Working in pairs/small groups, you will investigate studies on language and gender OR concepts that are referenced by these studies ("Politeness", "Grice's Maxims").
You will summarise, in simple terms, how the studies were conducted and what conclusions they reached. You will explain new linguistic terminology ("hedging", "tag question") and provide examples. You will post your findings on this blog, and you will notice how I used the second-person personal pronoun and future simple tense to convey authority/dominance, thereby terrifying you into compliance. You should also read your classmates' posts and determine if any theorists have ideas that conflict with the linguist you researched. Comment, discuss, and showcase the brilliance of the English students at Gateway College.
What you will not do is cut and paste, or write anything that you yourself do not fully understand. This is an exercise in learning and teaching each other, not regurgitation of information. The theories we will be investigating are:
1. Robin Lakoff (1975) "‘Language and women’s place"
2. Jenny Cheshire (1982) "Reading Study"
3. Pamela Fishman (1983)
4. Deborah Tannen (1990)
5. Jennifer Coates (1989)
6. Jane Pilkington (1992)
7. Deborah Cameron (2008)
8. Janet Hyde (2005)
9. William O'Barr and Bowman Atkins "Powerless Language"
10. Grice's Maxims
11. Brown and Levinson "Politeness"
You will summarise, in simple terms, how the studies were conducted and what conclusions they reached. You will explain new linguistic terminology ("hedging", "tag question") and provide examples. You will post your findings on this blog, and you will notice how I used the second-person personal pronoun and future simple tense to convey authority/dominance, thereby terrifying you into compliance. You should also read your classmates' posts and determine if any theorists have ideas that conflict with the linguist you researched. Comment, discuss, and showcase the brilliance of the English students at Gateway College.
What you will not do is cut and paste, or write anything that you yourself do not fully understand. This is an exercise in learning and teaching each other, not regurgitation of information. The theories we will be investigating are:
1. Robin Lakoff (1975) "‘Language and women’s place"
2. Jenny Cheshire (1982) "Reading Study"
3. Pamela Fishman (1983)
4. Deborah Tannen (1990)
5. Jennifer Coates (1989)
6. Jane Pilkington (1992)
7. Deborah Cameron (2008)
8. Janet Hyde (2005)
9. William O'Barr and Bowman Atkins "Powerless Language"
10. Grice's Maxims
11. Brown and Levinson "Politeness"
In order for Jenny Cheshire to gain data about the differences and similarities of the use of grammatical variables in peer group culture (13 boys groups and 12 girls), she used a technique called long term participant observation. Over 8 months she gained acceptance from the groups in playgrounds in Reading and recorded the grammatical variables each one used in their language.
ReplyDeleteThe non-standard features that were used in the study were
• Negative concord- it aint got no food or nothing
• *Non-standard what- are those the shoes what you bought last week?
• *Non-standard do- she walks too fast, she do
• *Non-standard come- I come down here yesterday
• *Aint (auxiliary have) – you aint been round here for ages
• *Aint (auxiliary be)- obviously I aint doing the work
• *aint (copula) – you aint no boss
• *non-standard was- you was with me yesterday
what’s fascinating is that the study showed no definitive bias towards gender. Boys had shown positive attitudes towards such things as swearing, criminal activities and carrying weapons. This contrasted with group A of the girls, who disapproved of these activities. In fact, group A of the girls had shown a better control of standard English than Group B of the girls. Just under 23% of the girls in group A didn’t use the non-standard –S whereas roughly 57% of Group B did. Group B showed similar traits to the boys as they approved of their activities and used more non-standard grammatical variables, just like the boys.
At the end of study, Jenny Cheshire concluded that those who accepted the societal conventions of what and how a group uses their language also used the linguistic standards of the group. The boys conformed to this more than the girls. as Group A also conformed to this too, Group B showed to be an exception and followed similar uses in grammatical non-standard variables to the boys.
also by Umair Badat.
Delete"Non-standard come- I come down here yesterday" = not inflected/marked for tense.
Delete"Non-standard do- she walks too fast, she do" = double subject.
"Non-standard what- are those the shoes what you bought last week?" = "what" functioning as relative pronoun "that".
A good summary. Try to speak more specifically when you are analysing grammar
Robin Lakoff
ReplyDeleteShe wrote an essay about the ways men and women spoke, and saw that there were many different characteristics between language of both genders. She said;
• Women use hedging more than men do. This means women use words such as ‘sort of’ and ‘maybe’ more than men. This could be used as it gives women more time to think, implying women are weaker than men. In addition, I think that hedging allows time to let women use prestigious grammar more than men, who don’t use hedging,
• Women use empty adjectives like ‘lovely’ and ‘gorgeous more than men. The effect this has on other people is that they perceive women to be nice and caring, although this could be used sarcastically by women to show spite.
