Language and Gender Theorists

Created by: boredwithstudying
Created on: 08-03-16 18:51


	Date/period	Event(s)
	1974- Peter Trudgill	Wanted to find out why people's way of talking varied He focused on the suffix Found that men used more non-standard pronunciation than women
	1975- Robin Lakoff	Thought that women's language lacked authority compared to mens Created the Politeness Principle- a series of maxims which women feel obliged to set their conversations to (don't impose, give the receiver options when asking a question, and make the receiver feel good) Therefore believed that women's language was powerless and was constructed in favour of men's language so as to make women seem more submissive
	1975- Zimmerman and West	They wanted to find out if the presence of uncooperative interactive features in conversation (interruptions) depended on gender They found that 90% of conversations included such features (overlapping or interruptions) more frequently in men's conversations
	1976- Eakins and Eakins	They conducted a study of ‘verbal turn taking’ by faculty members (people in meetings). The study was focused on gender and interruption. When conducting the experiment, it was found that the chairman was interrupted the least overall; a woman was interrupted the most overall, the men’s turns ranged from 10.06 - 17.07 seconds and that the women’s turns ranged from 3 - 10 seconds. Men (on average) have more frequent turns, spoke for greater lengths of time, interrupted others more and were interrupted less. Women (on average) are more likely to express agreement or ask for another opinion and are less likely to interrupt others.
	1980- O'Barr and Atkins	Developed their findings based on Lakoff's work Believed that language differences are situation-specific, and rrelied on who has authority and power rather than gender
	1981- Edelsky	Edelsky said that the floor was ‘a specific type of speaking turn that contains the acknowledged going on within a psychological time/space’. This happens in turns within a conversation between 2 people or more. In a work environment men usually speak for a longer time whereas women were usually pressured into speaking for a shorter time and be much more brief. Women are more likely to begin new topics however men have ‘the floor’ much more often. Floor one was much more prevalent whereas floor two, people are more likely to be cautious of the time the spend dominating the floor. When generalized, it was found that ‘floors’ were held during formal debates or other formal events, whereas ‘floors’ were developed in any informal circumstances, such as lunch meetings or outings. It all depends on what is had when having the ‘floor’.
	1982- Jenny Cheshire	She studied relationships between girls and boys and how it effected their grammar When put into groups, she found that when the same gendered groups were talking together, they were more likely to conform against the subject topic, therefore changing the way they speak around each other Suggests that variation in dialect is a concious choice, influenced by social attitude
	1983- Fishman	Focused on the use of tag questions used in a mixed gender conversation. She found that tag questions are used by women after declarative clauses in order to maintain/continue conversations with males Used due to lack of confidence with conversation with men intimidation), and helps women feel as though they have control of the conversation.
	1989- Herbet and Straight	Study is specifically concerned with the responses used by women in all-female compliment exchanges in an under graduate level university setting. Cross cultural comparison of German and Italian was used to highlight any similarities or differences in compliment responses It was found that children were brought up to say ‘thank you’ to a compliment but adults felt embarrassed when responding. Americans were found that they tend to give out many compliments and accept few, whereas south Africans would give out few and accept many. However this can depend on social relations. This suggests that because relations (American) are obliged to use stereotypes such as compliments in order to negotiate the relations formed. Although most people will give out compliments frequently, few will accept them.
	1989- Jennifer Coates	She suggested that different styles of speaking are different because of all gendered friendship groups therefore creating gender stereotypes within language. An example she found was how women use epistemic modal forms (perhaps; sort of, probably, etc) to avoid face-threatening facts. This is seen as female co-operation.
	1990- Deborah Tannen	Created the Difference Theory which includes 6 different contrasts: status vs support; advice vs understanding, independence vs intimacy, information vs feelings, conflict vs compromise and order vs proposals. Found that through these contrasts, it changed both the way women and men think and talk among each other. Women would want to have support and understanding, whereas men are more likely to want to stand alone and do things their own way.
	1990 to 1991- Tracy and Heisenberg	An experiment was conducted, where male and female subjects would criticize either a superior or subordinate, acting as the respective opposite - superior criticizing subordinate and vice versa. People who knew little about what was happening were asked to judge the criticism and structure of it. Different results were derived from this, which observed differences between the men and women. The research shows that women were more caring and considerate when in the role of the superior, inversely so in the role of the subordinate. Most criticisms started with positive comments prefaced by negative comments and concluded with feedback and that most people paid great attention to face value. Some people rated low when paying attention to face value by making personal attacks and strong reprimands for minor errors.
	1992- Jane Pilkington	Conducted research on conversations in a bakery in 9 months so as to look at male and female conversations. Found that women talked to affirm solidarity and maintain relationships, and men like to challenge each others points of view and disagree.
	1992- Janet Holmes	Her study focused on whether men and women spoke differently and ‘whether the differences are related specifically to gender or, alternatively, to status and power.’ She found that in doctor-patient conversations female doctors were interrupted more often than male physicians. In addition, in business organisations, men but not women tended to dominate the interactions. This fits with this stereotype of men having more power and authority and that they are superior to women, as brought about when men were seen as the main breadwinner and women were stay at home wives and mothers.
	1992- Susan Herring	Study created to examine how computer-mediated discussion groups (such as chat forums, bulletin boards, etc) where individuals contributed and exchanged information within a field of common interest, affected participation by women She analysed the number of women contributors; the overall gender difference in contribution, the average amount of words submitted by each contributor, and the total amount of words that were contributed. It was found that women were less interested in the topics than men; women were too busy, intimidated or fearful to participate.
	2007- Coupland and Bishop	Found that Scottish and Edinburgh English showed higher prestige judgements than any other dialect However, Scottish people believed accents with a Celtic background held a higher prestige (Irish, Welsh, etc). This shows changes in authority of the Scottish accent!
	2008- Deborah Cameron	One of Cameron's most famous pieces of work is Verbal Hygiene, where she write that she believes that there's a massive gender diversity in language. She first blamed this on how children were taught the English language, but she released that all classes were mixed gender and that the same basic rules of grammar were taught to everyone, young or old. She concluded that the spoken language, rather than depending on gender, depended on lexis and context.

