English language - Gender theories

• language and the women's place
• men have dominance over the 'conversational floor'

Some of the women characteristics:
1. Precise description e.g. Colours
2. Weaker expletives e.g. Oh dear
3. Tag questions showing uncertainty e.g. Isn't it?
4. More polite
5. Hedging
6. Use polite forms e.g. Would you mind?
7. Direct quotations (men paraphrase)
8. Speak less frequently
9. Apologies more
10. Intonation in declarative a

Book - you just don't understand

Men are competitive
Women are collaborative

Due to these differences there is miscommunication between genders

Book - the whole woman

Consider more than just gender

• socioeconomic factors
• position
• origin
• region

Folklinguistics - the evidence is verifiable but can be judgemental

Men -
Swear more
Don't talk about emotions
Talk sport
Speak with authority

Women -
Talk more than men
Indecisive
More polite
Support each other
Talk too muc

This is a theory that in mixed sex conversations, men are more likely to interrupt than women.

Study showed that in 11 conversations between men and women

Men used 46 interruptions, women only 2

Evaluating

Geoffrey and Bettie

The males could have been confident chatty individuals, too small sample is not representative of the general population.
Bettie did a study which showed an insignificant difference between women and men interrupting. This study is less known.

There are six contrasts in the way male and female language used, these are:

Males -
Status
independence
Advise
Information
Orders
Conflict

Females -
Support
Intimacy
Understanding
Feelings
Proposals
Compromise

Study involved-

Subjects we grouped by social class and sex
Subjects read a passage that included words where the speaker could pronounce words differently
Trudgill wanted to see weather the speaker dropped the final 'g' when pronuncing 'ing'

Findings-
Women used a high prestige then men

All women conversations can fall into one of the flowing categories:

• house talk
• scandal
• bitching
• chatting

Tag questions can help develop a conversation

Or they can show signs of politeness

The difference approach

• there are variations in the way women and men talk because of social and sub cultural pressures

In women talking -
More colaberative
More complimentary
More supportive

Did a study in a rugby teams locker room
Findings -
Use insults to show solidarity
Less likely to want to save face

Dominant -
Robin Lakoff
Geoffrey and Bettie
Zimmerman and west

Difference -
Keith and shuttleworth
Deborah Tannen
Kuiper
Peter Trudgill
Janet Pilkington