Language and Gender

Pia Pichler
EN3117
2013

Advice to students registered on the following programmes – BA English (New

Regulations), Diploma of Higher Education in English and Certificate of Higher
Education in English: This subject guide is for a Level 6, 30-credit course offered as
part of the University of London International Programmes in English.
This guide was prepared for the University of London International Programmes by:
Pia Pichler, Goldsmiths, University of London.
This is one of a series of subject guides published by the University. We regret that
due to pressure of work the author is unable to enter into any correspondence relat-
ing to, or arising from, the guide. If you have any comments on this subject guide,
favourable or unfavourable, please use the form at the back of this guide.

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 Contents

Contents

Course learning outcomes and assessment criteria .......................................... 1

Learning outcomes ................................................................................................................... 1
Mode of assessment ................................................................................................................. 1
Assessment criteria ................................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 1: Introduction........................................................................................ 3
Situating language and gender studies ............................................................................ 3
Reading list................................................................................................................................... 3
How to use the subject guide .............................................................................................. 5
Suggested study syllabus ....................................................................................................... 7
Examination advice ................................................................................................................... 8
How to approach the examination ..................................................................................... 8
Chapter 2: Approaching language and gender studies .................................. 11
Essential reading .....................................................................................................................11
Further reading.........................................................................................................................11
References ..................................................................................................................................12
Introduction...............................................................................................................................13
Scope of language and gender studies ...........................................................................14
Sex and gender.........................................................................................................................14
Stereotypes of women’s and men’s talk...........................................................................15
Early linguistic thinking on gender ...................................................................................17
Gender differences in conversational practice .............................................................19
Gender and politeness ..........................................................................................................23
Transcribing spoken interaction.........................................................................................24
Analysing gender in spoken interaction .........................................................................26
Learning outcomes ................................................................................................................27
Sample examination questions .........................................................................................28
Chapter 3: Mixed-sex talk and the dominance approach ............................... 29
Essential reading ......................................................................................................................29
Further reading.........................................................................................................................29
References ..................................................................................................................................30
Introduction...............................................................................................................................30
Conversational dominance in mixed-sex interaction .................................................31
Interruptions and conversational dominance...............................................................32
The turn-taking model ...........................................................................................................35
Co-constructing conversational dominance .................................................................38
Critiquing the dominance approach ................................................................................38
Learning outcomes .................................................................................................................39
Sample examination questions ..........................................................................................39
Chapter 4: Same-sex talk and the difference approach .................................. 41
Essential reading .....................................................................................................................41
Further reading.........................................................................................................................41
References ..................................................................................................................................42
Introduction...............................................................................................................................42
Women’s talk and conversational collaboration...........................................................43

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Language and Gender

Men’s talk and conversational competition ...................................................................47

The difference approach and cross-sex miscommunication ..................................48
Deconstructing the ‘competitive’/’collaborative’ dichotomy ...................................49
Learning outcomes .................................................................................................................50
Sample examination questions ..........................................................................................51
Chapter 5: Constructing gender and sexual identities .................................... 53
Essential reading ......................................................................................................................53
Further reading.........................................................................................................................53
References ..................................................................................................................................54
Introduction ..............................................................................................................................55
Situated and sociocultural gender identities ................................................................56
Community of Practice (CofP) .............................................................................................60
The social constructionist approach ................................................................................61
Indexicality .................................................................................................................................63
Discourses ..................................................................................................................................63
Language, gender and sexuality ........................................................................................65
Learning outcomes .................................................................................................................68
Sample examination questions ..........................................................................................68
Chapter 6: Language and gender in public settings........................................ 71
Essential reading ......................................................................................................................71
Further reading.........................................................................................................................71
References ..................................................................................................................................72
Introduction...............................................................................................................................72
Some initial questions for consideration .......................................................................73
Institutional talk and work/public contexts ...................................................................74
Language and gender in public settings ........................................................................75
The heterogeneity of gendered leadership styles at work .......................................76
Androcentric norms in public institutions......................................................................79
Attitudes towards assertive women ................................................................................80
Learning outcomes .................................................................................................................81
Sample examination questions ..........................................................................................81
Appendix 1: Sample examination paper .......................................................... 83
Appendix 2: Sample Examiners’ report ............................................................ 85
Advice to candidates on how Examiners calculate marks ........................................85
Introduction...............................................................................................................................86
General comments ..................................................................................................................86
Comments on specific sample examination questions ............................................86

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 Course learning outcomes and assessment criteria

Course learning outcomes and assessment criteria

This course aims to give a comprehensive introduction to the study of

language and gender. We will examine how gender is reflected and
constituted in language, that is, how women and men speak, how
language is used to accomplish femininity and masculinity. Students
will become familiar with a wide range of studies exploring the
language used by women, men and children in a range of different
contexts, including informal talk among friends and talk in work or
public settings. The course encourages a critical engagement with
past and present approaches to the study of language and gender
and draws on a range of different theoretical and methodological
frameworks to show how gender and identity can be analysed in
language.
Questions which will be addressed on this course include: Do women
and men speak differently? How do men and women speak to their
friends and to their colleagues at work? How does gender interact with
other social variables such as ethnicity, class and age? In what way
does language constitute a resource for the construction of (gender)
identity?
The course builds on theoretical knowledge and analytical skills
developed in Varieties of English at Level 5.

Learning outcomes
By the end of the course you should:
• have become familiar with different theoretical and methodological
frameworks used in the field of language and gender
• have developed a critical awareness of different conceptualisations
of gender and identity
• be able to contrast folklinguistic and stereotypical notions of gender
with empirical findings generated in sociolinguistics and discourse
analysis
• be equipped to investigate the role that language plays in
constructing gender and other identities
• have acquired the knowledge and skills to carry out independent
empirical investigations in the field of language and gender.

Mode of assessment
One three-hour unseen examination.

Assessment criteria
You will be assessed according to your ability to:
• demonstrate your in-depth understanding of different theoretical
and methodological approaches to language and gender
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Language and Gender

• analyse the language/discourse features of a transcript of spoken

interaction
• link your analysis to existing empirical findings and theoretical
debates in language and gender studies
• illustrate how language constitutes a resource for speakers to
construct gender and other identities
• show critical awareness of how gender interacts with situational and
sociocultural contexts and factors in language.

