Language and Gender Theorists Flashcards
Jespersen - The Dominance Approach
Women didn’t know many words and couldn’t understand complex language.
Women can’t read as quickly as males.
O’Barr and Atkins
Language use depends on authority rather than gender.
Beattie - Interruptions
Recorded 10 hours of tutorial discussion and 557 interruptions.
Women and men interrupted with more or less equal frequency.
Men 34.1, Women 33.8
Coates - Hedges, Minimal Responses, Turn-Taking
Examined theory also examined the functionality of the language development of both genders. She makes comparisons between different age groups, coming to the conclusion: “Men pursue a style of interactions based on power, while women pursue a style based on solidarity and support.”
Tannen - The Difference Model
Status vs Support Independence vs Intimacy Advice vs Understanding Information vs Feelings Orders vs Proposals Conflict vs Compromise
Kuiper - Insults and Face
In all male talk amongst members of rugby team, men were likely to pay less attention to the need to save face and instead used insults as a way of expressing solidarity.
Similar findings on all male talk have also highlighted this differences in corporation amongst all male grouped.
Zimmerman and West - Interruptions
The findings supported the Dominance Model as data from their findings show that most interruptions or overlaps in conversations are made by men especially in cross - sex conversations.
However in same sex conversations, interruptions and overlaps are very balanced between the speakers.
This suits the dominance model as it gives the impressions men obtain power and authority in conversation.
Hyde - Gender Similarities
Men and women are more alike than they are different. A few notable exceptions are some aspects of sexuality, which show larger gender differences. Gender differences vary substantially at different ages and depend on the context in which measurement occurs.
Lakoff - Deficit Approach
Women’s language is weak in comparison to men’s or to the male norm. Women’s language lacks any REAL authority. She proposed that women’s language was weak because they use precise cleaning terms:
-Specific colour names, weak expletives, empty adjectives, tag questions, more polite forms and apologies, hedges, intensifiers, indirect commands and requests, and avoiding slang.
Fishman - Questions
Fishman states that women frequently use tag questions when following a thought or suggestion. She argues women use questions to gain conversational power. Fishman says that questions do not signal uncertainty or powerlessness but are instead one of a variety of tools used by women as a means of keeping the conversation going.
