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Language and gender - Coggle Diagram
Language and gender
Simon Baron-Cohen
Psychologist who observed that the 'female brain' is wired for empathy while the 'male brain' is wired for systemising = E-S theory (empathising-systemising). 'Balanced brain' = both. Either sex can have either brain
Women are more likely to choose romance, beauty, gossip, magazines while men are more likely to choose outdoors, sailing
By 12 months, girls make more eye contact than boys, determined by prenatal testosterone levels - they injected a female rat with testosterone and it showed faster maze learning
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Explains differences, is not harmful so not a stereotype - reliable example of social essentialism
Criticisms: tested on rats, built on stereotypes, observer's bias of boy looking at car, claims women have superior verbal ability
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Genderlect theory - 3 Ds
Defecit
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Otto Jesperson (1922) argued male language forms were the 'norm' and female language was 'deficient'
Criticisms: Robin Lakoff (who agreed on deficit model) didn't intend for her work to suggest women's language was weaker, Otto Jesperson was not a linguist (folklinguistics), defecit model is a result of problematic contemporary culture that is patriarchal and degrading of women
Dominance
Men dominate women through language and control mixed sex conversations through speaking more, interrupting, holding the floor and initiating/shifting topics
Difference
Daniel Maltz and Ruth Borker (1982) suggest male-female communication is akin to cross-culture communication
Suggests a form of crosstalk or miscommunication as men and women don't understand mistake each other's intentions
'Genderlect' a term coined by Deborah Tannen to describe the differences between male and female conversation
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Troublesome dichotomies
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Although there are the distinct categories of 'day' and 'night', the actual boundaries are indistinct
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Gender polarization - Bing and Bergvall identify gender as the same as the day and night continuum - someone can be 'more masculine' or 'more feminine'
Essentialism
Specific biological characteristics/attributes make an entity what it is - essence is prior to existence
In gender theory, the social categories of male and female are treated as bipolar
Criticisms: speech doesn't always correlate to who you are, very generalised
Social constructivism
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Gender is not a fixed/innate fact but instead varies across gender roles created by society and culture
Criticisms: gender is a social construct and gender roles are prescribed as ideal or appropriate for a person of that sex
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Janet Hyde (2005)
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Hyde argued that there are more similarities than there are differences between male and female language
She suggests that variation previously noted may actually be due to other contextual factors (age, social class, occupation or sexuality)
Robin Lakoff (1975)
Male language = stronger, more prestigious and desirable
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Women's speech is distinguished by: hedging, empty adjectives, superpolite forms, apologies, tag questions, indirect requests
Dale Spender (1980)
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Men block women's meanings by stopping speaking, permitting them to only talk in acceptable forms
Criticisms: extremely problematic, outdated view, misogynistic
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Deborah Cameron (2008)
'The idea that men and women (...) use language in very different ways and for very different reasons is one of the great myths of our time.'
Criticises the notion that there are innate differences in male and female speech - The Myth of Mars and Venus
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Koenraad Kuiper (1991)
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Insults used to show solidarity, less attempt to save face
Pamela Fishman (1983)
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Society expect men to be more dominant linguistically but this explains the difference in male and female expectations
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Sara Mills
Femenist who considers 'gender' a term that should not be used to suggest women are a homogenous group but rather a diverse group subject to a range of influences (she cites race, class, age, sexual orientation)
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Otto Jesperson (1922)
Women have less extensive voices, male is the 'norm'
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