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ENGLISH LANGUAGE REVISION - MEANINGS AND REPRESENTATIONS (POLITICAL…

- - - - typical female language is assumed to be weak in relation to a male norm
      - said that females used unfinished sentences and avoided complex structures
    - - male language stronger - more prestigious and more desirable
      - female language 'deficient' compared to male, lacks authority
      - females use indirect request, weak expletives, empty adjectives, tag questions (to show uncertainty), intensifies, more polite terms, specialist terms centred around domestic chores, use of hedges
        
        these features are said to reflect women's inferiority and show their language appears to be weak in comparison with men
      - Challenged by
        
        Janet Holmes
        
        said tag questions actually help to include others in conversation, maintain conversation, or are polite - also said women compliment each other as a politeness feature
        
        O'barr and Atkins
        
        investigated court room language and found many of lankoff's features were actually seen in men who didn't have power or status in a situation - said we should call it 'powerless language' rather than women's language - saw social status rather than gender as important
  - - - examined mixed-sex conversations
      - noted that 96% of the interruptions were made by men and it seemed that women had restricted linguistic freedom
      - results led to conclusion that males were the more dominant sex in society
      - investigation was weak as they only used 11 conversations in their research
      - 1975
    - - 1975
      - stated that speech of women and men directly reflects male dominance and female oppression
      - described women as a 'muted group' - said they were unable to express themselves without using male lanugage
    - - 1980
      - argued that men controlled meaning and knowledge, resulting in women not being able to express themselves unless they accepted 'man made' language
      - her book - 'man made language' - outlined the recent history of thinking on representation
        
        including Julia Stanley's observations on how many terms used for women had sexual overtones and pejorative meanings - Stanley also noted gender marked terms e.g. women lawyer, female surgeon showing it is not the norm
        
        included Deborah Cameron's criticism of the use of 'trivialising suffixes' and semantic asymmetry
      - disagrees with Sapir Whorf hypothesis and the Political Correctness movement saying that so many words are sexist because of their semantic asymmetry, not just because they are offensive
  - - - concluded that men are more concerned with status and independence, giving orders and gaining factual information and finding solutions to problems and their conversations are based around these factors
      - women are more interested in forming bonds so agree more, are more polite and show understanding and compromise by offering support rather than solutions
    - - supports some elements of both the dominance and the difference models - has also criticised work done by linguists who support these models
      - her book 'myth of mars and venus' - points out the flaws in a lot of the research done by various linguists which are based on little or no evidence
      - her own work shows that there is more difference and variation within gender groups than between them
      - believes that circumstance has more of an impact on features associated with a gender group e.g. says that women use more questions than men because they are often in more facilitative role than men
      - does agree that gender inequality is an issue and power and status in society shows the prejudice - e.g. women were excluded from the House of Commons until the late 20th Century and have never made up more than a fifth of it
- - - - Strong Theory - Linguistic determinism - states that the language spoken determines the way you interpret the world around you and therefore determines your thoughts - means that the limits of language are the limits of thought and language therefore controls our view of the world
      - Weak Theory - Linguistic relativism - states that language only influences thoughts, this gives more scope for interpretation of the world
  - - - Language that subtly points up the differences in certain groups - gender is a common example of this - includes the use of the generic masculine pronoun to represent bother genders, gender marked roles which again suggest the male version as the default
      - language which fits into the offensive category is politically incorrect as it labels certain groups as undesirable - often offensive because of the pejorative connotations implied
      - Blatant category includes language which is highly offensive and indicates disdain
- - - - define politeness in terms of the concept of face
      - face is defined as showing consideration for people's feelings - we show consideration by respecting positive and negative face needs
      - Negative face needs - the need not to be imposed upon
      - Positive face needs - the need to be liked and admired
    - - important means of demonstrating respect whether sincere or ironic
  - - - often slower, more carefully articulated, higher pitched and with high incidence of upward inflection
    - - diminutives - many parents invent pet names for things
    - - utterances tend to be shorter and grammatically simpler and have a limited range of structures, questions with tags are common, pronouns may be avoided or use of nouns rather than pronouns for terms of address
    - - clarification is an important function of parentese - the adult monitors, repairs and paraphrases - repetition is common
    - - all these features can be a necessary part of helping young children to acquire language but used inappropriately in other contexts these strategies may be used to control and can sometimes make us feel we are being patronised
  - - - use of RP associated with authority - one way of mitigating authority is through downward convergence - volume and pitch can also be used to exert control
    - - those in authority may select formal vocabulary with a preponderance of French or Latinate lexis - some varieties will include archaisms - on the other hand taboo language and derogatory terms of address can be used as an aggressive form of language
    - - likely to be a conformity with standard forms, the use of complex sentences demonstrates syntactical control - other frequently used features may be the use of questions especially known-answer and tag and the use of imperatives
    - - usually the person in authority will control the discourse, setting the agenda by the use of frames and keeping the initiation - will introduce the opening and closing sentences - may use the three-part structure of initiation, response and feedback
    - - power may be demonstrated through choice of naming conventions, through politeness, by the use of sarcasm or irony, by the use of disguised directives
    - - sometimes known as strategies of the powerless
      - Convergence
        
        powerless can adopt the language patterns of the powerful - this is the method taught on assertiveness training courses where participants learn to initiate conversations, challenge assertions, adopt the accent and dialect, whether regional or social, of the dominant individual group
      - Divergence
        
        powerless may choose to reject the language patterns of the powerful and thereby undermine them - they can remain silent in the face of questions or diverge from the accent or dialect of the dominant speakers
      - Challenging Behaviour
        
        where the powerless openly confront or defy the powerful - they may use deliberate misunderstanding, insolence, parody or mimicry, threat or open aggression
      - Passive resistance
        
        where the powerless frustrate and undermine the authority of the powerful by refusing to react to their strategies - may appear to be co-operative, or they may 'turn the cheek' - in extreme cases this has proved to be an effective method of political resistance
  - - - context
        
        non-narrative texts e.g. use hyperlinks
      - impact on lexis
        
        jargon e.g. USB
        
        Shortenings such as clippings, intitialisms, abbreviations, elisions, acronyms, vowel deletion
        
        neologisms e.g. emoticon
        
        compounds e.g. e-mail
        
        blends e.g. netiquette
        
        affixation e.g. mega-drive
        
        shifts e.g. an email - to email
      - grammar
        
        use of grammatical compression, use of ellipsis and mixed-mode - speech like grammar, casual or non-standard grammar
  - - - power in the discourse
        
        what is literally said in the text
      - power behind the discourse
        
        what is meant by the text
    - - manner - we should always be polite
      - quality - we should only say what we know to be
      - quality - we shouldn't say too much or too little
      - relevance - we should only say things relevant to the topic
    - - convergence - speaking similarly to someone
      - divergence - speaking differently to others
      - upwards - speaking in a higher prestige
      - downwards - speaking in lower prestige