AQA Language and Gender

AQA English Language Paper 2

Types of gender theories

Dominance

Deficit

Difference

Tannen ‘vs’ theory

• Advice vs understanding

• Conflict vs compromise

• Independence vs intimacy

• Info vs feelings

• Orders vs proposals

• Status vs support

Zimmerman and West 1975

96-100% of interruptions come from men

Socialisation

process by which individuals' behaviours are conditioned and shaped.

Marked Form

form which stands out as different from the norm.

Covert marking

marking that is understood and less obvious- e.g. young/old or lord vs lady

Overt marking

marking that takes place through affixation or modification - e.g. master vs mistress

Covert prestige

high status given to non-standard forms.

Trudgill 1974

Studied people in Norwich to see how they pronounce the suffix 'ing'. Men tended to use more non-standard pronunciation - also region*

Jenny Cheshire 1982

Studied teenagers in Reading. Boys used more non-standard forms. She thought this was because boys were part of denser social network

Lakoff's deficits 1975

special lexicon, empty adjectives, tag questions, hedging, polite forms, hyper-correct grammar, more intensifiers

Semantic Derrogation

when lexical items have negative connotations and meanings associated with them

• mistress - carries neutral connotation but was used to define a woman having an affair

Semantic deterioration

lexical items gradually develop negative connotations

• Mills - female terms are marked, indicating sexual promiscuity such as hostess, mistress

  • male terms are unmarked, indicating independence and freedom such as bachelor

Folklinguistics

Popular myths about language: e.g. women talk more than men.

Vocal fry

Low, staccato vibrations occurring towards the end of an utterance, previously an aspect of male speech but now used extensively by women. It is thought to have the effect of making the person sound serious.

O'Barr and Atkins 1980

Disputed Lakoff, said that it was males and females of low social status who used these linguistic features.

More about powerless language than gender

Beattie

Questioned Zimmerman and West's theory that men's interruptions were a sign of dominance. Study used x10 as many participants and found both interrupt equally

Jones 1990

'Women's talk' falls into four categories of ‘House Talk’:

1) Bitching - expression of anger, just a rant

2) Chatting - mutually self-disclose

3) Scandal - discussing other women

Difference theorists - men

Pilkington - Men’s ‘locker-room’ talk, insults and taboo language created bonds in all male groups

Tannen - Male = report, Women = rapport

Millett 1977- ‘The tones and ethos of men’s house culture is sadistic, power-oriented and latently homosexual, frequently narcissistic in its energy and motives’

Dominance theorists

Spender - Male as norm (man-made, his-tory, Mr first)

Stanley - 220 words for promiscuous woman, only 20 for male

Holmes - Women referred to as food/animals (infantalise)

The Bechdel Test

If a piece of entertainment (book/show/film) has:

• Two women

• Who talk to each other

• About something other than men

Deficit theories

Jesperson 1922 - Women’s language littered with non-fluency features because they speak before thinking

• CP = Onnela - masters students have same MLU (mean length utterance)

ESRC (Econ and social research council) - Women use ‘fuck’ 50x more often than pre-1990

Lakoff - hedging/ back-channelling, weak adjectives etc

Keith and Shuttleworth 1999

women = talk more/too much, polite, indecisive, nag, ask more questions and more cooperative

men = swear more, emotionless, talk about women and machines in same way, give commands, interrupt more

William Leap - Lavender Linguistics 1993

sociolect of homosexuals

the way homosexuals interact with heterosexuals is different

• ‘whole other language’

Butler - Gender performativity 1990

we perform the gender we want to present to others through repeated behaviours that imitate certain gender roles/norms

Lakoff 2004 - diversity

Homosexual men deliberately linguistically imitated female speech

• increased superlatives, soft pitch, inflected intonation and lisping

Tannen - difference theory (speakers)

• High involvement speakers (men)

  • very active role in the conversation = leading conversation or back-channeling (not giving direct responses, but comments like ‘yep’, ‘uh-huh’ and ‘ok’).

• High considerateness speakers (women)

  • speak more slowly and avoid talking at the same time as someone else.

Kuiper - Rugby players

• less politeness strategies and insults when interacting with other males

• taboo lexis and swearing

• less need to save face