Gender

Question 1

What is coarse language?

Answer 1

Subset of language considered impolite, rude or offensive

Question 2

What are address terms?

Answer 2

Men are usually only Mr whereas women can be Mrs, Miss or Ms. Women’s address terms are therefore impacted by marriage

Question 3

What are generic terms?

Answer 3

“man” tends to be used to mean all people e.g. mankind

Question 4

What are marked/unmarked terms?

Answer 4

We have to say female doctor because people assume all doctors are men. It’s the same with male nurse, but there isn’t a suffix we can add to the word to denote it as masculine or feminine

Question 5

What are empty adjectives?

Answer 5

An adjective that adds little meaningful content

Question 6

What is semantic derogation?

Answer 6

The process by which the meaning of a word becomes worse over time. The opposite is amelioration

Question 7

What is hyper-correct?

Answer 7

Non-standard use of grammar that results from over application of perceived rule

Question 8

What are diminutive suffixes?

Answer 8

Using “ess” or “ette” on the end of words to make them “feminine” and therefore smaller or weaker

Question 9

What is lexical asymmetry?

Answer 9

Pairs of words which ought to be equal are often not because the female version of the word has negative connotations

Question 10

What are hedges?

Answer 10

Terms which tend to include modal expressions and vague terms. Non-absolute language

Question 11

What are tag questions?

Answer 11

A question added to the end of a statement but does not change the statement

Question 12

What is order of precedence?

Answer 12

The order in which supposedly equivalent terms are placed is important.

Question 13

What are the 4 Ds?

Answer 13

• Deficit
• Difference
• Diversity
• Dominance

Question 14

What is the deficit model?

Answer 14

The way that men speak is the “norm” and that women are socialised into society to act and talk in different ways to men

Question 15

Which theories are part of the deficit model?

Answer 15

• Lakoff (1975)
• Dubois and Crouch (1975)
• O’Barr and Atkins (1980)
• Jesperson (1922)

Question 16

What is the book by Lakoff called?

Answer 16

Language and Women’s place

Question 17

What was Lakoff’s belief?

Answer 17

Gender inequality and language are linked

Question 18

What were Lakoff’s ‘findings’?

Answer 18

• women do not draw attention to themselves
• women don’t swear
• use tag questions (uncertainty as asking for reassurance)

Question 19

What did Lakoff say women use?

Answer 19

• superpolite forms
• empty adjectives
• overuse qualifiers and intensifiers
• use different semantic fields than men

Question 20

What are the findings of Dubois and Crouch?

Answer 20

Women are not more likely to use tag questions in all social situations and if people do, it shows they don’t want to commit to their statement or are unsure of themselves

Question 21

What did O’Barr and Atkins do?

Answer 21

They conducted a 30-month study of courtroom footage in North Carolina
- almost all lawyers were male
- witnesses and defendants were equally distrubuted

Question 22

What were OB and A’s findings?

Answer 22

Women who used the lowest frequency of Lakoff’s ‘women’s language traits’ had a high status
- Women were well-educated professionals
Less to do with gender and more with perceived power in society

Question 23

What is Jesperson’s research?

Answer 23

Women know their smaller vocab so well that they are more fluent in speaking and less hesitant than men who search for the precise word in their large vocabs

Question 24

What are J’s findings?

Answer 24

• women use adjectives too much
• use too many adverbs and hyperboles
• prefered veiled and indirect expressions
  Overall, men are responsible for introducing new words into the language

Question 25

What is the dominance model?

Answer 25

Men's language "dominates" the weaker female sex

Question 26

Who are the four experts that support the dominance model?

Answer 26

- Fishman (1977) - Zimmerman and West (1985) - Beattie (1982) - Spender (1980)

Question 27

What was Fishman's experiment?

Answer 27

- listened to 52 hours of pre-recorded conversations between young American couples

Question 28

What did Fishman find?

Answer 28

Conversations are more problematic for women who have to work harder to make it happen.

Question 29

What is interactional shitwork?

Answer 29

Women use questions to gain conversational power rather than from lack of conversational awareness

Question 30

What did Z and W do?

Answer 30

recorded 11 everyday conversations between 2 people and split them into 31 segments of conversation

Question 31

What were Z and W's findings?

Answer 31

- Men interrupt more than women - 46 male: 2 female - men in charge of conversations and women prefer to be submissive

Question 32

What did Beattie want to do?

Answer 32

Prove Zimmerman and West wrong

Question 33

What did Beattie do?

