The deficit model

• The deficit model suggests that women’s language is inherently weaker than males
• Theorist Lakoff in the 1970s, believes that these features of female speech make it inferior ;

  Hedging - weakening your opinion ‘sort of‘.

  Back-channeling passively agreeing ‘mhm’

  Weak adjectives - e.g ‘nice’

  Tag questions

  Said women have no sense of humour
• Theorists O’Barr and Atkins found that men also use deficit language features in a project where a man and a women were paired up and they all used hedging and TAG questions, suggesting that deficit features of language relate to being powerless, not gender
• Lira Hall - linguist supporting Lakoff. 


  Female phone sex workers use features of Lakoff’s deficit model features to appear more feminine