gender - theorists & studies Flashcards
What is the main premise of the Deficit Approach and who exemplified in the deficit theory?
Male speech as standard, and woman’s speech as weak as it fails to reach this standard;
This approach is exemplified by Otto Jesperson (1922) and Robin Lakoff’s 1975 Deficit Theory.
What did DeFransisco (1998) argue against the Deficit Approach and how did his findings support this?
Women introduce more topics and work harder to maintain conversation.
DeFransisco’s findings showed that 70% of delayed responses and 68% of no responses were from men.
What is the main idea of the Dominance Approach, and who are the 6 theorists that support this?
Men dominate women in language, reflective of patriarchal society
This perspective has been supported by Dale Spender, Zimmerman & West, Geoffrey Beattie, and Pamela Fishman.
What is the title of Dale Spender’s work that discusses male-centric language as the dominance model?
Man Made Language
what did Dale Spender’s 1980 dominance model show?
emphasises how language embodies structures that sustain male historical dominance.
Who are some key theorists associated with the Dominance Approach?
- Dale Spender
- Zimmerman & West
- Geoffrey Beattie
- Pamela Fishman
Blatt and Hunt (2017)
studied popular fiction (blatt) + childrens fiction (hunt)
- verbs used to describe speech for male characters ‘ordered’, ‘shouted’
- verbs used to describe women ‘begged’, ‘murmured, + ‘wept’
Jennifer Coates
She found in many cases that women used phrases like “perhaps”, “sort of” and “probably” to avoid face threatening acts. She said it was a sign of women being cooperative and that women support eachothers rights as speakers, whereas men see conversation as a way to establish hierarchy and show individual achievement
Friedman
made the case for hedging.
Found language is not always about making an argument or conveying information, but about making yourself understood and trying to understand someone else.
Zimmerman and West
these theorist and the dominance approach says that men are controlling and dominating in mixed sex interactions.
They said 96% of interruptions were made by men in the 11 conversations studied.
Women have restricted linguistic freedom.
Men want status.
Male-female interaction is similar to parent-child interactions, as Men interrupt women, but women don’t want to violate a man’s right to speak.
What are the 2 limitations of Zimmerman and West’s study
- used a relatively small sample of conversations recorded in one place and outdated as 40yrs ago = not generalisable
- subjects of recordings were all white m/c under 35 = not representative of sample population as a whole
Geoffrey Beattie
Interruptions may not reflect dominance, as could reflect interest and involvement in conversation.
He pointed out that it would only take one chatty man to go against many other theories and found that men interrupted less than 1% more than women.
How did Beatties study of tutorial discussions contradict Zimmerman and West?
Contradicts Zimmerman & West, finding that women and men interrupted with more or less equal frequency (men 34.1,
women 33.8).
Whilst men interrupted more, the margin was so slight so as not to be statistically significant.
Pamela Fishman study and how it was similar and different to Lakoff’s findings of tag questions
(1980)
Focused on tag questions, listening to 52 hours of pre-recorded conversations between young American couples.
She agreed with Lakoff’s findings that women use tag questions roughly 4x more than men.
However, she drew a different conclusion, arguing that questions are used in female language to start conversations and continue dialogue: “Conversational shitwork”
Mills (1990) and Schultz (1975)
Mills: female equality mean promiscuity (master vs mistress)
Schultz: marked words: there are a greater number of negative terms for women which embodies the patriarchal order of society
Sue Lees
- one of the bias against females in language is the way it undermines any attempt made by feminists to give women choice over the amount and type of sex they have just like men always have.
- far more insults in language to do with female sexual promiscuity (slag, slut)
- She said that men control female sexual behaviour through these derogatory terms as women are afraid of being labelled as such so restrict what they partake in
what does butler say about gender performativity?
social roles of men + women comes from collection of behaviours into which we are socialised
- gender is an identity instituted through a repetion of acts
how does jespersen (1992) explain that womens language is deficit ?
- womens language is a projection of their deficiency compared to the male norm
- womens language is deficit due to innate deficiency
give 4 ways jespersen says womens language is deficit
- talk a lot
- tend toward hyperbole
- have smaller vocabulary
- use empty, base adjective
give 4 criticisms of jespersen (1992)
- folk linguist
- written in patriarchal society
- didn’t conduct any studies
- largely based on fiction
how does lakoff (1975) say that womens language is deficit ?
- due to socialisation
- claimed womens language is more authoritative/certain than mens
give 6 ways lakoff (1975) says womens language is deficit
- use of hedging
- use empty, base adjectives
- use more tag questions
- use more euphemisms
- use indirect speech
- use super polite forms + apologetic phrasing
how do o’barr + atkins (1980) criticise lakoff?
deficiency in language is more about power than gender (courtroom study)
how does holmes (1992) criticise lakoff, and what are the 3 tag questions she found?
found several types of tag questions
- don’t just suggest lack of authority
- eg referential (signify factual uncertainty), facilitative (express solidarity/intimacy), softening (weaken command/criticism)
