Theories Flashcards
What did Lakoff claim about features of women’s language ?
- claimed features of women’s language gave the impression woman weaker and less certain than men.
What did Lakoff argue about language ?
- argued that language is fundamental to gender equality and could contribute to the lack of women’s powers
What areas of women’s language goes the impression that women are weak and lack power ?
- language used about women
- language used by women
Lakoff’s research can be representative of what ?
- the deficit approach or the deficit model
Who attributed the deficit model ?
- Otto Jespersen
What did Otto Jesperson argue ?
- argued that male language was the “norm” and there language of others was “ deficient “
What is the dominance model ?
- men use language as a form of domination or control
What study did Pamela Fishmann do ?
- listened to 52 hours pre - recorded conversations between young American couples
What did Fishmann agree with Lakoff ?
- that tag questions were far more commonly used by women ( 4x more than men )
What did Fishmann disagree with Lakoff ?
- While Lakoff claimed that tag questions represent uncertainty, Fishman argued that, for females, tag questions are actually used to start conversations with males and to subsequently continue and sustain dialogue.
What is conversational ‘ shitwork ‘ ?
- the support work in conversations that women do
How does Fishmann view women’s use of tag questions ?
- as an attribute of interactions
What does Fishman argue about failed conversations between males and females ?
- happens because of how men respond , or don’t respond not because of anything inherent I the way women talk.
What does Fishman claim about mixed - sex conversations ?
- men speak on average for twice as long as women
Why did Fishman say that women ask more questions ?
- as it strengthens the possibility that they will get a response
Why did Fishman say that women use more attention beginnings like “ Look at this “ than men ?
- to make sure they got a response
What theorist challenged the deficit approach ?
Janet Holmes
What did Janet Holmes say ?
- that language is multifunctional and not simply gender based
What did Janet Holmes research say about hedges like “ you know “ ?
- she cites the use of the feminine use of the hedge ‘ you know ‘ as being supportive and also a speakers positive politeness strategy, to mitigate a strong opinion being put forward or to check for agreement or understanding, whereas a deficit reading would show this hedge as meaning uncertainty or unconfidnece of the p4aker
Limitation of Lakoff’s findings ?
- based on personal observations rather than actual scientific studies
What did William O’Barr and Batman Atkins ( 1980 ) argue ?
- that language differences are situation specific, relying on who has the authority and power in a conversation rather than the gender of the people involved
What was O’Barr and Atkins method of research ?
- studied courtroom cases for 30 months, observing a broad spectrum of witnesses, and examining them for the ten basic speech differences between men and women that Lakoff proposed
What did O’Barr and Atkins discover about Lakoff’s speech differences
- were not the result of being a women but of being powerless
What did O’Barr and Atkins conclude ?
- concluded that the quote speech patterns were “ neither characteristic of all women, nor limited to only women “
- a powerful position “may derive from either social standing in larger society and/ or status accorded by the court .
What theory are O’Barr and Atkins under ?
- the difference model
Limitations of O’Barr and Atkins conclusions and study ?
- this specific experiment was undertaken in a courtroom ( a highly pressurised environment ) where a professional female might converge with the judicial hierarchy and may mirror her speech to the person with the most power - the judge.
What was Zimmerman and West’s theory ? ( 1975 )
- that in mixed sex conversations men are more likely to interrupt than women
What idea did O’Barr and Atkins propose about language differences ?
- language differences are situation specific
What did O’Barr and Atkins discover about women who used the lowest frequency of female language ?
- these women had unusually high stats - well educated with middle class backgrounds
What theory are Zimmerman and West under ?
- under the dominance model
What was Zimmerman and West’s method of investigation ?
- used a fair small sample of conversations, recorded by Zimmerman and West. The subjects were white, middle class and under 35.
What did Zimmerman and West report about the conversations between men and women ?
- that in 11 conversations between men and women, men used 46 interruptions but women only two
What did Zimmerman and West conclude from their study ?
- Since men interrupt more often, they are more dominant
Limitation of Zimmerman and West’s study ?
- only tested on a small number of subjects with narrow ethnographic range.
How did Geoffrey Beattie challenge/criticise the study of Zimmerman and West ?
- claimed to have recorded 10 hours of tutorial discussions and some 557 interruptions ( compared with 55 recorded by Zimmerman )
- He concluded that women and men interrupted with more or less equal frequency.
What is the difference theory ?
- these theories believe that men and women are simply different, not necessarily seeking dominance or showing a deficit
What six contrasts does Tanner use to represent speech differences between male and females ?
- status vs support
- independence vs intimacy
- advice vs understanding
- orders vs proposals
- conflict vs compromise
What work did Esher Grief do ?
- examined gender differences in the use of two conversational management techniques , interruptions and simultaneous speech, during conversations between parents and pre - school children
What conversational techniques did Esher Grief examine ?
- interruptions and simultaneous speech
What was Esher Grief’s method for examining the gender differences ?
