Genderlect

• Language and gender: two approaches

  Representation

  • Representations of femininity/ masculininity
  • Inclusive/ exclusive terms
  • Gender markes/ gender neutral
  • Pronouns
  • terms of adress
  • nouns

  Genderlect

  -Conversational styles

  -Dominance/ deficit of difference

  -Lexical choices

  -Politeness

  -Language and construction of gender identity
• Genderlect

  How can we know if they are a product of actual differences in sex or just result of cultural/ social differnces?

  • Spoken mode- Phonology (accent/ pitch);
  • Speech style esp in discourse
• Different theoretical models

  There are four main models for describing differences in gendered speech styles:

  • Deficit- how women's speech contributes to their a lack of power/ status in society.
  • Dominance- how men's speech styles, a particularly in mixed gender talk, leads them to dominate women in conversation.
  • Difference- looks at genders as distinctive subcultures with differing styles, which can lead to miscommunication.
  • Diversity- disputes whether gender has a major effect on language use at all.