Language and Gender- Theorists

DIFFERENT TOPICS OF CONVERSATION

• Men speak more about physical matters e.g sport, money and work
• Women speak more about emotional matters e.g family

PRESTIGE ATTACHED TO NON-STANDARD FORMS

• Women of each class use prestige variant more than men of the same class
• Using non standard variable is not just a working-class thing, its also a male thing
• Women tend to be less secure than men in terms of social status therefore they use more prestigious language to overcome their inferior position
• Men already have high status and therefore convert and use non standard language to seem tough, rebellious and down to Earth
• Women overt- acceptable to wider mainstrean society
• Men covert- gain approval of the minority group

1) Women's words

-relate to womens specific interests e.g sewing terms and fine colour words such as lavender

adjectives- either neutral or woman only e.g: neutral= great, cool  e.g: woman only= sweet lovely

weak expletives instead of shear words e.g 'oh dear' instead of '****'

intensifiers- 'I like him so much'         

2) Women's grammar

• tag questions- 'its hot in here isnt it?'-> inforces uncertainty
• hedges- 'kind of', 'sort of'
• hypercorrect grammar- comply with grammatical rules e.g by avoiding double negatives such as 'i didnt have none'

3) Innotation

• rise of innotation (Q: when shall we eat?...A: oh, in about half an hour. (this implies weakness and uncertainty)
• speaking in italics- use exaggerated innotation and stress for emphasis 'i really wish you wouldnt do that'

Male interruptions and overlaps

• Both genders rarely interrupt or overlap their conversational parteners in single gender pairs
• Men overlap and interrupt more when talking to women
• Women tend to speak less than men in mixed-gender conversations as they keep getting interrupted so they tend to keep falling silent
• A single gender conversation has shorter amount of silence than mixed-gender conversation

Female cooperation

• Talk is central to womens friendship

- use minimal responses such as 'uh huh' to show they are listening and encourage the speaker to go on

- may complete the speakers utterance with or for them

• Womens talk is a great skill- monitoring each other carefully

Differences are culture, not gender

Men

• Are concerned with status and independance e.g they inturrupt each other alot
• Give direct orders e.g 'pass me that' and dont mind conflict
• Interested in gaining factual information and finding solutions to problems

Women

• Interested in forming bonds- tent to talk less and agree more with men
• Give polite 'indirect orders' e.g 'would you mind passing that?' and try to avoid conflict
• Aim to show understanding by compromising and offering support rather than solutions.

Tag questions arent just about uncertainty

• modal tags- seek information
• affective tags- softening/concern
• facilitative tags- drawing listener in

61% of  modal tags are used by men, 75% facilitative tags are used by women