Language and Gender
- Created by: Molly Beegoo
- Created on: 02-06-21 16:08
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- Language and Gender
- Deficit Approach (Jespersen)
- Men are the standard of language. Women deviate and are deficient.
- Jespersen believed women made language 'languid and inspid'
- Women have smaller vocab because they talk so much
- Domestic tasks take little 'deep thought' and allow women to chat idly
- Critique
- Only small scale observations and anecdotal evidence
- biased against women- using evaluative language to describe women
- claims about women's speech based on fiction books, which will carry over author's bias and incorrect societal views on gender
- Positives
- tells us about societal attitudes at the time
- Jespersen attributes language use to some social factors
- although unclear as to whether he believes this is evolution or tradition
- Men are the standard of language. Women deviate and are deficient.
- Dominance Approach (Lackoff)
- Men use language to dominate women
- Women use subservient language
- rising intonation
- tag questions
- hedging
- avoiding taboo/slang
- politeness
- hyper-correct grammar
- no jokes
- interrupted by men (Zimmermen & West)
- Beatie criticised. Was there one voluble man disrupting data?
- tested himself and found men & women interrupted the same
- Beatie criticised. Was there one voluble man disrupting data?
- The English language is inherently sexist
- Male forms are default
- Feminine ending -ette is added to make something small
- Women use subservient language
- Critique
- anecdotal evidence (Laboff)
- Only researched white, middle class (Laboff)
- assumes all men and women are the same (all men as oppressors, all women as victims- but women can dominate men w/ language too)
- language is ultimately owned by those that use it
- language styles are not inherently masculine/ feminine- they are powerful/ powerless
- Men use language to dominate women
- Difference Approach (Tannen)
- Men and women develop different ways of communicating due to biology or society. No one is to blame.
- we need to be aware of each other's genderlects in order to understand one another
- Maltz/Barker on differing peer playground culture. Boys: large groups, competitive speech. Girls: small groups, supportive speech
- Aries/JohnsonMen: talk about sport, politics, cars. Women: talk about child-rearing, personal relationships
- Holmes: Women give more compliments
- But surely this is dangerous? Puts oneself in the position to evaluate?
- Coates characterises men as competitive and women as co-operative
- inspired works like 'Men are from Mars'
- Tannen warns against generalising but claims these are real differences
- we need to be aware of each other's genderlects in order to understand one another
- Critique
- anecdotal evidence (poor memories)
- overheard quotes (unethical)
- transcripts are too neat
- uses fiction as evidence
- Quantative studies do not support findings
- other variables not accounted for (Canary & Hause)
- Hyde: men and women are more alike than different psychologically
- If we inflate our differences, it pushes people further into stererotypes
- Underplays sex variation
- Troemel-Plotz critiques Tannen for ignoring dominance
- anecdotal evidence (poor memories)
- Men and women develop different ways of communicating due to biology or society. No one is to blame.
- Discursive Approach
- Gender is discursively constructed
- Crawford- Gender is what culture makes of sex and imposes/ enforces upon it
- Masculine and feminine are considered polar opposites in society
- Crawford- Gender is what culture makes of sex and imposes/ enforces upon it
- Gender is discursively constructed
- Deficit Approach (Jespersen)
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