Gender and discourse

Gender and discourse

Discourse looks at language and the context in which it’s used. According to Mc Carthy and Walsh, Discourse seeks to understand

• 
  The relationship between speakers
  
• 
  The communication goals of the speakers
  
• 
  How speakers begin and end conversations
  
• 
  How speakers manage topics to speak about
  
• 
  When speakers get their turn to speak
  

Conversational Analysis (CA) is the study of produced conversation. It focuses on ‘normative observations and empirical regularities’. It seeks to evaluate and understand relationships that exist during ordinary conversations. According to Bailey, studies in CA have revealed a great deal regarding communication between unequal power discourse (a discourse in which one party has more power or social status) such as between teachers and students and between men and women. Cameron (1988) stresses that the hidden agenda language differences between the genders is always female inferiority, in other words continued male dominance. Tannen (1990) feels that the risks of ignoring the differences are greater than the danger of naming them ‘there are gender differences in ways of speaking and we need to identify and understand them. If we recognize and understand the differences between us, we can take them into account, adjust to and learn from each other’s styles’. (Tannen, 1990)
Dale Spencer’s famous book Manmade Language (1980), for example, explored the various ways in which the structure, vocabulary, and conventional use of English reinforced the patriarchal order and perpetuated gender inequalities. Similarly, Kramarae (1981) argued that English language effectively silences women, in that it predominantly reflects men’s experiences of and attitudes about the world. There is no vocabulary or conceptual framework through which women can express their distinctive perspectives of life experiences.
Research on gender and language seek to understand expectations about gendered speech. Coates in her ‘Gender and Discourse Analysis ’(2012) highlights the peculiarities of gender discourse according to three approaches:
The first approach is Dominance approach. The linguist: Lakoffconcerns about making people aware how language use could manipulate women to be in a subordinate place. According to ‘Dominance approach’, the males tend to be dominant in conversation by interrupting, switching topic or else with ‘no’ or ‘partial replies’. For instance, Vox’s statistics on debate where Trump interrupts Clinton 51 times, while she does him 17 is another example of familiar discourse pattern.
The second approach is Difference approach. Some scholars claim that this difference arises from subcultures, highlighting specifics of interruptions, lengthy periods, turn-takings in the discourse of opposite sexes and it might vary according to the culture. In terms of language, men and women do not speak differently naturally, but culture determines what is gender appropriate.
The third approach is Social Constructivism. It implies that ‘gender is not given, but accomplished’. (Coates, 2012)According to this approach, we are born with biological sex but gender is socially constructed.