Gender

deficit theory

women’s language is less than men’s because women are less than men.

Jespersen

1922 - male language forms the norm, whilst women’s language is deficient as it requires less thought. He defined it as “lively chatter”.

evaluation - folk linguist, no empirical evidence

Lakoff

1975 - women’s deficient language reflects their subordinate position to men. uncertainty and indirectness in tag questions and fillers. findings were only for white, middle-class married women.

dominance theory

male language is more dominant as they have a more dominant role with more power in society thanks to patriarchy.

Spender

1980 - we live in a male centric world, and cannot challenge the power system due to patriarchal society being reinforced by language choices and how we think of the world. Links to Sapir and Whorf. e.g. Mr then Mrs, mankind

Zimmerman and West

1975 - dominance in conversation mirrors their dominance in contemporary western culture. in same sex conversations interruptions are equal but in mixed sex conversations 96” are initiated by men. biased methodology due to a small, ungeneralizable sample. disproved by Beattie in 1980.

difference theory

men and women talk differently due to inherent differences between them

Tannen

men and women communicate differently since they belong to different sub-cultures due to being socialised differently. proposed a list of six contrasts e.g. info vs feelings, orders vs proposal, conflict vs compromise

Holmes

1984 - proposed there are 3 different types of tag questions and men and women use tag questions for different purposes. modal tags seeking information (61% men) affective tags to offer concern or soften speech as well as facilitative tags drawing the listener in (75% women)

diversity theory

don’t believe in the 3 ds

Butler

1990 - gender is performative and not binary. individuals construct language to portray themselves to others.

O’Barr and Atkins

1980 - language in courtroom doesn’t support the three Ds