2
 Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 1: Introduction

Situating language and gender studies

The question of whether women and men speak differently and, if so,
why, is one that has generated lively debate both within and outside
academia for many decades. However, much of the public debate is
still largely based on stereotypes about so-called women’s and men’s
'language'. In this course we will consider some of these stereotypes, but,
most importantly, we will examine the substantial body of language and
gender research based on the natural talk of women and men.
This interest in the naturally occurring language of people in everyday
settings and the relationship between this spontaneous language use
and sociocultural practices, identities and structures are charactistic
of research in the area of sociolinguistics. One of our Level 5 courses,
Varieties of English, covers a wide range of sociolinguistic topics,
including the relationship between language and gender, but also
considers language in relation to ethnicity, social class, geographical
location and age. Sociolinguists study language in order to find out
something about society, about speakers’ social identities and practices,
and about the cultural norms and ideologies that shape the way
that speakers speak and act. There are many different ways in which
sociolinguists approach the study of language, but the approach that we
will adopt here is informed by discourse analysis. Rather than focusing
on how one specific variable (for example, a feature of pronunciation)
is used by a large number of speakers, discourse analysts tend to
investigate connected speech well beyond the sentence level. This
course will investigate many extracts from connected speech produced
by women, men, children and adolescents, in mixed-sex and same-sex
groups, in a range of private and public contexts, informal and formal
settings.
To analyse natural speech, scholars and students of language and
gender must consider a number of theoretical and methodological
issues. We will cover a range of approaches, which offer very different
perspectives and explanations for language and gender studies.
What they have in common is that, unlike much of the public debate,
verbal and non-verbal practices of women and men are not seen as
predetermined by their biological sex, but, instead, they are seen in
relation to sociocultural norms about gender. The notion that women
and men’s spoken interaction reflects and enacts gender norms and
identities will be explored at length in this guide.

Reading list
Essential reading
All of your essential reading will be based on two books:
Coates, J. and P. Pichler (eds) Language and Gender: A Reader. (Oxford:
Blackwell, 2011) second edition [ISBN 9781405191272].

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Language and Gender

Coates, J. Women, Men and Language. (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2004)

third edition [ISBN 9780582771864].
The first book contains a range of seminal and other original papers by
a wide range of international language and gender scholars. Make sure
you always read the section introductions in this book as they will sum
up the main points about each of the individual papers. The second is
a textbook in which Jennifer Coates presents her own overview and
discusses a range of empirical research, theoretical and methodological
issues in language and gender.
You will find a summary of essential reading at the beginning of each
chapter.

Further reading
Further reading suggestions will be included in each chapter. These
readings will be taken from your two set texts as well as from many
other books. Some of the books that you may want to consult for
further reading include:
Bucholtz, M., A.C. Liang and L.A. Sutton (eds) Reinventing Identities: The
Gendered Self in Discourse. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)
[ISBN 9780195126303]. Once you have worked through this subject
guide and done all your preparatory reading, you should read this
collection, which offers a range of exciting papers to deepen and
broaden your areas of interest.
Cameron, D. (ed.) The Feminist Critique of Language: A Reader. (London:
Routledge, 1998) second edition [ISBN 9780415164009]. This reader
contains several extracts from language and gender classics. However,
not all chapters are relevant, as some deal with how women and men
are represented in the media and other written language.
Eckert, P. and S. McConnell-Ginet Language and Gender. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003) [ISBN 9780521654265]. This textbook
elaborates on many of the issues raised in this subject guide: it is
particularly valuable on performative notions of gender, which are
introduced in Chapter 5 of this subject guide.
Holmes, J. and M. Meyerhoff (eds) The Handbook of Language and Gender.
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2003) [ISBN 9780631225034]. This offers an
extensive and valuable resource of papers and research on language
and gender. Some of the chapters are very accessible and are suitable
as introductory reading; others require a previous knowledge on the
subject.
Mills, S. and L. Mullany Language, Gender and Feminism: Theory,
Methodology and Practice. (London: Routledge, 2011)
[ISBN 9780415485968]. This book presents a range of theoretical
perspectives and methodological and analytical approaches, linking
language and gender studies firmly to their feminist roots. It provides
many examples of analysis which show how theory can be applied to a
critical discussion of data.
Talbot, M. Language and Gender. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010) second
edition [ISBN 9780745646053]. This is an accessible introduction to all
the topics in this subject guide. You may wish to read this book from
cover to cover.

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 Chapter 1: Introduction

Tannen, D. (ed.) Gender and Conversational Interaction. (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1993) [ISBN 9780195081947]. This collection is now
almost 20 years old, but it contains many classic papers on language
and gender research, so if your library has a copy it will offer you some
interesting further reading.

Journals
Remember also that many linguistic journals will provide you with
valuable sources for further reading. Frequently these journals contain
the most up-to-date research. You may find that you can get access
to one or other of these journals electronically, through an academic
library close to you.
• Applied Linguistics
• Discourse Studies
• Discourse and Society
• Journal of Sociolinguistics
• Language in Society
• Gender and Language.
The journal Gender and Language is obviously one that is dedicated
exclusively to the subject area of this course. However, all the other
journals also publish articles on the area of language and gender. You
will, however, need to search through them to find relevant papers.

Websites
Moreover, you may also find some useful information and further links
on the website of the International Gender and Language Association
(IGALA): www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/organisations/igala/Index.html

Online resources
Please note that additional study resources may be available to you
for this course. A particularly important resource is the virtual learning
environment (VLE) for the English programme, which you can access
via the Student Portal – see the Student handbook for details of how to
log in. Do check the VLE regularly as additional material may be added
throughout the year.

How to use the subject guide

This guide is not a textbook, nor is it a fully comprehensive summary
of language and gender. Instead it sets out how you could approach
your independent study of language and gender. You need to do all
the Essential reading in each chapter, but you are free to choose your
Further reading, depending on which topics interest you and/or which
topics you feel you need or want to prepare in more depth for the
examination. This choice will depend on your specific areas of interest,
which you will discover as you work through the material, and on your
feeling of which questions and issues raised in the guide and by your
Essential reading you need to explore further to gain a more in-depth
understanding.

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Language and Gender

Simple regurgitation in the examination of the illustrative

material in this subject guide constitutes plagiarism (academic
dishonesty) and as such will be heavily penalised. You must
adapt the material in ways appropriate to the syllabus you have
decided to follow, which will be based on this guide. Examiners
always look unfavourably at examination answers that consist
solely on the illustrative material presented in this or any of the
other subject guides.

There are six chapters in this subject guide. After the general
information on how to use this guide contained in this chapter,
Chapters 2–6 cover a wide range of concepts, issues and questions in
the field of language and gender studies. These include:
Chapter 2: Stereotypes vs empirical research on language and gender;
methodological approaches to the study of language and gender.
Chapter 3: Patterns of conversational dominance in mixed-sex talk.
Chapter 4: All-female and all-male talk; the notions of ‘collaborative’ vs
‘competitive’ conversational styles.
Chapter 5: The relationship between gender, ethnicity and social class
and performative notions of gender and sexuality.
Chapter 6: Language and gender in public and institutional contexts.
We recommend that you approach each chapter in the following way:
• Read the brief chapter introduction, which will focus you on some of
the key issues that you need to explore as part of your reading.
• Carry out the Essential reading suggested for this chapter.
• Work through the chapter in the subject guide and engage with the
activities.
• Check your understanding of the main issues addressed in the
chapter by working through the list of Learning outcomes towards
end of each chapter.
• Consolidate your ideas by attempting some Sample examination
questions at the end of the chapter.
After a general introduction you are provided with a list of Essential
readings and suggestions for Further reading. After you have carried
out your essential reading, made notes and reflected on some of
the main issues raised, you can begin to work through the chapter.
The chapters do not offer comprehensive coverage of their subjects,
but seek to raise some fundamental questions and provide you with
ideas about how you can develop your own reading, thinking and
understanding on the topics that interest you.
You will encounter many activities, including questions related to your
Essential reading and extracts from transcribed conversations, that
encourage you to carry out your own analysis. You will make most
progress if you attempt to engage with each of these activities as you
come across them in the text. Many of them will require you to refer
back to the reading and then write your answers down or discuss them
with someone else.

