Language and Gender
Prof. Penelope Eckert Language and Gender Tielke Vogt, Hauptstudium, LN Svenja Follmann, Hauptstudium, LN Julia Selzer, Grundstudium, TN Meike Tadken, Grundstudium, LN Judith Mertens, Hauptstudium, TN Sonja Schröder, Grundstudium, TN Prof. Sally McConnell-Ginet Contents 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Constructing gender (Tielke) Linking the linguistic to the social (Svenja) Organizing talk (Julia) Making social moves (Meike) Positioning ideas and subjects (Judith) Working the market: use of varieties (Sonja) Constructing gender - Introduction The study of language and gender got started as a result to an article by Robin Lakoff entitled “Language and woman’s place” Difference approach Dominance approach Later: consideration of context What is the nature of the diversity among men and among women? How do these diversities structure gender? Constructing gender - Sex vs. Gender Sex: biological categorization based primarily on reproductive potential Gender: social elaboration of biological sex – gender as social construction Constructing gender - Learning to be gendered (1) Dichotomous beginnings: It’s a boy! It’s a girl By the (different) treatment and expectations from others children learn to adapt to their gender role – a child learns to be male or female Learning asymmetry Males are more engaged in enforcing gender difference than females Result: behaviour and activities of boys are more valued than that of girls, and boys are discouraged from having interest in girl’s behaviour or activities Tomboy vs. Sissy Constructing gender - Learning to be gendered (2) The heterosexual market End of elementary school: beginning of a social market structured system of social evaluation Matches are initially short lived – the number of “trades” (with the “right” Partner) establishing one’s value This activity precedes actual sexual activity Developing desire Gender: conscious element of desire Girls: want to feel small and delicate, learn to display their emotions to others at the appropriate time Boys: want to feel big and strong, learn to control their emotions Constructing gender - Conclusion Gender is learned It is not only learned but taught and enforced Gender is collaborative We can not accomplish on our own Gender is not something we have, but something we do Children often do gender quite consciously, later their gendered performances become second nature Gender is asymmetrical Inequality is built into gender at a very basic level Linking the linguistic to the social - Introduction (1) Dominant ideology and linguistic conventions are not static They are rather constructed, maintained, elaborated, and changed in action and talk Change happens in the accumulation of action throughout the social fabric e.g. “Sir“ – not female aquivalent Linking the linguistic to the social - Introduction (2) Embedded in history are not only the things said and done, but also: identities and status of the people who have said and done them Individual act enters into a broader discourse Our contributions can be seen as an offer to a market Linking the linguistic to the social - Social locus of change Change comes in subtle ways Gender order and linguistic conventions exercise a constraint on our thoughts and actions Change = interruption of patterns Change can be intentional or unintentional We perform gender in our minutest acts Accumulation of those acts leads to maintaining gender order Linking the linguistic to the social - The speech community Def.: a community sharing rules for the conduct and interpretation of speech, and rules for the interpretation of at least one linguistic variety Speaker of the same language may have difficulty communicating if they do not share norms for the use of that language in interaction e.g. English and Pakistani speakers of English in London Linking the linguistic to the social - Communities of practice Participants develop ways of doing things together They develop practices: common knowledge and beliefs, ways of relating to each other, way of talking within communities of practice linguistic may spread within and among speech communities People participate in society through participating in a range of communities of practice Linking the linguistic to the social - Face Def.: the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others he has taken during a particular contact Everyday conversational exchanges are crucial in constructing gender identities as well as gender ideologies and relations Face can be “lost” and “saved” Link to gender order: desire to avoid face-threating situations or acts Linking the linguistic to the social - Linguistic resources Language = highly structured system of signs Gender embedded in these signs: Primary: gender can be content of a sign Secondary: associated meaning The way someone talks: tone and pitch of voice, patterns of intonation, choice of vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammatical patterns Linking the linguistic to the social - Phonology Phoneme /s/ In North America generally pronounced with tip of tongue at the alveolar ridge behind the upper teeth A pronunciation against the edge of the front teeth (slight lisp) is stereotypically associated with women or gays Linking the linguistic to the social - Gender in grammar (1) Some languages force the speaker to specify gender e.g. English: third person pronoun Grammatical gender: when a language has noun classes that are relevant for certain kinds of agreement patterns In many Indo-European languages grammatical gender has complex connections to social gender BUT: no perfect correspondence Linking the linguistic to the social - Gender in grammar (2) Especially problematic when referring to nouns wih a pronoun e.g. “le professeur” can refer to a woman, even if it is a masculine form, but one tends to switch to a feminine pronoun (elle) In English, cats are usually referred to as “she” and dogs as “he” Speakers assign masculine respectively feminine attributes according to grammatical gender Organizing talk - Introduction (1) Men are encouraged to talk on all occasions, speaking