Romance Fiction

Romance fiction with Clichés

This is the moment that every girl dreams of. Finding her true love.

As she walked up to the top of the stairs and overlooked the crowd of dancing masks, her eyes caught on another pair that were as black as coal. Tall, dark and handsome was one way to describe him, she thought. He looked at her, gazed almost, like he knew her.

Before she could take a step down the stairs he disappeared into the deep, dark, depths of the crowd.

With her fitted mask on her face and Cinderella-esque dress, she descended the staircase and joined the in-sync dancers. She searched through the crowd to find her 'mystery man', but he was nowhere to be seen; she decided to let fate come out to play.

Heels danced, jumped and twirled. Voices, both tuneful and not, sang along with the band. She was having the time of her life; little did she know, destiny would intervene and transform her life completely.

 

As the night grew older, the band became more upbeat and the masks became sloppier. Alcohol filled, yet still with some sense of awareness, Caroline swayed through the dance floor.

She remembered the nights when she was younger, when her mum told her fairy stories. She read everything with princesses in: Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel-she loved them all. The thought of her Prince Charming coming to save her, still inspired her to this day. 20 years of age and she hadn't yet found the one, she thought of this as she bumped into someone causing her to fall to the floor.

"I'm so sorry." A deep voice spoke. She looked up and it was her mystery man.

"No, I'm sorry, I, er, wasn't looking where I was going." She quickly took the blame.

"Yes well however true that may be, you are the one on the floor so I'm obliged to take the blame." He smirked holding his hand out for me to take.

I stood up and knew that this would be a long night.

Theories of Language and Gender

Language and Gender Theories

1) William O'Barr and Bowman Atkins, Dominance Theory

The dominance theory says that if there is a difference in our language, it's because males have always dominated in both the home and workplace and females have then had to play the domestic roles.

The theory suggests that men are more likely to interrupt than women. In a study in Santa Barbara by Don Zimmerman and Candace West, within 11 conversations, men interrupted 46 times and women only twice.

Some theorists state that in language some people use language that's known as 'weak female language', however O'Barr and Atkins came to the conclusion that it's 'powerless language' and have nothing to do with females specifically.

 

2) Deborah Tannen, Difference Theory

The difference theory suggests that females and males do converse differently. Deborah Tannen is one of the main theorists to this approach. There are many features that effect our language and how we speak including our environment and cultures. Deborah suggests that it starts in childhood that creates the difference. Parents would use words that talk about feelings where boys get spoken to using more verbs.

She said that there are six main differences (with what is found to be typically male coming first) in the language in men and women:

·         status vs support

·         independence vs intimacy

·         advice vs understanding

·         information vs feelings

·         orders vs proposals

·         conflict vs compromise

 

3) Robin Lakoff, Deficit Approach

The 'Deficit Approach' was mainly found by theorist,  Robin Lakoff. She said that women are disadvantaged in language use compared to men. She found that women's language conflicts with what is the male normal language.

She said that women's style of speech is ‘expressive of uncertainty, lack of confidence, and excessive deference or politeness', including features like hedges and tag questions. Our speech mirrors how lower we feel socially an personally to men and how they are treated. It is a concept that shows not only modern life but from decades ago. It is a widely considered idea that women have been treated lower than men for centuries and it reflects through their language.

 

Bibliography

http://www.allinfo.org.uk/levelup/enb2gender.htm

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

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CEUQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lancaster.ac.uk%2Ffss%2Fcourses%2Fling%2Fling201%2Fres%2Fdiss%2F2004%2Fwhite.doc&ei=Y9srVdDNMOqy7Qbwl4DwCQ&usg=AFQjCNESm0EE3sl3o08ep3tMkJKTdCFbUw&bvm=bv.90491159,d.ZGU