Language And Gender Flashcards
What is the difference from sex and gender?
Sex is biological and gender is social
What did Keith and shuttleworth do?
Surveyed beliefs about the difference between men and women’s language
What is Otto Jespersen’s research about?
(1922) He wrote all of his opinions about women’s language
What are the first 4 points of Jespersens beliefs?
1.Women talk a lot
2.Women half finish sentences because they don’t think before speaking
3.Women link sentences with “and” because they’re emotional
4.Women use “pretty” and “cute” to much
What are the last 3 of Jespersen’s beliefs?
5.Women are hyperbolic(dramatic)
6.Women have smaller vocab so more fluent
7.Women avoid “coarse and gross expressions”
What did Robin lakoff try to explain?
How language contributed to women’s lack of power and status in western society
What is the meaning of Tannen-verbal hygiene?
Behaviors that women exhibit but they should stop
Lakoff said that women’s language is what?
Deferential
Lakoff:Who are women deferential to?
Everyone
What did Lakoff say that affects women’s style of speech?
Girls upbringing-women are socialized into using a special style of speech=women’s language
What is a criticism of Lakoffs research?
No imperial research,her opinion,sample she used was people she knew (educated,white women in America so lack of diversity)
What did Lakoff name her ideas about women’s language?
The deference model
How many features are in Lakoffs deference model?
10
What are the names of lakoffs first 5 features that she claimed were typical of women’s speech?
1.hedge
2.super politeness
3.Hypercorrectness
4.Tag questions
5.speaking in Italics
What are the names of lakoffs last 5 features that she claimed were typical of women’s speech
6.Empty adjectives of approval
7.Use of implication
8.special lexicon
9.
10.women have no sense of humor
Who criticises lakoff?
Dubois and Crouch
What did Dubois and crouch study?
Tag questions
What did Dubois and Crouch find in tag questions?
-men use it more that women
-Tag questions show co-operation rather than uncertainty
What is the dominance model?
People response to lakoff’s ideas
(Deference-just lakoff)
What does the dominance model claim?
Men deliberately behave in an uncooperative way when speaking to women to dominate them
What did Zimmerman and west look at?
Turn-Taking
What did Zimmerman and west monitor?
They monitored people’s conversations at their university campus
What 2 kinds of irregularities did zimerman and west look at in turn-taking?
Overlaps
Interruptions
Zimmerman and west: What’s the difference between overlaps and interruptions?
Overlaps is supportive- speaker near the end of TRP
Interruptions is not supportive- speaker not near the end of TRP
Zimmerman and west: what irregularities did they find in turn-taking between same sex pairs?
That overlaps are 3x more common then interruptions
Zimmerman and west:what irregularities did they find in turn taking between mixed-sex pairs?
That Men interrupt more that women but women don’t
What’s a disadvantage of Zimmerman’s and west’s recording of people’s conversations?
Observer paradox- people knew they were being recorded
The people speaking are all rich educated so lack of diversity
What does Beattie say as a criticism of Zimmerman and West?
They have very small data
Outliner- one person mainly doing the interruptions
What does Beattie challenge?
He challenges Zimmerman and west’s interpretation of interruptions
What does Beattie say about interruptions?
-That interruptions can be enthusiastic
-Interlocutors can show enthusiasm
What does Eaken and Eaken say about interruptions? (As a criticism to zimmerman and west)
They’re not determined by gender but by “hierarchy preference” (status)
What else did Zimmerman and west study?
The difference in the use of minimal responses according to gender
Zimmerman and west: what does a delayed minimal response mean?
speaker gives minimal response at the appropriate point but after a pause
Zimmerman and west: what does a delayed minimal response show?
Shows that the listener is not being supportive, demonstrated a lack of interest and enthusiasm in a conversation
Zimmerman and west: what is a delayed response a feature of?
Male speech, intended to dominate women
What does Pamela Fishman look at?
Tags
What does Pamela Fishman say about the tag “y’know”?
Women use it 5x more than men
What did Pamela Fishman claim that using the tag question”y’know” shows?
Shows that women ask for support and men withhold it
(Women also provide support without asking)
What is a criticism of Pamela Fishman?
She’s makes people use a wearable recording device
What does Janet Holmes look at?
tags
Who does Janet Holmes challenge?
Fishman
What are the 2 tags Janet Holmes looks at?
