🏳️⚧️• Language & Gender: Studies Flashcards
List the 3 main foundational models for language and gender + the additional model only recently proposed
- The Defacit Model
- The Dominance Model
- The Difference Model
- The Diversity Model
What is the primary criticism of the foundational models?
That they can all be considered dated and era-bound
What is The Defacit Model?
This model suggests that women’s language is inferior to men’s due to social conditioning and that male language is the standard and conseqently superior
What is The Dominance Model?
This model argues that language differences reflect male dominance and female subordination in society
What is The Difference Model?
This model proposes that men and women have distinct communication styles due to socialization and culture, not hierarchy; that women often prioritise relationship building (rapport style) while menb focus on conveying information (report style)
What is The Diversity Model?
This model emphasizes that gender is just not the only factor, and infact one of many factors (e.g., culture, class) that influence language use; that biological sex does not necessarily make a difference to the language we use
Give one study from The Defacit Model
Otto Jespersen (1922)
Give the findings of and explain Otto Jespersen’s 1922 study - DEFACIT
Otto published a set of ideas about women’s language:
* Women talk alot
* Women have a smaller vocabulary than men
* Women speak before they have thought about what they will say
* Women tend towards Hyperbole
* Women have a preference towards vield and indirect expressions
* Men are reseponsbile for introducing new words into the language
* We can conclude that this study is clearly misogynistic; It is opinonated rather than factual information
Give one study from The Dominance Model
Zimmerman & West (1975)
Give the findings of and explain Zimmerman & West’s 1975 study - DOMINANCE
Recorded mixed-sex conversations at the University of California in 1975 with all participants being white, middle class and under 35.
* Reported that within 11 mixed-sex conversations men used 46 inturruptions (96%), but women only used 2
* Z&W concluded from their small sample that since men inturrupt more often, they are dominating/ attempting to dominate (to maintain patriarchal control?)
+ Dale Spender:
‘‘Language is ____________ and has been made by ____ for ____ in such away to ensure their contiuned ________________.’’
By using ‘‘language and the conditions for its use in turn structure a ____________ order’’
(DOMINANCE MODEL)
'’Language is ‘‘Language is ____________ and has been made by men for men in such away to ensure their contiuned dominance.’’
Using ‘‘language and the conditions for its use in turn structure a patriarchal order’’
Give one study from The Difference Model
Jane Pilkington (1992)
Give the findings of and explain Jane Pilkington’s 1992 study - DIFFERENCE
Conducted a comparative study on female and male friendships and in-group conversations; the study took place in New Zealand with a group of male friends and a group of female friends. Differences of the speech were as follows:
MALE CHARACTERISITCS:
* Silences
* Longer pauses
* Sudden changes of subject
* Lack of response
* Marked Disagreement e.g. questioning/ arguing/ ritual abuse deemed as fun
FEMALE CHARACTERISITCS:
* Few and short pauses
* Short turns
* Minimal responses
* Supporting questions
* Extended topics
* Repititions
* Disagreement counterd by politeness
The study shows the distinct communication styles due to socialization and culture; it corresponds to the established notion of women aiming to establish a rapport and cooperate VS men communicating to report information and compete with eachother
Give one study from The Diversity Model
Judith Butler (1990)
Give the findings of and explain Judith Butler’s 1990 study - DIVERSITY
Judith Butler is a feminist philosopher and proposes that there is not a difference between men and women’s language based on their biological sex. What determines language use is what individuals choose to use based on how they want to present themselves to others
- She infers that individuals, through language and social practises create, and sustain gender indentities through the idea of Gender Performativity
- Gender Performativity: refers to the notion that gender is something that can be performed, that someones gender identity is a result of recurrent behaviours that emulate gender roles and norms
This ideology most certainly infers that language use is not determined soley by gender and individuals can choose how they present themselves; that their language is not restricited by soceital gender roles or biological sex
+ Janet Hyde:
Psychologist who proposed gender similarities hypothesis
+ Explain her findings
(DIVERSITY MODEL)
Gender similarities hypothesis: states that men and women are more similar than different on most psychological variables
* Conducted a meta-analysis of more than 2,000 studies on gender differences in a wide vairety of areas e.g. abilities, personality, memory & behaviours
* Found that 78% of gender differences were small or close to zero
Her work challenges the idea that gender differences are the norm and in turn highlights the role of soceital expectations and fabricated roles in gendered behaviour and therefore language
Girl toys VS Boy toys
Who was responsible for this study?
