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Introduction
In this paper, the writer examining styles and registers, the way language is
used, and linguistic attitudes, the relationship between languages, thought and culture,
the issue of womans language is one which illustrates all these concepts. Is
womens language a distinct style or register of a language? Are women more polite
than men? Are there any differences in the way women and men interact? How is
language used to refer to women and men? What message does the language used
about women convey about their status in the community?
CHAPTER II
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DISCUSSION
A. Womens Language and Confidence
While some social dialectologist suggested that women were status conscious,
and that this was reflected in their use of standard speech forms, Robin Lakoff, an
American Linguist, suggested almost the opposite. She argued that women were using
language which reinforced their subordinate status; they were colluding in their own
subordination by the way they spoke.
Robin Lakoff shifted the focus of research on gender differences to syntax,
semantics and style. She suggested that womens subordinate social status in
American society is reflected in the language women use, as well as in the language
used about them. She identified a number of linguistic features which she claimed
were used more often by women than by men, and which in her opinion expressed
uncertainty and lack of confidence.
1) Features of Womens Language
Lakoff suggested that womens speech was characterized by linguistic features
such as the following:
a. Lexical hedges or fillers, e. g. you know, sort of, well, you see.
Hedging is an aspect of womens insecurity. According to Lakoff, one would
expect you know to be randomly scattered throughout womens speech since it
usage is supposed to reflect the general insecurity of the speaker. The use of
hedges is also the manifestation of womens lack of self-confidence. Lakoff
considered that pause fillers are also categorized as hedges, because of their
function which is expressing lack of confidence or uncertainty.
b. Tag Question, e. g. she is very pretty, isnt she?
A tag question is used when is the speaker is stating a claim, but the speaker is not
totally sure about the truth of that claim, for example: Juan is leaving, isnt he?
As Lakoff says, a tag question is midway between an outright statement and a
yes-no question: it is less assertive than the former, but more confident than the
later. (pp. 104)
c. Rising intonation on declaratives: e. g. its really good.
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Women are said to frame request and other sorts of utterances with excessively
polite form such as Would you please open the door, if you dont mind. These
forms are often used by women than men.
i. Avoidance of strong swears words, e. g. fudge, my goodness.
Taboo language or non-standard words, have considered on strong swear words.
In language taboo is a prohibition forces the substitution of another word for one.
These words are rarely used and even avoided by women.
j. Emphatic stress, e. g. it was a brilliant performance.
Women use modifiers so, such, and very to emphasize their utterances much more
frequently than men do and they combined this usage with an intensity of
intonation out proportion with the topic of the phrase. Expressions like Its so
beautiful! are seen as feminine.
Features which may serve as:
Hedging devices
Lexical hedges
Boosting devices
Intensifiers
Tag questions
Emphatic stress
Question intonation
Super polite forms
Euphemisms
The hedging devices can be used to weaken the strength of an assertion while
the boosting devices can be used to strengthen it. For example, its a good film can be
strengthened by adding the intensifier really (its really good film) or weakened by
adding the lexical hedge sort of (its sort of a good film). However, some of these
devices serve other functions too, as we will see below.
Lakoff claimed both kinds of modifiers were evidence of an unconfident
speaker. Hedging devices explicitly signal lack of confidence, while boosting devices
reflect the speakers anticipation that the addressee may remain unconvinced and
therefore supply extra reassurance. So, she claimed, women use hedging devices to
express uncertainty, and they use intensifying devices to persuade their addressee to
take them seriously. Women boost the force of their utterances because they think that
otherwise they will not be heard or paid attention to. So, according to Lakof, both
hedges and boosters reflect womens lack of confidence.
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Example:
(Bella is a student. She is telling her friends about the event in her school)
Prom night was held in the last July, was it?
From the example above, Bella is uncertain about the time and she indicates
with rising tag which signal doubt about what she is asserting. This tag focuses on
the referential meaning of Bella's assertion in giving the accuracy of information
that she is giving.
2.
Mrs. Short : See its tail, look as its tail. It's a fantail, isnt it?
Simon
3.
4.
Tags may also be used as confrontational and coercive devices. This tag is
used to force feedback from an uncooperative addressee.
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Example:
A: You'll probably find yourself um before the chief constable, okay?
B: Yes, sir yes understood.
A: Now you er fully understand that, dont you?
B: Yes, sir, indeed, yeah.
Distribution of tag questions by function and sex speaker
Function of tag
Expressing uncertainty
Women (%)
35
Men (%)
61
Facilitative
59
26
Softening
13
Confrontational
Total
100
100
51
39
The table shows that the women used more tags than the men, as Lakoff
predicted. Women put more emphasis then men on the polite or affective functions of
tags, using them as facilitative positive politeness devices. On the other hand, men
used more tags for the expression of uncertainty.