Speaker-oriented tags and
addressee-oriented tags
Janet Holmes: what do Adressee-orientated tags do?
Show support,women use them
Janet Holmes: what do speaker-orientated tags do?
Benefit listener as support or as confirmation ,men use them
What did Janet Holmes study reveal which is a criticism to lakoff and Fishman’s claims?
Men and women use tags the same amount
What did Janet Holmes study reveal?
-Men use more speaker-orientated tags
-Women use more addressee-orientated tags
What does Janet Holmes study suggest?
Men are less supportive speakers than women
What did Victoria DeFrancisco say?
Women talk more,offer more topics than men and men pick and choose,work harder to keep conversation going
Victoria DeFrancisco: What it called when women offer topics and men pick and choose from them?
Conversational shit work
What is Helena Leet-Pelligrini research focusen on?
The effect of gender and expertise in mixed sex conversation
What does Helena Leet-Pelligrini say about gender and expertise?
That male-non-experts will act dominantly to female experts
What is Deborah Tannen’s difference model a response to?
Lakoff and Dominance model theorists
What did Tannen say?
-Boys and girls are socialised so differently because of upbringing
-boys see talking as a competitive thing
-girls see talking as a shared collaboration,sometimes talking is all they do
What does rapport talk mean?
To establish and maintain relationship
What does report talk mean?
Give information,hierarchy-compete for positions of power
Which gender uses rapport talk?
Women
Which gender uses report talk?
Men
What did Jennifer Coates say that is an example to rapport and report talk?
Joke telling for men is a way to establish hierarchy, for women it’s to be collaborative (supportive)
What words did Tannen say link to mens speech?
Status
Independence
Advice
Information
Orders
What words did Tannen say link to women’s speech?
Support
Intimacy
Understanding
Feelings
Proposals
What 2 kind of Turn Violations did Tannen identify?
Uncooperative overlaps And
cooperative overlaps
Tannen: what does cooperative overlaps show a sign of?
High involvement speakers
Tannen: speakers who follow sack’s “no gap no overlap” are what?
High considerateness speakers
Tannen: which gender associates with high considerateness?
Male (not being cooperative,for instance,when an they’re speaking to a high speaker)
Tannen:What does verbal hygiene say?
That women’s speech feature is bad
What 4 categories did Deborah Jones make for women?
House talk
Scandal
Bitching
Chatting
Deborah jones: what is house talk?
Practical chat about being a house women
Deborah jones: what does scandal mean?
Domestic standards women are made to enforce
Deborah jones: what does bitching mean?
The acknowledgement that being a women is hard, just externalising it, don’t want a solution
Deborah jones: what does chatting mean?
Women Sharing intimate things with other women to make allies
Deborah Jones:What does the 4 categories of women’s talk suggest?
That women’s talk is more varied
(Some categories exclude men and they can’t talk about it)
What did Jane Pilkington find in single-sex conversations?
-Women’s talk is: similar to eachother,expressive,collaborative
-women do leech’s agreement maxim
-women want to fill the space in the conversation
Men like to disagree more
Where did Jane Plikington research single-sex conversations?
At a bakery (9 months)
What did Carmen Fought say about women’s features such as “like” and uptalk?
Fought says these features are used as power tools to establish and maintain relationships
Carmen Fought’s:Women’s features such as “like” and uptalk are __________
Condemned
What did carmen Fought say about young girls and women?
They popularise vocal trends
What did Mark Lieberman say?
-Young do it before old
-girls do it before men
-girls are 10 years ahead of everyone else
What did Koenraad Kuiper’s research say?
-The men demonstrate friendship through abuse
-The ability to take abuse is a good quality but to have
-If you insult people it’s fine, reacting to it is stigmatized
What is the diversity model?
The diversity model opposes biological determinism
What does the diversity model say?
-biological sex doesn’t make a difference in language, gender roles play a key part
-there are different versions of ourselves for different occasions
-sex refers to biological characteristics( eg chromosomes)
-gender and sex not linked
What are four things that are said about gender in the diversity model?
-Gender characteristics are socially constructed
-gender decided by society, not biology
-gender isn’t binary
-gender + sex don’t match for some people
-gender presentation is dependent on your sex
-gender is a choice, it has a consequences if you pick the wrong choice
What does Janet Hyde’s Gender similarities hypothesis claim?
