English language

• Holmes Observations


  Sweet food usually relate to positive female pet names, Male with loose sexual morals usually have reference to animals e.g., wolf, fox, stud, dog
• J. Stanley (1977)


  Argued there's a negative semantic space for women in language and society e.g. lady doctor instead of doctor, Use of marked noun by adding -ess or qualifier lady
• Otto Jespersen (1922)


  Language: It's Nature: Development and Origin, Outlined how women talk without any thought, so they don't complete their sentences, Also described their speech as lively chatter
• Beattie (1982)


  Interruptions in mixed-sex conversation, Studied 10 hours of tutorial discussion
• Men


  • Interrupted women in 34.1% of floor exchanges
• Women


  • Interrupted men 33.8% of floor exchanges
• Robin Lakoff (1975)


  Language and a Women's Place, Features of women's speech: hedging, empty adjectives, over apologizing, lack of humour, tag questions, uptalk
• Janet Holmes (1984)


  Use of tag questions in men and women
• Women


  • Used more facilitative tags, might not be due to a lack of confidence
• Men


  • Used tag questions to express uncertainty more
• Zimmerman and West (1875)

  Interruptions in mixed-sex convos, Collected data from 11 cross-sex convos, participants were all white middle-class uni students (20-35 yrs)
• Concluded that

  • Men don't view women as equal conversational partners, Women have a more submissive conversational role, Men interrupted 96% of the time
• Jennifer Coates (1989)


  All- female talk features: Hedging, Highly personal topics, Jointly constructed utterances
• All-female talk


  • Is cooperative in nature, Features are not seen in mixed sex convos because of varying socio-cultural expectations
• Jennifer Coates (1989)


  Features of all-male interaction: Impersonal topics- achievements rather than feelings, 1 person holding the floor at a time, Quick-fire banter, Questions to seek info
• Jane Pilkington (1992)


  All-female talk, Women were more collaborative and used more positive politeness strategies, In all-male talk men were seen to be less supportive + complimentary
• Koenraad Kuiper (1991)


  All-male talk in members of a rugby team, Men were unlikely to see the need to save face (positive/ negative politeness strategies), Instead used insults to express support
• O'Barr and Atkins (1980)


  Studied speech of witnesses in a courtroom for 30 months, Features of women's speech (Lakoff) weren't limited to women, Saw similarities between housewives – male ambulance drivers (non-standard form, hedging), And female doctors – male policemen (jargon, direct lang.), Use of features of women's speech was linked with powerlessness
• ESRC (2017)


  Use of taboo/ swear words in men and women, Studied 3 hours of daily convos from 400 women and men