6
 Chapter 1: Introduction

We also include a list of Learning outcomes towards the end of each

chapter. These tell you what you should have learned from that chapter
of the subject guide and the relevant reading. You should pay close
attention to the Learning outcomes and use them to check that you
have fully understood the topics under discussion.
At the end of each chapter you will find some Sample essay questions
that you might want to write on or plan a response to. This will give
you the opportunity to consolidate your ideas, and will be important
preparation for your written examination. Ideally you should try to get
some feedback on your essays from tutors or other sources but even
if you cannot discuss your essays and essay plans with anyone, we still
believe that essay-writing is a productive exercise that will consolidate
your knowledge and prepare you for the exam.

Suggested study syllabus

It is difficult to be precise about the amount of time you should spend
studying for each topic as this will depend, in part, on your own
decision about which areas to focus on. In general terms, you should
set aside the same amount of study time for Language and Gender
as for all Level 3 subjects. We recommend that you follow the 22-week
syllabus suggested below, and that you spend between eight and 10
hours a week studying for this subject.
Below is a suggested 22-week outline which gives you an idea of how a
syllabus could be constructed for this course:

Weeks 1–4
Introductory readings on language and gender; concepts of sex and
gender, stereotypes of women’s and men’s talk; early linguistic thinking
on gender; gender differences in conversational practice; gender and
politeness; transcribing spoken interaction; analysing gender in spoken
interaction

Weeks 5–8
Mixed-sex talk and the dominance approach; conversational
dominance in mixed-sex interaction; interruptions and conversational
dominance; the turn-taking model; co-constructing conversational
dominance; critiquing the ‘dominance approach’

Weeks 9–12
Same-sex talk and the difference approach; women’s talk and
conversational collaboration; men’s talk and conversational
competition; the cultural difference approach and cross-sex
miscommunication; deconstructing the ‘competitive’/‘collaborative’
dichotomy

Weeks 13–16
Constructing gender and sexual identities; situated and sociocultural
gender identities; Communities of Practice; the social constructionist
approach; indexicality; discourses; language, gender and sexuality

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Language and Gender

Weeks 17–20
Language and gender in public settings; institutional talk and
work/public contexts; language and gender in public settings; the
heterogeneity of gendered leadership styles at work; androcentric
norms in public institutions; attitudes towards assertive women

Weeks 21–22
Revision and review: draw up a schedule of topics to revise and study
the sample examination questions.

Examination advice
Important: the information and advice given here are based on the
examination structure used at the time this guide was written. Please
note that subject guides may be used for several years. Because
of this we strongily advise you to always check both the current
Regulations for relevant information about the examination, and the
virtual learning environment (VLE) where you should be advised of
any forthcoming changes. You should also carefully check the rubric/
instructions on the paper you actually sit and follow those instructions
The assessment for this course is via a three-hour unseen examination.
You will be expected to answer three questions out of a total of (at
least) nine. The examination paper will be quite wide-ranging, and will
contain questions on a selection of topics from the course as a whole.
You should not present substantially the same material in any
two answers, whether on this paper or in any other parts of your
examination. This shows how important it is for you to prepare to
answer questions on a range of topics: we suggest at least six. You will
find Sample examination questions attached to each chapter.
Please consult the Course learning outcomes and assessment
criteria above to check what criteria your Examiners will base their
assessment on.
Remember, it is important to check the VLE for:
• up-to-date information on examination and assessment
arrangements for this course
• where available, past examination papers and Examiners' reports for
the course which give advice on how each question might best be
answered.

How to approach the examination

If you have followed the instructions offered in the subject guide,
read as much of the suggested syllabus as possible and engaged
with the topics under consideration, you should be well prepared for
the examination. However, in order to do justice to yourself and the
subject on the day of the examination, it is useful to think about your
examination technique. Certain basic procedures should be followed:
• If possible, read a Sample examination paper from a previous year
so that you are familiar with the range and type of questions you
might expect to encounter. (See the Sample examination paper at
the end of this guide.)
8
 Chapter 1: Introduction

• Use the questions to practise writing timed examination answers.

• In the examination always read the rubric carefully twice and follow
the instructions given.
• Read through the whole paper before choosing which questions to
attempt.
• Leave yourself sufficient time to answer all the questions you are
asked to complete. If you do run out of time, write down in note form
all the points you would have included. (You may be given credit for
an outline of an answer which you have not had time to write in full.)
• Proof read it! At the end of the examination, read through what you
have written, correcting spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. and
check titles and names of authors for inaccuracies. Simple errors or
slips can detract even from a good answer.
This advice may seem obvious, but following it is essential for a good
examination performance in any subject. To further develop and
improve your examination technique in relation to this paper, you
should read the Examiners’ reports from previous years and consider
the following additional points.

Choosing the question

One of the most important examination techniques is the ability to
choose the kind of question that you are well equipped to answer, one
that will enable you to demonstrate the particular knowledge and skills
you have acquired during your course of study. You are completely
free to organise the essay in whatever way you consider appropriate
in order to answer the question. A first-class answer will always show
some independence of thought and so this would be your chance to
develop your own arguments on the topic you are discussing.

Reading the question

In order to answer questions effectively, it is important to understand
what you are being asked to do, so look at the terms of the question
( for example, to ‘consider’, ‘compare’, ‘contrast’, ‘define’, ‘evaluate’ or
‘discuss’) and make sure you do what the question asks you to do. For
example, to ‘consider’ is not simply to ‘describe’ but to critically engage
and evaluate the issues raised by the essay question.
How you choose to answer this question will depend, to a large degree,
on the texts you use and the arguments you wish to construct, but the
important thing is to engage with the question asked and to develop
an answer which is clearly and consistently relevant to the question.
Therefore, when writing your answer, it is also useful to begin with a
brief definition of the key terms. You should also pay special attention
to terms which are in quotation marks: this may signal that these terms
require definition or discussion.