- Participants were 16 children, ages 2 to 5, and both their parents.Each parent - child pair engaged in semi structured play for 30 minutes
Conclusions of Esher Grief’s examinations
- No significant differences between boys and girls in the use of these two conversational techniques
- However, fathers interrupted more and spoke simultaneously more than mothers did
What does Esher Grief’s conclusions link to ?
- power differences between men and women
Do women talk more than men ?
- this has become part of folk linguistics and accepted over the years
What study challenges the idea that women talk more than men
- Onnela’s recent study
Conclusions from the Onnela’s study ?
- found that both genders’ mean length of utterance was very similar
- What differed was the context
- Women tended to talk more in same - sex conversations
Method of the Pennebaker study ?
- subjects wore a ‘ sociometer ‘ similar to a smartphone which collected data about their mean length of utterance
- He studied call centre employees and students
Foundings of Pennebaker study ?
- Similar to Anneal
- context was the differentiating factor
- Men spoke more when in larger groups ( six or more ) whereas women were more comfortable in groups of two or three
Who put forward the Deficit Model ?
- Otto Jesperson
Limitations of Otto Jesperson Deficit Theory ?
- was published in 1922
- based on the ‘ male as norm ‘
- put together by less than scientific evidence such as word of mouth tales from travellers
What did O’Barr and Atkins study evidence ?
- a ‘ powerless language ‘ constructed by social status
- ## social background is the key variable in this instance
What studies challenged Lakoff’s view that women used more tag questions ?
- Dubois and Crouch
- O’ Leary
Findings of Dubois and Crouch study ?
- found that at times men used them more
- However, genders used them in different ways.
- men used them to express uncertainty
- Women used them to facilitate conversation
Findings of O’Leary study ?
- role ( context ) that encouraged use of tag questions
- Most powerful participants ( radio doctor, teacher ) used them to check understanding or seek further information
What are the four types of tag questions that Janet Holmes identified ?
- Epistemic modal tags to express uncertainty, usually in high rising tone
- Facilitative tags, which politely invite other people into conversation )
- Softening tags, which soften the blow of an a negative politeness act
- Challenging tags, which are confrontational and face threatening
Who coined the term ‘ doing gender ‘ ?
- Zimmerman and West
What is ‘ doing gender ‘ ?
-implies that we talk according to learned acceptable rather than being innately hardwired to talk certain ways
What do Zimmerman and West mean by ‘ doing gender ‘ ?
- language choices are constructed to meet expectations of a society, to be successful rather than failures in our conversations, gender being omnipresent
Findings of Beattie’s study ?
- showed that women and men interrupted with more or less equal frequency
Study analysis of Beattie’s study ( was it better than Zimmerman and West’s )
- his corpus analysis was much larger and recorded 100 times more interruptions than Zimmerman and West ( 557 compared to 55 )
View of Dale Spender about language ?
- language as embodying structures that sustain male power (
Finding of Shaw’s study ?
- found that women very rarely used unparliamentary language, e.g. shouting, jeering, posited, due to being in a minority, as you ‘ observe the rules meticulously as a symbolic way of showing that you are worthy of belong’.
What did Trudgill ( 1970 ) want to find out ?
- whether there was a difference in register ( formality ) and whether this was linked to social class rather than nature of being male or female.
Findings of Trudgill’s study ?
- found that men were less likely and women more likely to use the pronunciation of certain speech sounds
- In aiming for higher prestige, women tended towards hyper correctness
- Men would often use a low - prestige pronunciation - thereby seeking covert prestige by appearing ‘ tough’ or ‘ down to earth ‘
What were the three main strands of ‘ House talk ‘
- Scandal
- Bitching
- Chatting
What theory does the Harness Goodwin theory challenge ?
- the dominance theory
Method of study of Harness Goodwin theory ( 2008 )
?
- studied 9- 12 year old girls over three years
Findings of Harness Goodwin theory ?
- found plenty of evidence of supposedly masculine language used by these young girls,
- e.g. direct orders, challenging behaviour, boasting about skills and wealth
Why can the difference approach be harmful to both genders ?
- men are socialised into believing they cannot be nurturing or show any sign of feminine language.
- women who do not fit the nurturing stereotype can be penalised in occupations and relationships.
What did Deborah Cameron look at and agree with Coates about to do with men’s language ?
- ’ being a man’ in Western culture is ‘ not being a women’
What did Deborah Cameron suggest about societal pressures on men ?
- men are still under pressure in society to constitute themselves as masculine linguistically, avoiding forms of talk primarily associated with women / femininity
What is the term ‘ verbal hygiene ‘ ?
- that both men and women are socialised into ‘ proper’ ways of talking that match and uphold gender expectations
What did Kuiper suggest about the use of insults and swearing ?
- to express solidarity
Findings of Kuiper’s study ?
- found that NZ rugby team used a a large amount of taboo language ( compared to a NZ volleyball team )
- including that of sexual humiliation ( e.g. waer ), insulting teammates to female genitalia ( e.g. ct ), hinting at effeminacy and lack of prowess.
Why does insults between men create solidarity ?
- it creates solidarity because team members know they can make face threatening acts to one another
