Gender in Conversation



Gender in Conversation

|Feature |Research |Comment |

| |Robin Lakoff (1975) |Women’s vocab includes trivial words because they are relegated to decisions |

|Women’s Work Words | |about such unimportant subjects. |

| | |58 working class USA couples, women spoke about family, personal matters. Men |

|(Topics talked about) |Mira Komarovsky (1962) |spoke about money, business, sport, work, local politics. |

| | |Men prefer topics that allow participants to take turns at being the expert. |

| | |Women are more personal. |

| | |Men usually assume role of information giver or fixer because this reinforces |

| |Jennifer Coates (1996) |strength and status. |

| | | |

| | | |

| |Deborah Tannen (1992) | |

| |Robin Lakoff (1975) |Women use ‘oh dear’ instead of taboo terms. |

|Weak Expletives |Cheris Kramer (1974) |Cartoons in The New Yorker represented male characters swearing more than |

| | |female. |

| |Jennifer Coates (1996) | |

| |Robin Lakoff (1975) |Adds uncertainty to a statement so a speaker doesn’t impose her point of view. |

| | |Women use 3 times more tags. NOT because of uncertainty but because they were |

| |Pamela Fishman (1980) |trying to keep the conversation going. |

| | | |

| | |Modal Tags – seek information |

| | |Affective Tags – softening/concern |

|Tag Questions |Janet Holmes (1984) |Facilitative Tags – drawing listener in |

|(Isn’t it? wasn’t it? Don’t you?) | |61% modal tags used by men, 75% facilitative tags used by women. |

| | | |

| | |Monitor whether others are in agreement. Respect the face needs of others when |

| | |discussing sensitive issues. |

| | | |

| |Cameron and Coates (1988) |Men use questions to seek information from each other. |

| | | |

| | | |

| |Jennifer Coates (1996) | |

| |Robin Lakoff (1975) |Avoiding strong statements or committing to an opinion. Uncertainty. |

|Intensifiers | | |

|(so, such) | |Show uncertainty when used by women but certainty and authority when used by |

|Qualifiers |Dale Spender (1980) |men. |

|(Perhaps, maybe) | |“Perhaps you’ve misinterpreted me, Maybe you should do it again.” |

| |Robin Lakoff (1975) |Punctuate speech with uncertainty. |

| | | |

| |Fishman (1980) |Women use ‘you know’ 5 times more than men. NOT uncertainty but again doing |

|Hedges | |conversational work. |

| | | |

| | |Help statements to become negotiable and eve retractable, depending on the rest|

| |Cameron and Coates (1988) |of the group’s comments. |

| | |Men hedge less. |

| |Jennifer Coates (1996) | |

|Hypercorrect Grammar |Robin Lakoff (1975) |Women more likely to comply with grammatical rules. |

| | |(Norwich study showed women using prestige pronunciation – running not runnin’)|

| |Peter Trudgill (1970) |Reading Study – Even at an early age females are using more standard forms. |

| | | |

| |Jenny Cheshire (1970’s) | |

|Interruptions |Zimmerman and West (1975) |98% of the interruptions were men and they interrupted women more than same sex|

| | |conversation. Women also interrupt other women more than they do men. |

| | |Interruptions and overlaps can be supportive (co-operative overlap). Women. |

| |Deborah Tannen (1992) | |

|Overlaps |Zimmerman and West (1975) |Men overlap with women more (100% of the overlaps were men’s) |

|Silences |Zimmerman and West (1975) |Single sex conversation – 1.35 secs |

| | |Mixed sex conversation – 3.21 secs |

| | |Women kept being interrupted and so spoke less. |

| |Deborah Tannen (1992) |Women see listening and supporting as essential to group bonding. They assume a|

| | |turn will be granted. |

|Competition |Deborah Cameron and Jennifer Coates (1988) |The adversarial (Male) style of conversation where speakers vie for turns and |

| | |where participants are more likely to contradict each other than to build on |

| | |each other’s contributions. |

|Co-operation |Deborah Cameron and Jennifer Coates (1988) |Refers to a particular type of conversation, where speakers work together to |

| | |produce shared meanings; more common with women? |

|Minimal Responses |Jennifer Coates (1988) |Women make well-placed minimal responses but the men made them too late. This |

| | |indicated a lack of interest and support, which led to the woman falling |

| | |silent. |

|Imperatives |Deborah Tannen (1992) |Men use more. Use them to their sons more than daughters. Women use cloaked |

| | |imperatives “Let’s” |

Research

Otto Jespersen (1922)

“There is a danger of the language becoming vague and insipid if we are to content ourselves with women’s expressions”

Lakoff - believed women used the features because they were uncertain, non-committal and didn’t want to impose their view on anyone.

Lakoff concludes:

“The ultimate effect of these discrepancies is that women are systematically denied access to power, on the grounds that they are not capable of holding it as demonstrated by their linguistic behaviour along with other aspects of their behaviour.” (1975)

Jennifer Coates (1993)

The Chattering Sexes (ARTICLE)

• Talk is central to women’s friendship

• ‘Jointly constructed utterances’ – co-operation

• ‘Women talk’ is a great skill – monitoring each other very carefully

• Women and men talk about different things

Deborah Tannen (1992)

(“You just don’t understand”)

• Men structure their interactions with others mostly as a framework to achieve independence and strength. They see the alternative as a weakness and dependence.

• Women structure interactions as a framework for affiliation; to achieve interdependence and maintain the strength of the community or group.

Rapport & Report

|Women |Men |

|Talk too much |Get more air time |

|Speak in private contexts |Speak in public |

|Build relations |Negotiate status/avoid failure |

|Overlap |Speak one at a time |

|Speak symmetrically |Speak asymmetrically |

CHILDREN and GENDER

Gender differences occur in children’s speech too.

• Haas (1978) Mixed-sex pairs – girls’ laughter was very prominent

Boys used more sound effects and direct requests.

• Goodwin (1990) Philadelphia – boys used explicit commands

Girls used mitigated directives and modal

auxiliaries

• Jenny Cheshire – boys use more non-standard forms. (Reading Study)

Dominance, Difference and Deficit Approaches

Deficit Model – Women’s language is assumed to be weak in relation to a male norm. (Women don’t swear) Jespersen (1922)

Lakoff (1970) combined elements of the dominance and deficit approaches.

Dominance Model – Language as a result of maintaining male dominance and women’s language is a result of subordination. (Spender 1980)

Difference Model – ‘The effect of dominance is not always the result of an intention to dominate.’ (Tannen, 1990) Women and men’s speech is like ‘cross-cultural communication’; it is different, not inferior/superior.

Sexism – LOOK AT WORK OF SPENDER (1980)

Androcentric – language has a built in bias towards men

220 terms for promiscuous female, only 20 for a male. (Stanley 1973, Spender 1980)

• Language was built by men because society was controlled by men.

1553 – Mr Wilson decreed that it was more natural for the man to come before the woman.

1746 – John Kirkby wrote Eighty Grammatical Rules. Rule 21 said that the male gender was ‘more comprehensive’ than the female.

1850 – Act of Parliament was passed that stated that ‘he’ should be used for both sexes.

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6 contrasts: Status vs. support

Independence vs. intimacy

Advice vs. understanding

Information vs. feeling

Orders vs. proposals

Conflict vs. compromise

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