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Language and Gender

Notes

10
 Chapter 2: Approaching language and gender studies

Chapter 2: Approaching language and gender studies

Essential reading
Coates (2004) Chapter 1 ‘Language and gender’, Chapter 2 ‘The historical
background – folklinguistics and early grammarians’ and Chapter 6
‘Gender differences in conversational practice’.
Holmes, J. ‘Complimenting – a positive politeness strategy’ in Coates and
Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.71–88.
Swann, J. ‘Yes, but is it gender?’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011)
pp.161–70.

Further reading
Brown, P. and S. Levinson Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) [ISBN 9780521313551].
Bucholtz, M. ‘Theories of discourse as theories of gender: discourse analysis
in language and gender studies’ in Holmes, J. and M. Meyerhoff (eds)
The Handbook of Language and Gender. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003)
[ISBN 9780631225034].
Cameron, D. Working with Spoken Discourse. (London: Sage Publications,
2001) [ISBN 9780761957737] especially Chapter 3: ‘Transcribing spoken
data’ and Chapter 12 ‘Designing your own projects’.
Cameron, D. ‘Gender and language ideologies’ in Coates and Pichler (eds)
(2011) pp.583–600.
Cameron, D., F. McAlinden and K. O´Leary ‘Lakoff in context: the social
and linguistic functions of tag questions’ in Coates, J. and D. Cameron
(eds) Women in Their Speech Communities. (London: Longman, 1989)
[ISBN 9780582009691] pp.74–93.
Coates, J. Women Talk: Conversation Between Women Friends. (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1996) [ISBN 9780631195955].
Davies, J. ‘Expressions of gender: an analysis of pupils’ gendered discourse
styles in small group classroom discussions’ in Coates and Pichler (eds)
(2011) pp.112–25.
De Francisco, V. 'The sounds of silence: how men silence women in marital
relations' in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.153–160.
Eckert, P. ‘Gender and sociolinguistic variation’ in Coates and Pichler (eds)
(2011) pp.57–66.
Eisikovits, E. ‘Girl-talk/boy-talk: sex differences in adolescent speech’ in
Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.38–48.
Fishman, P. ‘Interactional shitwork’, Heresies 2, 1980, pp 99–101.
Fishman, P. ‘Conversational insecurity’ in Cameron, D. (ed.) The Feminist
Critique of Language (London: Routledge, 1998) second edition
[ISBN 0415164001] pp.253–58.
Goodwin, M. ‘Cooperation and competition across girls’ play activities’ in
Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.89–111.
Harrington, K., L. Litosseliti, H. Sauntson and J. Sunderland (eds) Gender and
Language Research Methodologies. (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan,
2008) [ISBN 9780230550698] especially Chapter 1 ‘Current research
11
Language and Gender

methodologies in gender and language study: key issues’ as well as all

others.
Holmes, J. ‘Hedging your bets and sitting on the fence: some evidence for
hedges as support structures’, Te Reo 27, 1984, pp.47–62.
Holmes, J. ‘Functions of you know in women´s and men´s speech’, Language
in Society 15, 1986, pp.1–22.
Holmes, J. ‘Hedging, fencing and other conversational gambits: an analysis
of gender differences in New Zealand speech’ in Pauwels, A. (ed.) Women
and Language in Australian and New Zealand Society. (Sydney: Australian
Professional Publications, 1987) [ISBN 9780949416100] pp.59–79.
Holmes, J. Women, Men and Politeness. (London: Longman, 1995)
[ISBN 0582063612].
Jespersen, O. ‘The woman’ in Cameron (ed.) (1998) pp.225–41.
Lakoff, R. Extract from ‘Language and woman’s place’ in Cameron (ed.)
(1998) pp.242–52.
Lakoff, R. Language and Woman´s Place. (New York: Harper & Row, 1975)
[ISBN 0060903899].
Meyerhoff, M. Introducing Sociolinguistics. (London: Routledge, 2011)
second edition [ISBN 9780415550062] Chapter 10 ‘Gender’.
Mugglestone, L. Talking Proper. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995)
[ISBN 9780198239482].
Nichols, P. ‘Black women in the rural south: conservative and innovative’ in
Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.49–58.
Pichler, P. Talking Young Femininities. (London: Palgrave, 2009)
[ISBN 9780230013285].
Schegloff, E. ‘Whose text, whose context?’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011)
pp.533–47.
Tannen, D. You Just Don´t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation.
(London: Virago Press, 1990) [ISBN 9781853814716].
Waseleski, C. ‘Gender and the use of exclamation points in computer
mediated communication: an analysis of exclamations posted to two
electronic discussion lists’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.126–38.
Weatherall, A. ‘Gender-relevance in talk-in interaction and discourse’ in
Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.548–50.
Wetherell, M. ‘Positioning and interpretive repertoires: conversation
analysis and post-structuralism in dialogue’, Discourse and Society 10/3,
1998, pp.293–316.
Zimmerman, D.H. and C. West ‘Sex roles, interruptions and silences in
conversation’ in Thorne B. and N. Henley (eds) Language and Sex:
Difference and Dominance (Rowley, MT: Newbury House, 1975)
[ISBN 9780883770436] pp.105–29.

References
De Beauvoir, S. The Second Sex. (London: Vintage, 1997) [ISBN
9780099744214].
Butler, J. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. (London:
Routledge, 1990) [ISBN 9780415900430].
Cameron, D. Verbal Hygiene. (London: Routledge, 1995) [ISBN
9780415103558].

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 Chapter 2: Approaching language and gender studies

Fishman, P. ‘Conversational insecurity’ in Cameron (ed.) (1998) pp.253–58.

Goodwin, M.H. He-said-she-said: Talk as Social Organisation among
Black Children. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990)
[ISBN 9780253206183].
Hymes, D. ‘On communicative competence’, in Pride, J. B. and J. Holmes (eds)
Sociolinguistics. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985) [ISBN 9780140806656]
pp.269–93.
Preisler, B. Linguistic Sex Roles in Conversation. (Berlin; New York; Amsterdam:
Mouton de Grutyer, 1986) [ISBN 9780899252254].
Tannen, D. You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation.
(London: Virago Press, 1992) [ISBN 9781853814716].

Introduction
The aim of this chapter is to introduce you to language and gender.
Your Essential reading for this chapter covers a wide range of historical
and topical issues and debates. We will begin by examining the
difference between the concepts ‘gender’ and ‘sex’. We will then
consider a range of stereotypes about how women and men talk, as
well as early linguistic writing on the topic of gendered differences
in language use. We will focus in particular on the work of Robin
Lakoff (see, for example, 1975, 1998, 2004), pioneer of language and
gender studies , critically engaging with her view that there is such a
thing as ‘women’s language’ and that this ‘women’s language’ is very
unassertive. We will then begin to engage with empirical research on
gender differences in conversational practices, and this engagement
will continue throughout this subject guide and the course. You will find
a list of linguistic features and practices here that have been examined
by language and gender scholars to find out if women and men do
indeed use language in different ways. You will be able to begin to
understand how stereotypes about women’s and men’s use of language
compare with the findings of empirical research in this vibrant area of
sociolinguistics. We will also consider the relationship between these
stereotypes and the ways in which women and men really do use
language. Finally, this chapter will consider some important questions,
asking how the analysis of language and gender can be approached
in real, empirical studies undertaken by scholars and students. We will
particularly consider warrants of analysis, that is, the ‘proof’ that scholars
usually offer on the basis of their research to support their claims that
language use is indeed gendered.

