This document discusses speech act theory and how language can be used to perform actions and not just describe things. It outlines locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts. It also discusses how gender can influence language use and interpretations, with assumptions that women use more polite and affective language while men use more instrumental language. However, it argues these gender divisions are problematic and overlook how both gender use language for multiple purposes. Affiliative motives and social influences can also shape how language is used across contexts.

1. Language and gender
Instructor:
Dr.Fatima baig
Topic:
Intimacy and autonomy
Group 5 :
zuria gul 5, asifa 13, Maryam
17,shewana 31,hafsa 57,maira 75, Namra 87,
areeba 91

2. Introduction:
 When people converse with one another, they are making various kinds of social moves. Speech acts are firmly
embedded in social practice , it is a continuing discourse among interactants.
 Speech acts consist of two parts, talk and action. Each utterance is a part of the social situation in which it occurs. Talk is
often thought of as quite distinct from action. ‘‘He is a man of action, not words.’’ ‘‘She’s all talk, no action.’’ (The
pronouns here reflect. language and gender ideologies familiar to many English speakers.) A sharp dichotomy between
talk and action is, however, problematic.

3. Speech Act Theory:
Speech Act Theory was proposed by John Langshaw Austin and had been developed by John Searle. They
believe that language is not only used to perform or to describe things, it often used to “do things” to
perform acts.
Example: There is a policeman at the corner. This could be a warning, an assurance, a dare, a hint, or a
reminder to go and take your car out of the handicapped space you are parked in.
To undermine the view that speech and action are opposed to one another, Austin drew attention to what he
called performative utterances.
Actions performed via utterances are generally called speech acts, the uttering of relevant words is the action
itself, and without the utterance, action is not done. These are called performative sentences, and the verbs
used are called performative verbs.

4. Types of Speech Acts:
Austin suggests three kinds of acts:
a)Locutionary Act
b) Illocutionary Act
c) perlocutionary Act

5. Locutionary Act:
The Act of saying the literal meaning of utterance.
Illocutionary Act:
The extra meaning of utterance produced on the basis of its literal meaning.
Perlocutionary act:
The effect of the utterance on the hearer, depending on specific circumstances.
Example:
It’s stuffy in here.
The Locutionary Act is the saying of it with its literal meaning “There isn’t enough fresh air in here.”
The illocutionary Act can be a request of the hearer to open the window.
The perlocutionary act can be the hearers opening the window or his refusal to do so. In fact we might utter , to make a
statement, a request, an explanation or for some other communicative purposes. This is also known as illocutionary
force of action.

6. Gender opposition:
Inequality of various kinds among speakers can affect interpretations so that comprehension became
difficult.
Gender-polarised characterization of conversation style include difference between the language of men
and women. Women are said to be more polite than men as they use polite language.
Functions of talk:
Function of talk include talk as interaction as social function.
It reflect role relationship degree of politeness use of conversational register .

7. Politeness:
Penelope Brown and Stephan Levinson (1987) have developed a theory of politeness that should light on
general principles of brightness and that shows how it different cross culturally.
Positive politeness: Positive politeness is directed to addressee’s positive face, his desire that his wants
should be thought of as desirable. This strategy includes complements establishing common ground ,using
jobs, nicknames etc.
Negative politeness: It include showing difference, it highlights the persons Independence and possibility to
act on one’s own . This strategy includes questioning and presenting disagreements as opinions.
The greater the social distance between speaker and hearer the more politeness is expected.
The heavier imposition made on the hearer the more will generally have to be used.
Difference that might emerge in politeness expectations for women and for men almost certainly have
multiple sources and implications for gender practice far beyond mere making of difference.

8. Effective and instrumental talk:

9. • .Female use more emotion in conversation as compared to
male because they always want to affect listener so the
process can be processed. women use language through
which she can maintain her social relation.
•
• .Purpose of affective communication.
• .Business deal
• .Reporting certain facts
• .Way to strengthen social bonds
• .To express feelings

10. • .Instrumental communication is contrast to affective
communication.
• Instrumental is goal Orient and sender focused.
• .In US, first time affective and instrumental
communication are divided as the division of labour
among male and female in society.
•
• . we often ignore men's anger because it undergoes
affective communication.

11. • .Female have dependency work for example taking care
of children cleaning house etc. All these things are
actually instrumental but refers to love and affection by
society because these emotions are affective.
•
• .Male_ is associated with reason.while female_affect with
emotion.

12. • .Reason_emotion has challenged by neuro psychology
and recent philosophy but scientific testing has not
proved it scientifically yet.
•
• .Evelyn Fox says," a feeling for the organism."
• .Affective and instrumental communication are primarily
functions of speech act.

13.  Although affection for their charges may keep them going, caretakers’ primary focus very often must be
instrumental, how-to accomplish the tasks before them.
 Viewing women as ‘‘naturally’ ’more concerned with affective matters and men with instrumental not
tends to devalue women’s social contributions but people towards kinds of activities on the basis of
gender rather than talents or inclination. Not surprisingly, (male) instrumentality is associated with
reason and(female) affect with emotion.
 Affect seems to play a particularly important role in moral reasoning and in social cognition. In
mathematics and the natural sciences, there is some evidence that it may usefully suggest lines of
scientific inquiry and testing, In other words ‘‘a feeling for the organism” or some other ‘‘feeling” may
help one find evidence to use in arguing for a completely new view in a particular arena. This does not
mean that science is ‘‘about” scientists’ feelings. It does suggest, the image of the scientist as the ‘‘man
of pure reason” is problematic for a number of reasons. There are some clear cases of speech acts
whose function is to express someone’s emotions and others whose primary function is to transfer
information about some practical matter or to bring about some practical end .
 In general the affective and instrumental are closely in making the distinction of somewhat dubious
value in mapping gendered patterning in speech. Nonetheless, a number of analysts have characterized
gender as ways of doing things with words.

14. Intimacy and autonomy, cooperativeness and
competitiveness:
 Deborah Tannen (1990) is one of the most widely read accounts of the gendered division of the work
done by talk. Tannen characterizes women as most interested in promoting intimacy. Men, in contrast,
are seen as most interested in establishing their independence from others, their autonomy.
 Once again, we enter the hall of mirrors. There is a powerful normative view in western industrial
societies that women are interested in connections to others and in promoting warm feelings all the
way around. And men are normatively disinterested in other people and in feelings.
 There are cultural contexts where neither the affective/instrumental division of linguistic labor nor the
related gender polarities like coop- erative/competitive would ever have seemed gendered in the ways
so many investigators of English speakers have found appealing.

15. • We would suggest that girls who are not of African descent might have a lot to learn from their African American
sisters about confidence and standing up for themselves. But girls’ confrontational activity gets ignored because
the egalitarian/hierarchical divide fits so well with the contrast between a focus on the well-being of others and a
focus on one’s own projects and achievements. Observers stand ready to interpret women’s activities as showing
their cooperative and egalitarian natures, men’s as demonstrating their competitiveness and their capacity for
leadership. And girls and boys, women and men, are eager to project themselves in socially approved modes.