GENDER

MEET THE TEAM

AFRIN LIMU
MD. MOHAMMED ARMAN
ID: 17114050
ID: 17114051

PRANAY DAS MAMUNOR RASHID

ID: 17114059
ID: 17114028
CONTENT

▪ Defining Gender
▪ How are language and gender related?
▪ Historical Perspective
▪ Gender Exclusive Language
▪ Different Approaches:
1. Deficit Approach
2. Dominance Approach
3. Difference Approach
4. Social Constructivist Approach

▪ SUMMERY
 Defining Gender
▪ Defining ‘gender’ is crucial to any theory of language and gender. A consensus on its definition has never been
achieved, and it is the variety of approaches to defining it which have led to various theories about its relationship
with language use. Firstly, it is useful to address the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’. While sex refers to a biologically
determined state, gender is widely viewed as a social construct, which involves not only genetic differences, but
also psychological, social, and cultural differences (Wardhaugh, 2006). According to Cameron, the relationship
between sex and gender is correlational, meaning that gender specific behavior is built upon pre- existing sex
differences. She states that even if the sex- gender relationship is more arbitrary, there will always be gender
differences which come to symbolize sex (1997). In short, either of the two sexes (male and female), especially
when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones.
Current ideas about gender have gotten considerably more complex, as many sociolinguistic scholars are rejecting
what they label the concept of ‘binary difference’ in gender, i.e. the notion that there are 2 categories; male and
female. New ideas about gender are concerned with the ‘diversity’ of gender identities and practices, with new
research assuming an array of possible gender identities for an individual, which both influence, and are
influenced by, social identities and group membership in different contexts (Cameron, 2005).
How are language and gender related?

Language and gender is an interdisciplinary field of research that studies varieties of speech
(and, to a lesser extent, writing) in terms of gender, gender relations, gendered practices,
and sexuality.

“Language and gender” refers to the relationship between the language of male and female.
Gender difference is not only a reflection of the speeches between male and female, but
also a reflection of their different living styles and attitudes.
Historical Perspective

The study of gender and language in sociolinguistics and gender studies is often said to
have begun with Robin Lakoff’s book, Language and Woman’s Place (1975), as well as some
earlier studies by Lakoff.

The study of language and gender has developed greatly since the 1970s. Prominent
scholars include Deborah Tannen, Mary Bucholtz, Kira Hall, Deborah Cameron, Jane
Sunderland and others.
Language and Gender from a variety of perspectives

Linguist have approached language and gender from a variety of perspectives:

I) Deficit Approach
II) Dominance Approach
III) Difference Approach
IV) Social Constructivist Approach
Gender Exclusive Language

Before explaining account of the approaches on gender and language, we first need to specify
what we mean when we talk about differences between men’s and women’s speech. There are
some claims to gender exclusive language, that is, situations in which men and women have
different ways of speaking that could be deemed different languages, or at least distinct and named
dialects of a language.

According to Sapir (1929), the Yana language of California contained special forms for use in
speech either by or to women. Another claim to sex-exclusive language is found among the
Dyirbal people of North Queensland, Australia, who have a special language which is gender-
differentiated in a rather novel way (Dixon 1971). The normal everyday language, Guwal, is used
by both genders; but, if you are a man and your mother-in-law is present, or if you are a woman
and your father-inlaw is present, you use DyalÎuy, a ‘mother-in-law’ variety. This variety has the
same phonology and almost the same grammar as Guwal but its vocabulary is entirely different.
However, both genders have access to both varieties.
 Deficit Approach

Robin Lakoff believes that women use many techniques in their speech that are deficient
to men's speech. His provocative and insightful work, Language and Woman’s Place,
focused on how women’s language revealed their place in society – a place that was
generally seen as inferior to that occupied by men. This account of what came to be called
Women’s Language (WL) has in retrospect been called the deficit model, as many of the
features Lakoff discusses position women as deficient to men:-
• Hedges - e.g. 'sort of', women make their language more vague and don't usually
go into much detail about things.
• Use super polite forms - e.g. 'would you mind' , 'if you don't mind', women use
these as a way of gaining their own way without being bossy.
• Use tag questions - e.g. 'aren't you?', this shows that women can be uncertain
and asking for conformation of their thoughts.
 Deficit Approach
• Use empty adjectives - e.g. 'divine' , 'lovely' , 'adorable' , 'nice', showing a way of being non-
committal within a conversation.

