CHAPTER 12 Gender, Politsness and Stereotypes

A. Women’s 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 women’s 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 ‘Women’s Language’

Lakoff suggested that women’s 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 women’s insecurity

b.      Tag Question, e. g. she is very pretty, isn’t 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, isn’t he?

c.       Rising intonation on declaratives: e. g. it’s really good.

Women show non-assertive behavior by using question intonation in conjunction with declarative sentences.

d.      “Empty” adjectives: meaningless, can be omitted or changed into another word, e.g. divine, charming, cute.

According to Lakoff, certain words are used almost exclusively by women.

e.       Precise color terms, e. g. magenta, aquamarine.

Lakoff suggested that there are some colors that are less common and used by women only, such as mauve and chartreuse.

f.       Intensifiers such as just and so, e. g. I like him so much.

Female often use intensifiers as so, such, quite, and vastly.  E.g. I hate her so much.

g.      “Hypercorrect” grammar, e. g. consistent use of standard verb forms.

According to Lakofff, women tend to use more formal syntax than men, to use forms of pronunciation which are closer to the prestige norm, and in general to speak more formally than men do in similar situations.

h.      “Super polite” forms, e. g. indirect request, euphemisms.

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 don’t 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.

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 “It’s so beautiful!” are seen as feminine.

Features which may serve as: (table masukan)

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, it’s a good film can be strengthened by adding the intensifier really (it’s really good film) or weakened by adding the lexical hedge sort of (it’s 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 speaker’s 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 women’s lack of confidence.

2)      Lakoff’s Linguistic Features as Politeness Devices

The tag question is syntactic device listed by Lakoff which my express some expression such as:

1.      Expressing uncertainty (rising intonation)

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.      Expressing affective meaning (falling intonation)

The tags question in this point may have a function as facilitative or positive politeness devices, providing and addressee with an easy entrée into a conversation.

Example:

(Bella has new friend named Andy. When she is eating in the cafeteria with her friend, Dina she meets Andy and she introduces him to Dina)

Bella: Dina, this is my new friend, Andy. Dina has met you twice in the school, haven’t you?

Dina: Well, actually three times. I met you when you were playing basket ball.

Example:

Mrs. Short : here’s pretty one what’s this one called Simon?

Simon                    : Mm, erm (pause)

Mrs. Short : See its tail, look as its tail. It’s a fantail, isn’t it?

Simon                    : Mm.. a fantail. I see one of them

3.      Expressing criticism (falling intonation)

A tag may also soften a directive or a criticism.

Example:

(Bella has new shoes but her sister wears it without asking to her first)

Bella: It’s good shoes, wasn’t it?

4.      Tags may also be used as confrontational and coercive devices. This tag is used to force feedback from an uncooperative addressee.

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, don’t you?

B: Yes, sir, indeed, yeah.

                       Distribution of tag questions by function and sex speaker(table masukan)

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.

Interaction

There are many features of interaction that have been shown to differentiate the talk of women and men in particular contexts. The percentage of male interruptions decreased to 75 percent 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 women do. In departmental meetings and doctor-patient interactions, for instance, the pattern holds. Women got interrupted more than men, regardless of whether they were the doctors or the patients. In exchanges between parents and children, fathers did most of the interrupting, and daughters were interrupted most – both by their mothers and their fathers. And a study of preschoolers found that some boys start practicing this strategy for dominating the talk at a very early age. Women are socialized from early childhood to expect to be interrupted. Consequently, they generally give up the floor with little or no protest.

Why are women’s patterns of interaction different from men’s? Is it because they are subordinate in status to men in most communities so that they must strive to please? Or are there other explanations?

In an interesting range of this research, it seems to be gender rather than occupational status, social class, or some other social factor that most adequately accounts for the interactional patterns described. Women doctors were consistently interrupted by their patients, while male doctors did most of the interrupting in their consultations. A study of women in business organizations showed that women bosses did not dominate the interactions. Males dominated regardless of whether they were boss or subordinate.

The societally subordinate position of women indicated by these patterns has more to do with gender than role or occupation. For this data at least, women’s subordinate position in a male-dominated society seems the most obvious explanatory factor.

Women’s cooperative conversational strategies, however, 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 good social relations. The agreement is sought and disagreement avoided. By contrast, the norms for male interaction seem to be those of public referentially-oriented interaction. The public model is an adversarial one, where contradiction and disagreement are more likely than agreement and confirmation of the statements of others.

Speakers compete for the floor and attention; and wittiness, even at others’ expense, is highly valued. These patterns seem to characterize men’s talk even in private contexts, as will be illustrated below.

