The two respondents to the HTML query interpret the question differently. This acceptance of a proper speech style, Cameron describes (in her 1995 book of the same name) as verbal hygiene. Listeners may not show it but you can test their expectations by statements or short narratives that allow for contradiction of assumptions (such as a story about a doctor or nurse depicted as the spouse of a man or woman, as appropriate). In contrast to the list, which defends a simple choice of clothes, not changing with fashion, and a hairstyle that lasts for years (or decades), the fashion guide thinks of what women call accessories, such as the "heeled ankle-boots", "chunky leather belt", and the "sequinned bag and shoes". guidelines for non-sexist use of language. She returns to tag questions - to which Robin Geoffrey Beattie. conflict vs. compromise | Men, concerned with status, tend to focus more on independence. Computer-mediated conversation (Internet relay chat, for example) is interesting because here people choose or assume their gender - and this may not be the same as their biological sex. Tannen. They claimed to use lower prestige forms even more than the observation showed. Trudgill found that men were less likely and women more likely to Tough call. Geoffrey Beattie. Dale Spender advocates a radical view of language as embodying structures that sustain male power. Howard Jackson and Peter Stockwell, in An Introduction to the Nature and Functions of Language (p. 124) do this quite entertainingly: This is not just a gender issue - these are functions (or abuses) of language which may appear in any social situation. how far they are typical of the ways men or women use language? Professor Tannen has summarized her book You Just Don't Understand in an article in which she represents male and female language use in a series of six contrasts. 1999; Smithson, Philippa; letter to, The Rev Margaret Jones (Letters, January 25) should know that when the word man appears in. title = "Interruption in conversational interaction, and its relation to the sex and status of the interactants". not try to force the evidence to fit the theory. What are these distinctions? Trudgill followed up the direct observation by asking his subjects These traits can lead women and men to starkly different than that made by Dale Spender, who identifies power with a male Trudgill found that men were less likely and women more likely to use the prestige pronunciation of certain speech sounds. In researching what they describe as powerless language, they show that language differences are based on situation-specific authority or power and not gender. The lexis in these texts varies - while the guidance on fashion has an extensive special lexicon of colour and clothing (which may be seen as more typical of a female speaker or writer with a mostly female audience), the question and answers on HTML use a special lexicon of computing, which we may think more typical of male language users. In phonetic terms, Trudgill observed whether, in, for example, the final sound of "singing", the speaker used the alveolar consonant /n/ or the velar consonant //. Turn-taking and interruption in political interviews: Margaret Thatcher and Jim Callaghan compared and contrasted. Geoffrey Beattie FBPsS FRSM FRSA is a British psychologist, author and broadcaster. Suggestions for improvement are welcome. So in the case of the fashion guidance, the writer can assume that, because someone has asked for help, then she will expect some detail in the response, and the special lexis is mostly there to name things - so we find lexis of colour (indigo, khaki, stone), of materials (cotton, leather, silk, satin), of garment types (crewneck, jeans, gypsy top, blouses) and of designer brands (Gap, Topshop, Diesel, French Connection - note that all of these are proper nouns, and capitalized). This may seem not very scientific, but the search engine can check more examples than human calculation - and it has no tendency to overlook evidence that does not fit. high involvement and high considerateness. But equally you should know that this difference is not universal - so there will be men who exhibit feminine conversational qualities - or women who follow the conversational styles associated with men. Susan Herring has given permission for this article to be freely distributed. If the contrast seems not to apply or to be relevant, then I cannot easily understand how one could talk about women and machines in the same way - unless this refers to quantifying statistics. They suggest that in the middle section of a conversation, they may actually signal heightened involvement rather than dominance or discomfort (Long 1972). This guide is free for individual users - for example, teachers or students working from home - in any part of the world. The mother asks about it - it Speakers will show this in forms such as woman doctor or male nurse. Or, why do men who study language have less interest in this area of sociolinguistic theory? Nature 300, 744-747. The results were quite contrary to what might . Click on the link below to see this article. what attitudes they reveal explicitly or implicitly to gender, the importance of the context in which the reader/listener sees or hears them, they come from a book which is protected by copyright, and. But if, in fact, people believe that men's and women's speech styles Blonde, an adjective of colour, becomes a noun, with connotations of low intelligence. Linguistics (1981) Jrg R. Bergmann On the local . This paper describes the development of a new system for classifying interruptions and simultaneous speech, entitled the Interruption Coding System (ICS). Review of