Gender, politeness, stereotype

According to an American linguist, Robin Lakoff, women express :

Uncertainty Lack of confidence

Close the door.That’s an adorable dogOh dear, the TV set’s broken I’ll be damned there’s a friend of

mine! I was very tired I was so madMy goodness,there’s Bu Diah

Sunggingwati!

Lexical hedges or filler ▪ you know, sort of, well, you see.

Tag question, ▪ she’s very nice, isn’t she?

Rising intonation on declaratives, ▪ it’s really good?

Intensifiers such as just and so▪ I love him so much

‘Superpolite’ forms▪ indirect request

There are two language features used by women: Hedging devices▪ signal lack of confidence

Boosting devices▪ Signal persuade their addressee to

take them seriously

USING TAG QUESTIONS EXPRESS

Uncertainty Doubt

FUCTION Facilitative or positive politeness devices Soften directive or criticism

Function of Tag Questions

Women

Men

Expressing uncertainty 35% 61%

Facilitative 59% 26%

Softening 6% 13%

TOTAL 100% 100%

Meaning based on pronunciationPosition in the utteranceKinds of speech actTo whom who is using the

utteranceSpeech behavior status

Women use more politeness devices then the men▪ Men to men fewer politeness▪ Men to women more politeness

Social Role or Status Different Pattern of Language▪ Statusful women▪ Title man

Interrupting BehaviorBased on research, women got interrupted more than men.

Conversational FeedbackAccording to American studies, women do the more positive feedback to the conversational partner better than men do.

Women Gossiping: • Usually consist of experiences, problems,

feeling• Avoid criticizing people in order not to

make the atmosphere becomes discomfort.

Men Gossiping: • Tend to argue about certain topics,

criticized each other and sometimes make the conversational partner feels down.

Approaching the constructive of gender as a process rather than

regarding gender as a given category

• The ways in which people construct particular kinds of social identity– Narratives of personal experience• Interactive pragmatic particles• Appealing to shared experience

– Contestive and conformist gender identity• Using an assertive discourse

Sexiest language is one example of the way a culture or society conveys its values from one group to another and from one generation to the next

Language conveys attitudes. Sexiest attitudes stereotype a person according to gender rather than judging on individual merits

Sexiest language encodes stereotyped attitudes to women and men

It’s concerned with the way language expresses both negative and positive stereotypes of both women and men

ENGLISH METAPHORS

ANIMAL IMAGERY FOOD IMAGERY

WOMEN MEN WOMEN MEN

BitchOld Biddy

Cow

Studwolf

Crumpettart

Parsnip

ChickKitten

Bird Sugar sweetiehoney

VegCabbage

GENERIC STRUCTUREENGLISH MORPHOLOGY

MEN WOMENBASE FORMS BASE FORMS +

SUFFIXLION

COUNTACTORUSHERHERO

AVIATOR

LIONESSCOUNTESSACTRESS

USHERETTEHEROINEAVIATRIX

THANKS A LOT