Women’s Language: Critical Approaches Chapter 7 Lakoff in context: the social and linguistic functions of tag questions’ Deborah Cameron, Fiona McAlinden & Kathy O'Leary 1. Introduction In recent years, there has been considerable interest in the sini ingusti Bekavogr of women and men. Work th fren hasbeen of tvo main Kind eter ths concerned elt ‘ih phonological ‘and'prarmatcal varaion, sual a ptt of 1 vider vatatonist projet (ex Trude 173: Cheshire 1985) Gres it has invave the more ‘holst’ exploration of Bene, lke spech sts in natural or qun-natural interaction, The sue of pene phoma, guns and dete, pies srappotionment and hearer suppor ate amon the speech Style features that have boom scrutiny for sox fence Brown igo: Goodwin fo: Fashman rior Zimmerman ai West") Here itis this seoond "speech style strand we concentrate on. Drawing on cmpircal ties we have unde {aken, we argu tht it te fo reassess cen historia pes ‘cupattos of researchers in ths ea, and me ge fare invetgators to be aware ofthe complexity of ration between Sng orm, communicative funtion, tial context and sca 2 Work on women’s style: the Lakoff hypothesis “Amon suying the ert nsx deren ech se media ote that the work of akin shot Euclid" ery pa Les lw Lae an Wo Pt) ee i Teng tion yng fhe Eg Sage as {50 and shui nomen Chigaly pls acy {AKOFF cone oo journal, the essay wat reprinted in book form and has had ‘Seine exposure and popular success, stimulating dconion ‘oth inside ad outside ngs rom the pont of view of todays researchers, the major draw- tuck im Laks work lnk of any empiial basi Rather than coleting corpora of male and female peech, Lak! made {thins tased os her own ntions and ancdotal observation of her pee lngunge one” Many of thse clair have, not surpri Ing, proved contentious. Yet, despite erticoms’ of Lakes mathodology, the ast of festres she somewhat arbitanly flected ae markers of women's speech syle connie fo gure In research on sx ferences, Becase of the importance of Canguoge and Woman's Pace (LWP) ats time when the Feld ad yet to establish tet, many Tater researches apparently et ‘obliged to begin their own investigations. wih the socalled STaoHt hype in some canes epectally in the mi o7, there reacachors were apeicaly concerned 0 Yes! the hypoth {Sir ut even ter on, att became clear that matters were mote Complex than Lakotf had suggested, researchers id not slays Stan the features o which LWP frat drew attention. We shall Se how this obsession with 2 particular set of features (and indeed withthe question of wher Lakoff substantive cams ‘were right) as tended fo leave important Ssues unsolved “fo srt with, though, what exe isthe “Lakoff hypothesis"? ‘We can deal wii tin two pare sbstanes and explanation The fubstamive claims have to-do wih the existence of 8 typical {eae speech sve: ‘This ile is marked, at least among ‘cucied North American Engith speakers, bythe us of eetain {inguise femurs sch a hestations, inenaber and quater, {ag union, ring itonation ot delaras, tiv Te nd “ery actives What Finks these rather dapat Pchomend is thee alleged common fonction n emanation {hey weaken oF iigate the fore of an uterance. For insta, ila ines ing tonto om drew showing tenttvenes| lone ave fest with 3 esr for nfmaton ot fpr which sgn ack of sel-conence in the speaker, Qvaliers and intensifier function in Jscourse hedge. Ts Lakotf would ane that (42) Its a nice day isn't i (+ 140) is les assertive than just, (4) 1a mice day (~ 190) ann analogously76 WOMEN'S LANGUAGE: CHETAL APPROACHES (29) don’ really want it (+ ouausren) is kes foe than (20) I don want it (~ quan) According (0 Lakoff, & speaker who wses these. mitigating features frequently wil 3 se unaserive and lacking Teatures are typical of that women appear Weak. and "The nection between femininity and ‘women re brought hoity and forcTalnes a3 macuine faites mbich they should avon. They are teh instead to URplay the “feminine” qualities of weakness, pasty aod teference to men. Its entirely predictable, and given the pres. res towards social eonformiy. rational that ‘women should Almonstate these qualities in ther speech as well a in other ssp tir than, Further te ato wating, since eis wil tend 0 imitate the speech of thee ‘others andthe female role moves avaible