Language and Gender

Question 1

What is a Marked Term?

Answer 1

The unusual form of a term, often shown by an additional suffix e.g. ladette. The unmarked term would be the regular form e.g. lad.

Question 2

What is Rapport Talk?

Answer 2

Attempting to build relationships through speech. Typically associated with female speech.

Question 3

What is a Pejorative Term?

Answer 3

A judgemental term that usually implies disapproval or criticism.

Question 4

What is Up Talk?

Answer 4

Rising intonation used at the end of declarative statements.

Question 5

What is Verbal Hygiene?

Answer 5

The effort to improve or correct speech and writing to arrest change in language.

Question 6

What is Hegemonic Masculinity?

Answer 6

Language and behaviour associated with an idealised male group that is seen to have the most power and status within society.

Question 7

What is Hedging?

Answer 7

A word or phrase that makes a statement less forceful or assertive.

Question 8

What is a Filler?

Answer 8

A seemingly meaningless word, phrase or sound that marks a pause or hesitation in speech.

Question 9

What is a Genderlect?

Answer 9

The particular dialect used by men and women depending on their gender.

Question 10

What is Hypercorrection?

Answer 10

A pronunciation, word form or grammatical construction produced by mistaken analogy with standard usage in a desire to be correct.

Question 11

What is a Minimal Response?

Answer 11

Short sounds or words that are used to maintain a conversation. Shows the listener is listening.

Question 12

What is Social Constructivism?

Answer 12

Places importance on social interaction as constructing identity and people coming together to create a shared construction of the world.

Question 13

What is Semantic Reclamation?

Answer 13

Where a group of individuals reclaim the negative meaning of a word in attempts to make it more positive

Question 14

What is the Deficit Model?

Answer 14

The belief that language used by women is inferior to the language used by men.

Question 15

What is the Dominance Model?

Answer 15

The belief that the differences in language use by men and women can be explained by the hierarchical dominance of men within society.

Question 16

What is the Difference Model?

Answer 16

The belief that men and women have innate differences in the style and function of their speech and writing.

Question 17

What is the Diversity Model?

Answer 17

The belief that gender is not the only thing influencing men and women’s language use, rather their language behaviours are affected by the groups they belong to.

Question 18

What does Lakoff believe about Gendered language? (Deficit)

Answer 18

Women are socialised into behaving like ‘ladies’ (linguistically and within society) and that this subordinate position within society stops them being powerful.

Question 19

What features did Lakoff identify made women’s speech seem inferior?

Answer 19

Hedge: using phrases such as “sort of”, “kind of”, “it seems like”, etc.​

Use (super) Polite forms: “Would you mind”, “I’d appreciate if”, “if you don’t mind”.​

Use Tag Questions: “You’re going to dinner, aren’t you?”​

Use hypercorrect grammar and pronunciation: English prestige grammar and clear enunciation.​

Use “Wh” imperatives: “Why don’t you open the door?”​

Speak less frequently​

Apologise more​

Use Modal Constructions: Such as can, would, should, ought to.​

Question 20

What does Dale Spender believe about Gendered Language? (Dominance)

Answer 20

Believes that a male dominated society has structured and regulated language to reflect men’s best interests.

Question 21

What did Zimmerman and West study about Language and Gender? (Dominance)

Answer 21

Men are more likely to interrupt women in a mixed sex conversation, suggesting their dominance.

Question 22

What was Beattie’s criticism of Zimmerman and West’s study?

Answer 22

Critical of Zimmerman and West. In his own study found that whilst men interrupted more it was by such a slight margin that it wasn’t statistically significant.

Question 23

What does Pamela Fishman discuss about women in language? (Dominance)

Answer 23

Women do more of the conversational work, due to their inferior position within society.

Question 24

What does Deborah Tannen discuss about language and gender? (Difference)

Answer 24

Women use language differently from men not out of inferiority, but because they have been socialised differently and have different conversational goals. They are aiming to keep a conversation going through their use of tag questions.

Question 25

What are the 6 differences identified by Tannen?

Answer 25

Status vs. support ​

Independence vs. intimacy ​

Advice vs. understanding ​

Information vs. feelings ​

Orders vs. proposals ​

Conflict vs. compromise

Question 26

What did Jennifer Coates identify about gender differences in language? (Difference)

Answer 26

Found that boys and girls tended to belong to same sex friendship groups and subsequently developed different styles of speaking.

Question 27

How does Deborah Jones categorise women’s talk?

Answer 27

Categorised women’s talk into four main groups; house talk, scandal, bitching and chatting.

Question 28

What differences did Jane Pilkington identify in gendered language?

Answer 28

Women in same sex conversations are collaborative and used positive politeness strategies. Men in same sex conversations were less collaborative, less complimentary and less supportive than women.

Question 29

What did Penelope Eckert discuss about gendered language? (Diversity)

Answer 29

Suggested that we need to explore other reason for language variation such as class.

Question 30

What does Deborah Cameron say about gendered language? (Diversity)

Answer 30

The gender ‘template’ doesn’t fit everyone; suggesting that there can be as many differences in communication between two men as there could be between a man and a woman.

Question 31

What did Janet Holmes’ research identify? (Diversity)

Answer 31

Researched tag questions; discovering they could be used to express solidarity, or that they could weaken a command or criticism.

Question 32

What did O’Barr and Atkins Courtroom study identify? (Diversity)

Answer 32

Studied courtrooms and the speech of witnesses. Found that language differences are based on situation specific authority or power, rather than gender.

Question 33

Explain Judith Butler’s Gender Performitivity

Answer 33

The way we present ourselves, such as our speech and body language, and continually repeat these presentations, constructs our gender rather than reflecting it.

Question 34

What did Jenny Cheshire identify with prestige?

Answer 34

Males are more susceptible to covert prestige, but social attitude is more of a determining factor than gender.

Question 35

What did James Pennebaker identify about number of words spoken by each gender?

Answer 35

In mixed sex conversation the average number of words spoken by men and women were about the same. There was more difference noted within genders than between them.