DOMINANCE THEORY

• What did Zimmerman and West do?

  1975

  studied male and female conversations in variety of university settings.
• What does the dominance theory claim?

  Lakoff is wrong, women's low social status isn’t caused by deferential behaviour but men seeking to dominate women
• what did Zimmerman and West find?

  men rarely interrupted one another but frequently interrupt women

  women frequently overlap each other but don't overlap men

  in 11 conversations, men interrupted 46 times, women 2 times
• flaws of Zimmerman and West?

  small, unrepresentative sample

  Beattie (1982) might have had one very voluble man which has disproportionate effect on results. Interruptions could arise from interest, involvement and excitement. Not always dominance
• What did Pamela Fishman do?

  recorded over 50 hours of naturally occurring conversations in the homes of 3 couples
• what did Fishman find?

  men succeeded in introducing a topic 96% of the time even though women attempted to introduce topics most often. Men used direct statements to introduce and killed conversation with minimal responses.

  women ask nearly 3 times as many questions as men. used minimal responses to indicate support and not interrupt.

  women use tag ‘y’know’ 5 times more than men because men withhold minimal responses
• what did Holmes state?

  tags can be speaker oriented or addressee oriented. out of understanding for the speaker or addressee

  men and women use about the same number of tags

  men use more speaker oriented tags, women use more addressee oriented
• what did DeFrancisco find?

  in mixed sex conversation women introduce more topics but are less successful as getting them accepted

  women undertake conversational shitwork - no credit for convo, shut down and interrupted

  men use silence to dominate women
• what did West and Woods investigate?

  whether women in powerful positions in society take a dominant role in interaction where status and gender are in conflict
• what did West and Woods find?

  with Female doctors gender seemed to override status so low status males would interrupt female doctors