• Women speak more politely, and so in turn they also apologise more. Men would just come up with opinions and so they’re unlikely to apologise.
• Women don’t speak as much as men do, and also use swear less.
• Women use tag questions (such as ‘its nice out today, isn’t it’), and also use prestige grammar and pronunciation (such as using the word ‘whom’)
• Women use indirect sentences to ask for something, rather than just ask or say it blatantly. For example, instead of saying ‘can you close the window’, they’d say ‘I’m cold’. Women use indirect sentences that depend on their surroundings or environment, using pragmatics for others to find the implicit meaning of sentences.
• Women use small gaps such as ‘so’ ‘very’ ‘like’ etc. to fill gaps or emphasise words.
Lakoff also relates language to the power that each gender possesses. She says that as women talk cautiously and warily, they’re seen as weaker compared to men, who are more powerful and dominant. However, her research could be seen as biased as she based these points about women on what she thought, not scientific observations.
I agree with some aspects such as how women use tag questions and fillers, but don’t agree that the use of these make women inferior to men. I don’t agree that women swear less than men today. At the time that Lakoff wrote this, women swearing may have been seen as improper, but nowadays it is the norm in society, and is seen acceptable for both genders.
By Aqeelah and Ayesha
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteA thorough look at the model proposed by Lakoff. What do you think she meant by "prestige grammar"? Could you give an example of a sentence/recorded utterance that demonstrates a prestige form?
DeleteLakoff also proposed that women don't joke as much/don't value humour as much as men do...a proposition that is (anecdotally) disproven by every woman I know.
Independence vs intimacy
ReplyDeleteDifference theory asserts that in general men favour independence, while women are more likely to seek intimacy. Tannen uses the example of a husband making a decision without consulting his wife. She theorises that he does do because he does not want to feel a loss of independence. On the other hand, women, like to demonstrate that they consult with their partner, this is seen as proof of intimacy. Tannen says that women who see the world as a network of connections and relationships, view intimacy as key to achieving consensus and avoiding the appearance of superiority. Whereas men who are more likely to view the world in terms of status, see independence as being key to establishing their status. Tannen also clarifies that while both men and women seek independence and intimacy, men are more likely to be focused on the former, while women are more likely to focus on the latter.
Criticism
General criticisms are that Tannen's observations are largely anecdotal and cannot be said for all conjugal conversations let alone mixed-gender interactions as a whole. However, I do agree with it to an extent as the support vs status is true as women tent to seek the support of other women when they are in a problem. Whereas men seek the advice and motivation from men to maintain their status because they do not want to be seen as weak so they do not seek support. But men do also seek for support usually from women. Another point that I do not completely agree with is conflict vs compromise as women now do create conflict if they do not agree with something and have strong options on topics such as politics and even if its household topics. Also men tend to compromise mainly because they do not want to create problems and it’s just see as being an easier option then arguing. On the whole I think that Deborah Tannen’s theory is a little outdated but it does have some truth to it as well. Therefore, I agree and disagree with it.
Yes, I too would take issue with glittering generalities such as "men do x, women do y" as we would always find exceptions. Could we, however, agree with her if we pointed to social constructs surrounding gender - and not gender itself - affecting a speaker's use of language? For instance, do men speak in a certain way, and seek certain things in their language, because society has told them to do so? Something important to note in terms of criticisms is that most of Tannen's detractors consider themselves feminists, and argue against her work from that position.
DeleteDeborah Cameron
ReplyDelete• Deborah Cameron disagrees with the famous theories about how language is affected by gender. She challenges previous theories discovered (for example Lakoffs deficit model and Tannens difference model) as she believes that gender doesn’t affect our language as a whole. There are many different factors that can affect our language like social class and occupation etc.
• Cameron disagrees with Baron Cohens theory that there a male brains and female brains. Female brains are used for jobs that show empathy like nursing and teaching. Whereas male brains are for more complex jobs like medicine, engineering, law etc.
• Believes the book “The myth of Mars and Venus” is patronising towards males as the key ideas from the book is;
1. Language and communication matter more to women than men
2. Women are more verbally skilled than men
3. Men's goals in using language tend to be about getting things done, whereas women's tend to be about making connections to other people. Men talk more about things and facts, whereas women talk more about people, relationships and feelings.
4. Men's way of using language is competitive, reflecting their general interest in acquiring and maintaining status. On the other hand, women's use of language is cooperative, reflecting their preference for equality and harmony.
5. These differences routinely lead to "miscommunication" between the sexes, with each sex misinterpreting the other's intentions. This causes problems in contexts where men and women regularly interact, and especially in heterosexual relationships
She also states that she feels that these people are ‘bullies’.