feature film. (The use of these terms shows a new confidence - Deborah Jones is Language forms may preserve old attitudes that show men as superior (morally, spiritually, intellectually or absolutely) to women. This short extract from Susan Githens' report summarizes the findings of O'Barr and Atkins: Any student or teacher can readily test Lakoff's claim about qualifiers and intensifiers. Do some interruptions not reflect interest and involvement?". Turn-taking and interruption in political interviews: Margaret Thatcher and Jim Callaghan compared and contrasted Geoffrey W. Beattie Semiotica 39 (1-2) ( 1982 ) Geoffrey Beattie. who are told to change. The fashion guide has the most explicitly conventional structure - it is an extended description, organized in paragraphs much as in a print publication, such as a general interest magazine. She returns to tag questions - to which Robin Lakoff drew attention in 1975. Robin Lakoff, in 1975, published an influential account of women's language. The Psychological Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EB. In phonetic terms, Trudgill observed whether, in, for example, the final sound of "singing", the speaker used the alveolar consonant /n/ or the velar consonant //. Click on the image or the link below to see an enlarged view. In Politeness and the Linguistic Construction of Gender in Parliament: An Analysis of Transgressions and Apology Behaviour, she applies pragmatic models, such as the politeness theory of Brown and Levinson and Grice's conversational maxims, to transcripts of parliamentary proceedings, especially where speakers break the rules that govern how MPs may speak in the House of Commons. Interruptions don't reflect dominance but interest and involvement 3) Deficit Approach: Women use language features that portray subordinate role. important in many cultures; women have been instructed in the proper Restricted access. See this article at www.shu.ac.uk/wpw/politeness/christie.htm . abstract = "Comment la fr{\'e}quence et le type d'interruption dans une conversation naturelle varient avec le sexe et le statut social des interactants.". You can find more in Professor Trudgill's Social Differentiation in Norwich (1974, Cambridge University Press) and various subsequent works on dialect. An item like this (an ATM machine) helps a local shopkeeper bring people into his shop. Personal pronouns and possessives after a noun may also show the implicit assumption that the male is the norm. But it may also be that, as social rles change, this may Geoffrey Beattie claims to have recorded some 10 hours of tutorial discussion and some 557 interruptions (compared with 55 recorded by Zimmerman and West). Use the search box on the left or the link below to go to Amazon.com for books, video tapes, DVDs and much more. But sometimes it's far more women's language. This was both more natural, and more proper as men were the worthier sex. "French Connection" suggests the familiar idea that France is a home of both high and classic fashion, but echoes the name of the classic film - since the "French Connection" in the film is route for hard drugs (via Marseille), this may be a risky name. And finally you could attempt to judge others in the group (though you may not know all of them) or simply another male or female friend. Very broadly speaking, the study of language and gender for Advanced level students in the UK has included two very different things: The first of these is partly historic and bound up with the study of the position of men and women in society. Stanton published a Woman's Bible in the USA. The first is associated with Dale Spender, Pamela Fishman, Don If you have to investigate language for part of a course of study, then you could investigate some area of language and gender. www.thebabesandhunks.com, describing Brad Pitt, follows: Read these examples carefully, then talk (or make notes) about any of the following: Explain what you understand by the term "sexist language". of status or value) and in some cases different denotations. Githens comments on Professor Tannen's views, as follows: Deborah Tannen's distinction of information and feelings is also described as report talk (of men) and rapport talk (of women). Their findings challenge Lakoff's view of women's language. situation-specific authority or power and not gender. Geoffrey Beattie Edge Hill University Abstract This study investigated interruptions in one type of natural conversational interaction university tutorials. ideas that Lakoff originated and Tannen carried further. Such a sound can be supportive and affirming - which Tannen calls cooperative overlap, or it can be an attempt to take control of the conversation - an interruption or competitive overlap. Tannen says, Denying real differences can only as norm. But Lakoff's remark about humour is much harder to quantify - some critics might reply that notions of humour differ between men and women. Rim (1977) found thai in three-person discu groups, the less intelligent subjects interrupted more frequently than ' more intelligent subjects. Women's verbal conduct is important in many cultures; women have been instructed in the proper ways of talking just as they have been instructed in the proper ways of dressing, in the use of cosmetics, and in other feminine kinds of behaviour. This paper seeks to reopen the issue of whether Mrs Thatcher's interviews do show, as has been claimed, a distinctive pattern in that they are characterised by interviewers often gaining the floor . I have not shown the texts used in this example question - for two reasons: These texts and the commentary that follows show how to analyse texts in relation to language and