I believe that women are less threatening and more polite in conversation with members of the opposite sex than men. Discuss

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Hannah Moore                Language & Gender Coursework

Hypothesis

        I believe that women are less threatening and more polite in conversation with members of the opposite sex than men. I believe that the female ‘host’ of the television show in my study, will exhibit more sympathetic speech by using parataxis, which is the use of connected main clauses, and other features that researchers such as Deborah Tannen have associated with female speech.

Introduction

I decided to study the differences between male and female speech because I am interested in gender differences that I have studied in my course.

        This investigation is intended to prove my hypothesis, to do this I have decided to take two television talk show hosts, one male, and one female. The shows are aired at around the same time and would attract the same audience. By analysing the conversations of the talk show hosts I can define if the female host is more polite and less threatening towards her guests and audience than her male counterpart.

        The topic of language and gender is and has always been an important part of the English language. It reflects quite significantly on the way men and women communicate at the particular period in time, for example thanks to literature from the past we know that females, when married still called their husbands sir. However, due to movements such as the suffragettes and the women’s rights movement the gender and language gap have decreased. The topic has been greatly researched and I intend to refer to some of these researchers within my study. Robin Lakoff (1973) contended that conversations in general were controlled by politeness principles. These were:

  • Don’t impose/ negative politeness, e.g. ‘I’m sorry to bother you’.
  • Give options, e.g. ‘It’s entirely up to you’
  • Make your receiver feel good, e.g. ‘Id really appreciate your advice on this’.

Lakoff (1975) also commented on this in the way women speak she said that because of the females social position, they are more likely to be tentative in speech than males. Lakoff (1975) went on to say that not only women more likely to be polite but there are other features of their speech that are quite characteristic. These include:

  • Hedges, using phrases like ‘sort of’
  • Using super polite forms, ‘would you mind’
  • Overuse qualifiers ‘I think that…’
  • Avoid coarse language or expletives
  • Use more intensifiers ‘so, very’
  • Apologise more
  • Use ‘wh-’ imperatives

Don Zimmermann and Candace West also did research around this topic in 1975. Zimmermann and West said that men were more dominant in their conversations, and after studying this; they found that in eleven conversation men interrupted forty six times, and women only twice. This information agrees with that suggested by Lakoff, that women’s approach to conversation is more cooperative than the male competitive approach.

        Deborah Tannen has also done extensive research into the language and gender area of the English Language. Tannen has created six contrasts to represent male and female language they are:

  • Status vs. support
  • Independence vs. intimacy
  • Advice vs. understanding
  • Information vs. feelings
  • Orders vs. proposals
  • Conflict vs. compromise

In each occurrence the female characteristic is the later, and the male is the first. This would also be the one judged to be the most stereotypically male. Tannen’s division of information from feelings is also known as report talk (male) and rapport talk (female). The differences can be summarised as they are below.

Women

  • Talk too much
  • Speak in private contexts
  • Build relations
  • Overlap
  • Speak symmetrically

Men

  • Get more talk time
  • Speak in public
  • Negotiate status/avoid failure
  • Speak one at a time
  • Speak asymmetrically

By analysing my data I will be able to see if the male and female I am studying can be applied to any of this research.

I have also decided to study and compare the usage of connective words, which would help to reveal parataxis and the use of sub clauses within sentences to establish hypotaxis. I also intend to compare the amount of face saving acts and polite terms within the dialogue to discover if males or females are more aware of the politeness principles of Lakoff.

Methodology

I am going to record one episode of ‘Kilroy’ and ‘Trisha’, both television talk shows so that I can analyse the conversations that take place on the show. I can do this thoroughly as I can re-watch the episode whenever I need to and compile my transcripts. I decided that one episode of each show would be satisfactory as I would only need around five minutes of dialogue from each show. To make the test fair I chosen five minutes from the beginning of each show. Moreover, the first few minutes of any debate are often the most important as dominance is often established at this time, with the traditional discourse markers. This will make the test fair, as the shows are aired on television around the same times of the day, mid morning, and are aimed at the same audience, females. Both hosts often use the same lexis, and often discuss similar semantic fields. For comparative purposes I have chosen to look at dialogue between the host and members of the opposite sex, this also includes interaction from people with opposing views. Although, I have to take into consideration that the hosts may use their position of power, to influence the respondents in what they say and when. As the members of the audience are likely to be discussing something they feel passionate about, I think that this will reflect the natural style of the conversation between the participants as they are put under pressure by opposing sides.

I will also have to consider the difference in social class, as the members of the audience may not be the same social class as the host or guests on the shows.

It is impossible for anyone reading my transcripts to know how people are talking, with regards to intonation and stress. Therefore I intend to mark on my transcripts when the speaker is shouting or stressing a word.

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I have chosen to base my investigation around the research provided by Deborah Tannen to observe if men and women’s speech is reflective of the rapport and report styles she conceived.

Findings

Within both transcripts there are clear signs of both male and female speech. However it must be acknowledged that transcript two’s context will affect the discourse of the conversation and therefore affect the features of speech. In both transcripts men use more interruptions, expletives and detrimental terms, and more colloquialisms. Whilst the females in the conversations use more interrogatives, intensifiers, and more face threatening terms.

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