Language And Gender Theorists

Question 1

Pamela Fishman (Dominance)

Answer 1

Interactional Shitwork

• Women are held responsible for carrying on conversations because men don’t try
• Research in 1990: ask 3x more questions, used supportive minimal responses, use attention gestures such as ‘you know what?’ to grab attention, topics proposed by women weren’t always taken up by the other participants
• Women are dominated by societal pressure and patriarchy, not language features themselves

Question 2

Susan Ehrlich (Difference)

Answer 2

Representing Rape

• Men justify their actions by saying they just don’t understand
• Women are the ones expected to change their language

Question 3

Dale Spender (Dominance)

Answer 3

• Men dominate women in language
• Features of woman’s language aren’t their fault
• Language is inherently sexist

Question 4

Zimmerman and West’s Interruptions (Dominance)

Answer 4

• 31 conversations recorded
• Men interrupted 46 times, women interrupted 2 times
• Women only interrupt other women, men are the dominant gender
• BUT, a small population participated, only interruptions in mixed gender conversations were recorded, participants were all privileged and white

Question 5

Geoffrey Beattie’s Opposition to Zimmerman and West (Diversity)

Answer 5

• 10 hours of conversation, 557 interruptions
• Interrupted at an almost equal frequency
• A person’s role in a conversation is more important

Question 6

Esther Greif (Dominance)

Answer 6

• Parents interrupt daughters more than sons

- Fathers interrupt daughters more than mothers

Question 7

Goldberg (Dominance)

Answer 7

-Men are biologically different so their dominance is inevitable

Question 8

Jacobi and Schweers and Interruptions (Diversity)

Answer 8

• Interruption in court

- Experience, age and status had more of an impact

Question 9

Robin Lakoff- Tag Questions (Deficit)

Answer 9

• Language in Woman’s Place
• Hedges, superpolite forms, indirect requests, tag questions
• Tag questions are used to seek approval
• Acts of exclusion

Question 10

Janet Holmes- Tag Questions (Deficit)

Answer 10

-Tag questions used to gain a response from someone (women have a cooperative role)

Question 11

Kathy O’Leary- Tag Questions (Diversity)

Answer 11

-Frequency of tag questions depends on occupation

Question 12

O’Barr and Atkins (Diversity)

Answer 12

• Studied language in the court room

- People who were powerless used the language features Lakoff mentions

Question 13

Betty Dubois and Isabel Crouch- Tag Questions (Difference)

Answer 13

-They suggested that men use more tag questions, but don’t think it means they are any less confident

Question 14

Otto Jespersen’s The Woman (Deficit)

Answer 14

• Shallow in expression
• Smaller vocabulary/less abstract nouns
• Less subordinate clauses (less complex sentence structure)
• Less vulgar language
• Use incomplete sentences
• Talk excessively
• Are emotional

Question 15

Deborah Tannen (Difference)

Answer 15

Her theory has roots in the Gumperz ethnicity study in an airport

• Status vs Support
• Independence vs Intimacy
• Advice vs Understanding
• Information vs Feelings
• Orders vs Proposals
• Conflict vs Compromise
• Deborah Cameron disagreed

Question 16

John Gray (Difference)

Answer 16

-Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus

Question 17

Maltz and Borker vs Helen Reid Thomas- Minimal Responses (Difference vs Diversity)

Answer 17

They found that women use more minimal responses and use them for different reasons (I’m listening vs I agree)

-Helen carried out systematic tests and found out people understand the different reasons through context

Question 18

Janet Hyde (Diversity)

Answer 18

• Gender Similarities Hypothesis

- Used meta analysis and found differences between the genders were close to zero or non existent

Question 19

Chambers and Liberman (Diversity)

Answer 19

• Reached similar conclusions to Hyde (meta analysis)

- There is as much variation within a single gender as there is in all genders

Question 20

Brizendine (Difference/Deficit)

Answer 20

• The Female Brain
• Women are chatterboxes and speak 20,000 words a day, while men speak 7,000
• Links with Jespersen’s idea that women talk excessively

Question 21

Pennebaker (Diversity)

Answer 21

• Conducted research on 396 students over 17 hours
• Women spoke 16,125
• Men spoke 15,669

Question 22

Judith Butler (Diversity)

Answer 22

• Gender Troubles
• We are trained how to act as a certain gender
• Gender is actually more a spectrum/is non binary

Question 23

Marjorie Goodwin (Diversity)

Answer 23

• The Hidden Life of Girls
• Over 100 hours of recordings of 9-12 year olds
• Socially and ethnically mixed
• Gave orders, were competitive, talked about sports and status

Question 24

Rosalind Wiseman (Diversity)

Answer 24

• Queen Bees and Wannabes

- Women are not all nurturers

Question 25

Don Kulick (Diversity)

Answer 25

• Papua New Guinea
• Women do angry monologues with abusive language called kros (other cultures see women as submissive)
• Women are hed (wilful or headstrong)
• Men are save (knowledgeable, judgemental)

Question 26

Ladette to Lady (Diversity)

Answer 26

• Focused on making women more ladylike

- Shows diversity within women

Question 27

Deborah Cameron (Diversity)

Answer 27

The Myth of Mars and Venus

About Susan Ehrlich: ‘You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out that someone who feigns unconsciousness in bed with you probably doesn’t want to have sex’.

Question 28

Kitzinger and Frith (Difference)

Answer 28

• Just Say No campaign
• only a small amount of women don’t use that strategy
• Women tend to use ‘lessen the blow’ strategies to tell men they don’t want to have sex

Question 29

Simon Baron-Cohen

Answer 29

• The Essential Difference
• Male brains are built to systemise while female brains are built to empathise
• Sex differences in language are therefore a by-product of this deeper difference
• Research using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) suggests that language in men’s brains might be more strongly lateralised
• Men are more likely to develop aphasia if they acquire brain damage
• Women can use both hemispheres