Language And Gender Flashcards
Define sex
Biological distinction
Define gender
Behavioural characteristics linked to social and cultural influence
Terms about a males sexual behaviour are often…
Euphemistic (e.g. bit of a lad, playing the field)
Terms about a women’s sexual behaviour is often…
Derogatory, they tend to refer to women as sex objects or as promiscuous (e.g. tart, slag, tramp)
When were the following new words entered into Chamber’s dictionary and what did they describe?
‘Bingo-wing’
‘Muffin-top’
‘Munter’
They were entered in September 2006 and all describe someone physically unattractive, mostly used to describe women
In comparison to the new terms entered in the Chambers dictionary for women what term was entered to describe men?
In September 2006 the new word entry to describe men was ‘metrosexual’ meaning ‘an urban heterosexual male given to enhancing his personal appearance’
What did a survey by Herriman in 1998 confirm?
That language shows we do expect typical gender characteristics
Words for physical attractiveness are most often associated with a ‘woman’
Terms to describe height, abilities, personality often collocated with a ‘man’
What does the act of marking suggest?
Deviation or difference from a norm - the unmarked item
Why are lexical items used to describe women often marked?
To distinguish them from those used to describe males (e.g. actor = actress
Marking is overt in the context of gender. The addition of the suffix -ess or -ette is common. What are these suffixes known as?
Diminutive suffixes as they draw attention to the fact that the term is different from the norm and therefore inferior
What is an alternative way of marking?
By adding ‘male’ or ‘female’ (e.g. male nurse)
What does Dale Spender’s research in 1980 highlight?
Spender’s ‘Man Made Language’ research highlights the semantic rule of ‘male-as-norm’ with females seen as the ‘negative’ or ‘abnormal’
Is lexis used differently to refer to men and women?
There is often a difference in the words chosen to refer to men and women:
- In terms of endearment
- To describe an attractive person
- Pejorative or derogative
In discourse how are men and women referred to differently?
Women are often referred to in terms of their appearance, their clothes, their age, as daughters, wives, mothers
Men are often referred to in terms of their status, jobs, actions
What is co-constructed speech?
When more than one person contributes to a point
Define a conversation
Any interactive spoken exchange between two or more people
What are the two types of conversation?
Face to face interactions
Non-face to face interactions
Which sentence types are most common in conversations?
- Fillers
- Adjacency pairs
- Back channelling
- High frequency lexis
What are prosodic features?
Intonation, volumes, stress
What are paralinguistic features?
Body language
Define pragmatics
The study of social contexts and how they affect language use
When do overlaps occur?
When utterances are made at the same time
Define turn-taking
Basic rule of conversation - people take it in turns
The pairing of utterance and then response is known as…
Adjacency pairs
What is positive politeness?
It shows you recognise that your hearer has a desire to be respected. It also confirms that the relationship is friendly (e.g. ‘You must be tired. How about a quick nap?’)
What is negative politeness?
This recognises that you are in some way imposing on someone (e.g. ‘I don’t want to bother you but…’ or ‘I was wondering if…’)
Define hedges
Hedges are used to lessen the impact of an utterance (e.g. just, quite, a few, sort of, like)
Define fillers
Spoken pauses (e.g. er, erm, um)
When are conversations interactional?
When you are trying to maintain a relationship
When are conversations transactional?
Where a result is the outcome (often acquiring goods or services)
What is the Maxim of Quality?
- Do not say what you believe to be false
- Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence
What is the Maxim of Quantity?
- Make your contribution as informative as possible (for the current purpose of the exchange)
- Do not make your contribution more informative than required
What is the Maxim of Relevance?
- Speakers contributions should relate clearly to the purpose of the exchange.
- Be relevant
What is the Maxim of Manner?
- Speakers contributions should be clear, orderly and brief, avoiding ambiguity
Give an example for Flouting the Maxims (Quality)
- If someone has an accident says, ‘Is there a doctor in the house?’
- If you are not a doctor, and you get up and say, “I’m a doctor,” you’re violating the Maxim of Quality - in other words, you’re lying.
Define phonology
The study of sound
Define genderlect
Speech based on gender
Women - especially lower to middle class women in formal context tend to…
Move towards overt prestige form, upwards converge and hypercorrect
According to Dale Spender, men in formal contexts…
Move towards non-standard forms with covert prestige as a form of social bonding (downwards convergence)
Define overt prestige
Being posh / over the top
Define upwards convergence
Moving upwards to sound posher
Define hypercorrect
Trying to show you how to use speech correctly
Define downwards convergence
Trying to sound less posh, more working class, emphasising accent
When and what did Robin Lakoff research?
In 1975 Lakoff published a set of basic assumptions about what marks out the language of women. For example:
- Use of hedges
- Using super polite forms (e.g. ‘would you mind’ etc)
- Using empty adjectives (e.g. divine, lovely)
- Speaking less frequently
What did Peter Trudgill’s research find in 1947?
Men use non-standard features to fit in with friends. Women use standard pronunciation and higher prestige so they appear more upper class
What did Jennifer Coates research find?
She looked at all female conversation and argues that they all fall into one of the following:
- House talk
- Scandal
- Bitching
- Chatting
This supports the difference model
What did Deborah Tannen’s research in the 1990s research find?
Men are competitive and women are cooperative
What did O’bar and Atkins research find in 1980?
They did a study in a courtroom and found men use deficit language. They suggested it is more about powerless language than it is about gendered language. People of a low social class had the characteristics Lakoff found
Give an alternative explanation of the deficit model
Jennifer Coates (1989)
Hedges are used to avoid fact threatening acts and therefore is a sign of cooperation and support
What did Zimmerman and West find from their research?
In a study between mixed sex conversations, 95% of interruptions were made by men due to their dominance in society. This supports the dominance model.
What is the dominance model?
Language is more about power and status than gender
What is the deficit approach?
Women’s language is different so inferior to men’s
What is the difference model?
Men and women use language differently as they belong to different subcultures
Define highbrow
A sophisticated audience
Define middlebrow
Middle class - working class audience
Define lowbrow
Lower class audience
