used far more compliments as further acts of politeness and solidarity than men did

Question 7

Pamela Fisherman

Answer 7

• Dominance Model
• Conversations between sexes fail due to men’s responses not due to women’s talk