Transcript Language & gender: ‘DONE not is’

LANGUAGE & GENDER:
‘DONE NOT IS’
Linguistics 187 / Cultural Anthropology 187 / English 187 / ICS 151C
Variety in Language: English in the United States
Duke University
Erin Callahan-Price
Spring 2011
FIRST: FROM L & G  D.A.
Defining gender (i.e. vs. sex)
Gender is…
• Simply put: social relations and discursive practices
• Learned
• Functions invisibly
• Not something we have, but something we do
• Critically intersects and functions with respect to a constellation of other social
categories (race, class, nationality, ethnicity, citizenship, etc. etc.)
• Structurally assymetrical (women living below poverty line, starting salaries, etc.)
• Ubiqutious: one of the central dichotomies we live by
Critical (enduring!) Questions in the Study of L & G
from Eble (1975: 1)
1.Does language itself, by its structures, treat female and male
differently? (language-internal effects)
• grammatical gender, pronoun systems, etmology, word-formation (mailman, etc.)
2. Are there differences in form and/or frequency between female and
male use of the language? (language-external)
• lexicon (“divine,” “magenta”), apology, uptallk, discourse marker “like,” /o/ and /u/-fronting
3. Does the variable sex overlap with, or is it linked to, other variables
like age, region, education, class, race, personality type? (language-external)
• females as leaders of language change, conversational styles (“high-involvement” vs. “high-considerateness)
4. Can female/male differences either inherent in language or observable
in language use be correlated with the different roles assigned to
females and males by society? (language-external)
What does this have to do with gender
and language?
• Well, questions 2.-4. address issues/phenomena which
are EXTERNAL to the linguistic system “itself” (e.g.
phonemes, morphemes, words, sentence intonation, etc.)
The D-word
• Thus, gender shows up sociolinguistically (most recogizably in terms
of our disciplinary practice, at least) “above the level of the
sentence”: in terms of conversational structure, CONTEXT, speech
acts, social interactions, interpersonal relations and purposes,
intertextual relations, (language) ideologies and attitudes, etc. etc.
• …in other words: DISCOURSE.
Gender & Sexuality Exploded:
Sex (assignment), Gender (performance), and Desire
Sexuality
SEX
Gender
Gender
Gender
HISTORICAL TRAJECTORY
OF L & G
4 stages of Research on L & G
• Since the early 19th century to today, there have been 4
(loosely defined) theoretical/descriptive frameworks for
considering speech and language differences between
women and men.
The Deficit Hypothesis
The 19th century “hysterical woman”
• Women are essentially less precise, intelligent, & rational, etc. etc.
and as such the forms of their language are naturally less
precise, intelligent, and rational.
• FOCUS on bodily/biological differences which are essential to language differences.
• Hystera=womb (women got crazy because their wombs overpowered their brains).
• “Articulateness”
ANATOMY
The Dominance Hypothesis
• Lakoff (1972)
• Two claims:
1. MEN AND WOMEN TALK DIFFERENTLY
2. THESE DIFFERENCES WORK to BOTH PRODUCE & REINFORCE
SUBORDINATE POSITIONS IN SOCIETY.
• Women’s speech is “tenative, powerless, and trivial,” which excludes
them from positions of power/authority.
• Data? Evidence? Frequency of mitigators (sort of, I think), qualifiers
(really happy, so beautiful) and tag questions (right? Don’t you think?)
• As such, language is a tool of oppression: “party of learning to be a
woman, imposed by societal norms, and in turn… keeps women in
their place.”
Dominance, cont.
Kanye West interrupts Taylor Swift at 2009 VMA Awards
• Zimmerman & West (1975):
• Recorded 11 conversations between men and women; found men used 46
interruptions, but women only two.
• Interpreted interruption as a form of conversational dominance which recapitu
societal dominance
• However: recasting interruption as overlap (i.e. with distinct
social/interactional meanings) changes the terms of the debate
Structural Effects of Gender
Do women choose lower-paying occupations?
2006 Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS] Report finds (from Lips 2009):
http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-intro-2009.htm
Structural Effects of Gender
Parenthood & Pay
• 2006 Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS] Report (p.999) (from Lips 2009):
Next week, on “Variety in Language…”
• Stay tuned for the rest of the story!
• Monday: the Difference and Dynamic hypotheses (1980
to present)
DA #1 and Final Project Tips
• In other news:
• Data Assignment 1 due Sunday by 11:59 EMAILED TO ME
• Final project can be an extension/continuation of Data Assignment
One if you are interested in DM or quotative like: we’ll discuss the
terms of elaboration at our meeting.
• Read Final Project document/instructions sent by me as well as
C12 BEFORE your meeting with me. Address the issues raised in
these readings– whether they are in terms of answers/ideas or
questions/doubts about your project.
• Page limit for final project: 5-7 pages not including charts, graphs,
figures, bibliography
• At least 5 PEER-REVIEWED sources (journal articles, conference
proceedings, books published by a University/scholarly press. Probably
no websites (email me if in doubt), definitely no Wikipedia.)
• Where are you guaranteed to find acceptable rigorous sources? Why,
the Language and Linguistics database
Data Assignment #1
• 2 kinds of like: quotative & discourse marker
• Continue to tab QUOTATIVES, but expand into tabbing
discourse marker like
• Read Tagliamonte Article and consider graphs on pp.