gender. considerate of others. Typically, students may mistrust a teacher's statements about language as it is because these show a world in which stereotypes persist (as if the teacher wanted the world to be this way). University, points out (writing in New Scientist magazine in situations, before asking them to read a passage that contained words dressing, in the use of cosmetics, and in other feminine kinds of Jennifer Coates looks at all-female conversation and builds on overlapped because they will yield to an intrusion on the conversation But more recently some authors have cautiously suggested that it may not always reflect or signal dominance. . Beattie found that women and men interrupted with more or less equal (men 34.1, women 33.8) - so men did interrupt more, but by a margin so slight as not to be statistically . Cameron does not condemn verbal hygiene, as misguided. information vs. feelings | She gives Men grow up in a world in which conversation is competitive - they not reflect interest and involvement? conversation has been mostly grooming-talk and comment on feelings. Zimmerman and West produce in evidence 31 segments of conversation. When constructing examples and theories, remember to include those human activities, interests, and points of view which traditionally have been associated with females. intervention is temporary (a point of information or of order) and that 1971; Jacob 1974, 1975). . "Gypsy", to denote a member of the community now usually known as "travellers", is considered taboo (it comes from "Egyptian", reflecting a historical belief that this people originated in Egypt). Bull, P. E. and Mayer, K. (1988) Interruptions in political interviews: A . Geoffrey BEATTIE, Professor of Psychology | Cited by 3,628 | of Edge Hill University, Ormskirk | Read 163 publications | Contact Geoffrey BEATTIE . For example, Gallois and Markel (1975) have provided evidence to suggest that interruptions may have different psychological relevance during different phases of a conversation. As with many things, the world is not so simple - there are lots of grey areas in the study of language and gender. Where the writer of the list in Text 1 can refer to "belly and big hips" (which may seem indelicate for someone sensitive to body image), the fashion writer is concerned to present natural features positively: "disguise your stomach and deal with your high waist", and "flatter your hair colour". the Santa Barbara campus of the University of California in 1975. He received his law degree from the University of Western Ontario in 1984 and served as a partner in the Toronto law firm Torys LLP before joining The Woodbridge Company, where he served as president from 1998 through December 2012. total." A strapper - a real strapper, Jane: big, brown and buxom (Mr. Rochester describes Blanche Ingram); 1847; Bront, C . He is Professor of Psychology at Edge Hill University and in recent years a Masters supervisor on the Sustainability Leadership Programme at the University of Cambridge and Visiting Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Deborah Cameron says that wherever and whenever the matter has been investigated, men and women face normative expectations about the appropriate mode of speech for their gender. Women often suggest that people do things in indirect ways - let's, why don't we? or wouldn't it be good, if we? Men may use, and prefer to hear, a direct imperative. Or because Beattie's work is in some other way less valuable? Such a sound can be supportive and affirming - which Tannen As long ago as 1928 Svartengren commented on the use of female pronouns to refer to countries and boats. In the British House of Commons, there is We can see this alternation at work in the paragraph that opens with a general statement about "chunky cardigans", then, in the next sentence uses a second-person imperative verb form: "try one of those cotton canvas military-styled jackets". Among linguists working in this area, many more seem (to me, anyway) to be women than men. This supported the view of men as more secure or less socially aspirational. research is described in various studies and often quoted in language the male as norm | than men. A number of studies have demonstrated that turo-iaking and in- terruption in conversation are affected by a number of social and 96 Geoffrey W. Beattie personality variables. Professor Tannen concludes, rather bathetically, and with a hint of But this is a far more limited claim than that made by Dale Spender, who identifies power with a male patriarchal order - the theory of dominance. A married woman with a caton average lives the same length of time as a single woman without a cat. Professor Crystal in his Encyclopedia of the English Language gives less than two full pages to it (out of almost 500). These are all written texts, but they exhibit different approaches to grammar. Text 4 is particularly skilful in moving between second person "you" (addressing the particular questioner) and third-person general statements: "Evening wear follows the same rules" or "Last summer's gypsy tops were the perfect stomach cover-up". correct language and the advice to women on how they can speak more . Red hair in men is more likely to meet disapproval - in East Yorkshire schools a young man with red hair is a ginner (the g is soft, as the noun is a derivation of ginger) - and this term has connotations of excitability and ridiculousness. So this message may exhibit support and fit Deborah Tannen's idea of women as concerned with expressing feelings where men give information. A young woman makes a phone Meltzer et al. independence vs. intimacy | See how many people find it puzzling. Men do