being a sign of masculine intelligence and leadership The ideal woman is submissive and quiet, silent in her husband‘s presence e.g. Araucanian culture of Chile: at gatherings men do much talking, women sit together listlessly, communicating only in whispers or not at all Organizing talk - Introduction (2) A person‘s contribution to an ongoing discussion is determined not simply by the utterance the person produces, but by the ways in which that utterance is received and interpreted by the others in the conservation The right to speak depends on the right to be in the situation, and the right to engage in particular kinds of speech activities in that situation Organizing talk - Introduction (3) Example: Joking about men‘s impatience with discussing relationships has already made it to the top among discourses of gender, but joking about women‘s impatience with babies has not Organizing talk - Men vs. Women Men Most technology is designed by men It is primarily men who have the authority to engage in conversation that effect large numbers of people Perform speech acts that change people‘s civil status Women Women in medical practice, schools, social work, etc. Cannot be priests in the Catholic Church, but the Protestant ministry is feminized No woman has ever given a state of the union address in the US Organizing talk - Looking like a professor The words of a person who doesn‘t appear to be a professor are less likely to be taken as authoritive than the same words coming from someone who does look like a professor Many men don‘t recognise women as professors Many women wrote novels and poems under a man‘s name in order to be published e.g. George Eliot - real name: Mary Ann Evans) Organizing talk - Speech activity Lecturing,sermonizing,gossiping,talking dirty,joking,arguing,therapy talk,small talk,etc. There are some speech activities that occur in all speech communities, while others may be specific to, or more common in , particular communities Organizing talk - Gossip vs. Arguing (1) Gossip derives from Old English god sib ( = supportive friend or godparent) Gossip is supposed to characterize much of women‘s talk Many people - esp. men - think that gossiping means talking bad about others BUT: just any informal talk among close women friends Organizing talk - Gossip vs. Arguing (2) Arguing: in most English-speaking countries- men argue, women quarrel or bicker (zanken) Quarreling has a more personal orientation in general and is seen as more emotional Arguing is essentially focused in the subject matterinvolves giving reasons and evidence In many Italian-speaking communities of practice lively and loud arguments involving both women and men are frequent Making social moves - Contents Speech act theory Functions of talk and motives of talking: gender oppositions Politeness Affective and instrumental talk Intimacy and autonomy, cooperativeness and competitiveness Speech acts embedded in social action What is a compliment? Evaluation of face work “Do they really mean it?” What’s the key? Conclusion Making social moves - Introduction Social move = speech act which is embedded in social practice, it is a continuing discourse among interactants Speech acts consist out of two parts: talk and action Each utterance is part of a social situation in which it occurs Kinds of speech acts: compliment, insult, request, command, promise etc. A repeated move of a particular type can become an activity Making social moves - Speech act theory Philosopher J. L. Austin initiated the systematic study of speech acts The main question was: How to do things with words? Performative utterances: words starts a chain of events Judith Butler: speech acts consist out of performative utterances and other performances which come off, acquire their meaning and do their work All utterances are actions Three kinds of action: Locutionary acts Illocutionary acts Prelocutionary acts Making social moves - Politeness Everyone has got two faces: positive face and negative face Two kinds of politeness: Positive face: projecting a self that is affiliated with others Negative face:projecting a self that is a separate individual Positive politeness: addressing positive face needs Negative politeness:addressing negative face needs Politeness depends on the context: what looks like the same kind of act might be positively polite in one context but not in another Making social moves - Affective and instrumental talk Three functions of talk: Affective function of talk Referential function of talk Instrumental function of talk Affective and referential functions are closely interconnected Women are more interested in affective talk Men are more interested in instrumental talk Making social moves - Intimacy vs. Autonomy/cooperativeness vs. competitiveness Women Most interested in promoting intimacy with others Women speak in ways that build egalitarian societies In case of a struggle: girls try to negotiate and satisfy everyone Men Are interested in establishing their autonomy Males engage in speech acts that build hierarchies In case of a struggle: boys tends to engage in physical tussles over possession rights, raising their voices etc. Making social moves - What is a compliment? (1) Compliments: Social moves that live in a landscape of evaluation Have different functions and possible motivations Are loaded with cultural values Are associated with cultural norms Criticism and insults inhabit the negative area of the same landscape A compliment must at least try to make the addressee feel good about themselves Making social moves - What is a compliment? (2) What is regarded as a compliment depends on the situation Like other gifts a compliment can put the complimentee in dept to the complimenter Classifying a move as a compliment is a matter of situating the move maker and the other participant in a larger social landscape Making social moves - Evaluation of face work Evaluation of one another is central to social interaction and to the construction and enforcement of social norms Receiving a compliment increases self-esteem and warm feelings toward the complimenter Compliments can flow down a