Language and Gender Flashcards
Tannen - six male/female contrasts
Tannen suggests that males and females miscommunicate. Cross cultural communication. Men and women have different ways of communicating.
What are Tannen’s six contrasts?
Status vs Support Advice vs Understanding Orders vs Proposals Independence vs Intimacy Information vs Feelings Conflict vs Compromise
Coates - hedges, minimal responses, turn-taking
Coates’ theory also examined the functionality of the language development of both genders. She makes comparisons between different age groups, coming to the conclusion: “Men pursue a style of interaction based on power, while women pursue a style based on solidarity support”
Beattie - interruptions
He recorded some 10 hours of tutorial discussion and some 557 interruptions.
Beattie found that women and men interrupted with more or less equal frequency (men = 34.1, women = 33.8)
O’Barr and Atkins - powerless language
These theorists are best known for developing the idea that language is specific, depending on who has the authority and power rather than the gender.
A simple example to explain the theory may be that in an interview situation, if a man were interviewing a woman then perhaps the man would be more assertive in the conversation, not due to his gender but due to the fact he has more authority and power.
Jespersen - women talk lots, women don’t know many words
Sexist - he claimed that women didn’t know many words and that they couldn’t understand complex language. He also said that women cannot read as quickly as males.
DOMINANCE APPROACH
Fishman - questions
Fishman states that women frequently use tag questions when following a thought or suggestion. She argues women use questions to gain conversational power. Fishman says that questions do not signal uncertainty or powerlessness but are instead one of a variety of tools used by women as a means of keeping the conversation going.
Lakoff - hedging, intensifiers, empty adjectives, etc.
Women’s language is ‘weak’ in comparison to men’s or to the male norm. Women’s language lacks any real authority. She proposed that women’s language was weak because:
they use specific cleaning terms
specific colour names
weak expletives “oh dear”
empty adjectives “nice”, “lovely”
tag questions “isn’t it?”
more polite forms and apologies - euphemisms
hedges - vague expressions “sort of”
intensifiers - “so”, “very”, “really”
indirect command requests - “it’s cold in here”
avoid slang, expletives and threats
DEFICIT APPROACH
Hyde - gender similarities
Men and women are more alike than they are different. A few notable exceptions are some aspects of sexuality, which show large gender differences, and aggression (which shows a moderate gender difference). Gender differences can vary substantially at different ages and depend on the context in which measurement occurs.
DIVERSITY APPROACH
Zimmerman and West - interruptions
The findings supported the Dominance Model as data from their findings show that most interruptions or overlaps in conversations are made by men especially in mixed-sex conversations. However, in same-sex conversations, interruptions and overlaps were very balanced between the speakers. This suits the dominance model as it gives the impression that men obtain power and authority in conversation.
Kuiper - insults and face
Kuiper found that in all-male talk amongst members of a rugby team, men were likely to pay less attention to the need to save face and instead used insults as a way of expressing solidarity.
Similar findings on all-male talk also highlighted this difference in cooperation amongst all male grouped.
Jespersen (1922) - Deficit Approach
Women’s language is a projection of their deficiency compared to the male norm. Women’s language is deficient because they have an innate deficiency.
Characteristics: talk a lot tend toward hyperbole have a smaller vocabulary use empty, based adjectives
Lakoff (1975) - Deficit Approach
Unlike Jespersen who assumes that women are born deficient, Lakoff concludes that women’s language is deficient due to socialisation. Lakoff claimed that women’s language is less authoritative/certain than men’s.
Characteristics:
hedge more (‘sort of’)
use empty, base adjectives
use more tag questions
use more euphemisms
use indirect speech (e.g. crimson instead of red)
use super polite forms and apologetic phrasing
O’Barr and Atkins (1980) criticism of the Deficit Approach
They looked at language used in courtrooms and found that deficiency in language is more to do with power than gender. They coined the term ‘powerless language’ rather than ‘gendered language’.
Janet Holmes (1992) criticism of the Deficit Approach
She found that there are several ‘types’ of tag questions, they don’t just suggest a lack of authority.
Referential: signify factual uncertainty (“we turn here, don’t we?”)
Facilitative: express solidarity or intimacy (“we love that show, don’t we?”)
Softening: weaken a command or criticism (“take out the rubbish, won’t you?”)
Beattie (1982) criticism of the Dominance Model
Beattie questioned why interruptions must reflect dominance - why not interest? Involvement? Moreover, Beattie’s own study was not only larger, but also found that men and women interrupt with more or less equal frequency.
Spender (1980) - interruptions
Spender built on Zimmerman and West’s study on interruptions. Women’s conversational behaviour is less assertive and less confident because of traditionally occupying a less powerful position in society. Men’s societal dominance drives their conversational behaviour. Women’s language isn’t deficient, men’s language just reflects their societal dominance.
Fishman (1980) - ‘conversational shitwork’
Women put more work into a conversation due to their inferior position in society. Men’s dominant position means they’re more reluctant to do this ‘shitwork’. This ‘shitwork’ includes using more tag questions and back channelling more to start, or continue, conversations.
Fishman (1990s) - questions
Fishman found that women ask more questions, use attention-getting phrases (‘you know what?’), give minimal responses and supportive noises to show interest and support.
