Language and Gender

Language and Gender

1. Zimmerman & West

   • Overlapps and interruptions
     • 96% from men, women made up only 4% of interruptions and they fell silent after male interruptions

2. Holmes

   • Questions and Tag questions
     • Facilitative - demand response Epistemic - show uncertainty Challenging - challenge recipient Softening tags - less threatening
     • Men use more epistemic tags which undermines dominance model. Women use more questions than men, particularly facilitative
   • Politeness strategies
     • Men use less politeness strategies as they are more detached in conversation. Women involve others and therefore use more

3. Conversation Structure

   • Coates
     • Turn-taking
       • Men use a one-at-a-time structure whereas women use a shared floor
   • Topic Shift
     • Men 'hold the floor' and initate more than women whereas women only initiate in a domestic context and are often silenced by lack of male response

4. Coates

   • Taboo/euphemisms and expletives
     • Men use more expletives and are supoosedly threatened by women doing the same, but women typically prefer euphemisms

5. Lexis

   • Lexical Asymmetry
     • Words that appear equal but actually have unequal connotations
       • E.g. King and Queen - Queen is often of lower status than king, for example in a deck of cards
   • Lexical gap
     • When there is not a word for one of the sexes E.g no male equivalent for the word 'slut'
   • Marked and unmarked terms
     • Adding a suffix to a lexical item to make the female version
       • Suggests the male version is original and 'proper' such as 'actor' to 'actress'
   • Patronising Terms
     • Belittling women by using terms that refer to other things that need to be cared for (e.g. doll) consumed (e.g. cupcake) based on appearance (e.g. gorgeous)
   • Order of precedence
     • The order in which we typically say terms of address
       • Males comes first in most cases e.g. Mr and Mrs, King and Queen, Brother and Sister etc

6. Coates

   • Minimal Responses
     • Women make supportive, well placed MR's whereas men make them too late which indicate a lack of interest
   • Hedging
     • Men hedge less as they are more direct whereas women like to be more subtle and make their statements retractable
   • Topics
     • Men prefer topics that allow them to take it in turns being the expert