Gender and Language

This is a big topic but can be conveniently divided into three parts:

1. Differences in the way women and men use language

2. Why they use language differently

3. How women and men are represented in language

For your meeting during week six I suggest you read "Power, Sex, and Talk," Chapter 2 of Sex Differences in Human Communication by Barbara Westbrook Eakins and R. Gene Eakins (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978) [Reserve]. Although twenty years old, it remains a popular book on gender and language. One advantage of this book is that it suggests mini-projects and data-gathering techniques that you could use in your research.

Professsor Laurie Finke, Director of Women's Studies at Kenyon College, has also put together some interesting exercises on languge and gender. I urge you to look at them and consider doing one of the exercises as research for your topic. (I suggest some relevant exercises from Dr. Finke's list below.)

Possible areas of responsibility:

1. Differences in the way women and men use language

a. Review Robin Lakoff's Language and Woman's Place (1975) [Reserve] and reactions to it. Lakoff's book is controversial because it suggested, with little empirical evidence, that women were less coarse (more polite) and less assertive than men in their use of language. For example, Lakoff suggested that women use more tag questions, supposedly a non-assertive feature, than men. Here's an example of a tag question: Jill wore my clown suit, didn't she? Eakins and Eakins describe tag questions as being "in-between a statement and a question" (p. 39). Tag questions might be an interesting topic to focus on. See Eakins and Eakins' "Power, Sex, and Talk," pp. 39-43. On pp. 54-55 they suggest some activities related to tag questions, some ways of gathering data.

Tag questions are just one feature that researchers associate with women's talk. See Lakoff, Eakins and Eakins, and also Jennifer Coates's Women, Men and Language (London: Longman, 1993)[Reserve], especially chapter 6, for descriptions of other features. Coates and other researchers point out that we have to be sensitive to the function of so-called feminine features of language. They warn that we shouldn't be too quick to label these features as signs of weakness. Coates suggests that women may be less assertive because they strive for "cooperativeness" in conversation--at least in all-female conversations. See Women, Men, and Language and also:

Coates, Jennifer. "Gossip Revisted: Language in All-Female Groups." Language and Gender: A Reader.

Ed. Jennifer Coates. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. 226-253 [Reserve].

Possible exercises:

Prof. Finke suggests several exercises to explore some of the features that Lakoff said were characteristic of women's speech. Exercise #1B (Politeness) is designed to test Lakoff's statement that men use stronger expletives then men. Finke ranks 14 expletives from least profane (gosh) to most profane (see her list!). Your task is to note every instance of the 14 words you hear for one week and keep track of whether a man or woman said it, who the audience was, etc.

Exercise #5b (Hedges) involves transcribing some speech by men and women and checking it for "hedges" or "softeners"--phrases and constructions that Lakoff said women favored: phrases like "well," "you know," "kinda," "sort of," "like," etc.; intensive "so" (I like him SO much!); and others. Finke suggests some things to look for after you have your transcription.

b. How men and women operate in conversations. Some research suggests that men talk much more in mixed groups (contrary to the stereotype of the talkative woman) of men and women and that men interrupt women more than women interrupt men. Given the current interest in cooperative learning and group work, this research certainly has implications for teaching. See Eakins and Eakins, pp. 66-81, and also a book edited by Deborah Tannen called Gender and Conversational Interaction (New York: Oxford U. Pr., 1993), especially the articles by Tannen ("Who's Got the Floor?") and Edelsky ("Interruptions: A Critical Review"). Coates also describes how men tend to dominate conversations in Women, Men and Language. For the impact of gender differences on performance in groups, see the following article:

Sommers, Elizabeth and Sandra Lawrence. "Women's Ways of Talking in Teacher-Directed and

Student-Directed Peer Response Groups." Linguistics and Education 4 (1992): 1-36 [Reserve].

On the issue of male dominance in classroom talk, see

Swann, Joan. "Talk Control: An Illustration from the Classroom of Problems in Analysing Male

Dominance of Conversation." Language and Gender: A Reader. Ed. Jennifer Coates. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. 185-196 [Reserve].

Possible exercise:

Prof. Finke's exercise 5a (Interruptions). This involves investigating whether men or women interrupt more in conversations.

c. Differences between personal narratives of male and female students. Some scholars argue that men's stories typically have different themes and structures from women's stories. For example, they suggest men emphasize contests whereas women focus on community. Explore gender differences in story telling by looking at the following:

Peterson, Linda. "Gender and the Autobiographical Essay: Research Perspectives, Pedagogical

Practices." College Composition and Communication 42 (May, 1991): 170-183.

Rose, Shirley K. "Reading Representative Anecdotes of Literacy." Rhetoric Review 8 (Spring, 1990):

244-59 [Reserve].

Sirc, Geoffrey. "Gender and 'Writing Formations' in First-Year Narratives." Freshmen English News 18

(Fall, 1989): 4-11 [Reserve].

Possible exercise:

Prof. Finke's exercise 4 (Narrative). This involves comparing male and female narratives.

2. Why women and men use language differently: Chapter 1 of Eakins and Eakins' Sex Differences in Human Communication contains a good summary of possible explanations. This topic is also explored by Deborah Tannen in her best-selling books That's Not What I Meant! and You Just Don't Understand. See also part three of Coates Women, Men and Language, especially chapter 7: "The Acquisition of Gender-differentiated Language."

3. How women are represented in language. Is the English language inherently sexist? Some people think so and they point to evidence such as the following:

a. Use of he, his, and him when both women and men are referred to (E.g.: Everyone should take his umbrella.)

b. The existence of unfair "equivalent" terms and expressions: governor/governess; master/mistress; bachelor/spinster; wizard/witch.

c. The common use of metaphorical comparisons unflattering to women. (For example, women are often, according to Eakins and Eakins, "compared to food in a manner that defines them as something to be consumed or enjoyed as good things-'delicious,' 'a dish,' 'good enough to eat'" [p. 122]).

Chapter 5 of Eakins and Eakins Sex Differences in Human Communication is a good place to begin an exploration of how women are represented in English. See also the following:

August, Eugene R. "Real Men Don't, or Anti-Male Bias in English." Reflections on Language. Ed. Stuart

Hirschberg and Terry Hirschberg. New York: Oxford U.Pr., 1999. 243-254 [Article on Reserve].

Many scholars point out anti-female biases in English. Described by Hirschberg and Hirschberg as "a pioneer in the emerging field of Men's Studies," August points out aspects of English that he says reflect an anti-male bias.

Moulton, J., G. Robinson and C. Elias. "Sex Bias in Language: Neutral Pronouns that Aren't." American

Psychologist (Nov., 1978). 1032-1036 [Reserve].

Sheldon, Amy. "'Kings Are Royaler than Queens': Language and Socialization." Young Children

(Jan., 1990): 4-9 [Reserve].

Spender, Dale. Man Made Language. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980 [Reserve].

See especially chapters 5 and 6.

For more works on all aspects of gender and language, you can also look at works listed in the "Selected Bibliography" at the end of the section called "Gender-Based Language Differences" in Language: Readings in Language and Culture (p. 407) [Reserve].