Language and Gender Theories

Deficit Approach - Lakoff
1. women's language is weak and deficient, reflecting their lower social standing
2. more insecure and less assertive
3. specialised lexical field of domestics
4. precise descriptions
5. weaker expletives
6. empty adjectives
7. tag questions
  1. Holmes challenged that tag questions are weak, instead seeing them as cooperative features to aid politeness
8. euphemisms, politer forms and avoidance of certain topics
9. hedges
10. intensifiers
Dominance Approach
1. men's language is used to assert their dominance
2. men interrupt more in mixed-sex talk
Difference Approach
1. men and women belong to different subcultures which have different uses for language
  1. men more concerned with their status and independence whilst women like to form bonds
2. women's language is collaborative, supportive and cooperative with more politeness features, particularly in same-sex talk
3. men's language contains more insults and ignores face needs in same-sex talk
Spender
1. objects have been given genders
  1. e.g. boats and cars are 'female' because they are objects of status traditionally under the control of men
2. we unconsciously view the world from a dominant-male perspective
Stanley
1. there are over 200 insults for women about their promiscuity alone whilst there are only 20 for men
2. Male promiscuity isn't as frowned upon, so they are freer from society's restraints

Resource summary

	Created by Eleanor H over 8 years ago