1. Chapter Five
Gender and Language

2. Gender and Language
“Women are the decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly.”
Oscar Wilde

3. Gender Differences in Language Use

4. Gender Differences in Language Use
Linguist Deborah Tannen (1991)
Different cultures hypothesis: communication between women and men is as difficult as communication between people from different cultures
Different goals in communication
Women: conversation maintenance; establish and maintain relationships
Men: conversation dominance; display knowledge, avoid disclosure
What do the data say?

5. Gender Differences in Language Use (cont’d.)
Tentativeness
Tag questions: a short phrase added to a sentence, which turns it into a question
E.g., “It’s a nice day, isn’t it?”
Women use slightly more tag questions than men
How do we interpret this finding?
Are women communicating uncertainty or weakness?
Or, are women trying to encourage communication?
Disclaimers and hedges
Disclaimers: phrases such as “I may be wrong, but…”
Hedges: phrases such as “sort of” that weaken or soften a statement
Women use more disclaimers and hedges than men when in mixed-gender (but not single-gender) groups

6. Gender Differences in Language Use (cont’d.)
Intensifiers: adverbs such as very, really, or vastly
Women use intensifiers more than men
What does this difference mean?
Interruptions
Men interrupt women more than women interrupt men
Interruptions have multiple meanings:
Express power, control
Request clarification
Express agreement or support
Express disagreement
Change the subject
Context is important when interpreting interruptions

7. Gender Differences in Language Use (cont’d.)
Children’s Speech
Girls are only slightly more talkative than boys
Girls engage in more affiliative speech (e.g., praise or agreement) than boys
Boys engage in more assertive speech (e.g., criticisms) than girls
Differences are very small
Can You Tell Who’s Speaking?
Gender differences in speech are not found by university students, but are detected by highly trained coders
Gender-linked language effect

8. Gender Differences in Language Use (cont’d.)
Electronic Talk
Gender differences in ?
Women express more emotion, disclose more personal information, use more hedges and intensifiers
No differences in insults, self-derogatory comments, and oppositions
Participants respond differently to a fictitious netpal depending on gendered content from netpal’s communication

9. Body Language: Nonverbal Communication

10. Body Language: Nonverbal Communication
Interpersonal distance
Men prefer larger interpersonal distance than women do
How do we interpret this finding?
Smiling
Women smile more than men do, d= -.41
Why do we smile?
Communicate friendliness?
Communicate subservience?
Part of female role

11. Body Language: Nonverbal Communication (cont’d.)
Eye Contact
Reflects patterns of power and dominance
Visual dominance ratio: the ratio of the percentage of time looking while speaking relative to the percentage of time looking while listening
Men show higher visual dominance, but:
When women have power, they become visually dominant

12. How Women are Treated in Language

13. How Women are Treated in Language
Male as Normative
Male is regarded as standard, norm
E.g., use of he for a neutral pronoun
Language becomes ambiguous
Female-as-the-exception phenomenon: if a category is considered normatively male and there is a female example of the category, gender is noted because the female is the exception; byproduct of androcentrism

14. How Women are Treated in Language (cont’d.)
Parallel Words
Parallel words for males and females often have different connotations:
Dog vs. bitch
Master vs. mistress
Stud vs. slut
Euphemisms
We avoid using “woman” and use euphemisms such as lady, girl to be polite or less threatening
Infantilizing
Women are called by terms that make them less mature than they are; e.g., girl, baby

15. How Women are Treated in Language (cont’d.)
How Important is All This?
Language reflects thought processes
Sexist language is a symptom of larger problem
If we change how we think, language will follow
Alternatively…
Whorfian hypothesis: theory that the language we learn influences how we think
Using sexist language shapes our thoughts about women and men
Both processes occur to some extent

16. How Women are Treated in Language (cont’d.)
Hyde’s Wudgemaker study (1984)
Children’s ratings of the competence of women and men as wudgemakers, as a function of the pronoun they heard repeatedly in the description of the wudgemaker
Pronoun choice affects how children think about women, women’s occupations

17. Some Practical Suggestions

18. Some Practical Suggestions
Toward nonsexist Language
Eliminate the use of generic masculine forms
When a doctor prescribes birth control pills, he should first inquire whether the patient has a history of blood clotting problems
When doctors prescribe birth controls, they should first inquire whether the patient has a history of blood clotting problems
A doctor prescribing birth control pills should first inquire whether the patient has a history of blood clotting problems
When a doctor prescribes birth control pills, he or she should first inquire whether the patient has a history of blood clotting problems

19. Some Practical Suggestions (cont’d.)
Institutional Change
Textbook publishers, American Psychological Association, Webster’s Dictionary have policies of avoiding sexist language
Language, Women, and Careers
Women who use tentative rather than assertive speech are more influential to men
Women who use assertive rather than tentative speech are more influential to women
Women must strike a delicate balance in speech

20. In Conclusion

21. In Conclusion Tannen’s different cultures hypothesis
Gender differences in communication styles are actually small and depend on context
The meaning of gender differences is unclear
Male-as-normative language pattern may contribute to early social construction of gender for children