• Use direct quotation - this is because men paraphrase things more often than women (now
known as a part of MLE- Multicultural London English).

• Have a special lexican (stereotypical 'offside, man on') - women now use more words for things
like colours, men use more words for sports.

• Use question intonation in declarative statements - women raise their pitch tone in a

declarative statement to form a question, emphasising their uncertainty.

Empirical studies have shown that some of the features Lakoff suggests are typical of WL are not
necessarily present in the speech of women; for instance, empirical work on tag questions has
refuted the idea that they are used more by women (Dubois and Crouch 1975, Cameron et al.
1989, and Brower et al. 1979). Holmes (1984) actually found that men were more likely to use tag
questions that indicated uncertainty. Furthermore, after analyzing a large corpus of academic data
from the University of Michigan, researchers found that ‘in the domain of academic speech, there
is no specific gender-related effect on speakers’ hedging frequencies’ (Poos and Simpson 2002)
Dominance Approach

It seems women as an oppressed group and interprets linguistic differences in women’s

and men’s speech in terms of men’s dominance and women’s subordination. Researches
using this model are concerned to show how male dominance is enacted through linguistic
practice ‘Doing power’ is often a way od ‘Doing Gender’ too.
Some of this research claims that there is evidence that in cross-gender conversation
women ask more questions than men, use more backchanneling signals (i.e., verbal and
non-verbal feedback to show they are listening) to encourage others to continue speaking,
use more instances of you and we, and do not protest as much as men when they are
interrupted. On the other hand, men interrupt more, challenge, dispute, and ignore more,
try to control what topics are discussed, and are inclined to make categorical statements.
Such behaviors are not characteristic of women in conversations that involve both men
and women. In other words, in their interactional patterns in conversation, men and
women seem often to exhibit the power relationship that exists in society, with men
dominant and women subservient.
Dominance Approach
Work such as that of Fishman and DeFrancisco on couples’ talk, Zimmerman and West on gender and
interruptions, and Weston physicians’ directives shows how men tend to dominate conversations through
interruption and topic control, and to backchannel less than women. However, more comprehensive
research on interruptions shows that this pattern cannot be generalized. James and Clarke (1993) looked at
fifty-four studies that addressed the claim that men are much more likely than women ‘to use
interruption as a means of dominating and controlling interactions’. They report that the majority of
studies have found no significant differences between genders in this respect, and that both men and
women interrupt other men and women. However, according to James and Clarke, ‘A small amount of
evidence exists that females may use interruptions of the cooperative and rapport-building type to a
greater extent than do males, at least in some circumstances.’ The overarching theme in this research is
that men’s societal dominance is reproduced in conversations between men and women. Although there
are problems with this approach, including that it is somewhat overly simplistic, the idea that larger
societal norms influence what happens within a conversation is an enduring concept in the study of
language, gender, and sexuality. Context is important in how we use language. Men and women’s speech
is not the same in private and public spheres, and different roles within an interaction also lead to
different ways of speaking.
Difference Approach

Its basic idea was popularized by the psychologist Jonathan Grey in his book Men are from
Mars, Women are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex (1992)
and by the linguist Deborah Tannen in her book ‘You Just Don’t Understand: Women and
Men in Conversation (1990)’. These works were based on the assumption that men and
women speak differently.

Deborah Tannen believes the difference between how women and men talk and
communicate starts in childhood, where parents use more words about feelings to girls and
use more verbs to boys. Men and Women belong to difference sub-cultures and therefore
speak differently.
Difference Approach
She mentioned that there are six main differences between the ways males and females use
language:
I. STATUS vs SUPPORT- men see language as a means of asserting dominance; women see it as a way of
confirming/supporting ideas.

