Gender

• Gendered language - language that carries a bias towards a specific sex or gender.
• Examples of gendered language:

  • ‘Mr’ or ‘Mrs’
  • gender-biased job titles
  • gendered greetings
• Examples of gender-inclusive language:

  • gender-neutral job titles
  • gender neutral greetings
• Deborah Tannen 1990

  • advocate of the ‘Difference theory’ which aims to prove that men+ women do speak in different ways.
  • men see communication as a competition to gain status whereas women communicate to gain support of others.
  • coined the term 'genderlect' to describe the different language use in men + women
• Zimmerman + West (1975) - Dominance Model

  • recorded 31 conversations between 2 people at a time.
  • men were responsible for 96% of the interruptions in the conversations between men + women -> men's dominance seems to lie from their conversational management
  • they found that men speak more in general, interrupt women + respond to women in a minimal-delayed way.
  • whereas women were silent more, for long periods of time + only interrupted women, not men.
• The Double Bind (Tannen) - Women who speak too little are perceived as unintelligent/uninformed but if they speak too much then they are perceived as bossy/aggressive.
• Otto Jeperson 1922

  • deficit theory - believe that men's langauge was the norm
  • argued that women's language could be typified as 'lively chatter' since their roles consisted of -> "The care of children, cooking, brewing, baking, sewing. washing etc, things for that the most part demanded no deep thought"
• Jeperson’s book - ‘Language: It’s nature, development + origin’ 1922:

  Women - talk a lot, simpler words, smaller vocabularies

  Men - larger vocabularies + use more difficult words
• Robin Lakoff’s book ‘Language + Women‘s Place‘ 1975 found:

  Women use more - backchanneling, hedging, intensifiers, apologies, tag questions

  Women use less - slang, swear words, insults
• Deborah Cameron 2012

  • she coined the term ‘verbal hygiene’ in her 2012 book to refer to the ways in which people think they are supposed to speak in order to fit into the norm + meet the expectations of a correct society.
• Henry Fowler (1926) - defines gender as 'a grammatical term only'
• Madison Bentley (1945) - defines gender as the 'socialised obverse of sex'
• Issues around language + gender:

  • language is established, developed + changed within a patriarchal society -> historically, language has been written down + maintained by men
• Robin Lakoff - 'gender is for all the bottom line of our sense of identity'
• Gender Paradox:

  • Labov (2001) coined the term 'gender paradox'
  • He noted that 'women conform more closely than men to sociolinguistic norms that are overtly prescribed, but conform less than men when they are not.'
• Gender Paradox:

  • Labov identifies 3 main principles that constitute the gender paradox:

  1. women use less stigmatised variants + use more prestige variants than men
  2. women adopt prestige forms at a higher rate than men
  3. women use more innovative forms than men
• The Deficit Model:

  • the idea that the language men use is seen as the standard, whereas the language women use differs from the standard and is seen as insufficient
  • this theory portrays women as weaker and of lower status, highlighting the inequality faced by women.
  • supporters of this theory -> Otto Jeperson (1922) and Robin Lakoff (1975)
• Robin Lakoff (1975)

  • looked at a specific group of women (white, middle class + educated) but their findings related to all women
  • labelled women's spoken language as having linguistic features that highlighted women's uncertainty + powerlessness
  • claimed women used 'empty' adjectives, questioning intonation on statement + use hedges
  • these lexical + prosodic choices -> foreground women's lack of authority
• Lakoff (1975) found that women use more:

  • backchanneling - mmm, okay, yeah
  • hedging - kind of
  • intensifiers - thats very nice
  • apologies
  • tag question - don't you?
  • modal verbs - could, would, should
  • wh- imperatives - why don't we...
  • indirect commands - it's cold in here
  • diminutives - how are you, darling?
  • politeness
• O'Barr + Atkins (1980):

  • put forward the dominance model -> idea that one gender or social group has dominance over another in language use.
  • looked at language use in courtrooms - tested Lakoff's hypothesis that features of 'Women's Language' would be used more by women
  • they concluded that these features were more closely linked to power, social status and social class
  • this led them to suggesting 'Powerless Language' would be more accurate for the features that Lakoff identified
• Pamela Fisherman (1983) - Dominance Model

  • found tag questions were used more by women
  • she claimed that women use them to start conversations + sustain dialogue
  • they use them to gain conversational power
  • Fisherman claims that women are the ones doing the 'conversational shitwork', men are unwilling to do this because of what they perceive to be their dominant role
• Difference Theory: theory simple aims to prove that men + women do speak in different ways.

  • Status vs. Support
  • Independence vs. Intimacy
  • Advice vs. Understanding
  • Information vs. Feelings
  • Orders vs. Proposals
  • Conflict vs. Compromise
• Howe (1997):

  • men have strategies for gaining power
  • men are much more likely to respond to what is being said - keen to put their views across
  • makes it hard for the listener to participate in the conversation
  • women are more active listeners
  • differences between male + female conversation begins at socialisation (ages 3-4)
• Pilkington (1992):

  • women talk to affirm solidarity + maintain social relationships.
  • women focus on feelings, personal anecdotes + relationships.
  • women support, build on each others' points + complete others' utterances
  • women agree frequently whereas men frequently disagree and challenge others' points.
• Diversity Theory:

  • the diversity theory argues that there is a difference between sex + gender.
  • it also suggests that the sex we are assigned at birth does not affect the language we use -> the roles we have in society and the way we interact socially influences our language.
  • supporters of this theory - Deborah Cameron + Judith Butler
• Deborah Cameron (2008):

  • criticised the idea that there are innate differences in male + female speech

  “ The idea that men and women ... use language in very different ways and for very different reasons is one of the great myths of our time”

  • she thinks that the differences in gender are because of the expectations placed on us by society
• Cameron (2008) - Stereotypes:

  • women pay more attention to being good communicators than men
  • men have a natural desire to be competitive that results in an aggressive speech style
  • women talk about people, relationships + feelings
  • men talk about fact + things
  • she argues that these myths have acted to shape our expectations of men + women, + the type of linguistic behaviour that we deem to be normal or deviant
• Judith Butler (1990) - Gender Performativity:

  • gender can be seen as a performance
  • she argued that we are constantly engaged in constructing gender -> “It is something we do and not something we are”
  • in order to present themselves as female, women are more likely to use tag questions, less likely to be confrontational, etc.
  • we use language to ‘live up to’ these expectations