The Dominance Model Flashcards
Q: What did O’Barr and Atkins do and say?
After, studying. the language of the courtroom and found female lawyers to be assertive, interrupt, everything that Pilkington argued for males.
They also found that witnesses of both sexes would use Robin Lakoff’s weak female” language.
What did they conclude?
If there is a difference in language, it is because males have always dominated in both the home and workplace, and females have assumed the domestic roles.
Which linguist does model attribute to?
Otto Jespersen, in the book, The Women 1922, argued that male language forms were ‘the norm’ and the language of others (including women) were deficient.
What else did he say?
Women’s vocabulary as less extensive than men’s
Claims the periphery of language and the development of new words is only for men’s speech.
Jespersen explains these differences by the early division of labour between the sexes.
In his conclusion he claims that the social changes taking place at the time “may eventually modify even the linguistic relations of the two sexes”.
What research did Zinnerman and West do in 1975 which contributes to this model?
Recorded white middle class under 35 men and women:
In 31 examples of conversations:
11 conversations between men and women, men used, men used 46 interruptions, women only 2.
Their was conclusion was that this reflected male dominance in conversations due to the number of interruptions
EXTRA: What has Sweden done to address of language and gender?
They have introduced a new single gender neutral pronoun ‘hen’ Swedish for ‘he’ and ‘she’
Beattle’s research done in 1982 questioned Zinnerman’s research what did he find?
10 hours of tutorial discussion
557 interruptions
Frequency of female interruptions: 33.8
Frequency of male interruptions: 34.1
What research did Pamela Fisherman do in her book: Interaction: The Work Women Do (1983) + (1990) Conversational Insecurity?
She listened to 52 hours of recorded conversations between young American couples.
Her findings were:
men speak for twice as long as women in mixed sex interactions
tag questions used more frequently in women
