Transcript Analysis: Language and Gender

The transcript I have written takes inspiration from a conversation I heard from the Big Brother house. The conversation is between two people, a male and a female, as they discuss the latest eviction from the Big Brother house. This conversation seems to be spontaneous, with the conversation flowing easily between them.

The conversation begins with Victor, the male housemate asking Ulrika, the female housemate if she’s feeling better after the eviction. This could be both for and against the difference approach, as it is suggested by John Locke that “Men’s talk is claimed to be adversarial, goal directed and focused on factual information, differing from women’s co-operative and emotional use of language.” If we consider Locke’s approach to language in gender, it seems that Victor is only initiating conversation to receive some information on Ulrika’s thoughts from the eviction.

However, I feel that could be against the difference approach, purely because Victor says “How are you feeling” instead of speaking bluntly, and to the point. This use of more emotional based language could show he isn’t just interested in the information, but is interested in Ulrika too, hence contradicting Locke’s theory.

Victor does use a common trait of male language later on in the conversation though, as he uses some slang in the conversation, such as “good on ya”. Linguists such as Peter Trudgill and Jenny Cheshire have both suggested that men are more inclined to slang and swearing, as women are considered to speak more politely than men do.

But, Victor does show the very common sign of the dominance approach throughout the conversation. As Zimmerman and West suggested in 1975, males are a lot more likely to interrupt women, than women interrupting men. They suggested this was because men wanted to impose their dominant status through conversation. Victor does this by interrupting Ulrika when she says “I do feel better, I – “before cutting her off with “I for one am personally over the moon.” This use of an interruption to state what he thinks is a sign of Victor possibly wanting to impose dominance.

Victor then interrupts Ulrika at other points of the conversation, and each time, Ulrika backs down and lets Victor talk, another sign that Victor is imposing his dominance through conversation. However, there is one time where Ulrika tries to continue what she’s saying and interrupts Victor when he’s saying “I for one am personally over the moon” by saying “Are you?” however, Victor does not back down and continues to interrupt Ulrika.

Along with Victor showing signs of the dominance approach, Ulrika also shows common signs of the deficit approach throughout. As Robin Lakoff suggests, women use certain language techniques, such as tag questions, empty adjectives, and hedges, many of these according to Lakoff, to show their uncertainty and how they want to express this to seek clarification.

Ulrika mainly uses hedges such as “um” throughout the conversation, as well as false starts, such as “I-I-I I’m I can’t, I’m not gonna… I couldn’t possibly” both of these a sign of uncertainty according to Lakoff. However, these hedges and false starts could also just be a part of spontaneous speech, as Ulrika and Victor are just having a casual conversation where they are thinking as they are speaking. The um’s and false starts could be Ulrika’s way of showing she’s thinking over what to say next.

As for the other connections to the deficit approach, there are a couple less frequent ones. For example, Ulrika uses a tag question midway through the conversation when Victor says “I said when you’re up for eviction if you usually have arguments, you usually go” to which she responded “well you said that, yeah?” and though Lakoff suggests this is a sign of uncertainty, others have suggested otherwise. For example, Janet Holmes suggested in 1992 that tag question were actually just a politeness strategy to involve the other speaker and lengthen the conversation.        

Another point I find interesting is Ulrika’s choice of language which seems to purposely avoid any kind of conflict. For example, Ulrika speaks of Nadia in a positive manner, even though she’s stated she wanted Nadia to leave since the beginning. This could be considered a politeness strategy to avoid conflict as linguist John Locke has suggested that “Verbal dispution appears to be something that few women seek or expect to enjoy”.

What I also found interesting is Ulrika’s use of empty adjective “nice” to describe Nadia aswell. This term could be considered another politeness strategy to make Ulrika seem like she likes Nadia more that she actually does, yet again, avoiding conflict as she is using vague language.

In conclusion, I feel that this conversation clearly shows some differences in male and female language, such as Ulrika’s uses of politeness strategies, whilst Victor is a lot more blunt, as he speaks openly about how he “tried to get Nadia off for two months”. However, the use of Victor’s more emotive language to begin with may show that the gender lines are blurring a little, with men seeking conversation for more than just information.

|| Language and Gender ||

The Deficit, Dominance and Difference Approach.

Language and communication has been a crucial and vital part of human lifestyle since before we can remember. Not a day goes by when we mindlessly harness our abilities to speak and use them throughout the day, whether we are regaining information, or just making small talk with a new acquaintance, we can all agree that language is all around us, and used by all of us.

However, that does not mean the way we use language is similar, especially when it comes to the gender divide. Many people have studied the differences in male and female language for years, each coming up with new ideas and beliefs, each one contradicting the linguist before them. Though many people agree that male and female language is different, and some still don’t, we still can’t fully set an idea as to why male and female language is different. However; we can narrow it down to three main approaches, commonly known as the “3D’s”. These three approaches are the three main ideas behind language in gender, all of them supporting a different reason as to why our language is different.

