womens language

What book did Otto Jesperson write? And in which year?

Language - its nature, development and origin in 1922

What did Jesperson’s book conclude?

Men are the innovators of language and are therefore responsible for the introduction of new words

Who wrote ‘language and women’s place’ (1975)?

Robin Lakoff

What did Robin Lakoff suggest in her book ‘language and women’s place’?

Women’s language makes them seem indirect

Affective adjectives

The charming house, your lovely scarf

Emphatic stress

Emphasising certain words

Hedges

Suggest uncertainty/make an utterance more tentative ‘sort of…’

Hypercorrect grammar

Stick more closely to Standard English (SE) forms than men

Precise colour terms

A greater range of hyponyms within a particular colour

Rising intonation

Rise in pitch at the end of an utterance

Super polite forms

Uses of euphemisms/avodng searing and taboo topics

Tag questions

Short questions like ‘do you?’ ‘Shall we?’ - often signalling uncertainty/need for approval

The intensifier ‘so’

Often used to add strength to a phrase

Vocabulary of women’s work

Describing activities carried out by women

Apologetic requests

‘I’m sorry, but could I possibly…’

Indirect requests

Using coded language to drop hints rather than asking outright

Humour

Lakoff suggests that women’s sense of humour was less developed and they often misunderstand punchlines

Who suggested the idea of ‘marked terms’? And in which year?

Dale Spender 1980

Marked terms

The male term is ‘normal’ eg steward ans stewardess

What did Janet Holmes suggest? In which year?

She developed Lakoff’s idea of ‘tag questions’ and proposed that tags function as a device to help maintain discussion pr be polite - not necessarily just uncertainty

What 3 different types of tag questions were suggested by Holmes?

Referential, affective (facilitative) and affective (softening)

Referential tags

Signal uncertainty/lack of information eg ‘the Guardian’s a leftie paper, isn’t it?)’

Affective (facilitative) tags

Expressing solidarity/intimacy ‘we dont like lefties, do we?’

Affective tags (softening)

Weakening the tone of a criticism/command ‘pass me my copy of the Daily Mail, would you?’

What did Peter Trudgill find in 1983?

He found that women’s pronunciation is nearer to RP within every class and therefore women are less secure in their social status; so they use o they use prestigious language to overcome it. Women seem to seek overt prestige; men seek covert prestige as they want to appear tough so use accents which dont suggest ‘privilege’

Overt prestige

Language varieties that are considered standard or formal and therefore are associated with power and status

Covert prestige

Non-standard language, accent and dialects which can carry positive social value within certain groups, even though it may to seem prestigious to the wider community eg slang

What did Jennifer Cheshire find in 1982?

Adolescent boys use more non-standard grammatical forms eg ain’t

Which model did Zimmerman and West focus on in 1982?

The dominance model

What did Zimmerman and West find in 1982?

96% of interruptions in iced gender conversations were by men, which reflects male/patriarchal dominance in society

What was the method of O’Barr and Atkinson in 1980?

They studied transcripts of courtroom behaviour, especially defendants

What findings did O’Barr and Atkinson collect?

They proposed that ‘powerless’ language was due more to social status, insecurity and power relations than gender. These findings offered a development of Lakoff and Wests ideas about women and powerlessness

Who’s study did Geoffrey Beattie question in 1982?

Zimmerman and West’s idea that interrupting was a sign of dominance

What did Geoffrey Beattie find in 1982?

They saw interruptions by women as supportive back-channel behaviour - linking to Pamela Fishmans idea that women work hardest to keep conversation going

What was Pamela Fishman’s overall conclusion in 1980?

Women work hardest to keep conversation going

What 4 things did Pamela Fishman discover between husband/wife interactions?

• questions: women ask 3x more questions than men

• Back channel behaviour: men delay or withhold supportive noises

• Attention getters: women open utterances with phrases like ‘d’ya know what?’

• Topic initiation: topics initiated by men always successful and supported by women

Which model did Deborah Tanner focus on in 1990?

The difference model

What did Tanner attempt to explain in ‘You Just Don’t Understand’?

Male-female ‘miscommunication’ claiming male-female speech was ‘cross-cultural’. Men approach language with a different agenda, and use it for different purposes.theres no deficit; they’re simply different

Report vs rapport

Men describe bluntly and women seek to create connections

Status vs support

For men, conversation is competitive; fo women it is a way of gaining confirmation and support

Independance vs intimacy

Women seek closeness an =d intimacy. Men want to be perceived as independent

Advice vs understanding

Men seek to solve problems; women seek to offer sympathy

Information vs feelings

Men value information and brevity of speech. Women value sharing of emotion and elaboration

Orders vs proposal

Men prefer and use direct imperatives; women suggest things indirectly

Conflict vs compromise

Men will openly resist ideas/orders whereas women accede ad complain afterwards

Who wrote men are from mars women are from venus?

John Gray in the 90s

Who wrote the myth of mars and venus?

Deborah Cameron

What is meta research?

Research into other research

What linguistic research supported Deborah Cameron’s ‘the myth of mars and venus’?

Janet Hyde (2005) found little language difference between genders in the Gender Similarities Hypothesis

What is ‘file drawer syndrome’?

The idea that research illustrating the similarities between males and female language use gets ignored and languishes in a drawer file unpublished

What 5 false assertions did Deborah Cameron identify in men and women’s language?

• language and communication mattes more to women than men

• Women are more verbally skilled than men

• Men’s language goals are about getting things done, whereas women’s tends to be about connections. Men talk facts, women talk feelings

• Men’s language is competitive, reflecting their interest in maintaining status. Women’s language is cooperative, reflecting their preference for equality/harmony

• These differences routinely lead to ‘miscommunication’ between the sexes, with each misinterpreting the others intentions

What did Jennifer Coates suggest in 1989?

All female talk is essentially cooperative in the way speakers help to negotiate discussions and support each others’ rights as speakers.

What were Jennifer Coates opinions on dominance?

She concurred with Lakoff that dominance is the main issue between men and women.

How did Coates and Tanner agree?

They both believed that men and women are brought up and socialised differently, meaning they sometimes dont understand each other

What did Jane Pilkington (1992) find?

Women in all-female talk were more collaborative than men in all-male talk

What did Koenraad Kuiper find in 1991?

Men in a close group (in this case a rugby team) can ignore the requirement to save face