This is a summary of Women, Men and Politeness by Janet Holmes (2006). Holmes discusses the gender differences in the context of conversational politeness.

(375 words)

Critical Evaluation

The main focus of the text by Janet Holmes is on degrees of politeness in verbal conversation between men and women. The author concludes that men tend to express more “bald” disagreements and are more aggressive than women when having a conversation. Her findings are based on different research by various authors. Firstly, we can rely on the findings to the extent that only gender is involved. However, when other factors such as culture, religion, social background, economic background, education and influence of current media are considered, it would possibly result in different findings. Hence, further research is necessary because other factors have to be incorporated in the findings. Secondly, the text is not topical because it was written in 1996 and the patterns of society itself and social norms among men and women have changed over the years. Besides, some of Holmes’ references are from the 1980s.

 In terms of culture, there are different norms and beliefs. Men in Britain are polite and often do not interrupt a conversation or give “bald” disagreements (Fletcher, 2002). For example, “please” and “thank you” are often incorporated in a sentence. Besides that, Asian cultures are meant to be polite. For example, the Japanese often greet each other with a bow and are often gentle in verbal conversations (Yuasa, 1998). “Aggressive and competitive verbal behaviour appears to be experienced as thoroughly enjoyable, and mutual insults may even serve as expressions of positive politeness and solidarity” This quotation suggests that aggressive and competitive interaction can be fun and create stronger bonds between people. However, I feel that this type of interaction would not be very welcomed in Japan.

        The social background of a person could also affect politeness during verbal conversations. For example, Lawyers, Doctors or higher educated members of society do not use taboo language or “bald” disagreements in conversations. Therefore, I suggest that Holmes should adopt a broader scope for her research, incorporating areas such as social background and educational background. Besides that, the educational background of a certain group should also be taken into consideration because the knowledge of the language and the range of vocabulary would also lead to a different form of disagreement for men. If a person does not have the rhetorical skills to respond to a disagreement then it would lead to a more ‘bald’ expression (Bob, 2009). For example, according to Holmes, the employees in the bakery tend to use taboo words. It might be because of the lack of education and lack of vocabulary. As compared to a higher educated society, it is not usual to use such expressions. They prefer to use a more rhetorical way of disagreeing or rather “modified” disagreements.

        Influence of the media may also be taken into consideration rather than just “accusing” men that they are more aggressive in nature. TV programmes such as Family Guy, South Park and American Dad tend to contain a large amount of taboo and offensive language which can influence the younger generations. Young people often pick up on this offensive language and incorporate some of the words and phrases they hear into their own language. This is because the program portrays an image that is supposedly “cool”. The article did offer suggestions on why these differences of politeness between men and women might occur, which is “ girls, overall, can be described as cooperative, generous and designed to allow the participation of everybody on equal terms ; boys were not so much competitive as unskilled in cooperative interaction”  However, more research should be done on why these differences of politeness between men and women might occcur.

        In my opinion, the article is clearly written to a certain extent but there are parts which lack clarity such as “Their strategies for amusing each other were often to ridicule the previous speaker’s utterance to put them down or to insult them”. It does not show a clear explanation on the reason why men would use that strategy to insult one another.

        In conclusion, I think the text is biased and further research is necessary because women are always the “good guys” and there are no “good sides” to men. Besides that, the main sources from the referencing are mostly from females. Lastly, her findings are too general and different factors should be incorporated in her findings and research.