The first approach to be introduced was the Deficit approach. The theory came to be in 1975 when Robin Lakoff argued that women used the language terms involved with the deficit approach to reinforce and reflect their passive role in society. Though Lakoff’s research is considered the starting point for this approach, there has been proof that others have had the same ideas from as early as 1922, in Otto Jesperson’s novel Language: Its Nature and Development.

This approach includes a variety of techniques, one of the main ones being women’s use of tag questions. Lakoff argued that women use these tag questions such as “It’s a nice day, isn’t it?” to show their uncertainty, and therefore are seeking the correct answer from a male perspective. Other techniques include; Women using more precise colour terms, such as “Magenta” or “Teal” and women using weak expletives, such as “Oh dear” as well as a use of empty adjectives when describing something, for example “The dinner was nice”.

The techniques here show a certain kind of politeness, and passiveness, almost as if the women’s language here is used in a way to remove themselves from any kind of conflict. Lakoff suggested that socialization played an important role in how female language has remained very passive through the years, and that society had constructed the differences between men and women, and that they weren’t totally biologically based.
 

However, Lakoff’s theories have been shunned by some, purely because Lakoff used an incredibly small amount of information to form her ideas upon. As she only used a small sample, we cannot be sure that this information is true for all women. Others have also contradicted Lakoff’s ideas, suggesting different reasons as to why women speak the way they do. 
 

For example, Janet Holmes made a suggestion in 1992 again Lakoff’s theory on tag questions being a sign of uncertainty, and suggests that tag questions may function as a device to help maintain discussion and to be polite. Rather than being mere signs of weakness, she suggests that tag questions were multi-functional.

After Lakoff’s theory was introduced, Zimmerman and West also introduced their ideas on language and gender in 1975. However, what they introduced was one of the most quoted pieces of research when it comes to the Dominance approach. They found that in their (albeit small) set of data, that ninety-six percent of all interruptions in mixed sex conversations were made by men. 

In their further research they found that overlaps of speech occurred twenty two times in same sex pairs, compared to nine in mixed sex pairs, and the average silence in a same sex conversation was only 1.35 seconds, compared to an average silence of 3.21 seconds in mixed conversations.

 

From this data, Zimmerman and West saw this as a sign that women had restricted linguistic freedom, and that this was due to men wanting to impose their dominant status in conversation, hence why men were much more likely to interrupt due to the research Zimmerman and West found.

However, this research could be considered unreliable, also due to the same problem tat Lakoff encountered, with their research data being far too small an amount for their suggestion to be considered totally reliable and not just sweeping statement. People have looked into Zimmerman and West’s research and repeated their experiment on a much larger scale, Geoffrey Beattie being one of them. Beattie claims to have recorded some 10 hours of conversation, involving 557 interruptions, nearly ten times as much as Zimmerman and West’s set of data. Beattie found that women and men interrupted with more or less equal frequency, so men did interrupt more, but only by a small amount.

 

The third and final approach of the 3D’s, is the difference approach. The most alternative of the approaches, the difference approach simply states that men and women are just simply biologically different, and the differences in sub-cultures and how each gender was raised affect their differences in language.

There have been a variety of suggestions for this approach, one of them being Jennifer Coates in 1989, where she suggested that all female talk is essentially used to support each other’s rights as speakers, and to negotiate discussions and keep conversation flowing. Another suggestion was from Jane Pilkington, in 1992, where she suggested that women in same sex conversations are much more collaborative than men are in same sex conversations. She says that women aimed for more positive politeness strategies in conversation, whilst men didn’t. Other linguists have found this aswell, and suggested it could be due to what men and women used conversation for in simpler times. Whilst men used conversation solely to gain information and things that could help with him and his family’s survival, women used their language to keep the family together, hence keeping the children alive. This use of more collaborative language in women could have evolved through time with women, hence their use of politeness strategies today.

Of course, this approach also has some contradictions, just like the others. The contradiction from this comes from Deborah Tannen, who suggests that the media promotes conflict between people, and that it makes us want to watch it. She also suggests that differences in language can be affected by where you were born and raised, and not just your gender. For example, speakers in London and busy cities are far more aggressive in their language than people in country towns and cities, such as Bristol.

She suggests that part of socialisation is demographic, and we cannot blame our differences on just gender, as society has created a lot of these differences, which is similar to what Lakoff says earlier in her deficit approach theory.

Personally, I feel that the difference approach is the theory that explains our differences the best. I feel that although the deficit and dominance approaches both have valid research for their causes, and both approaches have some elements of truth that I agree with, there is just as much evidence against, also with elements I agree with. These contradictions leave me unsure as to what really is the truth behind those approaches.

