Language and Gender Theorists

Robin Lakoff
1. 1975
2. Women's subordinate role in society may cause them to display difference to men
3. Women use more tag questions ("Isn't it?")
4. More indirect polite forms ("Could you possibly..?")
5. Intensifiers ("Really" / "Ever so")
6. Generally weaker lexis ("Oh that's lovely")
7. Feedback support / minimal responses ("Hmm" / "Yeah")
8. Hypercorrect grammar
  1. Standard verb forms
    1. In order to claim higher status
9. Avoid strong swear words
10. Indirect request forms "Would you mind..?"
Zimmerman and West
1. Carried out a language experiment
  1. Subjects all white, middle class and under 35
2. Evidence of 31 segments of conversation in 11 conversations between men and women
  1. Men used 46 interruptions and women only 2
    1. Therefore it was suggested that 96% of interruptions came from men
3. They concluded that since men interrupt more often, they are either dominating or attempting to do so
4. FLAW; not enough variables, though in that particular societal microcosm it may be relevant
Geoffrey Beattie
1. Recorded 10 hours of tutorial discussion
  1. Made note of 557 interruptions - far more than Zimmerman and West
2. Found that Males interrupted 34.1 and females 33.8
  1. He concluded that while in this experiment men did appear to interrupt more, the margin was so slight it could not be statistically significant
O'Barr and Atkins
1. 1980
2. Recorded in courtroom cases, particularly witness' speech
3. Their findings challenged Lakoff's view
  1. They coined the term "Powerless language"
    1. Differences in language are based on situation-specific power and not gender
Jennifer Coates
Dale Spender
Pamela Fishman
Deborah Cameron

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Language and Gender Theorists

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