There are lots of similarities between male and female
What could you use Janet Hyde’s gender similarities Hypothesis for?
You could use it as a criticism for everything
What does o’Barr and Atkin’s courtroom study look at?
It looks at whether what lakoff said was true, they look at lakoff’s women language features
What did o’Barr and Atkin find in their courtroom study?
They found that an intimidated man at court uses all of lakoff’s features, a women who was there as a coroner didn’t use any
What did o’Barr and Atkin say about lakoff’s women features? (Criticism)
-‘Neither characteristics of all women nor limited only to women’
-They said that it’s not about gender but it’s about power
What did o’Barr and Atkin criticisms about lakoff’s women features?
-Well educated middle class women don’t use the ‘women’s features’ that much
- men spoke with a low frequency of ‘women’s language’ traits
-low status speakers use many of the ‘women’s language’ regardless of gender
What did o’Barr and Atkin suggest the ‘women’s language’ should be called instead?
‘Powerless language’
What does Deborah Cameron say?
That sex difference in language is a myth
Which claim by Otto Jesepersen does Deborah Cameron say is a myth?(criticism)
“Women speak more because communication means more to women”
Which claim by Tannen does Deborah Cameron say is a myth?(criticism)
-“Men use language competitively,women for support”
-“Men talk about getting things done,women talk about feelings”
-“Men and women talk so differently that miscommunication happens often”
What does Cameron’s performative langauge claim?
-we have a range of identities and we pick and choose them for certain people/situations
-one of the things we perform is gender,you can perform ethnicity,class
What does Judith Butler say?
- you’re forced into gender whether you like it or not
-gender is seen as a ritual act,we want people to perceive us in a certain way
What does Robert Podesva study?
Language used by a Heath, a gay man studying to be a doctor
What did Robert Podesva identify about Heaths language?
He uses “Falsetto”
Robert Podesva: what is Falsetto?
-a socially marked behaviour for men and is involved in the performance of a gay man
-Falsetto has a high fundamental frequency
Robert Podesva:What has Falsetto undergone?
“Enregisment” (a sign of gay identity)
Robert Podesva:What are common beliefs about voice quality?
-distinguishes one social group
-a stable characteristic of individuals
What did Robert discover when it came to Heath’s use of “Falsetto”?
-Uses his “gay voice” for social gatherings
-Uses it a little bit when speaking to family
-Does not use it at all when speaking to patients
What did Robert Podesva claim about Heath’s use of Falsetto?
Heath used Falsetto to construct a ‘diva’ persona, for “expressiveness”
What did Robert Podesva claim about Falsetto?
-The use of the voice isn’t a gay characteristic but a choice
-There is not equivalent voice for lesbians
What is Butlers Drag Queen language?
Drag queens observe behaviour of gender (females) and then perform that on stage
What did Judith Baxter say?
Strong women in work behave like strong men due to enact dominance
What did Dale spender say?
Men control public discourse (language) so English is prejudice against female experiences
(E.g men historically publish dictionaries)
What does laurel Sutton say?
There are more insults for females,they are insulted on looks, therefore attractiveness and body image is the only values for women
Why might some linguists argue that in certain texts the word “female” is a gratuitous modifier?
Because there is no semantic reason for inclusion in the sentence,it suggests that it’s odd a female is doing this/being that
What does Julia smith say about Negative semantic space?
That we don’t bother to mention women unless there’s a good reason to do so
What are some examples of gendered nouns?
Actor,king=men
Actress,queen=women
What is the meaning of non-equivalent parallels?
2 words that look like gender terms but aren’t direct equivelance
What does Sara mills say?
Male terms have positive connotations, female terms have negative connotations
What is the meaning of generic pronouns?
Using the word “he” when you don’t know the gender
What reveals the marriage status for men and females?
Married woman=mrs, unmarried=miss
For married or unmarried men there isn’t any,they’re all addressed as “sir”
Conventionally what happens to a woman’s name once they’re married?
The take their husbands second name and are called “mrs” rather than “miss”
What other options do married couples do?
Keep their name,change their name completely or portmanteaux (blend names)
What did Julia Stanley find?
200 promiscuous names for women but only 20 for men and they’re either flattering or just male versions
In linguistics what is the meaning of corpus?
A collection of examples which researchers can then analyze for trends and patterns
