H714 Language Variation: Gender and Language October 31, 2006 Kendra Winner

Agenda  Course Administration One Minute Papers Take-home essays  Wrapping up Language Socialization  Introduction to Identity and Language  Gender: Core Theories

Course Administration  One Minute Papers Variation, variation, variation  Take-home essays

Wrapping up Language Socialization  Childhood Socialization  Acquiring Discourse Styles – Narrative and argumentation  Acquiring Literacy

Gender Core Theories: Reading and Class Objectives  Familiarity with core concepts regarding the relationship between identity and linguistic choice.  Knowledge of the historical trends and evolution in gender and language research  Critical understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the major theoretical positions on gender and language.

In the examples in front of you: 1) What issues/themes of language and identity are raised? 2) How does language invoke these issues of identity?

Identity and Language  Language is used to express and create role relationships between individuals: Power (A > B) Solidarity (A=B) Social allegiances (A and B are both C’s)

Language and Identity  Linguistic variation is a tool for us to “construct ourselves as social beings, to signal who we are and who we are not and cannot be.” Lippi-Green, R. (1997). English with an Accent, New York: Routledge.

What kind of a problem is identity?  From Binary Categories … Black/White Gay/Straight Female/Male Working class/Middle class  …. To Local, Activity-based identities Diversity of identities within categories Identities are achieved, not assigned

Anzaldua, 1990  When we come into possession of a voice, we sometimes have to choose with which voice (the voice of the dyke, the Chicana, the professor, the master), in which voice (first person, third, vernacular, formal) or in which language (Black English, Tex-Max, Spanish, academese) to speak and write in.”

Gender Variation  U.S. Conversational topic control Interruptions Listener support  Japan Phonology ([i] and [r] deletion)  Iya da wa (male) Ya da wa (female) Lexical features

Theoretical Explanations  Historical Context  Dominance/Deviance Approach (Lakoff, Fishman)  Difference Approach (Maltz & Borker, Zentella)  Community of Practice Approach (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet)

Do women talk more than men?  Where there are women and geese, there’s noise. (Japanese)  The North Sea will sooner be found wanting in water than a woman at a loss for words. (Jutland)  The woman with active hands and feet, marry her, but the woman with overactive mouth, leave well alone. (Maori)  Foxes are all tail and women are all tongue (UK)  Where there’s a woman, there’s no silence (France)  The tongue is the sword of a woman and she never lets it become rusty. (Chinese)

What is gender?  Sex: The biological distinction between male and female in general: The sum of those differences in the structure and function of the reproductive organs on the ground of which beings are distinguished as male and female, and of the other physiological differences consequent on these; the class of phenomena with which these differences are concerned.  Gender: Socially constructed categories based on sex. Often intended to emphasize the social and cultural, as opposed to the biological, distinctions between the sexes.  “Male” and “female” are sex categories, while “masculine” and “feminine” are gender categories.

Dominance/Deficit Approach  Robin Tolmach Lakoff Gender differences in language reflect women’s powerlessness in society Double Bind:  To be accepted as a woman means to talk like a woman  In talking like women, women substantiate their own subordination

Major Criticisms of Dominance/Deficit Approach  Confounds the notions of sex and gender  Deviance model  Assumption of a universal system of meaning making

Difference Approach  Deborah Tannen Rapport vs. Report Status vs. Support Independence vs. Intimacy

Major Criticisms of Difference Approach  Fails to adequately account for power  Doesn’t account for age-related changes in composition of male/female interactions  Speakers cast as “passive”

Community of Practice  Variability in gendered practices and identities  Shared repertoires of linguistic resources  Performative construction and achievement of gendered identities

Major Criticisms of Community of Practice Approach  Doesn’t account for strong social stereotypes and ascriptions  Evidence of innate sexual differences