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Language Diversity - Gender - Coggle Diagram
Language Diversity - Gender
Deficit
Argued by Otto Jesperssen. Generally quite misogynistic, and lacked evidence. Features of "Women's language" included
Shrinking from coarse and vulgar expressions
Linguistically Conservative
Being "Veiled and indirect" with use of expressions.
Jespersen's theories lacked evidence, and some of these features have been specifically disproven. Modern studies suggest that women are the most linguistically innovative, going against jesperssen.
Some may argue this is an inherently misogynistic view. Jesperssen can easily be labelled as such, but Lakoff provides a feminist perspective.
Robin Layoff argues that women are socialised into using features that hold them back in society. These include
High rising tone on declaratives (Makes them sound unsure)
Lack of sense of humour
Dominance
Language itself is inherently sexist, and designed to hold back women.
Spender - Women's sexuality.
Words like Virile and potent describe male sexuality, but no equivalent exists for women. Women are held back by this, and seen as lesser. This is an extension of the fact language was created by men, for men.
Disproved by Elgin. Elgin tested this belief with the invention of Làadan. A "Female" language intended to serve women's conversational need. This included new lexis and sentence structure. It was accompanied by a cassette which it could be learned by. Ultimately, it did not catch on, so Elgin concluded women find Languages like English, French, Spanish (where the book was published) to be sufficient.
People
Do
learn fictional languages (Klingon), so it could be reasonable for someone to believe women may learn Làadan.
Zimmerman and West - Conversational Dominance
Dominance doesn't just extend to language, but its use. On a college campus, in Mixed sex conversations, men overlapped and interrupted women far more often (9-0, 48-2)
Difference
Tannen - Originated entirely within Deborah Tannin's 'You Just Don't understand'
This resulted in intense criticism from Deborah Cameron, who likened it to a self help book, and dismissed Tannen as not a real linguist.
Men and women possess fundamentally different conversational goals due to different socialisation. These include the following "Binary Opposites"
Status
Independence
Advice
Support
Intimacy
Understanding
Supported By Some of the following
West 1990, Male doctors used imperatives, female doctors used mitigated declaratives. This resulted in better results
Coates 1992, backchannelling viewed differently. Understanding for women, agreement for men.
Diversity
O'Barr and Atkins. What was previously thought of as "Male" and "Female" talk could be reframed as powerful and powerless.
Initially, it was noted that in a courtroom, Female Expert witnesses were able to use "Male" features, whilst male defendants became less powerful
This led to the Diversity theory. It is wider features that determine language usage, not gender.
Studies to support diversity Theory
Eckert - Jocks and Burnouts. Jocks with a pro school attitude were more like each other than the "Burnouts" who were anti school. Gender not the most important factor in language use, here, group identity is
McElhinney - Female Police Officers. Women began to adopt an emotionless demeanour much like their male counterparts. Their reasoning was that they viewed this as appropriate for the Job
McDowell - Male Nurses. Male nurses were just as empathetic and caring as their female colleagues, unlike what difference theory may suggest
Janet Hyde. After a meta study, she advocated for a "Gender Similarities Hypothesis". Men and Women had no significant differences