Language and Gender By Susan Ehrlich (The Handbook of Applied Linguistics, 2004) Juliana Brugnetti do Prado

Introduction to part I – Linguistics Applied (L-A) “(…) If they regard themselves as linguists applying linguistics because they wish to validate a theory, that is linguistics applied (L-A). If they see themselves as applied linguists because they seek a practical answer to a language problem, that is applied linguistics (A-L). Having made that distinction, we offered the caveat: ‘We do, of course, recognize that in some, perhaps many, cases the researcher will have both interests at heart.’” (p. 19) “In Section 4 (…) while the traffic is both ways, what seems primary is the light thrown by these functions (of language) on the language itself. (…) Section 4 concerns applied linguistics in terms of language use.” (p. 23) “Susan Ehrlich (Language and gender) maintains that people do gender through the linguistic choices they make. Gendered language is therefore (deliberate) choice made by speakers.” (p. 23)

Introduction The conceptions of gender as fixed and static have been replaced over the years by a more dynamic view – the one that admits that gender is a constructed trait of nature. However, recent studies are more focused, as the author mentions, on the performative state of gender: the social practices are forming or, in other words, ‘bringing it into life’. Within this vision, linguistic practices are a very important means to construct gender, a dynamic and ongoing process. Whereas sociolinguistics may say that a young black man uses language in a determinate way because of his identity as a social subject, the “critical account” (p. 304) perceives language as one of the members of constitution of his identity as a social subject – “who you are (and taken to be) is dependent on how you act.” (p. 305, quoting Cameron, 1995)

But how is this process of constructing gender? According to constructionist approaches, these “social performances” (the author does not mention the expression choices) are within a “rigid regulatory frame”, by which they make cultural sense – in the terms of Butler (1990), “socially instituted and maintained norms of intelligibility”. There are, undoubtedly, some objections to studies that take this approach. As an example, Stokoe and Smithson (2001) argue that, when determining how speakers do gender (femininity or masculinity), the analysts may interpret data in terms of stereotypical categories of femininity and masculinity, which seem to perpetuate gender dichotomies more than interrogating them. Ehrlich objects to: - theorize empirically based-studies that have not been contextualized ; and - give empirical substance to theories that may remain abstract, especially in feminist philosophical discussions.

Historical Overview: From “Dominance” and “Difference” to Social Constructionism “difference” between men and women as a presupposition to research. The first explanation – The dominance approach (Cameron, 1992): male dominance operating in everyday interactions between men and women. An example could be Lakoff and his work Language and Woman’s Place (1975): women use linguistic features of powerlessness (e.g. tag questions, declaratives with rising intonation), reflecting their subordinate status relative to men. Another explanation would be the “difference” or the “dual cultures” approach (Cameron, 1992): women and men learn different styles of communication based on the segregated same-sex groups they participate in as children.

A criticized aspect was the fact that most of researches in the 1970’s and 1980’s were only conducted with limited populations (white, North American, middle class subjects engaged in cross-sex conversation). A research at that time, for example, concluded that women’s speech style is cooperative, while men’s is competitive; Freed and Greenwood (1996), on the other hand, demonstrated that, when involved in same-sex interactions with friends, both men and women presented a very similar speech style, usually associated with the so-called “women’s cooperative style”. Therefore, they could conclude that the exigencies to a particular type of talk, and not gender, were responsible for the occurrence of that speech style.

Social Constructionist Approaches to Language and Gender Gendered traits are products of social and cultural constructions, and may be more accurately described as “contextually determined” (Bohan, 1997). Goodwin’s finding on an ethnographic study of urban African American children in Philadelphia: in certain activities, all-girls groups and all-boys- groups took similar hierarchical speech styles. Based on this, the researcher suggests that stereotypes about women’s speech fall apart when considering a range of activities (different contexts).

Gender should be examined within “communities of practice” (a wider concept than “activities” – “aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagement in common endeavor”). They do not perceive gender as an attribute of an individual; instead, the individuals produce themselves as gendered when engaging in practices (communities of practices) linked to cultural understandings of gender. For Ochs (1992), a direct indexical relation between linguistic forms and gender is exemplified by personal pronouns that denote sex/gender, for example. However, an indirect indexical relation assumes that the relation is mediated by social acts and stances that are generally gendered in a given community. The concept of “communities of practice” (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet)

Tag questions in English – they may convey a stance of uncertainty and in some English-speaking communities, this trait is often related to femininity. Nevertheless, as Ochs says, linguistic forms are so dynamic and multifunctional that the indexing process is not an exclusive relationship (tag question uses in a trial conveying coercion, trait typically associated to masculinity, for example). Possibility that gendered linguistic practices may vary across cultures, and across individuals of the same sex/gender in a given culture; Possibility that individuals can appropriate linguistic practices considered not correspondent to the normative expectation in their social group.