in sotety Each of the pats of Lakof's hypothesis seems to us to rise setious analytic asus quite apart from = and indeed prior to= the question of whether any evidence can be found for the Substantive claims, Studies taking thet che from LWP have 100 ‘often been preaccupied with is empirical dimension (do women the moe of features x.) and 22) 10 the exch of ert tinderying problems. Two problems in partiular ment deta ‘dscusion 23, Problems in the Lakoff hypothesis {31 The form and function problem Tit frst problem raised by LWP is the one we wil fer to a8 the form snd funeton problem, and it may be glossed a follows how far i it pombe to identify a rocument form ~ say the tak cain, of 2 rang ndcies with some spelae commence {imction ‘or meaning? Both Lakotf and her more empires minded eacosaors Rave talten an deny ofthis End prety enc for ranted. In the case of tag questions, for instane, Lakott Iman it lear that unless tag request information unknown 10 the speaker itis oe counted as signaling temtativeness and/or Use for approval Ssreoype counterexamples ike LaxorF i cower a (6) Thar was a sly thing 19 do, wasn't it (patent to chi) sping readily to mind; but more seriously, it seems to us prob- lematic fo suggest that the communicative function of syactic form is either invariant or analytical transparent tall cases. ‘Studies like our own, which dal with natural data, indicate the absolute necesty of considering forms in their linguistic and Social context, notin general, ad sugars that we should regard ‘lifenctonaity as the unmarked ease ~ thats, in eal talk ‘most utterances do many things at once, TT acepied, though, this obseration complicate research on sex ferences in speech se, since unes we eam map linguistic forms onto functions in the way Lakoff does. any clam that ‘women use form x more than men bees the question ‘so what? Early attempts to investigate the Lakoft hypothesis empirca (Dobos & Crouch 1975: Crosby de Nyquist 1977) suffer fo some ‘degree from their alae fully to sonfont the form ad fnction problem. Dubois and Crovch, for instance, sought to disprove Lakoff’ claim that women wie tag questions more often than ‘men. Using data recorded at an academic conference, these ‘esearchers found men used tags far more than women, Yet on its own, this fining f surely ullaminating since athongh Ht tefutes Lasts general cai, it doesnot reveal why and to what extent she was wrong. Nor indeed does i explain Dubus and Crouch’ own findings: for the explanation must depend on an account of what tag questions mean in different contexts. Do fseademic conferences make men mote tentative than usual? De tags serve some other purpose ina conference setting? Dubois and Crouch gute rightly conclude that in thei data, tags do mot indicate avoidance of commitment (a fnetion which Lakoff had s much greater awarencse of the complexity of form-function telations, andthe way these interact with context of situation. In the central part of ths paper we will feturm tothe form and function problem att rlaes to tae ques tions in diferent context, ‘The problem of explanation Fist, though, we need to examine another problem, this tm in Lakotts explanatory framework. As we have noted, Lakott felates unassertive female speech to the norms of feminin Which fellow in turn from women’s sabordinate seal post ‘While this a plausible enough account, if not the only pont ible one it raises, in particular, the Theoretical sue of whether* \WoMIR'S LANGUAGE: CRTIEAL APPROACHES ender coe (eminnty’) and status (defined interme ofa chster [tfeatures ike age, socal cas, sex, position in occupational and ‘ther hierarchies) shouldbe eonfated~ and ifmot, whether one ‘more important than the other in determing or influencing n'individoal's speech syle, Put crudely, women’s language! Sonne of eng ema, Fo ag abort, or some "This i not an sue to which Lakoff i able to devote much discussion’ ti cear that for her the most important aspect of “women’s language’ is ts association with weakness and subor dination, but on the other hand she call it women's langage, {tat i, typical of women rather than other socaly subordinated froups Later writes, however, have reconsidered thi one ell Known study (O"Bart & Atkins 1980) explicly poses