sometimes express mild approval of promiscuity in such phrases as "getting your oats", but rarely show direct admiration of the "hunk". "Diesel" is perhaps more ironic - in associating something seen as soft or feminine with powerful machinery, rather as Caterpillar (originally known as a manufacturer of earth-moving and road-building machinery) has become a fashionable brand of footwear. a way to make sense of language, and that it also represents a symbolic Women, too, claimed to use high prestige forms more than they were observed to do. In a related article, Woman's language, she published a set of basic assumptions about what marks out the language of women. Jennifer Coates looks at all-female conversation and builds on Deborah Tannen's ideas. term for the species or people in general is the same as that for one instructional advice for women wishing to improve their spoken and written English, and, the rise and development of sex-specification in the language, of which pronoun usage is one aspect.. Columnists on Lloyd's List, however, are not obliged to to use neuter pronouns. Geoffrey Beattie (1982) Geoffrey Beattie challenged the dominance approach, specifically Zimmerman and West's theory in 1982. Clive Grey comments that: In 1646 another grammarian Joshua Poole ruled that the male should precede the female. Save or open Susan Herring's article as a text file. ", Status vs. support | ZigZag Education and Computing Centre Publications. If you are working in a school or college, you may purchase a high-quality printed version optimized for multiple photocopying. High-involvement speakers are concerned to show enthusiastic About:This article is published in The British journal of social and clinical psychology.The article was published on 1977-09-01. But it may also be that, as social rles change, this may become less common - as women can gain prestige through work or other activities.Trudgill's observations are quite easy to replicate - you could do so as part of language research or a language investigation. . She claims that it is especially difficult to challenge this power system, since the way that we think of the world is part of, and reinforces, this male power: Fortunately for the language student, there is no need closely to follow the very sophisticated philosophical and ethical arguments that Dale Spender erects on her interpretation of language. Of course, this is a broad generalization - and for every one of Explain why these differences might occur. Of this we can note two things immediately: Studying language and gender is easy and hard at the same time. The first one gives a rather flippant answer - as if she is writing in order to respond, even where she has nothing (informative) to say. What are the titles for married and unmarried people of either sex? Jespersen explains these differences by the early division of labour between the sexes. This does not, of course, in any way, lower the value of their work. with observations and experience. significant positive correlations were found between the different types of interruptions performed and received by the two politicians. You can obtain a copy by clicking on the link below: Using a search engine, you will soon find resources from some of the leading contemporary authorities on the subject - Susan Herring, Lesley Milroy, Dale Spender, Deborah Tannen and Peter Trudgill, for example. confident to use the lexicon of her research subjects - these are These traits can lead women and men to starkly different views of the same situation. Historically, men's concerns were seen as more important than those of women, but today this situation may be reversed so that the giving of information and brevity of speech are considered of less value than sharing of emotions and elaboration. Without contextual clues, we might think of "camel, khaki" and "stone" as nouns denoting an animal, a cloth and a mineral - but all have become adjectives of colour by grammatical conversion. Yet Beattie's findings are not quoted so often as those of Zimmerman and West. Professor Tannen describes two types of speaker as high-involvement and high-considerateness speakers. preserve intimacy. high-considerateness speakers are, by definition, more concerned to be In trying to prevent fights, writes Professor Tannen some women The writer of the fashion guide similarly makes assumptions about her readers - that they will know what Gap, Topshop, Diesel and French Connection mean. What Russell and Stanley also overlook is the selectiveness and sentimentality with which men use insulting terms - so that for every bitch there is a princess, queen or Madonna (a mother, sister, daughter, wife). I hope that this guide gives a comprehensive treatment of the subject, but it is not exhaustive - and this area of study is massive. You can find more on the O'Barr and Atkins research in Susan Githens' excellent report at www.georgetown.edu/faculty/bassr/githens/powrless.htm. By speaking during hesitant phases, the speaker can redistribute planning time (using more frequent, but shorter hesitations) whilst keeping the listener interested, and lessening the probability of interruption. Each of their criticisms are addressed in this paper. The first specific piece of writing on gender differences in language this century came out in 1944. voluble man in the study which has a disproportionate effect on the The fashion guide may show some sense of the writer's considering the reader's feelings (in the delicate reference to the stomach bulge), but is also very detailed in giving information. You can print out the guide, but it is not ideal for printing and photocopying, and may run to many more pages than you expect.