Sex, Politeness, and Stereotypes

Here, we are examining styles and registers, the way language is used, and linguistic attitudes that the issue of ‘women’s language’ is one which illustrates all these concepts. The author examines evidence that women and men use language differently and looks at what language reveals about the way society categorizes women.

Women’s language and confidence

Robin Lakoff, an American linguist argued that women were using language which reinforced their subordinate status, they were ‘colluding in their own subordination’ by the way they spoke. She suggested that women’s subordinate social status in America society is reflected in the language women use, as well as in the language used about them. She identified a number of linguistic features used by women that expressed uncertainty and lack of confidence.

Features of ‘women’s language’

Lakoff suggested that women’s speech was characterized by these linguistic features: lexical hedges or filters, tag questions, raising intonation on declaratives, ‘empty’ adjectives, precise colour terms, intensifiers, ‘hypercorrect’ grammar, ‘superpolite’ forms, avoidance of strong swear words, and emphatic stress. All the forms identified were means of expressing uncertainty or tentativeness. The internal coherence of the features can be illustrated by dividing them into two: linguistic devices which may be used for hedging or reducing the force of an utterance (explicitly signal lack of confidence) and features that may boost or intensify a proposition’s force (reflect the speaker’s anticipation that the addressee may remain unconvinced and supply extra reassurance).

Lakoff’s linguistic features as politeness devices

As a syntactic device listed by Lakoff which may express uncertainty, tag questions may also express affective meaning functions as facilitative or positive politeness devices, providing an addressee with an easy entrée into a conversation, soften a directive or a criticism, used as confrontational and coercive devices. In that case, women put more emphasis on tag questions than men.

Many linguistic forms have complex functions such as ‘hedges’ used differently in different contexts. They mean different things according to their pronunciation, their position in the utterance, what kind of speech act they are modifying, and who is using them to whom in what context.

Analyses which take account of the function of features of women’s speech often reveal women as facilitative and supportive conversationalists. This also suggests that explanations of differences between women’s and men’s speech behavior which refer only to the status or power dimension. Many of the features which characterize women’s language are positive politeness devices expressing solidarity.

Interaction

There are many features of interaction which differentiate the talk of women and men. The two of them are interrupting behavior and conversational feedback.

-          Interruptions

In same-sex interactions, interruptions were evenly distributed between speakers. In cross-sex interactions almost all the interruptions were from males.

-          Feedback

Another aspect of the picture of women as cooperative conversationalists is the evidence that women provide more encouraging feedback to their conversational partners than men do. In general, research on conversational interaction reveals women as cooperative conversationalists, whereas men tend to be more competitive and less supportive of others.

Explanations

Women’s cooperative conversational strategies may be explained better by looking at the influence of context and patterns of socialization. The norms for women’s talk may be the norms for small group interaction in private contexts, where the goals of the interaction are solidarity stressing-maintaining social good relations. The differences between women and men in ways of interacting may be the result of different socialization and acculturation patterns.

Gossip

Gossip describes the kind of relaxed in-group talk that goes on between people in informal contexts. It is defined as ‘idle talk’ in Western society and considered particularly characteristic of women’s interaction. Its overall function for them is to affirm solidarity and maintain the social relationship between the women involved. Women’s gossip is characterized by a number of the linguistic features of women’s language. Propositions which express feelings are often attenuated and qualified or intensified. Facilitative tags are frequent. Women complete each other’s utterances and provide supportive feedback. Meanwhile, the male’s gossip is difficult to identify. In parallel situations the topics men discuss tend to focus on things and activities rather than personal experiences and feelings.

Sexist language

Sexist language is one example of the way a culture or society conveys its value from one group to another and from one generation to the next. Language conveys attitudes. Sexist attitudes stereotype a person according to gender rather than judging on individual merits. Sexist language encodes stereotyped attitudes to women and men.

Can a language be sexist?

Feminists have claimed that English is a sexist language. Sexism involves behavior which maintains social inequalities between women and men. There are a number of ways in which it has been suggested that the English language discriminates against women. Some of the ways can provide insights about a community’s perceptions and stereotypes. The relative status of the sexes in a society may be reflected not only in the ways in which women and men use language but also in the language used about women and men.