Language and Gender

Question 1

Robin Lakoff (1975)
Deficit Model

Answer 1

women are weaker and less certain than men are, she said:
> women speak less frequently
> they show they’re listening through minimal respones e.g. ‘mm’, ‘yeah’
> speak more quietly than men, higher pitch of voice
> hedge e.g. ‘sort of’, ‘kind of’, ‘it seems like’
> apologise more
> use tag questions - “you’re going to dinner, aren’t you?”
> use more intensifiers, especially so and very - “I am SO glad you came”
> use empty adjectives - divine, lovely, adorable.

Question 2

Zimmerman and West (1975)
Dominance model

Answer 2

> men interrupt more
In 11 conversations, men interrupted 46 times and women twice.
since men interrupt more they are dominating conversation and choosing topic of choice etc.

Question 3

Deborah Tannen
Difference model

Answer 3

Men vs Women
Status vs. support
Independence vs intimacy
Advice vs understanding
Information vs feelings
Orders vs proposals
Conflict vs compromise

Men:
-Get more air time
-Speak in public
-Negotiate status/avoid failure
-Speak one at a time
-Speak asymmetrically

Women:
-Talk too much
-Speak in private contexts
-Build relations
-Overlap
-Speak symmetrically

Question 4

William O’barr and Bowman Atkins

Answer 4

language differences are based on situation-specific authority or power and not gender.
> the women who used the lowest frequency of women’s language traits had unusually high status.

Question 5

Peter Trudgill - gender, social class and speech sounds

Answer 5

women’s pronunciation was closer to recieved pronunciation
which is the desired type