Activity
Let us start our journey into the exploration of the relationship between language
use and gender with the help of the following questions:
• How do we ‘do’ gender in our lives? Which props do we use?
• Do you view your own way of talking as gendered? Why (not)?
• Think of family and friends, etc.: which verbal and non-verbal props do they
use to ‘do' gender, that is, to present themselves as feminine or masculine?
• Are there any gender norms? When/how do people ‘do’ gender inappropriately?

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Language and Gender

Scope of language and gender studies

Language and gender scholars study language to find out the answer
to a range of questions, including the following:
• How do women and men use language?
• Do women and men speak differently?
• At which levels of language use can gender differences be
examined? These levels include speaking style, pronunciation,
grammar, etc.
• Do women and men speak differently in single and mixed-sex
groups?
• In which private, informal and public institutional contexts can we
find gendered language use?
• Does gender interact with other factors such as the social class,
ethnicity, sexuality, age, occupational status or situational role of the
speaker?
• How do speakers ‘construct’ their identities as gendered?
• What is the relationship between gender and sexual identities?
• What are the stereotypes of gendered language use and (why) do
these stereotypes matter?
• What are people’s attitudes to men’s and women’s use of language?
• How can we be sure that when women and men use language
differently this is due to gender rather than to any other social or
cultural variable?
In this course we will be addressing all of the above questions,
although some are dealt with more extensively than others. For
example, this guide will focus predominantly on what we could
describe as conversational features of talk rather than on the
pronunciation or grammatical features of women’s and men’s
language use. However, if you are interested in gender differences
in pronunciation and grammar you will find several interesting and
relevant studies in Part I of Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011). Excellent
summaries of these studies can also be found in Coates (2004) Chapters
4 ‘Quantitative studies’ and Chapter 5 ‘Social networks’ as well as in
Meyerhoff (2011).

Activity
Try to answer as many of the above questions as possible. Then return to the
questions whenever you can as you work through this guide and reflect on how
your answers may change as a result of your reading.

Before we begin to examine any of these questions, however, we need

to think about the meaning of the word ‘gender’.

Sex and gender

The term ‘gender’ has become very popular both in academic and
non-academic contexts. ‘Gender’ has almost become a polite way of
referring to ‘sex’ in everyday, non-academic language use. This can go
14
 Chapter 2: Approaching language and gender studies

so far that people speak about the gender rather than the sex of their
pets (Cameron, 1995, p.127)! With regard to humans, the conflation
of the two terms in many ways captures the persistent belief that
women and men are determined by their biological sex, that the way
they think, talk and behave is a mere consequence of their innate
differences. Although it is probably the case that many sociolinguists
would, if pressed, not deny that genetic differences between women
and men do affect individuals’ behaviour to some extent, most would
argue that the differences between the way women and men behave
both in linguistic and non-linguistic ways is very much due to cultural
norms about masculinity and femininity. Whereas the term ‘sex’ is
used to refer to men's and women’s biological difference, that is, their
sex chromosomes and their outer bodily appearance including their
genitalia, gender is seen as a ‘cultural construct’. This notion of gender
as a ‘cultural construct’ reflects the view that women's and men’s
behaviour is influenced by and orients to social and actual norms
about how women and men ought to behave.
Language and gender scholars have long resisted the notion of women
and men as being predetermined by their biological sex. They refer to
Simone de Beauvoir’s famous saying ‘One is not born, but becomes a
woman’(1997, p.295) to emphasise that there is a difference between
sex and gender. More recently, it has been argued that gender
identities are not learned once and for all in early childhood, but
that instead gender is continuously constructed or performed (see
Butler, 1990, p.33) throughout our lives. You will hear more about this
performative or social constructionist approach to gender in Chapter
5, but throughout this guide we will continue to regard gender as a
social and cultural construct, rather than as a reflection of biological
differences between men and women. Of course, one of the most
significant ways in which masculine and feminine gender identities are
reflected and enacted is through language.

Stereotypes of women’s and men’s talk

Activity
Consider the following quotations and proverbs (from your preparatory reading
in Coates, 2004, pp.9–27). What stereotypical or folklinguistic beliefs about
gender differences in language do they reveal? Which levels of language use are
represented in these quotations? Consider also if there are similar sayings in your
own language or cultural background. In what way, according to Jennifer Coates
(2004, p.10), do these quotations reveal an androcentric rule? Finally, compare
these beliefs with the present-day situation. Are these attitudes towards gender
differences in language and towards men and women still around today? If so,
which ones and (why) does it matter?

‘I must beg leave… to doubt the propriety of joining to the

fixed and permanent standard of language a vocabulary of
words which perish and are forgot within the compass of
a year. That we are obliged to the ladies for most of these
ornaments to our language, I readily acknowledge.’
(Richard Cambridge, The World, 12 December 1754)

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Language and Gender

‘A whistling sailor, a crowing hen and a swearing woman

ought all three to go to hell together.’
(American proverb)
‘By the Hand [i.e. handwriting], at first sight, I could not guess
whether they [the Verses] came from a Lady, but having put
on my spectacles, and perused them carefully, I found by
some peculiar Modes in Spelling, and a certain Negligence in
Grammar, that it was a Female Sonnet.’
(Richard Steele, 1713)
‘Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak.’
(Rosalind in As You Like It, III.2.264)
‘And hence it is that there is so great a scarcity of originals,
and that the ear is such a daily sufferer from an identity of
phrase, whether it be vastly, horridly, abominably, immensely
or excessively, which, with three or four more calculated
for the same swiss-like service, make up the whole scale of
gamut of modern female conversation.’
(Anonymous, The World, 6 May 1756)
‘[They shall] at the lest way… speke none English but that
which is cleane, polite, perfectly and articulately pronounced,
omittinge no lettre or sillable, as folisshe women oftentimes
do of a wantonnesse, whereby divers noblemen and
gentilmennes chyldren (as I do at this daye knowe) have
attained corrupte and foul pronuntiation.’
(Elyot, The Governour, 1531)
‘Many women, many words; many geese, many turds.’
(English proverb)
‘[…] that burning eloquence, those sublime raptures which
transmit delight to the very foundation of the soul will always
be lacking from women’s writings. They are cold and pretty like
their authors. They may show great wit but never any soul.’
(Rousseau, 1712–78, La Lettre d’Alembert sur les Spectacles)
The selection of quotations captures a range of stereotypes about
gender differences in language. Some of these stereotypes are now
obsolete; others are still prevalent today. Many of them reveal an
androcentric bias with respect to gender and language, that is, they
present women’s language use as inferior to men’s. These quotations
show beliefs that gender differences affect language in various
ways, with respect to grammar, spelling, pronunciation, verbosity,
emotionality, use of informal language and language change.
For a further summary of historical beliefs about gender differences in
language and appropriate language use with respect to pronunciation
see also Lynda Mugglestone’s (1995) Talking Proper. In her chapter
‘Ladylike accents and the feminine properties of speech’, pp.160–207,
Mugglestone examines the pressures in nineteenth-century Britain for
‘ladies’ to behave and speak ‘properly’ with respect to pronunciation,
that is, to use what were considered to be standard forms and speak in
a sweet, soft, low (not loud) voice. Significantly, Mugglestone argues
that stereotypes of gender, identity and language have an impact not
only on our attitudes about (gendered) language behaviour but also
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 Chapter 2: Approaching language and gender studies