B. Interaction
There are many futures of interaction which differentiate the talk of women
and men. Mrs Flemings distinction reflection of them. In this section I will discuss
two others: interrupting behavior and conversational feedback.
1) Interruptions
Example
Wanda
: Did you see here that two sociologists have just proved that men
interrupt women all the time?
They
Ralph
Wanda
: Who says?
: Candace west of Florida State and Don Zimmerman of the University of
California at Santa Barbara. They taped a bunch of private
conversations, and guess what they found. When two out three women
are talking, interruptions are about equal. But when a man talks to a
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interruptions?
Wanda
: - but woman make retrievals about one third of the time. You know,
they pick up where they left off after the man
Ralph
Wanda
Ralph
Wanda
evidence. The most widely quoted study, and the one referred to by Wanda in example
11, collected examples of students exchanges in coffee bars, shops and other public
places on tape-recorder carried by one of the researches. The results were dramatic, as
table 12.2 illustrates. In same-gender interactions, interruptions were pretty evenly
distributed between speakers. In cross-gender interactions almost all the interruptions
were from males.
Table 12.2 Average number of interruptions per interaction
Interrruption
%
Same sex interaction
Speaker 1
43
Speaker 2
57
Man
96
These researches followed up this study with one which recorded interactions
in sound-proof booths in a laboratory. The percentage of male interruptions decreased
to 75 per cent in this less natural setting, but there was no doubt that men were still
doing most of the interrupting. In other contexts too, it has been found that men
interrupt others more than woman do. In department meetings and doctor-patient
interaction, for instance, the pattern holds. Woman gets interrupted more than man,
regardless of whether they were the doctors or the patients. In exchanges between
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parents and children, father did most of the interrupting, and daughters were
interrupted most-booth by their mothers and their fathers. And study pre-scholars
found that some boys start practicing this strategy for dominating the talk at very early
age. Women are evidently socialized from early childhood to expect to be interrupted.
Consequently, they generally give up the floor with little or no protest, as example 12
illustrated.
2) Feedback
Example
Marry
: I worked in that hotel for- ah eleven years and I found the patrons
: Mm.
: You had the odd one or two ruffiand come in and cause a fight but
Marry
Jill
: Mm.
Marry
Jill
: Yeah.
Marry
Jill
: Mm.
Another aspect of the pictures of woman as cooperative conversationalists is
the evidence that woman provide more encouraging feedback to their conversational
partners than men do.
One New Zealand study which examined the distribution of positive feedback
(noises such as mm and mhm) in casual relaxed interaction between young people
found that woman gave over four times as much on this type of supporting feedback
as men. American studies of informal speech as well as talk in classrooms and under
laboratory condition have also demonstrated that women provide significantly more
encouraging and positive feedback to their addressees than men do. One researches
noted that women students were also more likely than men to enlarge on and develop
the ideas of a previous speaker rather than challenge them.
stage whisper, but always highly animated was important in generating a sense of
excitement.
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"Gossip's got to start with something like [quick, high-pitched, excited] "Oooh
Guess what? Guess what?" or [quick, urgent, stage whisper] "Hey, listen, listen you
know what I heard?""
"You have to make it sound surprising or scandalous, even when it isn't really. You'll
go "well, don't tell anyone, but." even when it's not really that big of a secret."
That the men in our groups found the lack of body-language signals in
telephone communication a bigger problem than the women. Both sexes commented
on this problem, and both tended to use 'emoticons'(symbols representing emotions
such as smiles, sad faces normally expressed in body language) in text messages,
but the men seemed to find talking to 'a disembodied voice' more of a handicap. It
may be that men are not only less verbally skilled than women, as noted earlier, but
also less 'vocally' skilled less adept at conveying mood and emotion through
variations in tone, pitch and volume.
Not surprisingly womens gossip is characterized by a number of the linguistic
features of womens language described above. Proposition which express feelings
are often attenuate and qualified. Women complete each others utterances, agree
frequently, and provide supportive feedback. The following example of shared from a
gossip session between women who worked together at a bakery illustrates the
cooperative and positive nature of their talk.
Example 1:
Jill
: Perhaps next time I see Brian Ill pump him for information. Brian tells me
all.
Fran
: the gossip.
Jill
Fran
Jill
Fran
situations the topics men discuss tend to focus on things and activities, rather than
personal experiences and feelings. Topics like sport, cars and possessions turn up
regularly. The focus is on information and facts rather than on feelings and reaction.
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: create!
Jim
: case!
Greg
: what?
Jim
Greg
Jim
Greg
Jim
Allan : (laughingly using a thick-sounding voice) yeah Ill have a create of apple
thanks.
Greg
Allan : a dozen.
Con
suggested that women and men belong to different cultural groups. It also helps
explain why women and men sometimes miscommunication.
Gossip can:
Begin a courtship that helps one find their desired mate, by counseling others; or,
The people talking are transmitting information as though it were fact, but they
have not confirmed the information as factual.
