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American English Booklet11

1.6.1. Approaches to the Explanation of Cross-Sex Difference

The “Female Deficit” approach

There are different approaches to explanation of cross-sex differences. The female deficit approach to language and gender studies can be traced as far back as the early 1920s when Otto Jespersen devoted a chapter of his influential book “Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin” (1922) to “The Woman”. In this chapter he claims that women in a number of cultures throughout the world exhibit speech patterns which differ from those of men and that these differences derive from differences in biological make-up. Among the features of “women’s speech” Jespersen notes that

In other words , women’s speech was held to be deficient when compared with the male “norm”. O. Jespersen’s ideas remained unchallenged within the field of linguistics for nearly half a century, even though most of his evidence comes from art, literature rather than from real-world behaviour.

In 1973 Robin Lakoff published her important article “Language and Women’s Place” and the language researchers returned to an examination of differences between men’s and women’s speech. R.Lakoff’s work was highly influential for a number of years but now it has been discredited because R.Lakoff, like O.Jespersen, subscribes to the female deficit theory as she views women’s speech as weak in comparison with men’s speech. She, like O.Jespersen, relies on literary texts for her data.

However, unlike O.Jespersen, R.Lakoff is sympathetic to women and says that women’s deficient speech patterns are not the result of inherent biological or mental deficiency but rather of differential experience. She believes that men’s greater power in society may be a factor in woman’s weaker use of language.

A sampling of women's speech features, per Lakoff (1973)

● Heavy use of "tag questions"

R.Lakoff claims that women use more structures such as, "That sounds OK, doesn't it?" than men. The little questions which women often "tag onto" the ends of statements have the effect, R.Lakoff says, of diminishing the force of the statement; in addition, they convey a lack of confidence, or even a lack of personal opinions or views, on the part of the speaker.

● Question intonation on statements

R.Lakoff maintains that women often end statements with the rising intonation which is characteristic of questions rather than with the falling intonation which characterizes assertions. The effect of "question intonation" is similar to that of tag questions, in that it turns utterances into questionable propositions rather than definitive statements.

● “ Weak'' directives

According to R.Lakoff, women tend to frame directives or commands as requests rather than direct commands. For example, women are more likely to get someone to close an open door by saying "Would you mind shutting the door?" than by saying "Shut the door!" Requests, R.Lakoff maintains, carry less authoritative force than directives which are framed as imperatives.

The "Cultural Difference" Approach

As a counter to the view that women's language is deficient compared to men's, a number of researchers maintain that women's language is not inferior but simply different. The cultural difference approach to language and gender is grounded in the belief that women's and men's speech is different because girls and boys in America grow up in essentially separate speech communities, because they typically are segregated into same-sex peer groups during the years in which they acquire many of their language-use patterns. This approach is central to the work of a number of researchers, including Deborah Tannen, a sociolinguist who is well known as the author of several best-selling books on language and gender for non-experts, including That's Not What I Meant! How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships (1987) and You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation (1990).

Girls grow up in groups in which heavy emphasis is placed on cooperation, equality, and emotionally charged friendships, and so girls develop conversational styles which are cooperative and highly interactional, with each girl encouraging the speech of others and building on others' communications as she converses. In addition, girls learn to read others' emotions in quite subtle ways, because forming strong friendships is of key importance to them. On the other hand, boys grow up in groups which are hierarchical in nature and in which dominance over others is of central importance. Thus, boys develop conversational styles which are competitive rather than cooperative, and they place a heavy reliance on "proving themselves" through their words rather than on encouraging the ideas of other speakers.

D.Tannen's books have been well received by general audiences, who seem to be glad to have discovered that there are explanations for the miscommunications that they frequently experience in their own cross-sex interactions. At the same time, her works have met with some opposition by researchers. For example, like R.Lakoff, D.Tannen has been criticized because she emphasizes that women need to learn to "read" men without placing a corresponding emphasis on men's learning to understand the conversational conventions which guide female speech. D.Tannen has also been criticized for overemphasizing the differences between women's and men's conversational styles and hence perpetuating the artificial dichotomy between women's and men's language.

A number of proponents of the cultural difference theory, including the earliest advocates of this approach (Maltz and Borker 1982), maintain that by the time males and females reach adulthood, their conversational styles are actually quite similar. And even in childhood, it is maintained, similarities in conversational strategies far outweigh differences. For example, it has been shown that girls use the same strategies to win arguments as boys and that they are just as skillful at arguing as boys (Goodwin 1990).

The Dominance Theory

The notion that male-female conversation differences are due to societal power differences between men and women has been termed by the Dominance theory. Researchers point out the features of so-called “male conversational style” which is characterized by:

In such a way they dominate women in conversational interaction.

A number of researchers suggest that men’s misunderstandings of women’s conversational style are often quite intentional.

Men’s dominance in society derives from the roles which have been ascribed to men by society. Current researches are intent on investigating as a social construct.