Language and Gender

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

• Introduction
• Women‘s language and gendered positioning
• Showing deference or respect?
• Addressing
• Conclusion

Positioning ideas and subjects - Introduction

• 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