Language and Gender

Question 1

What do the theories which fall into the Deficit Model believe in?

Answer 1

• Men’s language is the standard form and women’s language is deviating from that norm
• It’s the responsibility of women to become ‘bilingual’ in both male and female language to be able to communicate effectively

Question 2

What are the typical features of women’s language outlined by Lakoff? (Try and give some examples of such features)

Answer 2

• Hedging (sort of, kind of)
• Use of polite forms (Would you mind..)
• Use of tag questions (‘You’re going out tonight, aren’t you?’)
• Emphatic Language + Intensifiers (‘like’, ‘really’)
• Hypercorrect grammar + pronounciation
• Special lexicon (e.g. more words for colours)
• Use of indirect commands (‘My, it’s cold here isn’t it?’)
• Lack of humour
• Use of question intonation in declarative statements

Question 3

Why does using polite forms make women come across as weaker?

Answer 3

• Because society believes that women should be subordinate to men, therefore they have to be polite towards them in order to show respect to someone who is ‘in a higher societal position’

Question 4

Why does using hedging make women come across as weaker?

Answer 4

• It softens the force with which something is said/slows the conversation down

Question 5

Why does using emphatic language + intensifiers make women come across as weaker?

Answer 5

• Because it conveys a lack of precision/emotional exaggeration

Question 6

Why does using hypercorrect grammar make women come across as weaker?

Answer 6

• It can be perceived as an attempt to overcompensate for the deficiencies in women’s language

Question 7

Why does having a special lexicon make women come across as weaker?

Answer 7

• Because women tend to have a wider lexicon on topics such as colours and flowers while men have a wider lexicon in topics such as cars, sports
• This contrast makes it come across as if women have a wider lexicon in less important areas, making them inferior to men

Question 8

What are some features of men’s language as Lakoff outlined?

Answer 8

• A more direct style -> using directives and explicit commands
• Interruptions
• Use of explitives (swearing)
• Better sense of humour
• Simplified vocabulary in some fields
• Covert prestige

Question 9

What are the weaknesses of Lakoff’s theories?

Answer 9

• Her theories are mostly her own impressions/lack precise statistical evidence
• Overgeneralisation
• Essentialism: Her perspective doesn’t account for the social + cultural influences that shapes people’s language
• Language and gender norms have evolved since the 1970s
• Lakoff’s work was based on a binary understanding of gender: It doesn’t discuss other factors linked very closely to gender, e.g. sexuality and gender identification (which leads to performative behaviours)
• Lakoff didn’t consider that language use can vary depending on the environment, which complicates the idea of consistent ‘women’s language’

Question 10

What are the trends of female language as outlined by Jesperson?

Answer 10

• Women talk a lot
• Women have a smaller vocabulary than men
• Women know their limited vocabulary so well that they’re more fluent than men
• Novels written by women are easier to read and have less complex words
• Women use half finished sentences because they speak before they can think
• Use of empty adjectives
• Women often gain spoken mastery of foreign languages quicker than men

Question 11

What are the weaknesses of Jesperson’s theories?

Answer 11

• Lack of empirical evidence -> his theories were largely speculative and didn’t include any empirical evidence
• Essentialism
• Overgeneralisation
• Ignores other social factors
• Static view of language:
  
  • He failed to consider that language norms/roles can evolve over time

Question 12

What did Jenny Cheshire research in 1982?

Answer 12

• Certain grammatical variations in the speech of young children

Question 13

What group did Cheshire focus on?

Answer 13

• Group of children aged 9 to 17
• All children were from working class backgrounds

Question 14

How did Cheshire conduct her research?

Answer 14

• She recorded the conversations of children on the playground
• Then, she conducted quantitative analysis of the recorded speech
• She then analyzed that data within a broader context (by including the consideration of factors such as status within peer groups + influence of social class)

Question 15

What were Cheshire’s findings in terms of boys’ language? (1982)

Answer 15

• Boys were more likely to use non-standard grammatical forms
• Boys were also more integrated into their peer groups and their language reflected it.
  
  • This suggested that non-standard language was a marker of group identity and solidarity among boys

Question 16

What were Cheshire’s findings in terms of girls’ language? (1982)

Answer 16

• Girls usually tend to use less non-standard forms
• However, the girls that were a part of more tight-knit groups and partaking in activities that were more ‘boy-like’ also showed a higher usage of non-standard forms.
  
