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English Language paper 2 language and gender theorists (Robin Lackoff…
English Language paper 2 language and gender theorists
Robin Lackoff
language suggests women's absense of being powerless in society.
if a woman does not speak ladylike then she is seen as unfeminine.
if a girl uses boy language she is made fun of in society. which leads to them not being taken seriously.
women were disadvantaged which makes them sound less confident.
women use more approval seeking tag questions due to there being misunderstandings between men and women.
they use empty adjectives such as "lovely", "adorable" and "divine".
they lack a sense of humour as men are more likely to use punchlines making them seem more misunderstandable.
they use question intonation in declarative sentences. when they ask questions they raise the pitch of their voice at the end of statements expressing uncertainty.
Women hedge, for example "sort of", "kind of", "it seems like".
they use super polite forms such as, "would you mind?", "id appreciate it if..", "if you don't mind".
It was proposed over 40 years ago therefore social roles have changed significantly due to greater equal demand, decreasing the validity of Lakoff's claims.
Dominance Theory - Zimmerman and West
in mixed sex conversations, men are more likely to interrupt women.
They recorded a small segment of a conversation - the people were white, middle class under 35 years of age or the 31 segments of a conversation.
in 11 conversations between men and women, men used 46 interruptions and women only used 2.
they found that 90% of conversation included such features (overlapping and interruptions) more frequently in men's conversations.
Difference Theory - Deborah Tannen
Independence Vs. intimacy - women think about support but men with status focus on independence.
men and women naturally speak differently as it is not an issue of hierarchy or difference as it is equal.
Status Vs. support - men speak for status but women speak for approval.
Advice Vs. Understanding
Information Vs. Feelings - women use emotions but men use information.
Conflict Vs. Compromise - in work situations, an idea may not be good, a man resists vocally but women complain.
Orders Vs. Proposals - women say things that are done indirectly but men are direct and prefer to use a direct imperative.
men monitor their interactions for signals of power and status but women monitor theirs for alignment and solidarity.
Peter Trudgill - 1974
wanted to find put why people's way of talking verified.
He focused on the suffix
he found that men used more non-standard pronunciation than women.
in all social class, the more careful the speech, the more likely people will say "walking" rather than "walkin"
the proportion of "walkin" type forms were more frequent in lower social classes.
the non-standard "in" forms happened more often in men's speech than women's speech. this was true for all social classes.
when women were questioned about what they though they were saying, they tended to say they used to say the non-standard "ing" forms more often than they really did.
when men were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended to say they used to use the non-standard "in" forms more often than they actually did.
Norwich Speech was studied in the 1970's to find out how and why people's way of speaking varied. One of the variables he studied was the final consonant in words like "running" and "walking".
Pamela Fisherman -
conversation between sexes fails because of how men respond or don't respond.
Fisherman is critical of Robin Lakoff. Womens use of tag questions are not showing insecurity and hesitancy, they are attributes of interactions, they ask questions because of the power it gives them, not their personal weakness.
men speak on average twice as long as women.
Jennifer Coates - Supportive + Cooperative
Supports Tannen and Lakoff, builds on the difference theory.
women use epistemic modal forms e.g. perhaps and probably to avoid face threatening acts - cooperative and supportive.
Female talk based on negotiation and support (not found in mixed talk). Says tag questions are supportive and cooperative speech.
O'barr and Atkins - power
Challenged Lakoff - what makes someone feminine.
Not about gender - How powerless you are in society/situation e.g. courtroom.
Janet Holmes - Tag Questions
Referential - requiring information or showing uncertainty (most common in men) e.g. am I doing this right?
Alternative Facilitative - expressing solidarity or intimacy e.g. we enough the film didn't we?
Affective Softening - Soften a command or criticism e.g. get the door would you/
Dale Spender - man made language
Looked at same sex and mixed sex groups. Says superiority is a myth but male power isn't.
argues that men are more in control and powerful. See themselves as the dominant gender. Women that fail to conform to this are abnormal.
(Australian Feminist Writer) with focus on the way men and women talk and listen differently in a group.
Deborah Cameron
She suggested that gender differences are misleading and that there are in fact more differences within genders rather than between them.
She also suggested that different language is merely a myth perpetrated by theorists such as Tannen.
She relates to Janet Hydes similarities hypothesis.
Men and women are in fact more similar to each other than different in terms of most psychological variables, including language through her analysis. The results for each difference are indicated that the differences were small/close to zero.
Language is effected by environmental factors rather than their gender.