 
Honestly, I don’t feel we will ever be able to fully explain why there are some differences in language between the genders, as there are always women that speak, or think like men, and men that speak and think like women, and society has created this gender divide that makes it hard for us to accept that there will always be people that do not act the way society expects them to. I think that society is responsible for how our language has evolved, but with women becoming more aggressive and assertive over time, and slowly becoming more powerful, we may see these gender barriers blurring, and then the language differences may change.

|| Language and Gender ||

A couple more Linguist theories:

|| SEMANTIC PROGRESSION ||

It has been claimed that some terms in English that are reserved for use when referring to women have a strong negative connotation attatched to them when compared to the corresponding term used to refer to men.
Sarah Mills (1990) and Muriel Schultz (1995), highlights the following examples  of Lexical pairswhere the male term suggsts a positive attribute, whilst the female suggests a negative one.


MALE                         FEMALE

Courtier                      Courtesan
Master                         Mistress


Schultz points out that many of the female equivilents are marked as an indicative of sexual promiscuity, whilst male terms represent a free, independent, positive lifestyle.

Two important pieces of research were undertaken by Peter Trudgill (1974) and Jenny Cheshire (1982), who both use large samples of data in the form of recorded talk, which were analysed to show diffrernces in Male and Female Language.

• Trudgill discovered that accross social classes, men tended to use a more non-standart pronounciation, whilst women did the polar opposite, using standard froms and over reporting.
• Cheshire also found this when she analysed the talk of teenagers, finding Males used much more non-standard forms than girls did. She explains this by drawing on the type of social network to which the Males and Females belonged to.

|| Language and Gender ||

|| WHY CONVERSATION WORKS ||

Grice's "Logic of Conversation"

Communication is a Co-operative activity, and when people communicate, it's in their intrests to make the communication go as smoothly as possible in order to achieve their aims.

1. Quality
When someone speaks to us, we assume they are telling the truth.

2. Quantity
When someone Speaks to us, we assume that they give us all of the information we need, but not too much.

3. Manner
When someone speaks to us, we assume thry are speaking as clearly as possible.

4. Relevance
When someone is speakng to us, we assume that what they say is relevant to the conversation.

|| THE GRICEAN MAXIMS ||

1.Be True
2. Be Brief
3. Be Clear

4. Be Relevant

|<Not interesting, but it's what you expect. However, rules are sometimes made to be broken.>

NOT FOLLOWING THE MAXIMS:

A speaker can choose to:

• 'Violate' a Maxim, and choose to be intentionally misleading
• 'Opt out' of a Maxim and refuse to co-operate

|| POLITENESS ||

<If we really want co-operation, we also need to be polite;>
Trait of Female Language

GOFFMAN'S FACE

"Co-operation is vital to conversation, but without politeness, all is lost"

Goffman saw that without politeness, conversation didn't work and that need for politeness was rooted in 'Saving Face'

Brown and Levinson then Developed Goffman's ideas:

NEGATIVE FACEAll the things we say to aviod imposing our demands with others, eg:

• 'I'm sorry to bother you, but...'
• 'Could I please borrow...'
• 'Might you be interested in...' 

The expressions underlined are called 'Mitigating devices'.


POSITIVE FACE
Everything we might say to show that we agree with, respect and like someone.

• 'I was just admiring your car, it looks great!'

We may also use strategies to emphisise our solidarity with the hearer, using Shared Dialect, Slang, Nicknames and use of "we" to link the speaker and the hearer.



|| Language and Gender ||

Another Language Approach

Debora Tannen Suggests that the media promote conflict and that people want to watch this.

She also suggests that:

• Men and Women are becoming more argumentative
• and that differences in Language can differ due to where you grew up; eg
London - Aggressive and Hectic > Less Pauses Bristol - Laidback and Relaxed > More pauses

|| PART OF SOCIALISATION IS DEMOGRAPHIC||

The School you go to, where you grew up, intrests, ect...



|| Language and Gender ||

There are Three arguements towards the Nature/Nurture debate:

Dominance

Deficit

& Difference. 

The Dominance Approach

 (Men automatically dominate conversations to prove their strength over women.)

One of the most quoted pieces of research is by Zimmerman and West, 1975, who found that their (albeit small) set of data, that 96% of all mixed sex conversation were made by men.

They saw this as a sign both that women had restricled linguistic freedom,  and that men sought to impose their dominant status throught applying explicit constraints in conversational practice.

Further Research from Zimmerman and West (1975)

OVERLAPS

22 in Same Sex Pairs

9 in Mixed Sex, all Men overlapping Women

INTERRUPTIONS

7 in Same Sex pairs

48 in Mixed Sex, 46 Men interrupting Women.