Date/period

Event(s)

1974- Peter Trudgill

Wanted to find out why people's way of talking varied
He focused on the suffix
Found that men used more non-standard pronunciation than women

1975- Robin Lakoff

Thought that women's language lacked authority compared to mens
Created the Politeness Principle- a series of maxims which women feel obliged to set their conversations to (don't impose, give the receiver options when asking a question, and make the receiver feel good)
Therefore believed that women's language was powerless and was constructed in favour of men's language so as to make women seem more submissive

1975- Zimmerman and West

They wanted to find out if the presence of uncooperative interactive features in conversation (interruptions) depended on gender
They found that 90% of conversations included such features (overlapping or interruptions) more frequently in men's conversations

1976- Eakins and Eakins

They conducted a study of ‘verbal turn taking’ by faculty members (people in meetings). The study was focused on gender and interruption.
When conducting the experiment, it was found that the chairman was interrupted the least overall; a woman was interrupted the most overall, the men’s turns ranged from 10.06 - 17.07 seconds and that the women’s turns ranged from 3 - 10 seconds.
Men (on average) have more frequent turns, spoke for greater lengths of time, interrupted others more and were interrupted less. Women (on average) are more likely to express agreement or ask for another opinion and are less likely to interrupt others.

1980- O'Barr and Atkins

Developed their findings based on Lakoff's work
Believed that language differences are situation-specific, and rrelied on who has authority and power rather than gender

1981- Edelsky

Edelsky said that the floor was ‘a specific type of speaking turn that contains the acknowledged going on within a psychological time/space’. This happens in turns within a conversation between 2 people or more.
In a work environment men usually speak for a longer time whereas women were usually pressured into speaking for a shorter time and be much more brief. Women are more likely to begin new topics however men have ‘the floor’ much more often. Floor one was much more prevalent whereas floor two, people are more likely to be cautious of the time the spend dominating the floor.
When generalized, it was found that ‘floors’ were held during formal debates or other formal events, whereas ‘floors’ were developed in any informal circumstances, such as lunch meetings or outings. It all depends on what is had when having the ‘floor’.

