Defecit theorist

• Jespersen, 1922: 'Women's language is a projection of their deficiency compared to the male norm. Women's language is deficient because they have an innate deficiency!'
• Characteristics of women's language as deficient


  • Talk a lot
  • Have a smaller vocabulary
  • Tend toward hyperbole
  • Use empty, base adjectives
• Lakoff, 1975: 'Unlike Jespersen, who assumes that women are born deficient, Lakoff concludes that women's language is deficient due to socialisation. Lakoff claimed that women's language is less authoritative/certain than men's.'
• Characteristics of women's language as deficient according to Lakoff

  • Hedge more ('sort of')
  • Use empty, base adjectives
  • Use more tag questions
  • Use more euphemisms
  • Use indirect speech (e.g. crimson instead of red)
  • Use super polite forms and apologetic phrasing
• Criticism by Janet Holmes (1992)
• spender theorised-


  language is male dominated
• Tannen

  men build their status whereas women seek and offer support
• Ahat did Holmes say about tag questions

  Helped mantain discussion and said that these boosted the strength of the argument.
• men interrupted more often and therefore dominate conversation.. Limitations: very small sample, lack of variety in subjects

  Theorist?

  Zimmerman and West
• Tannen said women seek different purposes in their speech


  Status vs support

  Advice vs understanding

  Independence vs intimacy

  Info vs feelings

  Order vs proposals
• Jesperson says male language is the norm and women's is deficient
• spender concluded womens language is

  male dominated
• according to jesperson,did men or women use more non fluency features

  women ex.ummmm
• features that make womens speech weak according to lakoff 


  Lacking a sense of humour, Empty adjectives, Special lexicon, Overuse of intensifiers, A hypercorrect grammar, Over-apologising