SILENCES

Average Same Sex >1.35 Seconds

Average Mixed Sex > 3.21 Seconds

|| 98% OF INTERRUPTIONS CAME FROM MEN ||

The Deficit Approach 

("Woman's Language lacks the authority when compared to that used by men." - Robin Lakoff) 

Lakoff suggested that socialization played an important role in ensuring that femalw language remained less assertive and more insecure when compared to that of men and so the differences were more socially constructed than biologically based. For example:

• The use of specialised vocabulary centred around domestic chores
• Precise colour terms, eg "mauve", "magenta"
• Weak expletive terms, eg, "oh dear"
• Empty adjectives, eg "nice", "sweet"
• More polite forms than men use, like euphemisms such as "spend a penny", "powder my nose"
• Intensifiers, eg "so"  
• Tag questions to show uncertainty, eg "nice, isn't it?", "doesn't she?" 

THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH THIS SAMPLE THOUGH:
Ith is far too small a sample for us to use as wholly reliable evidence.


Janet Holmes, 1992, suggests that tag questions, rather than being a sign of uncertainty in a speaker, may also function as a device to help maintain discussion or to be polite. Holmes suggests that rather than being mere signs of weakness, tag questions are multi-functional.  
It is also argued that Vague Language allows the speaker to sound relaxed and informal.

  

   The Difference Approach  

(Men and Woman are Different, and the differences in language are Biological.)

 The difference approach to Language and Gender takes an alternative stance;

• Jennifer Coates, 1989, suggested that all Female talk is essentially co-operative in the way that sleakers help to negotiate discussions and support eachother's rights as speakers. She argues that as these patterns are not found in mixed talk, they are evidence of differing socio-cultural expectations and a key insight into differences in sub cultures.
• Jane Pilkington, 1992, also found that woman in same sex talk were more collaborative than men were in all-male talk. She concluded that whereas woman aimed for more positive politeness strategies in conversation with other women, men tended to be less complimentary and supportive in all male talk. 
• Equally, Koenraad Kuiper, 1991, found that in all-male talk amongst members of a rugby team, men were likely to pay less attention to the need to save fave and instead used insults as a way of expressting solidarity. Similar findings on all-male talk have also highlighted these differences. 

|| Language and Gender ||

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Who do you talk to?

• Parents *~
• Siblings *
• Grandparents
• Other family members - Aunts Uncles, ect ~
• Friends from Secondary School *
• Friends from College *
• Hairdresser
• Boyfriend */
• Guests around my House ~
• Friends parents
• Childhood friends
• Teachers *
• People on the Bus Stop ~
• Closest Friend */
• People in Queues ~

* People I talk to Everyday
   Meaningful Conversations
/ Go To person 
~ Small Talk

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//PHATIC TALK = SMALL TALK\\

Remember that.

|| Language and Gender ||

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A quick Experiment

What subjects are you studying at College?

Photography, English Language, Media Studies & Maths (All at A Level)

(These are Artistic and Scientific subjects.)

• In our group, the majority of students are doing Art & Humanity based subjects, with nobody choosing a core science, and only one male & female taking maths.  

(Keeping in mind that there is only one Male in the entire class.) 

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Spoken Language

The age old Dilemma:

NATURE OR NURTURE? 

Were we born this way, or brought up this way?

Are you born a woman, or a man, and can you change that?

 

||SOCIETY AFFECTS LANGUAGE||

For example, using Marked Terms, such as "Actor & Actress" are not considered Politically correct, because why should it matter whether you're Male or Female? You're still doing the same job.

However  

There are small differences in language between Men & Women, such as Women not being as blunt as Men whilst speaking. 

To study these ideas in more depth, we analysed ||this article|| 

"Duels and Duets: Why Men & Woman talk so differently" 

The title is already suggesting that men use language in a competivive, "Duelling" nature, whilst Women use language in a more compatitive, "Duetting" nature. The article then opens with the ideas behind the article, that Women use language to be Inclusive, whilst Men use language to be Exclusive.

Throughout the article there are quotes and captions from writer John Locke, who suggests that Language and Gender is biological, and that Woman's language keeps the community together so her children can grow up with a father. For example:

• "Women lack the ability to debate, whilst Men have it deeply rooted in Male biology."
• "Men's talk is claimed to me adversarial, goal-directed and focused on factual information and, as such, differs from woman's co-operative interpersonal and emotional use of language."
• "Differences in men and woman's verbal behaviour are linked to biological differences. Eg- Pre-natal hormones and genetic factors."

But along with these quotes, Lock also makes some sweeping judgements on gender, such as:

• "Verbal disputation appears to be something that few woman seek or expect to enjoy."