on our actual language behaviour. This train of thought is developed

by Deborah Cameron (2011) in her paper ‘Gender and language
ideologies’. Cameron argues that it remains highly important for
language and gender scholars to think about gender and language
ideologies, as individual speakers may either orient towards these
ideologies or away from them in their construction of their gender
identities. We need to ask ‘how and to what extent do ideological
representations of the language/gender relationship inform everyday
linguistic and social practice among real women and men?’(Cameron,
2011, p.584).

Activity
Think about the ways in which your friends and family use language. Do they use
language in a stereotypically feminine or masculine way or not? What type of
gender identity are they constructing for themselves? For example, if a woman
finds it very inappropriate for women to swear and subsequently moderates her
language behaviour, this will go some way towards the construction of a more
traditional femininity (although this construction can be challenged in other ways).

Early linguistic thinking on gender

Stereotypes of language and gender have even been part of academic
writing on language. For example, Otto Jespersen, a Danish professor
of English language, dedicates a chapter to ‘The Woman’ in his 1922
book, Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin. (This in itself
reveals an androcentric stance, positioning men’s language use as
the unmarked norm, and women’s as marked, or ‘other’). Among
many other claims Jespersen argues that women’s language is
ungrammatical; that women often leave their utterances unfinished
and use more clauses joined by ‘and’(for example, ’I came home and
then I cooked dinner’) rather than more ‘complex’ structures like
subordinate clauses (for example, ‘After I came home I cooked dinner’).
As Jennifer Coates (2004, pp.17–19) highlights, many of Jespersen’s
claims actually are about differences between written and spoken
language, the former having historically been much more accessible to
men.
Some of the stereotypes of gendered language use even feature in
the work of Robin Lakoff, a feminist linguist who in many ways was
a pioneer of language and gender studies. In her now famous book
Language and Woman´s Place (1975, pp.8–19) she argues that women’s
‘language’ is characterised by:
• Lexical items from typically/traditionally gendered areas of interest
such as sewing (e.g. ‘shirr’ and ‘dart’) and colour schemes (for
example, ‘lavender’, ‘mauve’).
• ‘Empty adjectives’ such as ‘divine’, ‘charming’, ‘cute’, ‘adorable’, ‘sweet’,
‘lovely’.
• ‘Question intonation where we might expect declaratives’(Lakoff,
1975, p.16). For example, according to Lakoff, women would answer
the following question: ‘When will dinner be ready?’ with an answer
that sounds like a question itself ‘Oh… around six o’clock?’

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Language and Gender

Other characteristics of ‘women’s language’ include:

• Hedges such as ‘well’, ‘y’know’, ‘kinda’.
• Many intensifiers like ‘so’.
• ‘Hypercorrect grammar’. Examples Lakoff gives include (standard
vs non-standard) pronunciation. For example, she claims that ‘girls
don’t drop their “g’s” as boys do in “singin”, “goin” and are told off for
saying “ain’t”’ (Lakoff, 1975, p.55).
• More polite language.
Lakoff ’s examples of women’s politeness include directives such as
‘Will you please close the door’ instead of ‘Close the door’. Lakoff (1975,
p.55) also adds that women avoid using ‘indelicate expressions’ and
frequently use euphemisms.
The following example from Lakoff is supposed to capture a man’s vs a
woman’s way of venting their anger:
Man: ‘Shit, you’ve put the peanut butter in the refrigerator again.’
Woman: ‘Oh dear, you’ve put the peanut butter in the
refrigerator again.’
(1975, p.55)
Further characteristics include:
• Frequent speaker emphasis on words, something that Lakoff (1975,
p.56) refers to as ‘speaking in italics’.
• A lack of jokes. In fact, Lakoff (1975, p.56) claims that ‘Women don´t
tell jokes [….] moreover, they don’t “get” jokes.’
Your preparatory reading will provide you with more insight into this list
of features and into Lakoff ’s stance, which has since been labelled ‘the
deficit approach' as it presents women's language use as deficient in
many ways. Her original work is also a very good read, and you can find
extracts from it, as well as extracts of Jespersen’s, in Cameron (1998).
Lakoff argued that many of the features above are characteristic of a
lack of assertiveness which is typical of what Lakoff saw as ‘women’s
language’. For example, she argued that if women were allowed to take
part in more important decisions they would not have to worry about less
important issues. And if women’s social status was more equal to men’s,
Lakoff argued that women would not feel the need to hedge or otherwise
emphasise what they say to be taken seriously. Lakoff saw ‘women’s
language’ in opposition to ‘neutral language’, arguing that women need
to adopt the latter to improve their inferior situation in society. However,
what is important to understand about Lakoff is that she was concerned
about women’s position in society. She felt that women were socialised
into speaking the way they do:
If a little girls 'talks rough' like a boy, she will normally be
ostracised, scolded, or made fun of. In this way society, in the
form a child' parents and friends, keeps her in line, in her place.
(Lakoff ,1975, p.5)
Lakoff was concerned that, as a consequence of women using what she
perceived to be unassertive ways of speaking, they had no access to
power in society:

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 Chapter 2: Approaching language and gender studies

... the overall effect of ‘women’s language’[…] is this: it

submerges a woman’s personal identity, by denying her the
means of expressing herself strongly, on the one hand, and
encouraging expressions that suggest triviality in subject
matter and uncertainty about it […] The ultimate effect of
these discrepancies is that women are systematically denied
access to power.
(Lakoff, 1975, p.7)

Activity
Do you agree with Lakoff? Why/why not? How would you critique the ‘deficit’
approach?

