Gender Theories

Strengths

• DOMINANCE MODEL - Dale Spender; males used language for status, women to support. Males dominated in mixed sex convos. Zimmerman and West; looked at interruptions in mixed sex convos, found males interrupted much more in mixed sex convos than they did in same sex
• DIFFERENCE MODEL - Deborah Tannen - said men do this and women do this - biological separation (no acceptions). Status VS Support. Information VS Feelings.
• Lakeoff - found women used more hedging, back channeling etc. in their language
• Jones - categories women's talk into 4 sections; scandal, bitching, housetalk and gossip. She said they spoke about these topics the most
• Obarr and Atkins - said women use powerless language (especially in court cases)
• DIVERSITY MODEL - Jennifer Coates; said language in MIXED SEX convos use is dependant on the context of the people in the conversation, rather than their gender e.g. age, class, occupation
• All male convos - Jennifer Coates; said males use rapid faire talk, hold the floor etc. to show dominance and status in convos
• All female convos - Jennifer Coates - said females use hedging, empty adjectives etc. to show support with other females talk

Weaknesses

• Fishman
• more research into boar and atkins

Opportunities

• Learn rest of Deborah Tannen's VS
• learn rest of features for both same sex convos

Threats