Language and Woman's Place

In our world there are so people that are being overrated, from their skin color, to how they talk or to where they came from or the way they walk, everything from what people wear to where people come from and their ethnic background. These people are looked down on from the rest of society for just being themselves and doing only what they know to do.  For some, it’s wrong if others do not act just like them and they put them down for it. Stereotypes can be described someone of a certain race, religion, gender, nationality, or other groups. You can see that language, gender, and culture (class and race) does relate to power because men’s have more power than women’s, the way you speak, your

Deborah Tannen, who is a professor of linguistics, says in her essay, "How Male And Female Students Use Language Differently", that after she made her book, “You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation” that one of the unintended benefits was that she gets to reevaluate her teaching strategies and see how male and females act differently in class. As you read through her essay you can tell that Deborah Tannen wants her readers to think about why males tend to speak more in discussions than females and the reason for this difference in the classroom and also how we can improve the classroom for both men and women.Although Tannen tends to get off topic and doesn 't have much evidence to back up some of her claims, she states

Did you know, “men and women talk differently because they are raised in something like two different cultures: a male culture from which young men learn to speak like men and a female culture in which young women learn to speak like women?”(Cooper and MacDonald 9). Well, not actually from two separate cultures, but the idea of men and women being opposites as pointed out in the opening. Deborah Tannen has made her theory that a male culture and female culture each exist, very popular with the human population and has written an extensive book on her theory.

Deborah Tannen’s essay “But What Do You Mean?” focuses on what she claims are differences between men and women when it comes to social interaction. The essay is sectioned into seven categories, in which she talks about how men and women tend to think and react when it comes to apologizing, criticizing, thanking, fighting, praising, complaining, and joking with others. In general, she seems to promote the idea that women tend to be more polite and refined, considering the feelings of others when conversing and taking everything as a formality. In contrast, men are apparently more blunt, taking a more direct approach with matters and being more unconcerned with how they may affect others. Women tend to automatically apologize and thank others

Lakoff sees women “type” as a form of unique language which is "different" from men's because of their powerless position in society that considers male language as a standard language as a comparison, which cause women exploit number of features in language

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

In “How Male and Female Students Use Language Differently”, Deborah Tannen discusses how and why women and men have different talking styles in the classroom.

From "You just don't understand: Women and men in conversation", Deborah Tannen shows the gender differences in conversation. The main idea is that women value relationship and empathy within a group, while men are struggling to raise their status and class. According to Deborah Tannen, this affects how they think and speak. Generally, men talk more in a public situation, while women talk more in private settings. Most women tend to use rapport talk for conversation, "a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships," whereas most men tend to use report talk, "a way of preserving independence and maintain status in hierarchical social order"(Deborah Tannen, You just don't understand: Women and men in conversation) There are different understandings between gender about what conversation is for. To him, talk is information, which is used to inform what he needs to know or what he wants other to know. To her, however, talk is for interaction, a way to show involvement, whereas listening is a way of caring. Therefore, in public events, men are more comfortable to claim attention with this understanding of talking.

Kinzel and Solnit both aimed their articles at the male population to point out an issue that is usually swept under the rug. A man being the intended audience strongly affects the argument because they are the ones that the authors have a problem with. They want to get their point across but need to do it in a way that does not anger the reader. Kinzel shows her great understanding of the issue by talking about how women are capable of this type of attitude. She even describes her behavior in situations like this “I’ve always called it “lecture mode,” and I even have this habit where I take a deep, semi-dramatic breath before it shifts on, and I begin, on the exhale, with, “Well--” I always begin with “Well--” and I always conclude with, “Does that make sense?” (Kinzel). By acknowledging this male readers are more receptive to her message and more likely to be open minded.

In the reading “You Are What You Say” by Robin Tolmach Lakoff. She talks about how women use a particular way of conveying a language. How women have to speak in a certain way or to speak on certain topics compared to men. The argument Lakoff gave was “How language is now build to make women “communicative cripples”. She then gave few examples base on everyday situation. Like lady like language should be use or how women are supposing to describe colors in a certain way or use tag questions. Lakoff future explains why these examples show how women aren’t powerful enough or are on equal level of importance than men.

Male and female differ in their use of communication because their reasons for communicating are different. Men

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

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.

According to Deborah Tannen, a linguistic professor of Georgetown University, men and women talk differently and sometimes it might be very complex as she stated that many coupes 'grew in diverse cultures.' Men consider communication as a primary language of 'report.' They feel more