Paper 2: Language and Gender

Difference, dominance, deficit, dynamic 4 main gender theories Difference, dominance, deficit, dynamic

Difference Theory Sugg males and females really do converse differently. Deborah Tannen. Believes: difference starts in childhood, where parents use more words about feelings to girls and use more verbs to boys. Males and females belong to difference sub-cultures and therefore speak differently. You Just Don't Understand (1990), claims tsix main differences between the ways males and females use language: Status vs. support - men see language as a means of asserting dominance; women see it as a way of confirming/supporting ideas. Independence vs. intimacy - men "go it alone"; women seek support. Advice vs. understanding - men see language as problem solving; women see it as a means of empathy. Information vs. feelings - males are concerned with the facts; women with emotions. Orders vs. proposals - men use imperatives; females use hidden directives. Conflict vs. compromise - men will argue; women will try to find a middle ground.

Tannen also said: Women: Men: Talk too much Get more air time Speak in private contexts Speak in public Build relations Negotiate status/avoid failure Overlap Speak one at a time Speak symmetrically Speak asymmetrically

AO2 Challenge theories Tannen’s theory, Deborah Cameron argues is merely a myth... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/01/gender.books and as Dale Spender put it, it perhaps stems from the idea that in an ideal world, women wouldn't talk at all...

Christine Howe (1997) Propounds the following: Men have strategies for gaining power and are much more likely to respond to what is being said. Thus makes it harder for the listener to participate in the conversation. Women are more active listeners. They use minor interjections, such as "uh huh" and "oh really" (back-channeling). The differences between male and female conversation begins at socialisation (ages 3-4).

Ann Weatherall (2002) Women's talk is co-operative. Men's talk is competitive. Women are more likely to use hedging, "sort of" "kind of"... Women speak for less time and are less likely to interrupt. Females use more tag questions:

Jane Pilkington(1992) Bakery research Over a period of nine months. She found: Women talk to affirm solidarity and maintain social relationships. Women focus on feelings, personal anecdotes and relationships. Women support, build on each others' points and complete others' utterances Women agree frequently. Men find long pauses (thinking time) acceptable. Men frequently disagree and challenge others' points. Their conversation is competitive to a point of verbal abuse. They take part in verbal sparring, often using mock insults.

Dominance theory- William O'Barr and Bowman Atkins wrote a book called Women's Language Or a Powerless Language? (1980): Studied the language of the courtroom and found: female lawyers to be assertive, interrupt, everything that Pilkington argued for males. witnesses of both sexes would use Robin Lakoff's weak "female" language. (They concluded that these weak language traits are actually a "powerless language" rather than a "female language") Suggests that it is not so much differences in the sexes' language, more the situations that they face which result in the difference. If there is a difference in language, it is because males have always dominated in both the home and workplace, and females have had to play the domestic roles.

Robin Lakoff (1975) Combined elements of dominance and deficiency (another theory that claims women's language is weaker because it's EXPECTED to be weaker) and created a set of female characteristics: Women hedge. Women use super polite forms: "Would you please...?" "I'd really appreciate it if..." Women speak in italics (use more prosodic features): It's soooo nice... They use empty adjectives: divine, lovely, adorable... They use modal verbs: should, would... Overuse qualifiers. "I think that..." They use mitigated responses and hidden directives. (e.g I just …) They have special lexis for things like colours and cloth. They avoid coarse language and expletives. Women can't tell jokes.

Dale Spender(1980) Also adheres to dominance approach. Key research ‘Man-made Language (1980) argues: "The crux of our difficulties lies in being able to identify and transform the rules which govern our behavior and which bring patriarchal order into existence. … While we can modify, we must none the less use the only language, the only classification scheme which is at our disposal… But that very language and the conditions for its use in turn structure a patriarchal order."

‘Deficit’ school of thought Attributed to Jespersen (1922) defines adult male language as the standard, and women's language as deficient. created a dichotomy between women's language and men's language. triggered criticism to the approach in that highlighting issues in women's language by using men's as a benchmark. Suggestion is that women's language was considered to have something inherently 'wrong' with it.

Dynamic (or social constructionist) approach Instead of speech falling into a natural gendered category, the dynamic nature and multiple factors of an interaction help a socially appropriate gendered construct. As such, West and Zimmerman (1987) describe these constructs as ‘doing gender’ (Cameron calls it ‘performing gender’ instead of the speech being classified in a particular category. Social constructs, while affiliated with particular genders, can be utilized by speakers as they see fit. Cameron study (2000) call centre operators in the UK, where these operators are trained to be scripted in what they say and to perform the necessary ‘emotional labour’ commonly associated with feminine domain (smiling, expressive intonation, showing rapport/empathy and giving minimal responses) for their customer-callers. Cameron highlights that it is possible that with time, more men may work in this service industry, and this may lead to a subsequent "de-gendering" of this linguistic style (Cameron, D. (2000) "Styling the Worker: Gender and the Commodification of Language in the Globalized Service Economy.", Journal of Sociolinguistics 4:3: 323-347)

Semantic derogation: Occurs when the female term in a male/female pair will acquire negative connotations over time. For example, the two words "bachelor" and "spinster" have the same denotation (dictionary definition), to be unmarried, but very different connotations (psychological associations) Master Lord Patron Governor Mistress Lady Matron Governess

Political Correctness Aims to find the gender pairs and replace them with more gender-neutral terms: police officer, chair person, fire fighter, etc. Hope to break down the ingrained connotations that 'fireman' and 'police man' are men's job, while 'dinner lady' is a female occupation. N.B Political correctness approach has its critics though: e.g those who ask ludicrously if "manhole" should be changed to personhole and "Manchester" to "Personchester".

AO2 Critical evaluation of theories critical evaluation of Laskey's data set GenderdataDavidLaskeyTable2.docx.docx

Evaluate the idea that men and women speak differently' Group work Discuss the following exam question in groups: Evaluate the idea that men and women speak differently'