Key idea:
Men and women are essentially different, they think and communicate differently and are suited to different roles in life- she states that gender differences are misleading and thinks that there are more differences within the gender rather than between them (for example social status).
Cameron believes that these myths are the things that reinforce stereotypes and shape our expectations of male and female language.
She also brought up the fact that sexism is harmful to both males and females.
It's an interesting idea that men use transactional language whereas women use more interactional language. Cameron I think rightly points out that this type of stereotyping is damaging to both men and women. For instance, how am I (as a male teacher) supposed to feel when someone qualifies my job as "female-brained"? How is a female engineer supposed to interpret a theory that her job is "male-brained"?
DeleteAs part of her language and identity theory, Jane Pilkington noted that women in same sex conversations are more collaborative with each other than men. Women tended to aim for more positive politeness strategies and men complimented each other less and were less supportive all in all or just more rude to each other. This is seen as The Difference Approach. This approach suggests that both genders were born with the traits they have and are different due to the language and gender they grew up with. Other theorists such as Jennifer Coates had similar findings to Jane Pilkington.
ReplyDeleteAnd Reece
DeleteTo what extent do you all agree with the idea that men are less collaborative? Do you think that it's a natural phenomenon, or a product of societal expectations (and would this be different in another culture)?
DeleteJennifer Coates
ReplyDeleteShe looked at all female conversations, and built on the ideas that Deborah Tannen. She talked about the following:
• House talk- This is where the same gender (women) talks mainly about the household and it doesn’t have a transactional purpose, besides small talk, unless it’s to help the household.
• Scandal- Judging the behaviour of others, mainly directed towards other women.
• Bitching- This is where women express their anger, mostly if they’re in a restricted role or have a lower status than the person they’re bitching about. The women don’t expect anything to change by their bitching, but just want to complain to people they know will empathise with them.
• Chatting- it’s an intimate form of gossip, where it’s transactional talk as the women take advantage of their skills of being able to nurture each other.
By Ayesha, Sana, Aqeelah.
I think there are male equivalents to "bitching" that are semantically framed as more "manly". "Grumbling", perhaps, is seen as a trait of a surly man. Like "bitching", it often seeks no transactional goal other than catharsis.
Delete(with Ammara)
ReplyDeletePamela Fishman (1983)
Her research stretched across the '70s through the '90s. She analysed fifty-two hours of conversations between three white, American, middle-class heterosexual couples, all of which were either feminists or sympathetic with the women’s right movement. She focused on the use of tag questions used by women for example ‘you know?’. Tag questions are added to the end of declarative statements (sentences which state a fact or an argument) to turn them into questions.
Fishman suggested that women frequently use tag questions following a thought or a suggestion. She argued that for women, not only were questions an effective way of maintaining conversations with men, but that they were required, as she found men often only gave minimal responses to declarative statements, if they responded at all.
She looked into the way men and women interacted with each other. From this experiment she concluded that women contribute more to the conversation to keep it going. This contradicts Lakoff’s theory because she suggested women do this because they are more uncertain and tentative. In Fishman’s words women do the ‘conversational shitwork’. Fishman concluded the way women communicate is because of the inferior social position of women.
Later theorists like Cameron and Hyde focus more on gender similarities than differences, seemingly discounting the work of their predecessors. An interesting topic to investigate might be whether the change in theory mirrors a change in society - by that I mean when Cameron and Hyde talk about status/education/occupation, do those categories have a huge overlap with gender in the 1970s/80s (the level of education, types of job, amount of wealth that women held).
DeleteWilliam O’Barr and Bowman Atkins
ReplyDeleteIn 198, William O’Barr and Bowman Atkins carried out their study in American courtrooms. They observed the variety of witnesses in the courtroom for a duration of 30 months. During this time, they examined the witnesses based on the ten basic traits in women’s speech that Robin Lakoff proposed. These 10 traits are:
1. Hedging
2. Politeness
3. Tag questions
4. Emotional emphasis
5. Empty adjectives
6. Correct grammar and pronunciation
7. Lack of humour
8. Direct quotations
9. Extended vocabulary
10. Declarations with interrogative intonation
O’Barr and Atkins discovered that the differences that Lakoff and others proposed aren’t due to being a woman, but due to being powerless which is why they described their research as ‘powerless language’. They showed that language differences are based on situation, authority and power- not gender. They concluded that “neither characteristic of all women, nor limited only to women”. According to the research, women who used the traits less frequently had an unusually high status. They were well-educated professionals with middle class backgrounds. Men who used these traits less frequently had more power and authority.
So to what extent do you think gender played a role in speech characteristics as opposed to other factors? Which is the stronger influence - someone's place in society, or the gender with which they identify?
Delete