Language and gender Flashcards
intro
This is a hugely debatable statement that has been questioned and looked into detail overtime. Some linguistics argue that men and women are separate species that have distinct language use as well as styles of language, for example, their pronunciation, their intonation, the quantity of language they use, the vocabulary they choose as well as the type of lexis patterns that our found within their language.
-However, other linguists that have looked at gendered language tend to view human’s language as all equal and similar, or if they were to question this, they tend to look at other aspects that may be influencing this difference such as ethnicity or social groups.
-Personally, I would argue that men do speak slightly differently, however certain outdated theories are very deterministic and overexaggerate the extent to how much distance there are between the languages.
Deficit model-para 1
Women and men do tend to have alternative vocabulary, and over time there has been a trend in the difference in language between genders.
-This has been made clear through various theories, for example, the earliest view on language and gender was proposed by Robin Lakoff.
-Lakoff would strongly agree with this outlook, stating that women’s language is seen as significantly inferior to men’s, which contributes to women’s lower status and weaker position in society.
-This theory agrees with the idea that women and men speak distinctly yet that women speak in a certain way reflecting their subordinate position within society.
-Her research was conducted on white, middle-class university students and Lakoff outline numerous language features that she identified patterns of within women’s language, for example that women speak less frequently, use more super-polite forms, use hedges, use empty adjectives, use hyper-correct grammar as well as having minimal responses.
-These features identified either due a feeling of lack of dominance or in order to please men or in fact this may just reflect women’s general association with sensitivity and empathy.
-At the time this theory was seen as groundbreaking, however it has since been criticized. Other linguists state that this theory is not representative as the results were solely based on a highly privileged group within society.
- In addition, the fact that Lakoff didn’t conduct the research on her own means that all her research was based on observations.
Difference model-Deborah Tannen
Another model concerning gendered language use is the difference theory, this is the idea put forward by Deborah Tannen, that, in general, men favour independence while women are more likely to seek intimacy, with consequent, impacts on their language use.
-Tannen argues that women and men have different cultures and have their own rules and shared meanings within each gender group.
-According to Tannen’s book (” You Just Don’t Understand: Men and Women in Conversation), in single-sex groups, men and women understand each other, whereas, when they come together, there are misunderstandings.
-She believes that the main reason for having language variation between women and men is down to primary socialization.
-She believes that the sexes are socialized into seeing themselves as having very different roles and positions in society and influenced into using distin ct linguistic strategies.
O’barr and atkins
However, O’barr and Atkins developed the idea that language differences are situation-specific,relying on who has the authority and power in a conversation, rather than the gender of the people involved.
-a simple example includes that explains this theory includes an interview situation, where a man may be interviewing a woman, then the man perhaps could seem more assertive and dominant in the conversation, not due to his gender, but simply because he has more authority in that circumstance.
- They studied courtroom cases for 30 months, observing witnesses and examining them for the basic speech differences between men and women that Lakoff proposed.
- From this study, O’Barr and Atkins concluded that the quoted speech patterns were “neither characteristic of all women, nor limited to only women”
Dominant model-zimmerman and west
Zimmerman & West put forward an opposing idea, focusing more on mixed sex conversations and how men are more likely to feel the need to dominate, by interrupting more, this is known as the ‘dominance mode.
-This demonstrates the concept that the language between genders differs not only in vocabulary but also in interruptions and the quantity of language they use.
-Similarly to Lakoff, this model demonstrates that women have an inferior social position in society, yet Zimmerman and West argue that this is caused by the male desire to dominate and manipulate conversations rather than it being caused by women’s (possibly unconscious) choices, including weakening their language.
-Their study involved recording 31 conversations each time being between 2 people, 11 of which were mixed, 10 were male only and 10 were female only, this was undertaken at the University of California.
- Every participant was under 35, white and middle-class. Their findings found that men interrupted 46 times, yet only 2 interruptions were made by women.
-This study is extremely limited due to its miniscule sample size, the small population that participated in this research cannot represent the entire population, critics argue that Zimmerman and West should have invested more effort and time, seeing as they made such strong claims.
-Other problems with their study include the fact that they did not count the interruptions made within same gender conversations and that all subjects were of the same class meaning there was little variation.
-One particular linguist that heavily criticised this approach was Geoffrey Beattie. Beattie pointed out multiple issues with Zimmerman and West’s ‘dominance model’, such as questioning whether interruptions are necessarily a negative interaction, arguing that interruptions can, at times, reflect interest and involvement.
