Language and Gender Theories

Language and Gender Theories

1. Deficit Approach - Lakoff

   • women's language is weak and deficient, reflecting their lower social standing
   • more insecure and less assertive
   • specialised lexical field of domestics
   • precise descriptions
   • weaker expletives
   • empty adjectives
   • tag questions
     • Holmes challenged that tag questions are weak, instead seeing them as cooperative features to aid politeness
   • euphemisms, politer forms and avoidance of certain topics
   • hedges
   • intensifiers

2. Dominance Approach

   • men's language is used to assert their dominance
   • men interrupt more in mixed-sex talk

3. Difference Approach

   • men and women belong to different subcultures which have different uses for language
     • men more concerned with their status and independence whilst women like to form bonds
   • women's language is collaborative, supportive and cooperative with more politeness features, particularly in same-sex talk
   • men's language contains more insults and ignores face needs in same-sex talk

4. Spender

   • objects have been given genders
     • e.g. boats and cars are 'female' because they are objects of status traditionally under the control of men
   • we unconsciously view the world from a dominant-male perspective

5. Stanley

   • there are over 200 insults for women about their promiscuity alone whilst there are only 20 for men
   • Male promiscuity isn't as frowned upon, so they are freer from society's restraints