Lakoff ’s ‘method’ has since been criticised heavily: the list of features
which is at the core of her claims was not obtained from empirical
research but was instead derived from introspection, that is, Lakoff ’s
own views and informal observations. A further problem was that she
did not fully acknowledge that many of the linguistic forms on the
list above can function in different ways, at times signalling lack of
assertiveness, at other times fulfilling other very important functions.
For example, using question intonation in what is supposed to be a
declarative, as in the ‘Oh... around six o’clock?’ answer above, does not
signal a lack of assertiveness but simply signals that dinner could also
be at another time. So, in a very efficient way, the question intonation
actually says, ‘Is that OK with you?’ The function then is cooperation,
rather than tentativeness. The same goes for several of the other
features highlighted above. The fact that one linguistic form can fulfil
different functions has become known as the ‘form-function problem’,
which later language and gender studies were very much aware of.

Activity
When do speakers use hedges such as ‘well’, ‘y’know’, ’kinda’, etc.? Think of specific
situations. Are these forms superfluous or do they serve important functions, and
if so, which? What would happen if we avoided using hedges in all situations?

Gender differences in conversational practice

Many of the linguistic features listed by Lakoff have subsequently been
investigated by language and gender scholars in empirical research.
Most of them are features relating to conversational practice, rather
than features of pronunciation or grammar. This means that the
following discussions will be about what Dell Hymes (1972, pp.277–78)
refers to as ‘communicative competence’ or ‘[the] competence as to
when to speak, when not, and as to what to talk about to whom,
when, where in what manner’. So the question that this research
addresses is whether women and men have a different communicative
competence, a different feeling of what is appropriate in a particular
speech situation, and if they therefore develop different gendered
speech styles.
Features that have been examined include:
• turn-taking of speakers in conversation
• verbosity or amount of talk
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Language and Gender

• minimal responses
• topic choice and topic development
• use of tag questions such as ‘isn’t it?’, ‘don’t you?’
• use of hedges such as ‘you know’, ‘kind of’, ‘maybe’
• use of questions and/or question intonation in declaratives
• features of politeness such as compliments or levels of
(in)directness.
Many of these features will be discussed in detail in later chapters when
we examine language and gender research on mixed-sex, same-sex,
and private and public talk.
For example, the question of whether women and men have a different
sense of what is appropriate turn-taking is investigated in Chapters 2
and 3 (mixed and same-sex talk) and the question of whether women
or men are more talkative is addressed both in Chapter 2 (mixed-sex
talk in private contexts) and in Chapter 6 (mixed-sex talk in institutional
contexts).
There are many language and gender studies which suggest that women
make more use of minimal responses such as ‘mhm’, ‘yeah’, ‘right’ than
men to signal that they are listening and to encourage to speaker to
continue (Fishman, 1983; DeFrancisco, 2011; Preisler, 1986). This type of
conversational support can at times be inserted in between utterances
of the current speaker, but frequently is produced while the other person
is speaking. The following is an example of such minimal support, taken
from the talk of a group of 17 to18-year-old male British students with
Nigel, an ethnographer, who is interviewing them.

Example 1

(Adapted from Wetherell, 1998, p.395)

The function of minimal responses such as Nigel’s in stave 1 is similar

to non-verbal support such as nodding or smiling. These cues are
frequently used to signal to the speaker that the listeners are still paying
attention and encourage the speaker to continue talking. Of course, as
with all other conversational features introduced here, it has to be noted
that not all instances of minimal responses function in the same way. If
a listener says ‘mm’ or ‘yeah’ they could also be agreeing with what has
been said, rather than just signalling that they are listening. Conversely,
minimal responses could also be the exact opposite of being supportive,
especially when there is a delay before they are produced. Delayed
minimal responses may suggest to the speaker that their audience is not
paying close attention. Zimmerman and West (1975) give the following
example of an uncooperative minimal response, produced by (male)
20
 Chapter 2: Approaching language and gender studies

speaker A with a delay of five seconds after (female) speaker B has

completed her turn. Both the five second and the three second pause
and B’s following utterance show that she would have expected A to
show more interest in what she has said.

Example 2

(Adapted from Zimmerman and West, 1975, p.121)

Some scholars argue that there are gender differences not only with
respect to the quantity of minimal responses used by speakers, but
also their function. Difference theorists, like Maltz and Borker (1982) or
Tannen (1992), suggest that for women a minimal response tends to
signal active listenership whereas for men it actually signals agreement
with the proposition being made. DeFrancisco’s (1991) study of
heterosexual couples shows that men use minimal responses much
more in a non-supportive way, signalling inattentive, uncooperative
behaviour, by delaying them, for example. However, Reid-Thomas
(1993, in Cameron, 2001, p.118) finds no such gender difference in
the use and interpretation of minimal responses in her own data,
suggesting that minimal responses serve different functions for both
women and men, depending on the context in which they are used.
There is also a widespread belief that women use more epistemic
modal forms, including hedges such as ‘well’, ‘you know’, ‘kind of’,
‘I think’, ‘like’; modal auxiliaries such as ‘could’, ‘may’ and ‘might’ and
other mitigating forms such as ‘perhaps’, ‘maybe’. All of these forms
are said to function as mitigation, either by reducing the force of an
utterance or by expressing the speaker’s attitude (lack of certainty)
towards their utterance. The belief that women’s language is tentative
not only featured in Robin Lakoff ’s (1975) pioneering work on
language and gender, but is still widespread in popular discourse,
fuelling assertiveness training courses and self-help books targeting
women. Several empirical studies have found a gender difference with
respect to hedges; indeed, some confirm that women’s overall use
is higher than men’s (Fishman, 1980; Preisler, 1986), but the findings
of most empirical studies are rather more complex, pointing to the
multifunctionality of these forms.
‘You know’ can have a positive interactional function, allowing speakers
to signal their sensitivity to the feelings of others (Coates, 1996) or
aiming to get another speaker’s attention (Fishman, 1980; Holmes,
1984, 1987). This latter function is exemplified in the following example
from a group of 16-year-old girls discussing contraception, where one
states ‘you know boys think condoms are passion killers’. (This example
and those that follow are from Pichler, 2009.)
Of course, ‘you know’ can signal uncertainty, as in the following
example of private school girls complaining about their socially
unaware fellow students: ‘some people just don’t think that other
people perceive you as sort of (.) you know over-privileged’.
21
Language and Gender

However, it can express certainty as in the following argument

between two teenage girls: ‘I get good grades in English you know’.
Intonation can also play an important role in determining the function
of hedges and other conversational features.
Several studies investigating gender differences with respect to the
different functions of ‘you know’ and other hedges found that women
use ‘you know’ more frequently to express confidence than men
(Holmes, 1986, 1987). Men outdo women in their use of the hedges
‘sort of’/’kind of’ in both their positive and their negative politeness
function (Holmes, 1987). Men’s use also exceeds women’s use of ‘I think’
in its tentative function, as in ‘It’d be about two o’clock, I think’, whereas
women outdo men in their use of ‘I think’ in its deliberate function, ‘I
think that’s absolutely right’. (Examples from Holmes, 1987, p.61.)
These studies highlight that forms such as ‘you know’ can fulfil different
functions in conversation, just like all the other features discussed in
this section. To properly assess gender differences, we need to look at
the form and function of the feature under consideration.
Many of the observations made regarding the multifunctionality of
hedges are also relevant for tag questions such as ‘isn’t it?’, ‘don’t we?’
or ‘right?’, ’OK?’ and ‘eh?’. The overall function of these tags is to elicit a
reaction, but we can differentiate functions more closely as the next
examples show:
Table 2.1
FORM EXAMPLE FUNCTION?
modal tag: This is London Bridge Station, isn’t it?
(Tourist to train passenger)
affective tags:
– facilitative tag: Two times two is four, isn’t it?
(Teacher to child)
– softening tag: You did not mean to hurt him, did
you?
(Parent to child)