  • Clear indication that social networks played a role in linguistic variations among girls as well.

Question 17

What were the weaknesses of Cheshire’s research?

Answer 17

• Her study only focused on children from a specific background (from Reading and children aged 9-17)
  
  • Meaning her findings might not apply to younger children/adults
• The presence of a researcher can influence participants’ behaviour, also known as ‘observer’s paradox’
  
  • Children might have modified their language knowing they’re being observed
• She only emphasised the use of non-standard grammatical features
  
  • Leading to a limited view of linguistic variation as it doesn’t discuss the use of phonetics, pragmatics and discourse structures

Question 18

What does the dominance model suggest?

Answer 18

• That in mixed-sex conversations men are more likely to interrupt women
• Men dominate and control both interactions with women and the language system itself
• Differences in men and women’s speech is due to men’s dominance and women’s subordination
• Women use language in a way which reflects their subordinate position is society and men in a way which reflects their power

Question 19

How did Zimmerman and West (1975) conduct their research? What group was involved in the research? Where was it based?

Answer 19

• They recorded and analyzed a small sample of conversation at the Santa Barbara campus of the University of California, focusing on interruptions
• Subjects of the recording were white, middle class and aged under 35

Question 20

What were Zimmerman and West’s findings?

Answer 20

• They report that in 11 conversations between men and women, men used 46 interruptions while women only used 2

Question 21

Who pointed out the problems in Zimmerman and West’s theories?

Answer 21

• Geoffrey Beattie

Question 22

What did Geoffrey Beattie suggest?

Answer 22

• That in Zimmerman and West’s research, there could have been a ‘voluble man in the study which has a disproportionate effect on the total’
• He also suggested that interruptions can be a sign of ‘reflecting interest and involvement’, and not dominance

Question 23

What were the weaknesses of Zimmerman and West’s research?

Answer 23

• Small sample size, possible unrepresentative
• Very specific

Question 24

How did Geoffrey Beattie conduct his research? What did his research find?

Answer 24

• He recorded 10 hours of tutorial discussion and 557 interruptions
• He found that women and men interrupted with more or less the same frequency (men - 34.1, women - 33.8)
  
  • He ruled that men did interrupt more, however the margin was so slight that it wasn’t statistically significant

Question 25

What did Dale Spender’s research (1980) believe?

Answer 25

• That language perpetuates patriarchal structures, reflecting men’s perspectives and maintaining male dominance

Question 26

What did Dale Spender’s research (1980) find?

Answer 26

• Words associated with women often acquire negative connotations over time (e.g. ‘mistress’ vs ‘master’)
• Men tend to dominate conversations, interrupt women more frequently and control topics
• Efforts to introduce non-sexist language face resistance because they challenge entrenched power structures

Question 27

What were the weaknesses of Spender’s theories?

Answer 27

• Some argue that her theories are essentialist and binary, not accounting for the complexity of gender identities
• They also noted that there is a lack of empirical evidence for some claims, suggesting the need for more scientific data

Question 28

What did Pamela Fishman focus on? How did she conduct her study?

Answer 28

• She focused on tag questions
• Listened to 52 hours of pre-recorded conversation between young American couples

Question 29

What did Pamela Fishman argue?

Answer 29

• That conversation between the 2 sexes often fails not because of the way women speak, but rather due to the way men respond/don’t respond
• She argues that women ask questions because of their power, and not because of their personality weaknesses

Question 30

What did Pamela Fishman find?

Answer 30

• She found that Lakoff’s theory about women using more tag questions is indeed true, as Fishman found that women are four times more likely to use tag questions than men
  
  • However she disagrees that tag questions are a sign of weakness, and argues that they are attributes of interactions instead

Question 31

What was Jennifer Coates (1980) research looking at?

Answer 31

• The differences in women’s and men’s speech in terms of men’s dominance and women’s subordination

Question 32

What key differences did Jennifer Coates find?

Answer 32

• Men talk more about impersonal topics while women talk more about sensitive aspects of life
• Men will sometimes hold the floor, trying to play the ‘expert’
• Men sometimes exchange comments in short, snappy style
• Men scarcely overlap during conversation, as they prefer to talk one by one

Question 33

Where was Peter Trudgill’s (1974) research based?

Answer 33

• Norwich

Question 34

What did Trudgil assume?