the ques. ton “Women's language" or "powers language" ‘O'Bare and’ Atkins studied the speech of male and female witnesses ina Catlina ‘courtroom. ‘They were looking for {eatures of Lakotts "women's language" exaggerated polite forms, heles,itensifers snd tag questions (though fact they I! 9 dic this fast arible sie it trmed out that witessee Skdom used interogative forms). Briel. when they quantified the use of women’s languoge features, O'Baré and Atkins found them not to be typicl of all women, or to be coined to the speech of women only. A better deferminant of whether some individual scored highly on the features was his or her sats, both in general (soa ease and occupation) and in relation 10 Focal courtoom ‘norms’ (that Is, experienced witnesses pled aus from thelr knowledge ofthe expected procedure, and thi Tuber of men (Le. taed fewer "women’s language’ features, Sie"wemployl and biker male speakers Kore Meher {han a aumer of women The highscring women Tend to be tnwaged ‘however oF to he employed sn lost abn ‘O'Bare and Atking concluded that "women’s language come thing aa msoomer what they and Lak had ben dealing wh wana saturlinked vail or poweros language The pos Though not verabelming comeationtey found been Is ‘arity and women speaker shou argshly be expsined a 9 Somsaguence ofthe het that women on average Cecpy tet Satur postions than men; nevertels, the snprtant actor ‘status rather than sex per se. i "At the ether end of fhe explanatory spectrum from O'Barr and Akins a pil Irom Labo, we those irs ho ge {kore conten 2 thot male and female speech sles are nt primarily determined by power and tats, peering tose ex ferences ss dering. {om the genders saber tat reformed in ehdhood Pin. ‘Se ate often cited in apport of hit poston x Goodwin's (isto sy of hres cnecves tn two, Pidelphia pect troupe Goodwin’ iy teats ete wage tothe Teng. ‘Srgansaton of mai and female glesct poupe Male {poupn ae onan 5 herrea ture othe resting Symimciics ir mide! situ ae veleted i whi Coys ire, and hw eal eroup member se dest pers: ties the Ginme the ples whereas uborioate member roe Em fone completely Gla peer groups ae onganed aong Siren ines theres lest asymmetry and fewer dest ommands are woe. Instead the pa favour suggesting moves, ommony felted by the linge clement “Grows Moding in wel with the faking Bebe that men fave an aggresive and compettive speech yl whereas Women tnd mors fo cooporatve speech. The two at of end {ce are rometines at tobe para marked the Stara sting of inpe-ex talk (utr the sons that for trot chilren single-sex talk and pay which re formate Whe sngleacx me th east the ena) Alo ont {ace o this poo view resembles Lat sine tho relies tan on's olin of qute ng aid divergent gender Toes tive the sxe act st re # ero Serene fn evaluation teteeen followers of Lakeland the sual teorte Fe {Sto womens syle decent, acing sutoriy and set tenes, Por sueue theta ike Jones (9h) dire ta not deem and may indeed possess virtues uf ts own. The Ente of ate sly fo Teva what thought deecivey fete in apech syle lea 10-am explanation of women's tengunge no the deplore ren of tle doreato, bat at 5 ponte manieatin of female care and values Sie nabealtual approach Bar en appid fo msconani- cations and intracloal conics between: women and. men instead of teparcng thee a loel ftanes more genta power stage tors ike Mal and Borker (198s) Tegan them ar impartle fo the misndcnaaings Sh ie tween spears from ferent etme groupe’ who are often Savare tht they ae orienting to. vey erent couse orme, Drawing on the work of Gumpers (Ios), Mates Blorker argue tit women sd nena have fect corse torms,sne they typaly equ communicative competencein singe sex peer groups. An example they give isthe inerpret- ton of minimal fespomses, which women wre more frequenty than men (Hirschman 1974; Fishman 1980). For women, they fay these Tesponses mean "hear you", whereas for men they ‘mein "Tagrec with you" Thus women and men have diferent texpoctations about the iaidence of minimal responses in talk ‘They tend to misinterpret each other, and this leads 1 restation snd communicative breakdown "The ‘cllure’ versus “power” argument isa signieant one for researchers im the afea of sex differenece in speceh syle. We ‘would