Gender Theorists A Level English Language

Women use a range of specific features

(tags, hedges, fillers etc.)

in order to appear less assertive and authoritative.

As such, they appear their speech can be suggest tentativeness and uncertainty.

Across social class and in single and mixed sex groups, males used more non-standard pronunciation.

Male speakers attached covert prestige to non-standard forms.

96% of interruptions in mixed-sex conversation were by men.

A sign that women were restricted linguistically and men sought to impose dominance through applying constraints in conversational practice.

Based on 52 hours of taped conversations between men and women in their homes,

found that women used 2.5 times more tags.

Additionally, women undertake all the “interactional shitwork” – facilitating conversation through their use of tags etc

Recorded 150 hours of courtroom discussion;

they found that many of the features Lakoff identified as being present in women’s speech were present in the men of lower status.

They concluded the dominant factor in determining speech style was status rather than gender.

Because of structural inequalities, women are not given as many opportunities as men to be in positions of power. Thus, their language reflects this.

Suggests that tags, rather than simply only a sign of uncertainty in a speaker, they function as a device to maintain and facilitate discussion.

Tags are multi-functional and can be used in many different ways.

She distinguished between checking (speaker oriented) and facilitative (addressee oriented).

Very little difference between each gender’s speech.

Desk-draw theory: anomalous studies are covered more in the media.

Structural inequalities and asymmetries of power are ignored in the difference model.

See men and women as talking of cross-purposes – reading from different ‘gender scripts’.

Women speak and hear a language of connection and intimacy;

whereas men speak and hear a language of status and independence

Very popular because of her accessible style but is criticised because it ignores real issues of which arise from real conflicts of interest due to asymmetry of power.

Her overview concluded that generally, women’s conversation style is co-operative and collaborative;

whereas, men’s is competitive and adversarial.

Examples of collaborative language include supportive overlaps, tags and hedges, mitigated directives.

Examples of competitive language include interruptions, explicit commands, taboo and delayed minimal responses.