Language And Gender Flashcards

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1
Q

Idiolect

A

An individual’s personalised speech style

(E.g. Gender, sexuality, age, occupation, ethnicity, social class, region, country)

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2
Q

Identity

A

Who someone is

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3
Q

Variation

A

Difference in language use

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4
Q

Sociolect

A

A language style associated with a particular social group

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5
Q

Genderlect

A

A style of speech used by a particular gender

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6
Q

Sue Lees (1981)

A

Men control female sexual behaviour through derogatory terms - sexist language

(E.g. Slut, cougar, minx)

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7
Q

Terms of address

A

Words or titles used to address another person

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8
Q

Caitlin Hines (1994)

A

Women are often referred to as desserts - terms of address

(E.g. Cupcake, screetie, tart)

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9
Q

Lexical asymmetry

A

Pair of words which should be equal but aren’t

E.g.
Male: bachelor, wizard, lord, master
Female: spinster, witch, lady, mistress

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10
Q

Muriel Schulz (1975)

A

Suggested that pairs of words that would normally be seen as equivalents often exhibit asymmetry when they are about gender

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11
Q

Diminutive suffixes

A

Using ‘-ess’ or ‘-etté’ as a suffix to make words feminine and therefore smaller or weaker

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12
Q

Pejoration

A

The process of a word gaining more negative connotations over time

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13
Q

Patronyms

A

Names that reflect male lines of inheritance

E.g.
Son: Thompson, Samson, Richardson
Mac: McDonald, Macdougal
O: O’Brian, O’Leary, O’Hagan

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14
Q

False generics

A

Words which claim to include everyone but do not

(E.g. Mankind, man-made, man’s basic needs)

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15
Q

Julia Stanley (1979)

A

Women are not linguistically represented in our language

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16
Q

Dale Spender (1980)

A

The ‘male as norm’ rule makes male dominance seem natural

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17
Q

Language reflectionism

A

The belief that language reflects our thoughts

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18
Q

Language determinism

A

The belief that language determines own thoughts

19
Q

Stereotypes - gender

A

Societal expectations about how men and women should behave, dress, or think

(E.g. The belief that women are less capable in science on that men should be tough and emotionless)

20
Q

Gender discourses

A

Refers to discussions and debates about gender roles, stereotypes, and inequalities in society

21
Q

Sally Hunt (2017)

A
  • Explored how language is used to reinforce gender stereotypes and inequalities
  • Gendered language: certain words and phrases are associated with femininity or masculinity
  • Argued that gendered language patterns have a significant impact on how we perceive men and women and contribute to a broader societal acceptance of gender inequality
22
Q

Deficit model

A

Women’s language is lacking something

23
Q

Otto Jesperson (1922)

A
  • No research conducted
  • Women talk more and use a lot of false starts because they speak before thinking
  • The words they use are ‘indispensable small change of a language’ and uses the conjunction ‘and’ more because they’re more emotive then grammatical
  • Women use hyperbole a lot and use words like ‘pretty’ and ‘nice’ too much
24
Q

Robin Lakoff (1975)

A
  • No research and precise statistical evidence (observation only)
  • Women use hedges, super-polite forms, tag questions, empty adjectives, direct quotation, minimal responses, intention for questions in declaratives, apologises more, euphemisms, diminutives, wh-imperatives, more modal constructions, indirect commands and request
  • Avoid slang and expletives
  • Have a lack of a sense of humour
25
Q

Hedging

A

Words or phrases that express uncertainty

(E.g. Probably, maybe)

26
Q

Tag questions

A

A type of question that are added to the end of a statement to confirm information or seek agreement

(E.g. Have you?, isn’t it? )

27
Q

Question intonation

A

Refers to the rising or falling pitch pattern used when asking a question

28
Q

Wh- imperatives

A

A type of sentence that is used to ask for information or give instructions

(E.g. Where did you go?, What are you doing?)

29
Q

Modal verbs

A

A type of auxiliary verb that help provide additional information about the main verb and express a degree of certainty or obligation

(E.g. Must, shall, will)

30
Q

Expletives

A

Words or phrases that are used to fill space or add emphasis to a sentence to convey emotion or emphasise a particular point

(E.g. Um, ah, like)

Can also take the form of swear words or vulgar language

31
Q

Intensifiers

A

Words or phrases used to emphasise or strengthen the meaning of other words in a sentence

(E.g. Very, extremely)

32
Q

Minimal responses

A

Refer to brief, concise replies or reactions that do not offer much information or contribute to the conversation

(E.g. Yes, no, okay)

33
Q

O’Barr and Atkins (1980)

A
  • Thought Lakoff’s list was reductive
  • Study carried out in America and only in one situation (courtrooms)
  • 30 month study of courtroom footage, recorded 150 hrs of trials
  • Assessed lawyers, witnesses and defendants
  • Language differences are situation specific
  • The speech patterns were ‘neither characteristic of all women nor limited to only women’
  • Speech patterns were less to do with gender and more to do with perceived power in society
34
Q

Dominance model

A

Men’s language is more powerful than women’s language

35
Q

Zimmerman & West (1975)

A
  • Study carried out in America
  • All white middle class participants
  • All conversations with two participants
  • Men interrupt more than women (46:2)
  • Men like to be in charge of conversations and women prefer to be submissive
36
Q

Geoffrey Beattie (1982)

A
  • Was critical of Zimmerman & West findings
  • Study was carried out in university seminars
  • Claims to have recorded some 10hrs of tutorial discussion and some 557 interruptions (55 recorded by Z&W)
  • Found that women and men interrupted with more or less equal frequency
  • Men did interrupt more but by a margin so slight as not to be statistically significant
37
Q

Pamela Fishman (1983)

A
  • All while middle class participants
  • Could turn the tape recorder on and off as they choose
  • ‘interaction: the work women do’
  • Women used tag questions four times more than men
  • ‘conversational shitwork’
  • Men speak for twice as long as women
38
Q

Difference model

A

Men’s language and women’s language is different

39
Q

Jennifer Coates (1989)

A
  • Women are co-operative in conversations while men are competitive in conversations
  • Acknowledges the tendency of girls to stick to playing in smaller groups whereas boys will adhere to play in larger, hierarchical groups which are based on joint activity
40
Q

Deborah Tannen (1990)

A
  • Student of Robin Lakoff
  • No study conducted (observational)
  • Communication technique: co-operative overlap (affirmative) and competitive overlap (disagreement)
  • Report (male trait) vs Rapport (female trait)
  • Cross cultural communication (male and female, two different cultures interacting)
  • Binary oppositions: status vs support, conflict vs compromise, orders vs proposals, independence vs intimacy, advice vs understanding, information vs feelings
41
Q

Diversity model

A

Language is affected by a range of factors such as age, occupation and ethnicity

42
Q

Deborah Cameron (2007)

A
  • Argued that language is not inherently gendered but instead that society assigns gendered meanings to certain words and speech patterns
  • “The Myth of Mars and Venus (2008)” : challenges the myths surrounding gender differences and claims there is as much difference and similarity within each gender group as there is between men and women
43
Q

Janet Hyde (2005)

A
  • Proposed the Gender Similarities Hypothesis (2005)
  • there are more similarities than differences between men and women
  • Meta-analysis: used this technique to review a large number of studies concerned with all kinds of putative male-female differences
44
Q

Meta-analysis

A

A statistical technique that allows the analyst to collate many different research findings and draw overall conclusions from them