The differences between women and men in ways of interacting may be the result of different socialization and acculturation patterns. If we learn ways of talking mainly in single-gender peer groups, then the patterns we learn are likely to be gender-specific. And the kind of miscommunication that undoubtedly occurs between women and men may well be attributable to the different expectations each gender has of the function of the interaction, and the ways it is appropriately conducted. Some of these differences will be illustrated in the next section.

Gossip

Gossip describes the kind of relaxed-in-group talk that goes on between people in informal contexts. in Western society, gossip is defined as ‘idle talk’ and considered particularly characteristic of women’s interaction. Women’s gossip focuses on personal experiences and personal relationships, on personal problems and feelings. It may include criticism of the behavior of others, but women tend to avoid criticizing people directly because this would cause discomfort. In gossip sessions women provide a sympathetic response to any experience recounted, focusing almost exclusively on the affective message rather than its referential content.

Not surprisingly, women’s gossip is characterised by a number of the linguistic features of women’s language described above. Propositions which express feelings are often attenuated and qualifi ed, or alternatively intensifi ed. Facilitative tags are frequent, encouraging others to comment and contribute. Women complete each other’s utterances, agree frequently and provide supportive feedback.

On the other hand, men’s gossip focuses on things and activities, rather than personal experiences and feelings. The focus is on information and facts rather than on feelings and reactions.

The earlier sections of this chapter described some of the linguistic features used to index gender in English. As example 19 suggested, these features are available as resources for expressing sexual identity. Heterosexual people typically make normative choices in most contexts, constructing themselves as 'feminine' or 'masculine', and thereby signalling their sexuality. Homosexual people may use the same linguistic features to convey the same meanings in many contexts, but there is a good deal of research, especially on features of the speech of homosexual men, which indicates that they may draw on additional linguistic resources for indicating their sexual orientation through their speech.

Researchers have identified a number of features associated with English 'gay' speech, including the use of stereotypically feminine vocabulary items, such as divine, features of pronunciation, such as affrication so that /t/ sounds like [ts], 'wavy' intonation and dramatic variations in pitch.

Example 24

'My dear, your hair looks as if you've dyed' (Bruce Rodgers)

This kind of talk is often amusing but also deliberately disrespectful and disturbing; it chal lenges hegemonic heterosexual culture and constructs those who use it as non-conformist. Intimate talk is another area which often breaks taboos in expressing sexuality and sexual desire.

-Example 25

(a) GORGEOUS, BLONDE, FEMALE 22, SEEKS SMART, RICH, GENEROUS MALE FOR FUN AND FRIENDSHIP. (b) MALE IT PROGRAMMER, 26, HONEST AND CARING, SEEKS CURVY BLONDE FEMALE 23-28, FUN TO BE WITH, FOR LASTING RELATIONSHIP.

As these two ads illustrate, heterosexual women tend to describe themselves in terms of their looks, and they desire men who are well-heeled, while heterosexual men inform their readers. about their occupations and desire women who are attractive.

-Example 6

Frank: Don't throw your cigarette butts in there. It's dangerous.

Bill:Why not? The label says 'empty'. Frank: Well there's no gasoline in them but there's plenty of explosive vapour watch out..

This example and those discussed in the previous sections suggest that there is a close relationship between language and perception. But what is the exact nature of this relationship? Does language constrain perception or vice-versa? Is thought independent of language or do the categories of language pre-determine what we can think about or conceive of? Do the categories we learn to distinguish as we acquire language provide a framework for ordering the world? And if so, is it possible to think outside that framework? Do different languages encode experience differently? And how can we ever tell since it seems impossible to escape from the circle?

Sexist language

Sexist language is one example of the way a culture or society conveys its values 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. In principle, then, the study of sexist language is concerned with the way language expresses both negative and positive stereotypes of both women and men.

Many words reflect a view of women as deviant, abnormal, or subordinate group as the use of an additional suffix to signal ‘femaleness’. In the other hand, words like ‘generic’ he and man can be said to render women invisible. Now, the singular they is by far the most widespread solution. It nowadays the most frequently heard generic pronoun in informal speech. 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.

In the semantic area metaphors are available to describe women in derogatory images :

1.      Animal imagery: The images for women (bitch, old biddy) considerably less positive than those for men (stud, wolf).

2.      Food imagery: The images for women (sugar, sweetie, honey) is considered insulting because it focuses on women as sexual objects.

3.       Morphology: Generally takes the 'male' form and adds a suffix to signal female' (lion/lioness, count/countess, hero/heroine, he/she, male/female). It conveys meaning that women are deviant, abnormal and subordinate group.

Conclusion

This chapter tells about the language use between men, women, on how they use politeness, a group of people (not an archetype which is model or ideal from which duplicates are made) and uncertainty, interaction, feedback, also their status in the community. The complex relation between gender, politeness and stereotype has implications for future research, not simply in the rather narrow field of politeness research but also within linguistics in general, and feminist linguistics in particular.