Robin Lakoff's Theory of Women's Language Features
1. Robin Lakoff’s Theory
Women’s language features
1. Lexical hedges or fillers (you know, sort of, well, you see)
2. Tag questions (She's very nice, isn't she?)
3. Rising intonation on declaratives (It's really good?)
4. "Empty" adjectives (divine, charming, cute)
5. Precise colour terms (magenta, aquamarine)
6. Intensifiers (I like him so much)
7. 'Hypercorrect' grammar (consistent use of standard verb forms)
8. 'Super-polite' forms (indirect requests, euphemisms)
9. Avoidance of strong swear words (fudge, my goodness)
10. Emphatic stress (It was a BRILLIANT performance)
2. Dominance theory
1980’s
This is the theory that in mixed-sex conversations men are more likely to
interrupt than women. It uses a fairly old study of a small sample of
conversations, recorded by Zimmerman and West at the Santa Barbara
campus of the University of California in 1975.
3. Research - Method
31 conversational segments analysed
2-party interactions recorded in public places in a University community
Equal numbers of male-male, female-female, male-female conversations
analysed
All were white, middle class, between 20-35 years of age
4. Research - Findings
In cross-sex talk, men with women, the pattern of interruptions “was grossly asymmetrical,” with
men initiating 96% of the interruptions.
The second study involved college students who were unacquainted and randomly paired.
They analysed only the initial twelve minutes of conversation, feeling that the students would be
on their best behaviour during the process of getting acquainted. Of the interruptions in those
conversations, 75% of them were initiated by men.
One explanation of these differences is that women talk so much that men must interrupt to get
a word in edgewise. In order to test this hypothesis, West and Zimmerman analyzed their data to
see if there was an association between the amount of talk and interruptions.
If men interrupt because women talk so much, then it would be expected that the interruptions
would occur later in the conversations, after enough talk has gone by for the man to feel the
need to interrupt. Their analysis found just the opposite: men interrupt earlier in the conversation
rather than later.
In fact, when women interrupted, it took them over twice as long to initiate the interruption than
it did the man. Thus, if the data shows anything, they show that it is women that must interrupt to
get a word in edgewise.
5. Research - Conclusion
As Geoffrey Beattie, of Sheffield University, points out (writing in New
Scientist magazine in 1982): “The problem with this is that you might simply
have one very voluble man in the study which has a disproportionate
effect on the total.”
From their small (possibly unrepresentative) sample Zimmerman and West
conclude that, since men interrupt more often, then they are dominating
or attempting to do so.
6. O’Barr & Atkins
Conducted studies during courtroom cases looking at the witnesses’
speech patterns.
Their findings challenged Lakoff’s views of women’s language.
7. Findings
They found that language differences are based on situation-specific
authority or power – not gender.
They concluded that speech patterns were neither characteristic of all
women nor limited only to women.
8. Pamela Fishman – Dominance?
Pamela Fishman argues in Interaction: the Work Women Do (1983) that
conversation between the sexes sometimes fails, not because of anything
inherent in the way women talk, but because of how men respond, or
don't respond. Women ask questions to try to get a response from men,
not because of their personality weaknesses.
This consisted of the paper examining male – female hierarchy in
everyday interaction. Beginning with a discussion of the concepts of
power and of conversation as negotiated activity, it suggests that
successful interaction depends on conversationalwork by the participants.
She is based at the University of California , Santa Barbara.
9. Fishman’s research
Pamela Fishman conducted an experiment that involved listening to fiftytwo hours of pre-recorded conversations between young American
couples. All were white, between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five.
Fishman listened to recordings in their apartments and concentrated on
four features.
11. Difference Model
Deborah Tannen said that since males and females
grow up so differently, communication between
the sexes is similar to communication between two
entirely different cultures.
The feminine and masculine styles of speech are
like two different regional dialects.
Tannen explains why a woman and a man can
walk away from the same conversation with
completely different ideas of what was said.
12. Differences between men and women
Men and women have different aims in
conversation.
Women want intimacy
Men want independence.
13. Men vs. Women
Status vs. support
Independence vs. intimacy
Advice vs. understanding
Information vs. feelings
Orders vs. proposals
Conflict vs. compromise
14. Male styles of talking
Contrary to popular belief, men are not trying to dominate women in
conversation (even if that might be what ends up happening)
Men are concerned with status. When telling stories, they will try to impress
their friends or “one-up” them.
Men try to preserve their negative face
15.
Men are more comfortable with conflict than women since “life is a
contest”
Men are less likely to be careful what they say
Men have an early warning system that detects signs that they’re
being told what to do.
16. Female styles of talking
Women are not trying to manipulate men when they talk to them.
Women seek human communication
Women want to be liked and are concerned about their positive face
17.
For women, conflict is a threat to communication
and is often avoided.
When telling stories about themselves, women will
often display themselves as clumsy or foolish so that
she doesn’t imply that she is better than the people
she is talking to.
Women display a co-operative overlap and
engage in a lot of backchannel behaviour while
listening to others.
