Language and gender

Language and Gender

Main theorists-

Trudgill 1983-  Women's pronunciation is closer to RP than males.
Cheshire 1982- its when the boys tend to use more non-grammatical forms, like ain't, than girls.

Robin Lakoff 1975- This is when the women use hedges and also fillers; tag questions; apologetic requests, indirect requests, speak less, use fewer expletives, more intensifiers. 

Zimmerman and west  1975- they found that 96% of interruptions were made by men, suggesting male dominance in conversation.

Notes about language and gender  

• Positive and negative face theory 
• male language is less polite 
• females more positive and polite 
• Grices maxim ( features of spoken language) 
• language change 
• 3xD's Deficit, Dominance, Difference 
• Language is still patriarchal society 
• women co-operate 
• men compete 
• men are likely to converge