argue, however, that it has offen been posed in an over Simple way. On one hal. its rurely implausible 1 cai that fhe gender-pecie subcultures posted by some analyst are quite expected to provide conversational support ‘On the other hand, tke content of aay roup’s speech sie unttely to he reducible to their position inthe socal order. We ‘wll need to consider tis whole dcbate further In the empiseal fe studies fo which we now torn. 4. Empirical case studies 4.1 The tag question Tite linguistic feature chosen here asa case study i¢ one which ths realy got into the bones ofthe debate on language and sox since it wat -orpinally diseased by Lakofl, and we have had ‘cession to allade to it several times already in our theoreti ‘cussion (above): the tap question. The idea that women use ‘more tag questions than men becsuec tags in many conten indicate tenlativeness and approvalsecking has passed out ofthe domain of academic speculation and into folklinguistic common Sense. not excluding the folklinguiste common sense of feminist. How useful and accurate thi view of tag question f will now he "considered using, tO" separate studies “of contesting data bases. 4.2 Tag questions in casual conversation Pa Aims of the stad ‘Tin mst study i based on a compas of nine texts of 5.000 words ich from the ‘Survey of Engh compus based at University” College Involved male speakers only, three female spencers only, and thee speakers of orth sexes. Some 25 speakers were sampled Sltogether, the constraints of the SEU (which ret out to elect fxamples of ‘educated’ British English tage, 1c. middle-class, ‘mostly southern and overwhelmingly ‘wht English speech) nsuring a relatively Homogeneous, group i terms. of social ‘Satu, The aim ofthe stody was to discover what sex dferences, any, existed in this group's use of tag questions. ‘Tag questions were defined formally as grammatical structures in which 2 declarative i followed by an allached inerrogative ttause of tag where the fst lement ofthe declarative’: AUX Component (or dummy DO), usually with its riginal polarity fevered, anda pronoun coreferental withthe orginal subject INP are ‘copied ut’ as in, for instance: 4) You were mising lst week / weren't you (SEU) ‘or, with polarity constant rather than reversed (5) Thorpe's away / is he (SEU). Examples of tag questions from the 45000 words sampled were forther coded for variation on number of formal features: poston {uterance-ntal ve aterance mei) polarity. (coneant 4s reversed) and intonation (rising (/) vs falling CN) tone). in addon to this formal analysis we atiempted functional clasication ofthe fag questions in out data. Given ove ens fof mindlesy quantifeation, we wete. anxious 10 avoid. merely ‘comparing women’s total sage of tags with men's without frst fscertaning that they were using the structure In comparable ‘ways, we were alt interested in challenging Lakols wery cot and dred, restrictive view of tag questions fonctions: that unless they request information unknown tothe speaker they should be cated ss illegtimate’. marker of tentativenes, 2 sign thatthe peaker hot “no views of fis [si] own” (Lakoff 1973: 17). TH ‘ew has recom alko been challenged by the New Zealand linguist Tanet Holmes. 4.22 Analysing tag questions: the work of Holmes Holmes (198) i very much aware of what we have labelled the “orm. and function” problem. ‘She. motes” (984 §2) that in dlacusions of sex differences inspec ste: ‘Most aviators have simpy eunted Hage fxm a {mya the tte for women ve men wth sry ile Secon ‘tte funtion of the forma ne Cote ofthe dacouae i& WOMEN'S LANGUAGE! CRITICAL APPROACHES In clociating these functions, Holmes suggests (1984 50) a ese two lfrelated context factor ned o Be ake ato ‘Scoumt,maely te fanton ofthe speech set inthe developing ‘ESeour, and the fltonhip betwee the partipan inthe Holmes’ own anal ditingsishes two min factions of ag ‘questions which she calls modal and affective, Modal tags are those which request information or confirmation of information teh fener ch Helen fm they Sypeaker-rtentd. Le. designed to moot the speakers need for information. Examples of this type from the Survey dat include (4) You were missing ls week / weren't you (SEU) (6) Bu you've been in Reading Tonger than tha [haven't