socially asymmetric relation between complimenter and complimentee But compliments given up the hierarchy are often classified as inappropriate Compliments are important in constructing and regulating the gender order Making social moves - “Do they really mean it?” What is the key? Compliments can be suspected on several different grounds Compliments are often routine and formulaic Sarcastic compliments Deceptive compliments People can have mixed motives Making social moves - Conclusion There are various kinds of speech acts A conversation between interactants depends on different influencing factors Women are more polite than men because they are more other orientated Men are more interested in establishing their autonomy Social moves are not only in face-to-face conversational interactions, they can also occur in the mass media Positioning ideas and subjects - Contents 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Introduction Women‘s language and gendered positioning Showing deference or respect? Addressing Conclusion Positioning ideas and subjects - Introduction 1. 2. Positioning ideas and subjects Discourse: What happens when we talk? How do we “take positions“? Two aspects of discourse positioning: We position ourselves through meaningful content Through the “role“ we take: pupil, judge, clown, sympathetic friend, storyteller, etc. Positioning ideas and subjects - Women’s language and gendered positioning Robin Lakoff (American linguist) made experiments in the early 1970s Typical for women‘s language: Tag questions (e.g. It is terrible, isn‘t it?) Rising intonation on declaratives (e.g. Husband: When will dinner be ready? Wife: Six o‘clock? The use of various kinds of hedges (“That‘s kinda sad“ or “it‘s probably dinnertime“) Positioning ideas and subjects - Women’s language and gendered positioning Boosters or amplifiers (“I‘m so glad you‘re here“) Indirection (saying something like: “ Well, I have got a dentist appointment then“.) Diminutives (e.g. panties) Euphemism (going to the bathroom instead of pee or piss) powerless language Positioning ideas and subjects - Showing deference and respect Showing respect generally looks very much the same as showing deference Deference involves not only respect: it also implies placing others‘ claims above one‘s own, subordinating own‘s own rights to those of others Ritual deference Question of position and also status Positioning ideas and subjects - Addressing (1) Sensitive indicators of how speakers are positioning the addressees Comparison: English vs. German English: Sir, ma‘am, social titles like Dr., Mr. or Mrs. assign high position and respect First name: indicates familarity, solidarity or that you do not respect the other person Positioning ideas and subjects - Addressing (2) German: “du“ (singular) and “Sie“ (plural) “du“: more intimate, familiar or when you talk to children “Sie“: shows respect Several centuries ago: hierarchy was more important English had distinction, too: “thou“ (singular) and “you“ (plural) Positioning ideas and subjects - Conclusion Positioning is a very important part of discourse Differences between women and men Differences because of age and social status as well Question of respect Working the Market: Use of varieties - Contents 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Languages, dialects and varieties The linguistic market Language ideologies and linguistic varieties Gender and the use of linguistic varieties Whose speech is more standard? Working the Market: Use of varieties - Language, dialects and varieties Children learn a particular language with a particular variety Children, who have contact to different communities might grow up speaking more than one variety Bilingualism: learning two languages with two varieties not just grammatically, but strategically Differences in dialects can be very subtle Grammatical differences Phonological differences by which we distinguish regional dialects Working the Market: Use of varieties - The linguistic market “Right” linguistic varieties can facilitate access to positions and situations of societal power “Wrong” linguistic varieties can block such access Standard language is normally the language of societal power also used at the global market Locally based varieties are commonly referred to as vernaculars and are used at the local market Vernaculars may be distinct languages from the standard or they may be alternative varieties of the same language Working the Market: Use of varieties - Language, ideologies and linguistic varieties (1) Members of elite classes are and speak a more global / standard language Is designed to unite diverse populations Is associated with rationality, stability and with impersonal and formalized communications Symbolizes the objective knowledge from global sources Is associated with refinement One’s linguistic variety can enhance one’s chances in economic life Working the Market: Use of varieties - Language, ideologies and linguistic varieties (2) Local language represents membership and loyalty to a local community Is associated with personal and affective engagement Knowledge and judgement function in a different realm Is associated with physical, practical knowledge, roughness and toughness Working the Market: Use of varieties - Gender and the use of linguistic varieties Requires access to the communities in which the variety is used and the right to use it Being in the workplace may provide greater access to certain varieties Marriage opportunities may also play a role Social networks may also lead to differential linguistic patterns Modernization tended to affect men´s work before it affected women´s work Different employment opportunities for women in general Working the Market: Use of varieties - Whose speech is more standard? It is commonly claimed that women’s speech and grammar is regularly more standard than men’s Possibly the educational patterns put women more in the standard language market than men Men use reductions more often than women Socio-economic difference is greater among women than among men
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