Language and gender link

http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/lang/gender.htm

Language and occupation theories

Discourse communities (John Swales)
A discourse community is a group of people that share similar goals, values and have different ways of communicating these. In addition to owning genres, it has acquired specific lexis that can be recognized by others. For instance chefs would say a number table that would only be understood by their co workers who are part of the same discourse community. Among their members discourse communities have specific mechanisms of communication. For example usually teachers would communicate via email as it would not be efficient sending letters, whereas it would be too informal to send a text message. To be part of a discourse community, it is essential to have some knowledge or expertise in that subject, therefore you are able to communicate and understand the different language that is used. 

Examples: 

• Farmers
• Teachers
• Sports fans/teams
• Video gamers
• Religious groups
• Sororities

Grice's Maxims

1. The maxim of quality - Be truthful
2. The maxim of quantity - As informative as required 
3. The maxim of relation - Be relevant
4. The maxim of manner - Be perspicacious

These maxims form the basis for inferences that we draw in a normal conversation. These maxims can be violated to give rise to new implications. Ways of violating a maxim are:

• opting out - to choose to not respond following the rules of the maxims.
• flouting a maxim (manner) - expects the other person to notice (sarcasm)

Goffman face theory

Everyone is subconsciously concerned with how other people perceive them. We strive socially to maintain our own identity for other people to see. Also he believes that we care about losing face as i diminishes our self-image.

Brown and Levinson: Politeness theory

Positive face is the desire to be liked, appreciated and approved by society.

Negative face is the desire to not be imposed upon, intruded, or otherwise put upon.

Lexis and semantics

Denotative meaning: literal meaning

Connotative meaning: associated meaning of words

Figurative language: language used in a non-literal way to describe something in a different way (similes and metaphors)

Semantic fields: groups of words connected by a shared subject or field. e.g. medicine, art, sport.

Phonetics and phonology

Phoneme: the basic unit of sound. 

Diphthong: a vowel sound that is the combination of two serperate sounds, where a speaker glides from one to another. e.g hear

International Phonetic Alphabet: An internationally recognized system of phonetic transcription.

Sound iconicity: the use of the sound system to mirror form or meaning

Gender theories

Dominance (Zimmerman and west) - 

• Men are dominant over women
• Men are more likely to interrupt than women
• Men use language in a way that reflects their power and status
• Women use language in a way that reflects their subordinate position in society
• Men are more likely to assume they are entitled to take over the conversation
• 99% of interruptions are made by men

Deficit (Robin Lakoff) -

• Women should be ladylike
• Males language is stronger, more desirable and prestigious.
• Women use tag questions to show uncertainty
• Women hedge (kind of)
• Women use super polite terms
• Women use empty adjectives (lovely)
• Women use modal verbs (should, would)
• Women have special lexis for things like colours
• Women avoid using coarse language and expletives (swearing)
• Women overuse qualifiers (I think that)
  

Difference (Deborah Tannen) -

 

Status vs. support - men see language as a means of asserting dominance; women see it as a way of confirming/supporting ideas.

 

Independence vs. intimacy - men like to do thing independently; women seek support and company.

 

Advice vs. understanding - men see language as problem solving; women see it as a means of empathy.

 

Information vs. feelings - males are concerned with the facts; women with emotions.

 

Orders vs. proposals - men use imperatives; females use hidden directives.

 

Conflict vs. compromise - men will argue; women will try to find a middle ground.


Discursive theory

• Deborah Cameron goes against all the other theories.
• 'Your genes don't determine your genes'

Write an opinion article in which you discuss your opinion on the differences between the language used by men and women

Have you ever been speaking to the opposite sex and not understood what they are saying? Yeah, well there’s a reason for that…

As you may have noticed, men tend to butt in more during conversation. This is due to the constant need to boost their ego and become centre of attention. Whereas us girls are more willing to sit back and listen to our friend having a gossip. According to fastcompany.com , 50% of women surveyed said they usually don't feel included in business social events, casual meetings or conversations. On the other hand 90% of men felt women had equal opportunities and didn't feel they excluded women. Seems like us women need to speak up more!

Stereotypically women are more 'chatty', which is why they tend to use more discourse markers. Pretty much we like to babble on whereas men like to get straight to the point. An example would be saying 'right' before we attempt to do anything productive or organised.

Although women may disagree, it is said that they tend to use more interrogative language. In men's terms this could mean 'nagging'. More or less it means asking questions frequently, whereas men would rather use imperative language to discuss only the most important topics.

Interestingly, you may not have noticed that women tend to use more descriptive words when stating colours. For example terms such as 'violet' or 'khaki'. Its not very often you hear a man say that he has 'chestnut' colour hair is it?

In case you have ever heard of 'Robin Lakoff', which you probably haven't, there is actually a theory to describe many of the ways that women speak. You may relate...

1. We tend to turn an instruction into a question. e.g. 'OMG we are defo going to that concert, aren't we?'
2. To show we are listening we feel the need to say 'mmm' and 'yeah' for some bizarre reason.
3. Apparently we use 'empty adjectives' a lot? But how else would we describe to the nail technician what shade of red nail varnish Kim Kardashian was wearing at the Grammys?! - so iconic.
   

Opinion article analysis

Publication	Style of writing	Characteristics
Modern tribes: the Twitter quitter	-Sarcastic -Narrative voice due to conversational tone(discourse markers used) -Personal	-Discourse community because people reading will understand the subject specific lexis -Informal
The independent voices: The death penalty situation in the US has just become even more absurd – something has to give	-Informative-statistics and figures -Formal -Biased against the US death penalty	-Statistics -Emotive language to persuade the reader to feel the same opinion
Cosmopolitan: Wait a minute… is this proof that Rihanna and Leonardo DiCaprio are actually dating?	-Entertainment -Gossip -Not factual -Conversational	-Quotes from different sources -Structure-short paragraphs for a quick read
The telegraph: The BBC needs to forget about the internet and find another Countryfile	-Factual -Predicting future events -Opinion	-Strong biased opinions. E.g. ‘Well, he’s wrong’