Language and Gender

Question 1

What is the Difference Model?

Answer 1

The argument that men and women’s language has innate differences. Neither is superior, just style of speech contrasts one another because men and women belong to different subcultures.

Question 2

Deborah Tannen (1990)

Answer 2

Suggests 6 key contrasts between Men and Women’s language:
1. Status vs Support (men see language as competitive, as a way to gain and maintain status) (women seek confirmation)
2. Independence vs Intimacy
3. Advice vs Understanding
4. Information vs Feelings (men exchange information briefly) (women are more emotive so language more verbose)
5. Orders vs Proposals
6. Conflict vs Compromise

Question 3

Support

Answer 3

John Gray’s book Men Are From Mars Women Are From Venus has a chapter entitled “Speaking Different Languages”

Question 4

Opposition

Answer 4

Much of her work based on personal, anecdotal evidence.
Extrapolation of results from small scale studies without empiric support

Question 5

Further opposition by Deborah Cameron (2007)

Answer 5

The idea that men and women speak differently is an unquestioned DOGMA (widespread false idea presented as factual). There are actually few differences between the language of men and women but studies that find this are less likely to be published.

Question 6

Further opposition by Janet Hyde

Answer 6

‘Gender similarities hypothesis’ Men and women more similar than old research suggests because the researchers were expecting a certain outcome.

Question 7

Diversity Model

Answer 7

Suggests sex and gender are different things. Sex has no influence on language, instead it is socialisation that affects our language.

Question 8

Judith Butler

Answer 8

proposed the idea of GENDER PERFORMALITY. The role society expects us to perform based on cultural norms.

Question 9

Daily Mail Article- “Can your tweets reveal your gender?”

Answer 9

Study exposes inaccurate stereotypes about the words men and women use. “If you tweet about technology people will assume you’re a man”

Question 10

Deficit Model

Answer 10

argues language used by women is inferior to that used by men.

Question 11

Robin Lakoff (1975)

Answer 11

Proposed women are disadvantaged by adopting a language of apprehension. Women use specific linguistic features e.g.

Hedges e.g. ‘sort of’, ‘I guess’
Use of super polite forms e.g. “Would you mind…”
Question intonation - lacks certainty and clarity, seeks approval when making a declarative statement
Empty adjectives e.g. lovely - carry little meaning, so difficult to interpret
Tag questions e.g. “You’re going to dinner, aren’t you?” - demonstrates insecurity and hesitance.

Question 12

Otto Jesperson (1922)

Answer 12

Outdated view that male language is ‘normative’ and the language of others considered extra to the norm.
- Women talk more
- Women use false starts and have half finished sentences before they think before speaking
- Vocabulary is smaller than mens
- Women use conjunction ‘and’ more = lack of complexity in sentence construction

Jesperson makes sweeping generalisations unsubstantiated by empirical investigation. Data includes quotation from literature (fictional examples)

Question 13

Data for deficit model in contemporary context

Answer 13

Daily Mail Article 2013- Actress Lake Bell insists there is a vocal ‘pandemic’ of adults talking in ‘baby’ voices.
Young women are using ‘uptalk’ and ‘vocal fry’
Sound like ‘12-year-old little girls that are submissive to the male species’

Question 14

Opposition to the Deficit Model
Pamela Fishman

Answer 14

Believes women use tag questions because they want to invite response and encourage elaboration. Gives women conversational power as they lack societal power

Question 15

Further opposition-
O’Barr and Atkins (1980)

Answer 15

Analysis of courtroom cases- both men and women use features of ‘uncertainty speech’ Linguistic patterns depend on situation and power dynamics not gender

Question 16

Data for opposition

Answer 16

Analysing Transcript of 2016 presidential debate between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump. Hilary does not conform to Lakoff’s language of apprehension. Because, they are in equal positions of power.

Question 17

Dominance Model

Answer 17

The language of men holds more power than that of a woman because they desire to control conversation, whereas women are more subservient.

Question 18

Dale Spender 1980 - ‘Man Made Language’

Answer 18

Language is a system that embodies sexual inequality. It is inherently patriarchal .

Language associated with women is ‘marked’ while ‘unmarked’ words are associated with men. E.g. female professions have suffix -ess
Male words refer to both men and women e.g ‘mankind’

Question 19

Zimmerman and West 1975

Answer 19

Proposed men are more likely to interupt in mixed sex conversations. Studies 31 conversations at Uni of California and found that 96% of interruptions recorded were by men.

Criticisms
Very small sample size that only contained white middle class students under 35. Findings not representative and cannot be used to generalise claims

Geoffrey Beattie- There could have simply been ‘one very voluble man’ in conversations recorded that increased number of interruptions for all men so data not reliable. Beattie also questioned the meanings of interruptions “why do they necessarily reflect dominance? Do some interruptions not reflect interest and involvement?”

Question 20

Language and Status- Difference between genders

Answer 20

Men supposed to favour COVERT PRESTIGE (non-standard regarded to be of high prestige) while women supposed to favour OVERT PRESTIGE (pertaining to RP/standard forms)

Question 21

Peter Trudgill’s Norwich Study (1974)

Answer 21

Investigated if there was a difference in use of non-standard forms between genders and different social class

Findings;
Upper working classes and lower middle classes were using non-standard form ‘in’ instead of ‘ing’
All social classes used informality
Men uses non-standard more than women across all social classes.

Question 22

Jennifer Coats supports

Answer 22

In all styles, women use fewer stigmatised forms than men. In formal contexts (where Trudgill got informants to read from a list of words), women seem to be more sensitive to prestige pattern.
Lower middle-class women style shift very sharply (hypercorrection in formal styles)

Question 23

Why is this?

Answer 23

Women more status conscious because..
Possibly less socially secure than men in terms of status, feel need to prove status through language. Their economic and social position dependent on men as a result of patriarchy. Women expected to use ‘ladylike language’ and women whose language is more adversary are often labelled ‘unfeminine’