Gender and Language

Robin Lakoff 1960's-1970's
1. Women's language features
  1. Lexical hedges, Tag questions, Rising intonation on declaratives, Empty Adjectives, Precise colour terms, Intensifiers, Hypocorrect grammar, Superpolite forms, Avoidance of strong swear words, Emphatic stress.
    1. Lakoff says people who use these features will seem weak, unassertive, un-confident and unauthoriative.
      1. Vicious circle that creates and reproduces gender inequalities.
        Women's language reflects their lack of power and authority in society.
        Learn these features through interaction, socialisation and social expectations of how a woman should behave.
    2. Tag questions don't have a simple single function. Don't always express tentativeness and lack of confidence. Creates form and function problem.
      1. Modal Meaning - degree of certainty
        Affective meaning - Facilitative tags builds up positive face. 'You've done that well haven't you?' Softening tags tries to soften the force of a face threatening act 'That was pretty daft wasn't it?'
      2. Men use them just as much as women
      3. Cameron, McAlinden & O'Leary
        They were concerned gender wasn't the only factor affecting the use of tag questions. Like O'Barr & Atkins they point out women are not a homogenous group.
        Individual women carry different status in relation to each other and to men
        Tag questions needs to be considered with the external factors of the conversation topic and the conversational role.
        Women did use more tag questions than men overall
        Men use more modal tag questions. Might reflect tentativeness or a desire to force other people to accept their views.
        Men used more softening tags
        Women used more facilitative tags - help conversation be positive and supportive of other participants
        More modal tags were used by powerless people
2. O'Barr & Atkins
  1. They tested Lakoff's women's language hypothesis
    1. Analysed how frequently WL features were used in the courtroom testimony of witnesses.
      1. Many scenarios to consider; Social class, age, race, culture. Language use cant be defined just by gender
    2. Findings
      1. Men were more polite when addressing people.
        Women use more quotes which shows they are uncertain of what they're saying and need evidence to back up their statements
        Women were hesitant when speaking.
      2. Gender was not the sole determinant of people's interactional language and behaviour
        Gender was a powerful determinant of people's interactional language and behaviour
        Being female often correlated with lower social status and power than being male
  2. Renamed Lakoff's idea of women's language as Powerless Language
  3. Criticisms
    1. Criticised Lakoff's hypothesis because of the way it viewed women in a simplistic way - Inferior
3. Reflectionism
  1. How society's views affect the language women use.
4. Her research is outdated and could be argued as no longer valid. Only contains data from people within the same sociolect
  1. Collected data from her friends so there's not an equal representation of women.
    1. Not reliable as she made up conversations that she used for evidence and TV shows
      1. Raises the issues as to whether her research has any real validation and relevance
  2. Criticisms
5. Dominance Approach
  1. Believes women are the socially subordinate group. it sees women's and men's interactional styles as a reflection of their different social status.
    1. Women's powerless language is a contributor to the maintenance of women's social position as they're more likely to be easily dominated by men who have a powerful style.
Deborah Tannen
1. Men use language to maintain independence & hierachy as they like being centre stage.
  1. Women always speak as if they are in private
    1. Men are more comfortable speaking in public. Better at speaking in groups.
    2. Women criticise peers who try to stand out
2. Difference Approach
  1. Not down to social status but instead how they are brought up
  2. Women's language is supportive and co-operative. It works to develop and foster good relationships. The difference approach treats men and women as belonging to two distinct sub cultures with their own norms and expectations. Although which valuing women's language as different, linguists have admitted that when women and men interact, men often dominate.
    1. Researchers acknowledge that there are times when a men's style is appropriate for a particular situation.
    2. Treats women's language as positive and important
3. Rapport and Report Talk - Women use' Rapport', for socialising and building relationships. Men use 'Report' to relay information.
Zimmerman & West
1. Investigated whether there was any difference in women's and men's turn taking in interaction
  1. Taped 2 participant conversations. Examined when smooth speaker switches did and didn't happen
    1. Overlaps - this is a feature of co-operative conversations. Shows interest and enthusiasm. - Think they have finished speaking but they haven't.
      1. Interruptions- this is a feature of competitive conversation - know the speaker hasn't finished but interrupt anyway.
    2. Findings
      1. Same sex pairs appear to be more comfortable and conversation flows without many interruptions
        Men interrupt more in conversations than women and they have more overlaps
        Men are more dominant in conversations and feel they have the authority
      2. Criticisms
        Don't know if the participants know eachother.
        Not aware of the topics discussed.
        Doesn't state the ages between the pairs
      3. Men gave less back channel noises and that it was often delayed
        more dominant so have less reason to agree with covnersations
        Women hold back & more polite when speakng
2. Turn Taking & Topic Control
Janet Holmes 1986
1. Difference Approach
2. Holmes based her research on Brown and Levinson's idea of positive and negative face. she says that women use more positively orientated politeness and that men use more negatively orientated politeness.
  1. Men use language as a tool to give and obtain information
  2. Women use language as a means of keeping in touch - Social Function
  3. Hypothesis that women use compliments to build connections. while men use compliments to make evaluative judgements.
Jennifer Coates
1. Investigated 'gossip'. the taped conversations held between groups of women who met for social purposes. (weekly meeting in their homes)
  1. She gained their permission - potentially observers paradox?
    1. Difference Approach
      1. She refuses to see it as weak language. she puts emphasis on the positive qualities and contrasts these with the undesirable aspects of male talk.
      2. She argues that men and women have different expectations about the way that conversations should work.
        Clash of styles and it's possible that this leads to the ignoring or silencing of women in conversation.
  2. Progressive and collaborative topic development- Men often have far more abrupt topic breaks
    1. Use of minimal responses - back channel to support speakers (Zimmerman & West found the same)
      1. Rare use of interruptions - Simultaneous speech was frequent but support. (overlapped)
        Frequent use of language forms to protect the face of other participants. (Modal auxiliaries and tag questions) helps to maintain social relationships and avoid conflict.
    2. Coates found 4 characteristics that separated women's talk from men's.
      1. Women tnd to see conversation as an opportunity to discuss problems, share experiences and offer reassurance and advice
2. Co-operative women and Competitive Men

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