you eh “Alletve tags’ by contrast are addressee-rientd: that i, they are used not fo signal uncertainy onthe pat ofthe speaker, bat {o indicate concern Tor the addressee. Tis concern cin take two Asinetforms.On one hand, it can exemplify what Brown an Levinson (1078) call "negative politeness" a speaker may vse {ag to soten" or mitigate Tace-threatening tt. Holmes gives the example (7) Open the door for me, could you shore the baldness of the directive is mitigated by the tg, and the fcethreat to the addvessee correspondingly reduc Tags ‘ed in thi way are referred to by Holmes a8 softeners On the father hund, concern ean he directed to the addressees posiive face rather than merely reducing possible offence, tag'may Be Used to indicate a positive interest nor solidarity with the Siresce, and expotaly to oer her oF him away into the scours, signaling. in effec, “OK, your turn ow’. Holmes labels this kindof tag "faiitalive™. Examples from the Survey ‘ta includes (8) Mis porraits are quite state by comparison \ aren't they set) ©) Quie a nice room 1 st in actually \ ie’ it (SEU), 's precisly this kind of ‘active tag which Lakof would sea igi’ a cover ees fer approval. The speakers ‘(and (o) express. personal opinions and value jadgements ‘ich inno way teqire conmaton from Tne AOE context a bbe matkedly and noticeably uncooperative. Thus Lakoff would hold that the tag is uncaled-for and overly deferential, But Holmes finds this reading unsuble and unbelpol Facitative tags may have no informational function, but they do have an important interactional fonction, that of drawing oer porte ‘pans into an exchange. To. call thi. “iegitmate™ begs the Question ‘Holmes's analysis of the functions oft question allows hee to moiy the Lakoff hypothe, As we ti fom sts he Balsa Crass awa aay that women we smote tgs overall than men. But it might be pla. that they we move tags ith afene meaning especialy RO {ate tag: Women, afer al, are legelycopertive’ conve ‘tonalists who expres frequent concern for ether papas in tal; in mined itraction thas een suggested that women re expected to do what Pamela Fishman ha lsd ‘teraction ork ~ escent all-foitaton tak Holmets own data support this moadied hypothesis. She found that in her same, 59 percent of womelrs tags were fsttative compared 135 pet cont which were mols for ten ior rf ha ee a 5c aciatv asa xfer cen mola (he ening percentage for both exes is acount for by softeners, of hie i fet {we a higher proportion. For aval yue oe Table 7, selon cr : : in our own stuly me Stout to investigate two questions: ist, whether the -mvalfafectve stintion could tray be Srp to data trom the SEU; and second, whether the spp Gaon of the dition mou el fndngs om ex dere Similar to those reported by Holmes 42,3 Applying Holmes’ framework tothe Survey data ‘Alnough’ we ‘did eventually clay all tag questions in our sample’ as either modal or affective, the tak was. not wholly ‘unproblematic, and this in torn drew attention to diffe ie Holness own analysis. 1s of terest to consider the problems sme encountered, since they show the extent to which al unalyes of this kind must inevitably be dogged bythe form and function problem First ofall, it was not always posible to asin specific exam- ples to one or other of the modal and afective eaegories unam- Diguowsy. More precisely, there were instances where i seemed Rox satisfactory to analyse a Tag as having some orematon to& WoMIN'S LANGUAGE: CRITCAL AHROACHES You were mising last week / werent you ‘Wie eventually classified this a8 a modal ta, on the grounds that iealled for confirmation of fact the speaker wat not te of ‘ut arguly i alo hasan element ofthe softener about i since tither the bald decirative You were missing last week forthe diret polar interrogative Were you missing last week would tend to sound fike accusations, and thus to threaten the ‘Muresse's face. The tag could be peresived a mitigating this fe treat seem {0 us that examples tke (4) andesine the essential muifnctionaiy of utterances in discourse. Linguists have often Underestimated the interpersonal, 2 opposed to referential Fane: tions of language (a point also made ia similar connection by Coates 1g) piven the importance of acework” mn interaction. ‘we may doubt