(+ Date of Study)
The BBC
2017
Girl toys VS Boy toys
What was the focus/ methodology for this study?
- The study involved volunteers coming into a centre to simply play with young children; but what they didnt know was that the true genders of the children were misconstrued.
- The children were disguised as the opposite gender; this was done through adorning them in various items of clothing that were steryotypically assocaited to the gender that opposed their own and giving them a pseudonym.
- Volunteers would be sat in a room with a child alongside various childrens toys such as robots, dinosaurs, dolls and unicorns. The volunteer was simply asked to play with the child - the study aimed to see if the child would still enjoy themsleves whilst playing with the opposite gender’s toys and if the volunteer would prescribe steryotypical toys to the child
Girl toys VS Boy toys
What were the key findings for this study?
In terms of the ‘male’ children, volunteers:
* Acted more physically with them e.g. lifted them up more
* Prescribed them toys such as robots or dinosaurs
In terms of the ‘female’ children, volunteers:
* Acted less physically with them, were more reserved and polite (as adults are usualty more careful and reserved when touching female children)
* Prescribed them toys such as dolls, unicorns or pink objects
In terms of the children’s enjoyment:
* The children themselves displayed no distaste towards the toys proposed despite them being ‘made’ for the other gender e.g. the boy infants showed no problem in playing with the doll
The study shows how adults in society subconsciously present and embed stereotypical gender roles into the impressionable minds of children form a young age without even realising AND how from a young age, gendered toys made no impact on the enjoyment of children, acting as evidence to suggest gender is a taught/learned concept and it’s behaviours are not innate
Links to language as it shows how due to embedding such roles into society and individuals from an early age, language develops in a way that aligns with society, therefore becoming categorised through gender
Girl toys VS Boy toys
What core theme(s) does this study relate to?
N/A
The Only Way Is E-ssss-ex
Who were the linguist(s) responsible for this study?
(+ Date of Study)
Holmes-Elliott & Levon
2017
The Only Way Is E-ssss-ex
What was the focus/ methodology for this study?
- Linguists analysed how people pronounce ‘s’ in two British reality TV programmes, The Only Way is Essex (TOWIE) and Made in Chelsea (MIC)
- In terms of the ‘s’ pronounciation, they focused on if the ‘s’ was standard, or a sibilant ‘s’: when you pronounce the ‘s’ sound with the tounge further forward, thus creating a hissy sound
- They analysed 88 scenes from the first two series of each programme. The scenes added up to 6 hours of recorded speech and involved 24 different speakers (9 men and 15 women)
- The linguists then compared if there were differences in how men and women in the two shows pronounced ‘s’
The Only Way Is E-ssss-ex
What were the key findings for this study?
- Men in the study pronounced ‘s’ more towards the back of their mouths, therfore less sibilant, more standard
- It was found that a sibilant ‘s’ has aquired a social meaning reating to souding feminine
- Therefore we can see that the speakers were performing their gender and exaggerating feminine and masculine traits for social effect via using/ not using the sibilant ‘s’
____________________ - It was found that in TOWIE, the female speakers would clearly use the sibilant ‘s’ when engaging in same-sex conversations, but when moving to speak to men they would use the sibilant ‘s’ much less - therefore showing how in female groups, the speakers used their language to perform the female gender and seek solidarity among their female group/ wanted to appear more independent when with men
____________________ - Both MIC men and women pronounced the ‘s’ sound further back in the mouth in all conversations, thus being less feminine and more masculine. This shows how the MIC women were perhaps wanting to sound more masculine as due to patriarchy, male language holds more power and sway in higher-class interactions and environments
____________________ - + CLASS: MIC speakers = upper middle, TOWIE speakers = working class; traditional class-based stereotypical behaviour may have played into the TOWIE women being more feminine around other women when compared to the MIC women who were more masculine
The Only Way Is E-ssss-ex
What core theme(s) does this study relate to?
N/A
