Language and Gender Theories

Language and Gender is looking at the way language is spoken depending on the gender of the speaker, from these theories we can see how researchers have looked into the idea of gender effecting the way that we speak.




Difference Theory:
Deborah Tannen examined the differences in communication between men and women, she summarised her findings into six categories:


Status v Support:
Men see language as a way of asserting dominance to build their status; Whereas for women language is a way of confirming/supporting ideas and seeking support in some form.


Independence v Intimacy:
Women seek support and intimacy; Men favour independence and prefer to go at it alone.


Advice v Understanding:
Women seek comfort, empathy and sympathy for their problems through language; Whilst men see language as a solution or as problem solving.


Information v Feelings:
Males are concerned with communicating information and facts; Women build relationships and strengthen social links with emotion through language.


Orders v Proposals:
Men use imperatives "Close the door"; Females use hidden directives/ super polite forms "Would you mind closing the door?".


Conflict v Compromise:
Men will argue as a means of  resolving differences and then negotiating their status ; Women try to find a middle ground and will try to avoid or resolve disagreements without the need of direct confrontation.




Dominance Theory:
William O'Barr and Bowman Atkins they found that there isn't much of a difference between how and men and women speak but more of the situation that they are in, whereas the difference theory focuses on how men 'supposedly' dominate the conversation as they have always been the more powerful sex at home and in the workplace, and females have the more domestic duties.
Robin Lakoff is also a theorist who had ideas of how language is used to make women seem as though they are the weaker sex. She analysed how women speak and put together a list of certain characteristics that women use:
- Hedge( using phrases like "sort of", "kind of"...)
- (super) polite forms("if you don't mind", "if its not too much trouble")
- Use tag questions("You're going to dinner, aren't you?")
-Use empty adjectives("lovely", "adorable", "divine")
-Lack of sense of humour(women tend to not understand the punch lines of jokes and tend not to understand them.
-Apologise more("I'm sorry but I think that")
- Use more intensifiers("I'm so glad you could come today!")
-Speak less frequently
-Use indirect commands and requests("My isn't it cold in here?" this would be a hint to close a window or turn up the heating")
-Avoid expletives or coarse language
-Use modal constructions("should we turn up the heat?")
-Overuse qualifiers("I think that")
-Use "wh"- imperatives("why don't you open the door?")
-Use question intonation in declarative statements(women raise their tone of voice in declarative statements to make them questions e.g. "What school did you attend? Eaton college?")
-Have a special lexicon(Women use more word things like colours, men for sports
-Use direct quotation(Men paraphrase more often)
-Use hypercorrect grammar and pronunciation(English prestige grammar and clear enunciation
-Speak in italics(intonational emphasis equal to underlining words "so","very","quite")


Other Female Researchers:
Pilklington, Christine Howe and Ann Weatherall,all of these researchers found extra information that links with the difference theory.
Christine Howe said that:
-Men have strategies for gaining power
-Men are much more likely to respond to what is being said, keen to put their views across
-Women are more active listeners and often back channel
-Women and Men's conversational differences begin at the ages of 3-4


Pilklington found that:
-Women talk to maintain social relationships
-Women focus on feelings, personal anecdotes and relationships
-Women support and build on each other's points
-Women agree with each other frequently
-Men find long pauses acceptable
-Men disagree and challenge each others points
- Men often mock and insult each other to show competitiveness


Ann Weatherall said that:
-Women's talk is co-operative
-Men's talk is competitive
-Women often use hedging
-Women speak for less time and are less likely to interrupt
-Females use more tag questions.


In conclusion I think that gender does effect language and since researching these theories I have started to notice the way speech is changed when speaking to someone of the opposite sex.

Bibliography:
http://cooperstjulies.weebly.com/language-and-gender-engb1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_theory
http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/lang/gender.htm