whether tere i such a thing ss a purely modal Dr speaker oriented tag question. Holmes famemork, however, compelled us 10 make’ a somewhat arial cholee between fHresing the modal and the affective aspects of (4) and other Similar examples Faced with ths sot of choice, we were often influenced by the formal fcatute of rising ¥. falling tone (4. sing tone, all other things being equal was taken fo signal a genuine, that is modal, {question}, But this enleion, it should be noted s hardy inal ible. Our sample contained significant number of count cxamples such (10) One wouldn' have the nerve 0 sake that one / would ‘one (SEU) where the speaker uses rising tone although hei making value: judgement fike those in (8) and (9), rather than querying. a matter of fact (the topic of (1), inedentaly isa nude pictre). Conversely (11) The provost is addressing us tomorrow \. isn't he seems in context to bea request fr confirmation in spite ofthe {aling tone. Overall in our data, 25 per cet of women's aps are modal and 4o percent of men's: bat only 11 percent of women's tags and 18 per cent of men's have rising tome. So if clear that the stator of a tag at modal cnt simply Be read off from Hs ‘aore 1 context 8s To sum up, then, we did find some difficulty in applying Holmer's framework to out data (and we will gue later tht the dlifealties are compounded if one examines data from contexts ther tke other tnd cvraty of meaning otha cern dpe of atin iio be expected in tn fanctioal caution 424 Sexdifference findings ‘The’ s.o0 word sampled from the SEU gave ws ata of 6 tag questions, of which 36 were produced by women bby men. When these 06 tags were analysed as ether modal oF alfective, subject, of course, tothe reservation outlined above, the expected sex diference dhd appear. (See Table 7-1.) ‘amu 7.4 Tg gueton in cual conversation “Holmer 18 SEU, F eae w Mosar nr 2 ae Ce em alitnve ee Soteness 3 ee oe Co) __ (3%) Toul ass wo 1 x noticeable that while our findings for women are more —__— 8 WOMEN'S LANGUAGE: CHEMICAL APPROACH ‘The analysis of examples lke (12) incidentally marks another aren of agreement etwcen os tnd Janet Holmes. Holmes Analyses tags in teranecs such (12) softeners ae yor Supposedly mitigates the extemely negative impact ofthe acc. {Sto You're not mating muck efor Bat we wou ivour ay Semative analysis in which the tag was pereived a8 way of Increasing the adresce'shuraion, Not ony the detent resi (2) ig aed fod ith an enh sibo being invited (Gn an extremely condacve manne) oa With the magirate's assessment of his behaviour. This nd trot the ite man, “To summarise, then, the “unequal encountes” strand of work ‘on discourse presents us with an alterative hypothesis othe one ‘hually entertained in relation to tag questions by sex dilerence researchers. This hypothesis is that tg questions function a= Interactional resource of the powerful rather than the poweres in conversation. Looking more closely at this possibilty might throw light on the problem of explanation (se. section 3.2 fbove). is women's tse of facilttive tags 4 function of thor powerlesnens, their role in conversation, oF of subeultral nos Df female peer groups? (OF couse, Wis possible that unequal encounters difler markedly from ordinary fall i terms of what {ig questions ate used to accomplish: the form and function ‘problem most therfore be Borne in mind.) 143.2 The asymmevical discourse suly University educational TV, in which the salient roles were those of teacher and pupil; and’a general TV dlscusion programme, in which the roles were those of presenter and audience ‘Those settings were chosen because they conformed 10 the criterion for unegual encounter: in each cise, one particpaat ‘was cleanly instttionlly responsible fr the conduct of the talk (nd in two out ofthe three cases, his participant also had more power and status measured in terms of soil class, occupation lind age; the TY presenter was the exception, since studio aud fence members and invited guests varied widely in ther soil Satu, some of them beine on a oar with the eesenter. ters axorr ws con ” volved quite varied interactional tasks which we hoped would invoted aus nn ine fon Yet # Fe ems, We sampled the trondcasts in sch a Wy ciferent Ne mgmt of women an