The people gossiping and the person being gossiped about know each other in real
life. By this definition, celebrity gossip is not really gossip unless the speaker and
the listener are friends with the celebrity in question.
The people gossiping compare themselves in some way to the person being
gossiped about, usually considering them to be superior to the subject.
2) Gossips Benefits:
Gossiping is enjoyable. Many people gossip just for fun or to blow off steam.
When you gossip with someone, you and the person you're talking to are
displaying reciprocal trust. The people you chose to gossip with are people you
trust not to use the information that you're sharing against you.
Gossip encourages social bonding. The people you gossip with become part of a
group -- everyone else is outside of your group.
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unprofessional, and
Attrition as good employees leave the company due to the unhealthy work
atmosphere.
Sexist language is language that expresses bias in favor of one sex and thus
treats the other sex in a discriminatory manner. In most cases, the bias is in favor of
men and against women. In the past, women are supposed to stay at home, remaining
powerless and generally subordinate to man, whereas men are considered as the
center both in the family and society. In a word, for a long time women have been
looked on as the weaker sex in society. Even in English-speaking countries, which
hold the claim that every one is created equal, discrimination against women exists.
Language simply reflects this social fact. However, because of their greater statusconsciousness, the movement amongst feminists to reduce sexual discrimination and
sex-role stereotyping has led to a number of conscious attempts to influence and
change languages and linguistic behavior.
1) Sexism in English
In society, men are considered the norm for the human species: their
characteristics, thoughts, beliefs and actions are viewed as fully representing those of
all humans, male and female. This practice can make women invisible in language or
altogether excludes them. It can also lead to their portrayal as deviations from this
'male = human' norm. Women's linguistic status is often dependent on or derives from
that of men, which is represented as autonomous. By relegating women to a
dependent, subordinate position, sexist language prevents the portrayal of women and
men as different but equal human beings.
1. Common forms of sexism in English include the use of 'man' and 'he / him / his' as
genericsthat is, nouns and pronouns referring to both men and womenthe use
of suffixes -man, -ette, -ess, -trix in occupational nouns and job titles,
asymmetrical naming practices, and stereotyped images of women and men as
well as descriptions of (mainly) women which trivialise or denigrate them and
their status.
a) English does not possess a third person singular pronoun which is
genderneutral. Instead the 'masculine' pronouns 'he', 'him' and 'his' are
generally used to refer to both men and women. This is confusing and
inaccurate and, as well, makes women invisible. Consider the following
examples:
All men are mortal,
Julia is a man
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FEMALE
MALE
FEMALE
Man
Woman
Manager
Manageress
Prince
Princess
God
Goddess
Author
Authoress
Mayor
Mayoress
ount
Countess
Shepherd
Shepherdess
host
Hostess
Steward
Stewardess
poet
Poetess
Usher
Usherette
heir
Heiress
Sailor
Sailorette
hero
Heroine
Conduct
Conductette
2. Some English words, especially the name of some professions, are basically of
common gender, namely, they can be applied to both sexes. However, people
usually will habitually associate them only with male. Consequently, we have to
add woman before those names if we want to refer to female of those
professions. For example:
COMMON
GENDER FEMALE
Doctor
Woman doctor
Professor
Woman professor
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Engineer
Woman engineer
Lawyer
Lady lawyer
Reporter
Girl reporter
CHAPTER III
Conclusion
According to Lakoff, most women use reinforced language in their
subordinate status by the way they spoke. Furthermore, he says that the use of hedges
and boosters reflect womens lack of confidence.
Studies showed that men, and even boys interrupt more, due to women's
gender rather than to their role or occupation. Besides, the studies also show that
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women are more cooperative and give more feedback than men do. Therefore, women
tend to become more cooperative conversationalists than men.
Linguistically, it is claimed that women are more polite than men. Women use
more standard forms than men, because children and women are subordinate groups
and they must avoid offending men, therefore they must speak carefully and politely.
Gossip is a social not a referential function to affirm solidarity, and relieve
feelings. The equivalent activity for gossip to men is mock-insults and abuse, with the
function of expressing solidarity & maintaining social relationships.
Approaching gender identity as a construction is useful in accounting rather
than as a fixed category. One of the more obvious ways in which people construct
particular kinds of social identity is trough their narratives of personal experience.
Sexist language encodes stereotyped attitudes to women and men. Sexist
language is language that expresses bias in favor of one sex and thus treats the other
sex in a discriminatory manner. Therefore, to eliminate the sexist language, we should
above all eliminate the concept of prejudice in human beings thoughts.
REFERENCES
Adm. Sexist Language. Available at: http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/style-andusage/sexist-language.html. Accessed on 29 April 2013
Arif.
2011.
Sex,
Politeness,
and
Stereotypes.
Available
http://nurarifs.blogspot.com/2011/09/sex-politeness-and-stereotypes.html.
Accessed on 29 April 2013
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at:
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