Answer 33

he conducted 10 hours of tutorial discussion and found 557 interruptions

Question 34

What were Beattie's findings?

Answer 34

Women and men interrupted with more or less equal frequency - men = 34.1 - women = 33.8

Question 35

Why are Beattie's findings so significant?

Answer 35

His work is rarely ever quoted which can be seen to confirm the idea that as society we choose to believe in male dominance rather than truly assessing the evidence

Question 36

What was Spender's book called?

Answer 36

Man Made Language

Question 37

What did Spender believe?

Answer 37

Being more active in public life than women, men have been more able to get their opinions heard. Words that are more acceptable and commonplace are more likely to express male experiences than female experiences.

Question 38

What is the Difference model?

Answer 38

Men and women are just different and neither one nor the other is necessarily more linguistically dominant

Question 39

What was Tannen's book called?

Answer 39

You just don't understand

Question 40

What are Tannen's six contrasts?

Answer 40

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

Question 41

What did Holmes study?

Answer 41

How tag questions were used differently by men and women

Question 42

What are Modal tags?

Answer 42

requests for information and may show uncertainty

Question 43

What are Affective tags?

Answer 43

expressed intimacy and solidarity

Question 44

What did Holmes (1984) find?

Answer 44

Women used more tag questions overall with men using more modal tags. Study goes against Lakoff's views

Question 45

What is the diversity model?

Answer 45

Our spoken language is influenced by factors beyond our gender - age, culture, education, social groupings ect also affect our language choices.

Question 46

What are Hyde's findings? (2005)

Answer 46

Hyde found that men and women are more alike than not, in terms of personality, cognitive ability and leadership. The difference between them depends on context.

Question 47

Laughter - Auli Hakulinen (1994)

Answer 47

Laughter is part of gender display; women often use it to support others, men to dismiss.

Question 48

Gail Jefferson (1994)

Answer 48

Women laugh more than men; men’s laughter tends to elicit female laughter, but the reverse is less true. She used the “Tarzan and Jane” metaphor to illustrate this asymmetry in responses

Question 49

Glenn, Hoffman and Hopper (1996)

Answer 49

Tested Jefferson’s findings; outside relationships, men responded more to laughter, but inside relationships, men laughed less and women used more self-deprecating laughter.

Question 50

Emanuel Schegloff (2000)

Answer 50

Laughter is not just a response to jokes but serves social functions like solidarity, embarrassment, or easing offense, often more associated with women.

Question 51

Alan Partington (2006)

Answer 51

Laughter can express superiority, threaten, or mitigate social tension.

Question 52

Robert Provine (2000)

Answer 52

Women laugh more than men (126% more) and especially with other women, both in mixed- and single-gender groups

Question 53

Deborah Cameron (2007)

Answer 53

Girls engage in covert aggression, such as gossip or criticism, because overt dominance is socially less acceptable for females.

Question 54

Marjorie Harness-Goodwin (2008)

Answer 54

Young girls (9–12) sometimes use traditionally masculine language, including direct orders, challenges, and boasting about skills or possessions.

Question 55

Onnela (2014)

Answer 55

Mean length of utterance (MLU) is similar for both genders; women talk more in same-gender conversations

Question 56

David Lazer

Answer 56

Context matters—men talk more in larger groups, women are more verbal in small groups or collaborative tasks; during informal settings like lunch, there’s no difference

Question 57

Koenraad Kuiper (1992)

Answer 57

All-male conversations, especially in sports locker rooms, often involve insults, swearing, and taboo language to express solidarity

Question 58

Pilkington (1992

Answer 58

Calls the insults of male solidarity the 'mateship culture'. He suggests that speaking in this way cements friendships and has become part of masculine identity.

Question 59

Jennifer Hay (1994) – Gender and Joking

Answer 59

Both genders use joking for solidarity and highlighting gender differences. Men: Competitive, status-driven, sexualized jokes; insults mainly male; target women & men (27% sexual abuse). Women: Collaborative, seek support when joking; abuse men more than women; less sexualized. Most abuse occurs in bonded relationships → face-threatening acts can be repaired. Overall: Joking reflects power dynamics and social bonds.

Question 60

Millet (1977) – Men’s House Culture & Jocular Banter

Answer 60

Men’s “house culture” is sadistic, power-oriented, narcissistic, and latently homosexual. Jocular banter reflects a fear of being seen as weak or feminine if a male refuses to participate. Parallels Kuiper’s findings on the darker side of male humor and social coercion.