Language, Language And Gender

Deborah Tannen is an American academic and professor of linguistics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Her research mainly focuses on the expression of interpersonal relationships in conversational interactions, including how these interactions are affected by gender and cultural differences. In her essay Tannen uses gender to reveal the differences between male and female conversational styles in classroom discussions. She formulates the theory that males naturally prefer and dominate contributions to these debate-like discussions while females incline to contribute to less hostile conversations. Tannen presents her argument effectively using simple vocabulary and appropriate literary devices however, as the essay progresses she

What is it that makes a woman a woman, or what makes a man a man? Deborah Tannen, author and Ph.D. of linguistics, investigates this question within the essay, “There Is No Unmarked Woman.” An excerpt from a larger publication, “Talking from 9 to 5,” written in 1994, “There Is No Unmarked Woman” is an effective examination of the social injustice as to why the state of womanhood is “marked” while the state of manhood is “unmarked”, and what this means for each sex. The book itself is a result of real-life research about the conversational

Language is used all around the world. Men and women have various ways of using language. There are many factors in using language such as: regional, ethic, and class backgrounds; gender; and age (Tannen 214). Deborah Tannen “How Male and Female Students Use Language differently” elaborates on this topic adequately. Tannen elaborates male and female language patterns, the debate type teaching formats used in college classrooms, and the different male and female attitudes toward vocal expressions exercises used in the classroom that creates a dissatisfying environment for females. Ms. Tannen mainly focuses on the languages differences of men and women. She concludes that different classroom strategies need to be studied and applied in order to accentuate and improve student participation in the classroom from both males and females. In analyzing this paper, three things are evident. One must consider how men and women bond differently, how speaking in a classroom is more adaptable to men in a debate scenario, and how men and women communicate and participate in a group exercise

“Sex Differences” is an essay written by a professor of linguistics named Ronald Macaulay. In the essay, he pointed out that there were no gender differences regarding to language development. He talked about various stereotypes about how men and women speak. He also explains in depth about how social environment made an impact on the talking between men and women. He also concluded that those linguists who still believe in that theory only continue to do so even if what they found in their research is not statistically significant. In many ways, Macaulay’s essay is persuasive. Through this essay, one would agree with him that there is no different form of language in which women and men speak.

Years later McConnell-Ginet (1989, as cited in McConnell-Ginet, 2011) began to study about language and gender in which it focused on speeches of men and women. Later in 2002, in investigating the characterisation of men and women in language, a study has been conducted that covered the sexism in language (Weatherall, 2002). Thus, the foundation of this research is based on the study of language and gender and its effect on

In her July 2007 article “WHO DOES THE TALKING HERE?,” published in The Washington Post, Linguistic Professor Deborah Tannen expresses her expert insight to the common assumption that women speak more than men (356). According to Prof. Tannen, women, being concerned with building and maintaining relationships, use “rapport-talk” as opposed to men, who use more of a “Report-talk” style of communicating (357). The well-published author contends that merely counting words is insufficient for gaining understanding of the existing gender bias. However, we can gain (insight) to the differences in gender communication by analyzing “ when” people choose to speak, as well as, “why” people choose to speak (358).

Alleen Pace Nilsen began a study of Sexism in American English after returning from a two-year stay in Kabul, Afghanistan. Trying to avoid social issues in her research, Nilsen used the dictionary, as her main source and guide, making note-cards on every entry that seemed to tell something about male and female. She soon discovered that language and society go hand and hand. Furthermore, that the language a culture uses is evident in its values and beliefs. Amore careful look at the English language revealed three main points that Alleen Nilsen elaborates more on.

Due to the different ways of expressing politeness and conversational involvement, they may have trouble communicating even if they share the same language. The ‘two cultures' approach proposes that talk between women and men is fraught with potential misunderstanding for much the same reasons that communication across the ethnic groups is (Mary Crawford, Talking Difference On Gender and Language, 1995). Hence, I agree with the point of view of Deborah Tannen. However, "You just don't understand: Women and men in conversation" does not inform readers about the reasons and the consequences of the communication differences between genders. Therefore, this essay will include the above

Deborah Tannen’s article of How Male and Female Students Use of Language Differently was taken about her colleague when he decided to do a class experiment. The way he went about it was quite interesting to the students. How men seem to dominate more when they talk. Women tend to back off when the conversation might keep going and going in a classroom. Most small groups help quiet people talk more.

Language and Gender is a book composed by Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet. It is "another prologue to the investigation of the connection amongst sex and dialect utilize" and is a top to bottom investigation of how men and ladies utilize dialect in an unexpected way. It contains a presentation and nine parts. Different sections examine the social development of sex, social philosophies of dialect, arranging discourse, sex restriction in dialect, and universal perspectives of dialect.

As in many other gender differences, miscommunication between males and females can be explained by either the biological aspect or the cultural/environmental aspect. Deborah Tannen, a University professor of linguistics at Georgetown University and an Author, suggests the biological explanation to

Gender and language initiate an approach to the study of language use and looks into relations between the meaning and gender. Christie provides a systematic introduction to pragmatic approaches explaining the rules of social language and how pragmatics can be realized be feminist analyses of language’s nature

In many circles of the world, various groups of people distinguish themselves from one another through religion, language, culture, and sometimes gender. People also develop stereotypes about a particular group of people in order to identify them. However, most of the time, these stereotypes hold true for only some members of a group. Sometimes, these stereotypes are just plain misconceptions that do not even apply to the group it claims to. Stereotypes are placed on people because it is a way to easily identify what type of person or ethnicity an individual is. At one point in time, these stereotypes may have been true; however, in today’s modern society, most of these stereotypes are outdated and false, which leads them to turn into

Robin Lakoff found that women’s language lacks authority when compared to that used by men and she believes that women use many techniques in their speech that are deficient to men 's speech. In the Deficit Model Robin Lakoff describes male language as stronger, more prestigious and more desirable. She argues that women are socialised into behaving like 'ladies '. She gives examples of language techniques women use that make their language seem deficient these include, fillers, hedges e.g. “sort of”, “you know”, intensifiers e.g. “so”, weak expletive terms e.g. “oh dear”, empty adjectives e.g. charming, sweet, hypercorrect grammar and tag questions which shows uncertainty e.g. “isn’t it?” Moreover she interprets that women use more precise colour terms e.g. mauve, magneta.

From a very early age, males and females are taught different linguistic practices. For example, communicative behaviors that are considered acceptable for boys may be considered completely inappropriate for girls.