1982- Jenny Cheshire

She studied relationships between girls and boys and how it effected their grammar
When put into groups, she found that when the same gendered groups were talking together, they were more likely to conform against the subject topic, therefore changing the way they speak around each other
Suggests that variation in dialect is a concious choice, influenced by social attitude

1983- Fishman

Focused on the use of tag questions used in a mixed gender conversation. She found that tag questions are used by women after declarative clauses in order to maintain/continue conversations with males
Used due to lack of confidence with conversation with men intimidation), and helps women feel as though they have control of the conversation.

1989- Herbet and Straight

Study is specifically concerned with the responses used by women in all-female compliment exchanges in an under graduate level university setting. Cross cultural comparison of German and Italian was used to highlight any similarities or differences in compliment responses
It was found that children were brought up to say ‘thank you’ to a compliment but adults felt embarrassed when responding. Americans were found that they tend to give out many compliments and accept few, whereas south Africans would give out few and accept many. However this can depend on social relations.
This suggests that because relations (American) are obliged to use stereotypes such as compliments in order to negotiate the relations formed. Although most people will give out compliments frequently, few will accept them.

1989- Jennifer Coates

She suggested that different styles of speaking are different because of all gendered friendship groups therefore creating gender stereotypes within language.
An example she found was how women use epistemic modal forms (perhaps; sort of, probably, etc) to avoid face-threatening facts. This is seen as female co-operation.

1990- Deborah Tannen

Created the Difference Theory which includes 6 different contrasts: status vs support; advice vs understanding, independence vs intimacy, information vs feelings, conflict vs compromise and order vs proposals.
Found that through these contrasts, it changed both the way women and men think and talk among each other. Women would want to have support and understanding, whereas men are more likely to want to stand alone and do things their own way.

1990 to 1991- Tracy and Heisenberg

An experiment was conducted, where male and female subjects would criticize either a superior or subordinate, acting as the respective opposite - superior criticizing subordinate and vice versa. People who knew little about what was happening were asked to judge the criticism and structure of it.
Different results were derived from this, which observed differences between the men and women. The research shows that women were more caring and considerate when in the role of the superior, inversely so in the role of the subordinate. Most criticisms started with positive comments prefaced by negative comments and concluded with feedback and that most people paid great attention to face value. Some people rated low when paying attention to face value by making personal attacks and strong reprimands for minor errors.

1992- Jane Pilkington

Conducted research on conversations in a bakery in 9 months so as to look at male and female conversations. Found that women talked to affirm solidarity and maintain relationships, and men like to challenge each others points of view and disagree.

1992- Janet Holmes

Her study focused on whether men and women spoke differently and ‘whether the differences are related specifically to gender or, alternatively, to status and power.’
She found that in doctor-patient conversations female doctors were interrupted more often than male physicians. In addition, in business organisations, men but not women tended to dominate the interactions. This fits with this stereotype of men having more power and authority and that they are superior to women, as brought about when men were seen as the main breadwinner and women were stay at home wives and mothers.

1992- Susan Herring

Study created to examine how computer-mediated discussion groups (such as chat forums, bulletin boards, etc) where individuals contributed and exchanged information within a field of common interest, affected participation by women
She analysed the number of women contributors; the overall gender difference in contribution, the average amount of words submitted by each contributor, and the total amount of words that were contributed.
It was found that women were less interested in the topics than men; women were too busy, intimidated or fearful to participate.

2007- Coupland and Bishop

Found that Scottish and Edinburgh English showed higher prestige judgements than any other dialect
However, Scottish people believed accents with a Celtic background held a higher prestige (Irish, Welsh, etc). This shows changes in authority of the Scottish accent!

2008- Deborah Cameron

One of Cameron's most famous pieces of work is Verbal Hygiene, where she write that she believes that there's a massive gender diversity in language.
She first blamed this on how children were taught the English language, but she released that all classes were mixed gender and that the same basic rules of grammar were taught to everyone, young or old.
She concluded that the spoken language, rather than depending on gender, depended on lexis and context.