Answer 34

• That a person’s language would change depending on how conscious they are of their speech
• That working class speech has favourable connotations for male speakers
• Non-standard features are more accepted when they’re used by men than when they’re used by women

Question 35

What does the difference model believe in?

Answer 35

• That men and women belong to different sub-cultures, who, because they’re socialised differently, have different ways of communicating with each other

Question 36

What did Deborah Tannen identify as the 6 points of male vs female language use?

Answer 36

1. Status vs Support
2. Independence vs Intimacy
3. Advice vs Understanding
4. Information vs Feeling
5. Orders vs proposals
6. Conflict vs Compromise

Question 37

What does status vs support refer to?

Answer 37

• Men use language to show power and dominance while women are more likely to support and agree with others

Question 38

What does independence vs Intimacy refer to?

Answer 38

• Men use language to show they do not rely on other people; women use language to connect with other people

Question 39

What does advice vs understanding refer to?

Answer 39

• Men are more likely to offer solutions to a problem through their language choices; women will show empathy and understanding to a given situation

Question 40

What does information vs feeling refer to?

Answer 40

• Men are far more likely to be factual in their language choices; women, in contrast, will use language choices that are less factual.

Question 41

What does orders vs proposals refer to?

Answer 41

• Men are far more likely to be direct in their language using imperatives to command others; women will avoid such a commanding tone and be more suggestive in their language choices

Question 42

What does conflict vs compromise refer to?

Answer 42

• Men are more likely to use language to argue a point; women will use language to avoid such conflict and are far more likely to negotiate with others to try and find a solution or compromise.

Question 43

What did Jennifer Coates argue (1993)?

Answer 43

• That girls and boys develop different speaking styles early on and that this is because peer groups influence their social language development with gender being a key component

Question 44

What observations did Jennifer Coates make (1993)?

Answer 44

• A child’s peer group directly influences their social linguistic growth
• Girls tend to stay in smaller groups that involve talking
• Boys tend to stay in bigger groups that involve joint activity
• As a result of different interactions within their group, boys and girls develop different language habits

Question 45

What does Christine Howe’s research suggest?

Answer 45

• That gender is not a key factor; she claims that boys and girls develop differences based on other factors.

Question 46

What does Howe’s research suggest about the contrast between men and women?

Answer 46

• Women are active listeners and avoid strong language
• Men use language in a more competitive way than women to seek power

Question 47

What did Jane Pilkington argue?

Answer 47

• Women speak to maintain social relationships, focus on feelings and personal anecdotes
• Women agree frequently and complete each other’s utterances
• Men find long pauses unacceptable, frequently disagreeing and challenging each other
• Men are competitive to the point of verbal abuse

Question 48

What was Koenrad Kuiper’s research about?

Answer 48

• Male speech in sports teams
• One of his notable studies, published in 1991, explored the linguistic behavior of a male rugby team.

Question 49

What were Koenrad Kuiper’s findings?

Answer 49

• Men often use language to build solidarity through practices like banter, teasing, and the use of insults.
• Men ‘save face’ by using insults

Question 50

What idea did Deborah Cameron criticise?

Answer 50

• That there are innate differences in male and female speech
• ‘The idea of men and women…use language in very different ways and for very different reasons is one of the great myths of our time’

Question 51

What did Deborah Cameron argue?

Answer 51

• That these myths have shaped our expectations of men and women and the types of linguistic behaviour that we deem to be normal or deviant
• In short, they continue to promote further myth-making

Question 52

What did Penelope Eckhert and McConnel-Ginet’s research support?

Answer 52

• The idea that gender differences in language are not inherent but are socially constructed and variable, aligning with the Diversity Model.

Question 53

What did Penelope Eckhert and McConnel-Ginet’s research find?

Answer 53

• They argue that gender intersects with other factors, and is not an exclusive factor that is unique in identifying the differences between male and female speech

Question 54

What did Mary Crawford suggest? What does she advocate for?

Answer 54

• That by focusing on differences alone in male and female language, stereotypes are constantly being reinforced
• She advocates for examining how language reflects and perpetuates social inequalities

Question 55

What did Janet Hyde find in her research?

Answer 55

• That men and women are much more alike than different on most psychological variables, including communication styles.
• Her research showed that gender differences are small and that the similarities between genders are more substantial.

Question 56

What does Hyde’s research suggest?

Answer 56

• That the impact of gender on language use is often overstated, promoting a view that focuses on individual differences and situational factors rather than gender alone.