Language and Gender Flashcards
What is a Marked Term?
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.
What is Rapport Talk?
Attempting to build relationships through speech. Typically associated with female speech.
What is a Pejorative Term?
A judgemental term that usually implies disapproval or criticism.
What is Up Talk?
Rising intonation used at the end of declarative statements.
What is Verbal Hygiene?
The effort to improve or correct speech and writing to arrest change in language.
What is Hegemonic Masculinity?
Language and behaviour associated with an idealised male group that is seen to have the most power and status within society.
What is Hedging?
A word or phrase that makes a statement less forceful or assertive.
What is a Filler?
A seemingly meaningless word, phrase or sound that marks a pause or hesitation in speech.
What is a Genderlect?
The particular dialect used by men and women depending on their gender.
What is Hypercorrection?
A pronunciation, word form or grammatical construction produced by mistaken analogy with standard usage in a desire to be correct.
What is a Minimal Response?
Short sounds or words that are used to maintain a conversation. Shows the listener is listening.
What is Social Constructivism?
Places importance on social interaction as constructing identity and people coming together to create a shared construction of the world.
What is Semantic Reclamation?
Where a group of individuals reclaim the negative meaning of a word in attempts to make it more positive
What is the Deficit Model?
The belief that language used by women is inferior to the language used by men.
What is the Dominance Model?
The belief that the differences in language use by men and women can be explained by the hierarchical dominance of men within society.
What is the Difference Model?
The belief that men and women have innate differences in the style and function of their speech and writing.
What is the Diversity Model?
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.
What does Lakoff believe about Gendered language? (Deficit)
Women are socialised into behaving like ‘ladies’ (linguistically and within society) and that this subordinate position within society stops them being powerful.
What features did Lakoff identify made women’s speech seem inferior?
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.
What does Dale Spender believe about Gendered Language? (Dominance)
Believes that a male dominated society has structured and regulated language to reflect men’s best interests.
What did Zimmerman and West study about Language and Gender? (Dominance)
Men are more likely to interrupt women in a mixed sex conversation, suggesting their dominance.
What was Beattie’s criticism of Zimmerman and West’s study?
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.
What does Pamela Fishman discuss about women in language? (Dominance)
Women do more of the conversational work, due to their inferior position within society.
What does Deborah Tannen discuss about language and gender? (Difference)
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.
What are the 6 differences identified by Tannen?
Status vs. support
Independence vs. intimacy Advice vs. understanding Information vs. feelings Orders vs. proposals Conflict vs. compromise
What did Jennifer Coates identify about gender differences in language? (Difference)
Found that boys and girls tended to belong to same sex friendship groups and subsequently developed different styles of speaking.
How does Deborah Jones categorise women’s talk?
Categorised women’s talk into four main groups; house talk, scandal, bitching and chatting.
What differences did Jane Pilkington identify in gendered language?
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.
What did Penelope Eckert discuss about gendered language? (Diversity)
Suggested that we need to explore other reason for language variation such as class.
What does Deborah Cameron say about gendered language? (Diversity)
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.
What did Janet Holmes’ research identify? (Diversity)
Researched tag questions; discovering they could be used to express solidarity, or that they could weaken a command or criticism.
What did O’Barr and Atkins Courtroom study identify? (Diversity)
Studied courtrooms and the speech of witnesses. Found that language differences are based on situation specific authority or power, rather than gender.
Explain Judith Butler’s Gender Performitivity
The way we present ourselves, such as our speech and body language, and continually repeat these presentations, constructs our gender rather than reflecting it.
What did Jenny Cheshire identify with prestige?
Males are more susceptible to covert prestige, but social attitude is more of a determining factor than gender.
What did James Pennebaker identify about number of words spoken by each gender?
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.