men sng HA POMC wo balan turer speakers. Asin the fist stody. we picked Out i a nat tap questions fom the dat a aay them al inser of functions. We then Toke sing Mon bythe travails of gender (mal vs fale) esate powerl vs. powerless, The results are shown in Table a 17.4 Tog questions in wocqual encounters Pid Few hl Gx) G5) he) G97 &m + dw = oe = oat “ SEGRE Pate Bo mal = se ey act SSO RU a er ee deca etme powers and pore pari se a es ae on Re pow porn ot a Geer han. cr a he ee se te iol ey Pome the peso reg wig ns ri aon ts Oe By poset ha etn a rae a .. ape yao spPa ‘WOMEN’S LANGUNGH: CRITICAL arBoNcHES fesocitod with the rights and responsiiies of ‘powertat ‘Reskers— ‘but this in only trey ht apears of ene Aieace-orinted tags: the use of modal fags w ent ie, iat dos nl ap fn power move ae mts A instances. "We'tan provide tore dct suppost onclisions by examining the weet which escape ‘rept inthe symm dscourse Semple tate tay ate moat commonly wed to get ober pac pans to speak at Some lng Teele ot sarin find they ace favoured eapecaly by the televiion fee Consider, for instance, the Yolloming trample, n'a acto ‘hy Boning contin Yo be popula oll RRENTEE Is compat, k's long reply tom Sellen, 5 Holmes obscres, mgt rican and theeore facethret to the addresice, av Ie clear from the Yolo ‘examples: . (14) You're going 1o cheat relly, aren't you (teacher o pupil) (5) Tha oof weight pom in @ yer, act But what these examples also make ceri that powerfl part ans ae mach more likly tobe ina postion fo elena the St place. Citing is part of the tle of teacher, and to some {Ment doctor; isnot supposed to be the business of pops Sle, 9 cal ape omg Pp titering (19) oF peat (r) Mahl tes ar ess deat hit fanctons tat 0 cine examination an itresting diferens emerges Detwcen te dal {aes used by powerful and powestespartipans i ou a The doctor tn particular tended to 'se-Uhem eas sunmarie the fcts of «ca, cting olf the cars anise ‘when this threatened to ramble: 2 me (06 1 become notre ha H(t 0 cae, toa alers eh ne te pee sae Phoned about). eee Powerless speakers by contrast tended to se model tgs inorder {0 fequestreasurance,partizlaly nthe clastoom and dia (17) 1 this one ian’ (pupil to teacher GBT shout’ hace hole eaten LaKoRE I cowTERT om ye context of station is obviously relevant ere; the higher = ‘mur rect Teasturance fe commonly sought 5. Conclusion We yo a of wea am ‘Speer cat cin yea iciorenfaiy enti nee Merrett wr Swept Sua ee a at See meee Sear et the ptr eri Seer meta set ety coe igo fy Saco order eek anattht erie ae ra eT ce Seccgec pam ican, Samer ccomnate cohen: Sina og Se gp ry eo coe ale cE ae tga att Sey ett tae as eet Soa” Sees acia ¢ eae ea Sh te al ace he et Soo sie inate eau Teciaas tent th oP Seach testy gest grag Seg CS ae re EY tas ek Sete ae ae et nds Seon oaty ee Seay Spm fe eeo [WOMEN'S LANGUAGE: CRITCAL APHOACIS the conditions oftheir oppression. Certain aspects of thee social behaviour might profitably be analysed not ab simple demon. stration of those conditions, but as complex way of coping ith them, or even a mode ef festance to them. Ia order to move beyond the fst phase ‘of language. and. gender research represented by pioneers like Rabia Lakoff, we must develop & nore sophisticated view ofthe complexity of bath linguistic tnd socal behaviour Notes. 1. Te paper ie basod on two sudles of tag questions by Fin MeAliden (casa cooverstion sy) and Kathy O'Leary (sym. Picea! Gaure nl), repel) We would the ta femoe ‘Sige the asatance of Fenmfer Cote in desing, MA's Stay.'An carer verson ofthis paper war dened fhe Lingatic {ice Ostord in May 1987, tod we ae rca o all who made ‘Strout would aot be the case that these parca formal fears marked women’s language in every speesh community. ot Fe ego ee ates feng remit mon reg ng ae ee ee ne meee os ma oo Se racine sets, see eC) ie oc ale ae ree ne ender ea reat ee ce fen es Sia, geo, aor ee oper ree corms Grieactiuce ie ae a ee Ti ag a ct at Een pmimnceiciote arte ters acter, ppg eben ee Ser ees ae ore, % seneaation may wl aot {6 Though reacarch suet this Tegeete tear mht (eR) nde tar peer 2 Tie {Cr ae than ecaptionl ge eof iment ec gang ana Ede! Be Pt sae for tap queton. We SURSgn though, ae there 90 BRIM genre erences ‘Stal ftir “Sele ae te