Gender theorists

Jennifer Coates (1993) identified this approach. It sees women as an oppressed group.  She interpreted differences in women’s and men’s speech in terms of men’s dominance and women’s subordination. It is a feature of men interrupting women.
Coates studied the key differences in male and female speech:

• Topic Choice – men talk about impersonal topics, women talk about more sensitive aspects of life.
• Dominance – males will sometimes hold the floor for a long time, ‘playing the expert’.
• Rapid Fire – males sometimes exchange comments in a short, snappy style – friendly sparring and not a quarrel.
• No Overlaps – males scarcely overlap during the conversation because men prefer to talk one at a time.

Zimmerman and West (1975) stated that males interrupt 96% of mixed-sex conversations. This led to the idea that males are more dominant in male/female talk. Women had restricted linguistic freedom and men sought to impose their dominant status through applying constraints in conversation – men and women don’t hold equal conversational rights.

Robin Lakoff (1975) recognised that features of women’s language. Reflect women’s inferior social status. Their language use makes them seem weak. Characteristics include:

• Indirect Requests
• Intensifiers
• Empty Modifiers
• Tag Questions
• Weak Expletive Terms
• Super Politeness
• Speaking in Italics
• Hedging
• Direct Quotes
• Hypercorrect grammar and punctuation
• Question intonation and declarative sentences
• Special Lexicon

Differences in male/female talk are socially constructed so female language remains less assertive and more polite. These features reflect women’s inferior social status and made women come across as indecisive and needy. Women’s language is weak compared to men and prevents them from being taken seriously.

Deborah Tannen (1989) stated that the difference approach sees women and men as belonging to sub-cultures who are socialised differently from childhood onwards. This may result in them having different problems in communication when adults. Tannen notes the difference in male and female conversational style.

Men:               

• Concerned with status and independence.
• Give direct orders and don’t mind conflict.
• Interested in gaining factual information and finding solutions to problems.

Women:

• Interested in forming bonds.
• Give polite indirect orders to avoid conflict.
• Aim to show understanding by compromise and offering support rather than a solution.

Reasons for difference in male and female interaction are often to do with subject of single sex conversations. Males talk about factual information whereas women talk is centred on family –normally compassionate and emotional.

Deborah Cameron (1995) believed that language can be affected by a social situation regardless of gender. She maintains that if a person is uncomfortable and unfamiliar with the language of a particular environment, a person’s language may be weak as they experience lack of status. She thinks that there are few differences between male and female language.