LANGUAGE AND GENDER THEORY Flashcards
What is the general idea of the diversity model?
Feminine and masculine language is context dependant.
Gender is fluid meaning there can be multiple femininities and masculinities.
Gender is just one aspect of our identities which make up language.
What is the general idea of the deficit model?
Men and women have different roles in conversation so use language differently.
This can make them incompatible in conversation and lead to miscommunication?
What is the general idea of the difference model?
In mixed sex conversations men and women have different goals within speech due to socialisation/culture.
This leads to differences in language.
What is the general idea of the dominance model?
Women have inferior language to men, as men are the centre of language.
What is Deborah Cameron’s diversity approach?
(2008)
Differences between feminine and masculine language stem from the myth that the sexes are different.
What is Carmen Fought’s diversity approach?
(2016)
Language used by women is immediately interpreted as insecure/emotional/stupid.
But young womanise linguistic features to build relationships.
What is Janet Hyde’s diversity approach?
(2005)
There are more similarities than differences in male and female genderlect.
Therefore, language might be down to other parts of an individuals identity.
What is Deborah Tannen’s difference approach?
(1990)
Men and women develop different conversational norms due to different social goals which lead to misunderstanding.
Status vs support
Independence vs intimacy
Information vs feelings
Orders vs proposals
Conflict vs compromise
What is Jane Pilkington’s difference approach?
(1992)
Women are collaborative and use positive politeness strategies such as compliments.
What is Kuiper’s difference approach?
(1991)
Studied a male football team and found that insults are used to express solidarity.
What is Peter Trudgill’s difference approach?
(1970s)
Across all classes, women used the formal “-ing” while men used the non-standard “-in”
What is Jennifer Coates’ difference approach?
Women use language to cooperate, support and build relationships.
Men use language competitively.
What is Labov’s difference approach?
Women use more prestige language, whereas men use non-standard forms.
What is Judith Butler’s diversity approach?
(1956)
Gender performativity
Men and women choose which norms to conform to or reject.
What is Lakoff’s deficit approach?
(1975)
Language differences reflect the social insecurity of women, and the dominance of men. This is because women are trained to talk like ladies.
Women use features such as:
Hedges
Tag questions
Qualifiers
Empty adjectives
What is Janet Holmes’ evaluation of Lakoff’s deficit approach?
Tag questions have different functions including confrontation - they don’t all depict uncertainty.
What is Pamela Fishman’s evaluation of Lakoff’s deficit approach?
Tag questions are part of women’s ‘conversational shitwrk’ to keep conversations going.
What is O’Barr and Atkins evaluation of Lakoff’s deficit approach?
Women language should be renames ‘powerless language’ as they studied a courtroom and found that any individual who had never experienced power used powerless features.
What is Jespersen’s deficit approach?
(1975)
Women will have more extensive vocabulary than a man.
Women don’t finish their sentences due to lack of planning.
Women’s language is indispensable.
What is Coates/Jones’ house talk theory?
They categorised “house talk”.
- Scandal: Judging others behaviours.
- Bitching: Anger at their inferior place in society.
- Chatting: Intimate conversations centered around self-disclosure.
What is Dale Spender’s dominance approach?
(1980)
Women have less power because language is man made and therefore reflects patriarchal structures.
What is Zimmerman and West’s dominance approach?
(1975)
Men interrupt more than women which indicates more power.
What is Beattie’s evaluation of Zimmerman and West’s dominance approach?
Their study might have a bias man skewing the data.
He found that men and women interrupt equally - even whilst recording more conversations.
KEY WORD:
Define androcentric
Focused on men and assumes that they are the norm.
