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

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