Language and Gender

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