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Gender - English Language - Coggle Diagram
Gender - English Language
Dominance Model
Trudgill - 1974
Studied how speakers in Norwich pronounce the -ing suffix.
Findings : Men use non-standard use of pronunciation, women over reported use of standard forms.
Spender - 19..
Studied Men's language and how women suit it in a patriarchal society.
Findings: men perceive themselves as the dominant gender, disobedient women who fail to conform to their given inferior role are labelled as abnormal, promiscuous, neurotic or frigid
O' Barr & Atkins
They investigated Lakoff's hypothesis that women used "weaker" language than men in context of the courtroom. They took the 10 features that Lakoff claimed and looked at the language used by a number of witnesses both male and female to see if lakoffs hypothesis was proved.
Findings: what Lakoff called ‘women’s language’. Bowman & Atkins renamed ‘powerless language’ as both men and women used her features when they were in a powerless situation.
Difference Model
Tannen - 1990
men and women have a distinct learned conversation. They manipulate language in order to achieve different things:
Status V Support
Independence V Intimacy
Diversity Model
Deborah Tannen
challenges folk-linguistic myths about innate differences between male and female speech, arguing that societal expectations and norms, not biology, shape language use
coined terms: Verbal Hygiene - also a book
she focuses on patriarchy and how it effects language
Judith Butler
Performative theory - that language is used to act as someone else, a female using taboo words, coming across as masculine as an example
Deficit Model
Lakoff - 1975
Believes women's language is inferior and insufficient. Believes mostly the same as Jespersen.
Key features of Lakoff's theory: :!:
Use more hedges - Sort of, I think...
Use more indirect questions
Apologise more
all in reference to women -
Weakness of the theory:
40yrs ago and is outdated. Role of women changed and more equal. ‘Many men’ used in theory suggests evidence is lacked to back her theory
Jespersen - 1922
Believes women's language should be policed and if not language as a whole can be debilitated - often labelled as folk linguistics.
Key Features of Jesperson's theory: :!:
Women have a smaller vocabulary
Women use 'empty' and 'weak' adjectives
More adverbs
Weakness of the theory:
theory is severely limiting as there were no women in high power positions – limited education for women and a lot of prejudice against women at this time