II. INDEPENDENCE vs INTIMACY- men “go it alone”; women seek support.

III. ADVICE VS UNDERSTANDING – men see language as problem solving; women see it as a means of
empathy.

IV. INFORMATION vs FEELINGS- males are concerned with the facts; women with emotions.

V. ORDERS vs PROPOSALS- men use imperatives; females use hidden directives.

VI. CONFLICT vs COMPROMISE – men would not mind having conflict to show their power; women will try to
find a middle ground.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH

Due to the limitations of the difference & dominance paradigms. It was felt there was a
need to rethink the theories of language and gender. Gradually the study of language
began to move towards understanding gender as a constitutive factor in building social
identities. Freeman and McElhinny view “Language use as a shaping understanding of
the social world”(1996) and the role it plays in the relationship formed in the social world
in addition to the construction of social identities.

Gender identity is seen as a social construct rather than as a social category. What has
changed is linguists’ sense that gender is not a static, add-on characteristics of
speakers, but is something that is accomplished in talk every time we speak.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH: Focus on Activities

Goodwin has offered a critical theory in this perspective. She conducted an ethnographic study looking at
gender and language use in a single community and proposed that rather than analyzing genders/
cultures/individuals or groups, activities should be the main focus of research. An example of an activity
could be a job interview, teaching, a sporting event etc. To back up her theory, Goodwin references the
fact that anthropological, sociological and psychological scholars have all come to the same conclusion;
that activities are worthy of analysis, as individuals’ social behavior and cognitive functions change over
the course of various activities (Freemand & McElhinny, 1996). In her research, Goodwin observed
differing social structures between African American males and female in a variety of speech and play
activities. She found that boys and girls build similar structures through their use of speech in some
situations, and different structures on other situations (Freemand & McElhinny, 1996). Thus we can see
that rather than ignoring similarities between male and female interactions like the difference approach
does, a strength of the social constructivist approach is that it addresses both similarity and difference.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH : Communities of Practice

In a similar vein to Goodwin, Eckert and McConnell- Ginet propose that the concept of ‘community of practice’ (CoP)
should be the focus of study in looking at gender and language use. They state that the “language-gender interface”
experienced by individuals may vary with participation in different communities across life stages (1992, p. 4). Unlike a
community which is defined by geographic location a ‘community of practice’ is defined by social engagement; “A
community of practice is an aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagement in some common
endeavor” (Eckert & McConnell- Ginet, 1992, p.8). They suggest that speakers are involved in numerous communities
of practice and that this multiple participation shapes the identity of the individual. In this way, gender is constructed
in a variety of communities of practice. The relationship between language and gender is born in the communities of
practice that men and women are involved in, so language use will differ related to participation in different activities
(Cameron, 2005). For example, if a man is a member of a sports team and a woman a member of a book club, they will
likely develop differing discourse repertoires as a result of membership to these CoP (Cameron, 2005). This idea is in
keeping with Goodwin’s theory about the importance of activities. However, according to Freeman and McElhinny
(1996), the concept of ‘communities of practice’ involves a wider analytic area of inquiry than ’activities’. To illustrate
this point they use an example of a workplace being a community of practice, and the different jobs being carried out
in that workplace being activities.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH : Communities of Practice

Eckert & McConnell- Ginet(1992), identify that women tend to be subordinate to men in various mixed- sex
communities of practice, including; the workplace, the military, and in academic settings, so they do address power
structures with their theory (Cameron, 2005). Another advantage of their theory is that it does not attempt to
overgeneralize about the relationship between language and gender like previous theories tended to. Differences and
similarities observed in one CoP are not going to be applied to another CoP, as the theory is dependent on context. As
a result of its newness, this approach seems to be the most relevant to modern society. While the ‘dominance
approach’ was relevant in its time due to social and political forces, it seems rather archaic now as Western society is
no longer rigidly controlled by gender hierarchies. Additionally, contemporary young Western males and females are
more similar to each other in terms of education and opportunity than previous generations, so the binary nature of
gender difference implied by older theories seems less relevant in current times. Further support for the diversity of
gender approach comes from the fact that there are significant numbers in modern society who regard themselves as
either gender indeterminate (neutral), or transgender (Cameron, 2005). The language used by this community of
individuals clearly can’t be explained by any theory assuming binary or sex-specific differences.
SUMMERY

We look at research on how men and women use language, tracing research trends up to the current
focus on language as a means of expressed gender and sexuality identities. We learn that patterns of
language use depend more than just the agent’s intrinsic characteristics, her sociolinguistics identity.

After reviewing the former researches into this topic, we can see the shortcomings and the similarities
between the language of male and female are as important as differences.
THANK YOU