Theorists

Theorists

1. Lakoff (1975)

   • Female speech - The Deficit Model
     • Hedges such as 'kind of', empty adjectives, super polite forms, avoid expletives, tag questions, prestige grammar, lack a sense of humour, use of intensifiers, indirect requests

2. Cheshire (1982)

   • Grammatical Variations in speech of young children
     • Non standard uses of 's', 'had', 'what', 'do', 'ain't'

3. Fishman (1983)

   • Female speech - Dominance Model
     • Can be linked to Lakoff's research, use of tag questions at start of speech, women initiate conversation and keep it going

4. Tannen (1990)

   • Differences in male and female language
     • Status v Support, Independence v Intimacy, Advice v Understanding, Information v Feelings, Orders v Proposals, Conflict v Compromise, Competitive Overlaps v Co-operative Overlaps

5. Coates (1989)

   • The Difference Model
     • All women can fit into bitching, scandal, chatting and house talk
       • Girls and boys belong to same sex friendship groups

6. Pilkington (1992)

   • Difference Model
     • Women in same sex conversations were collaborative and used positive politeness, men are less supportive than women

7. Zimmerman and West (1975)

   • Same sex conversations
     • Men interrupt more than women, men seek to dominate talk, men had greater amount of turns, was theory due to only having 11 participants

8. Beattie (1982)

   • Criticism of Z&W - Men and women interrupt with same frequency

9. Trudgill (1974)

   • Prestige Pronunciation
     • Men are less likely to use prestige pronunciation, women aim for higher prestige communication, men try to appear tough and down to earth

10. Byng and Bergwall (1996)

    • Individual Differences
      • Avoid gender polarisation, recognises individual differences, insists on importance of social context

11. Labov (1996)

    • Prestige Pronunciation
      • Overt Prestige - women's pronunciation shows preferences of standard forms. Women's habit of hypercorrection is due to class