Variation across Cultures: Language and Gender in Bilingual and Multilingual Settings Restricted exposure to the prestigious language Women as cultural ‘brokers’ Women as innovators in social change While there is a generalization in second language acquisition literature about female learners superiority, these studies show that it is actually very difficult and complex to draw generalizations referring to the way gender interact with second language acquisition and bilingualism.

Variation within Gender Categories: Variation Theory and Communities of Practice “Women are considered to use more standard linguistic variants than men do.” (p. 314) Understanding that, linguistic behavior, linked with the context, becomes gendered as feminine because women in western industrialized societies are more often in these contexts. Example of Eckert’s study on Detroit high school boys and girls.

“(…) standard language usage seems to be actively pursued by those young women who identify themselves with the school’s corporate culture (and the middle class aspirations it supports); it is roundly avoided by those who reject such an identification.” (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 1995) Instead of supporting the view of women using more standard varieties than men do, the generalization seems to be that girls, more than boys, are expressing their category membership through the symbolic resources of language.

Similarity across Gender Categories: Drawing upon “Masculine” and “Feminine” Repertoires Women are said to develop cooperative speech styles because of the non- hierarchical nature of all-girl groups, whereas men are said to develop competitive speech styles because “boys play in larger, more hierarchically organized groups than do girls” (Maltz & Borker, 1982). Coates (1996, 1997): male friends avoided interruptions and overlaps and adhered to a one-at-a-time speech, while the women friends employed a collaborative mode of speech, privileging the voice of the group over the voice of the individual.

Ehrlich says that, in naturalistic settings, women are more likely to be found in contexts associated with femininity, and men, in contexts associated with masculinity. However, she also states that, according to Freed, an experimental situation that positioned men and women in symmetrical social relations, performing the same tasks, emerged in men and women the same kind of speech. McElhinny’s (1995) study of the interactional styles of male and female police officers in Pittsburgh. McElhinny’s study also approaches to the performative nature of gender: if gender is something we do, and not something we are or intrinsically have, when placed in contexts traditionally linked with the other gender, subjects will emerge the social practices also associated with that gender – and this may not be an option of choice. Example of hijras – Kira Hall’s work. Cameron (1996, p. 46) observes there is an important sense in which “we are all like the hijras.” Aspect of agency ascribed to individuals under the performative thesis of gender. (Limited agency – by the “rigid regulatory frame” and the fact that this is not always 100% conscious choices, sometimes it’s not even an option)

Institutional Coerciveness For some feminist linguists (such as Wodak, 1997), the performative theory of gender ignores the power relations that underlie situations in which gender is constructed. For Cameron (1997) and Kulick, the performative approach does acknowledge these power relations when mentioning the “rigid regulatory frame”, and subjects cannot simply “choose to put on or take off genders the way they put on or take off clothes”. Gal, in turn, argues that the investigation of language and gender in informal conversations has many limitations, because men and women primarily interact in institutions such as workplaces, schools, families and political forums. Thus, investigating language and gender in informal conversational interactions may create the illusion that gendered speech is mainly a personal characteristic. However, many feminist researches have revealed that genders are structuring principles of institutions.

Institutions and their ability to “coerce” performances of gender. This view does not perceive gender constructions as a result exclusively of actions of an individual, but as the consequence of the way an individual is positioned by others, in an institution. Ehrlich’s work analyses data from sexual assault trials and the way the institutional discourse can “coerce” performances of gender. Trial discourse: question-answer format; witnesses are disabled to initiate conversational turns (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998). Presuppositions in questions form an “ideological frame” through which the events are judged. She noted that principles of the “utmost resistant standard” were still present in the discourses of sexual assault adjudication processes. (The “utmost resistance standard principle” is the idea that the victims did not resist the assaulter to the utmost, and if they did, they have to prove they did.) At the end, the tentative of the complainants to posit themselves as resistant to the accused is transformed into an interpretation that they were infective in their resistance. She concludes that this occurs because the performances of the gendered discourse produced are coerced by the dominant discourse (the utmost resistance standard).

Benedict (1992, 1993) and Clark (1998) demonstrate that rape reports in media depicted rapists as crazy, evil, sexual maniacs, instead of women’s own husbands, stepfathers, neighbors, family members, etc. These reports both curtail women’s freedom by creating the notion of unsafety and fear of violence in public and open spaces, and a false sense of security in situations when, in fact, they are most vulnerable. Polanyi (1995) and her study of American university students in a Russian study- abroad program. In the terms of the discussions established by Ehrlich, it was not the case that young women were less gifted; the discourse performed by both men and women was impregnated with gendered ideologies and power relations. The women in her study became proficient in a direct response to their positioning within a wider institution; therefore, we can see how the linguistic identity may be subject to institutional coerciveness.

Main conclusions provided by Ehrlich Identities are constructed through social practices, a very important means to do so; at the same time, gendered ideologies and power relations can constrain these constructions of gender. The importance of how institutional forces (such as the media reports or the trials discourses) can contribute to perpetuate violence against women, also shaping the linguistic identities men and women produce.