Whereas modal tags really do signal a lack of information on the part

of the speaker and function as requests for information, affective tags
do not suggest that the speaker is lacking information. The example
above shows that tag questions can be used to facilitate contributions
of other speakers, or they can be used in its softening function, for
example to hedge a criticism. Of course it is also relevant to consider
the intonation features to determine the function of the tag questions
(see also Cameron, McAlinden and O´Leary, 1989). On the question
of whether men and women differ in their use of tag questions, Janet
Holmes argues that the overall quantitative difference is less relevant
than the gender difference with respect to tag functions: men use
tags more often in modal function; women more often in facilitating
function (Holmes, 1984, 1987). This shows that contrary to what
Lakoff ’s list seems to suggest, hedges should not automatically be
equated with a lack of assertiveness.

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 Chapter 2: Approaching language and gender studies

Gender and politeness

One further area that has been investigated by language and gender
scholars with an interest in conversational practice is women’s and men’s
use of politeness strategies. For example, Penelope Brown carried out
research in a Mayan community in Mexico and found that women used
more markers of linguistic politeness than men (Brown and Levinson,
1987). Marjorie Goodwin (1990, 1998) researched linguistic strategies
such as directives, that is, speech acts which are used when speakers
want to get hearers to do something. She found that boys, who formed
groups with a hierarchical structure involving leaders and followers,
used more aggravated/bold imperatives such as ‘gimme’ and girls who
displayed more ‘egalitarian’ friendship structures used more mitigated/
indirect directives such as ‘let’s’ or ‘we could’.
Janet Holmes’ research in Women, Men and Politeness (1995) investigates
a range of politeness phenomena, including the gendered use of
compliments. Holmes’ analysis of gender and compliment-use was
based on 484 naturally occurring compliments in New Zealand speech.
Holmes used both qualitative, ethnographic methods (observation of
social/contextual details) and quantitative sociolinguistic methods for
her analysis. She defines compliments as:
‘…. a speech act which explicitly or implicitly attributes
credit to someone other than the speaker, usually the person
addressed, for some “good” (possession, characteristic, skill,
etc.) which is positively valued by the speaker and the hearer.’
(Holmes, 2011, p.72)
Holmes views compliments as positive politeness strategies. Here she
draws on Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson’s (1987) model of
politeness. They define politeness as the need to respect somebody’s
‘face’, that is, somebody’s feeling of self-worth/image (note expressions
like ‘to lose face’). Brown and Levinson differentiated between:
• positive face/politeness, that is, the need to be liked/approved
• negative face/politeness, that is, the need not to be imposed/
impeded on.
Negative politeness strategies include indirectness, mitigation, hedges
and frequently express deference as in the following fictitious example
of a student addressing a tutor, ‘I know you are terribly busy but could
you perhaps spare five minutes to look at this essay plan?’ Positive
politeness strategies tend to express goodwill and solidarity, and
include compliments, showing interest, liking and understanding. Both
negative and positive politeness strategies help speakers to perform
speech acts which might be perceived as impolite, or, in the words of
politeness theorists, as ‘face threatening’.

Activity
After this introduction on language and politeness, answer the following
questions based on your preparatory reading of Janet Holmes’s chapter,
‘Complimenting – a positive politeness strategy’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011).
• What quantitative gender differences in the use of compliments did Holmes
find?

23
Language and Gender

• What qualitative gender differences in the use of compliments did Holmes find?
• How did Holmes explain gender differences in complimenting?
• To what extent is women’s status in society relevant to explanations of gender
differences in complimenting?
• What is your view on these explanations?
• Which factors other than gender may influence how speakers use compliments?

Transcribing spoken interaction

As you have already gathered from your preparatory reading and from
this chapter, linguists interested in gendered conversational practice
always transcribe part or all of their recorded data. They tend to produce
very detailed transcripts which differ considerably from scripted
dialogues of the kind that you can find in dramatic texts. For example,
they include pauses and all repetitions and false starts, incomplete
words and utterances. Many avoid punctuation features such as commas
and full stops because spoken language frequently does not have full
grammatical sentences. Many therefore also avoid capital letters at
utterance beginnings, and most transcribe pauses carefully and add
some non-verbal or paralinguistic information (information such as
the tone of voice an utterance is produced in, for example a laughing
voice, or a rising tone on a syllable, which carries question intonation).
However, researchers need to make decisions about all of these features,
especially about how much detail they will need, and this in many cases
depends on the aim of the analysis. For example, if you are interested
in topic choice and topic development alone, then you may not need
to produce a transcript that differentiates as carefully between a wide
range of pauses as when you are interested in how speakers take turns.

Activity
Consider the following two transcripts which capture the talk of a group of young
British Bangladeshi girls who reminisce about skipping lessons at school (Pichler,
2009, pp.111–12). Which transcript do you prefer and why? How do the transcription
conventions reflect the differences between spoken and written language?

A: Traditional transcript

24
 Chapter 2: Approaching language and gender studies

B: Stave transcript

The second transcript uses a version of Jennifer Coates’s (1996) stave

system which represents all the speakers in each stave, even if they are
not talking (just as in a musical score where each instrument is always
listed, no matter whether it is currently playing or not). The advantage
of this system is that it is easy to see at one glance who speaks and
who does not speak. It is also very easy to represent multi-party talk
that is simultaneous. The stave system clearly captures who speaks first
(starting on the left) and who speaks at the same time as somebody
else (indicated by vertically aligned utterances within one stave).
The precise beginning and end of simultaneous talk is frequently
also indicated by square brackets […]. Latching ( that is, speech that
follows immediately after the completion of the previous utterance) is
represented by equal signs (=). There are also many different symbols

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Language and Gender

for capturing pauses and intonational patterns. A detailed list of some

of these symbols is provided below.

Example of transcription key

You may have guessed the meaning of some of the transcription
conventions that have been used above. Below you will find one
example of a transcription key, that is, a list which captures symbols
and their meaning (from Pichler, 2009).
{laughter} non verbal information is in italics
xxxxxxxxxx{laughing} paralinguistic information qualifying
underlined utterance
[…..] beginning/end of simultaneous speech, also
indicated by alignment of utterances within
one stave.
(xxxxxxxx) inaudible material
(……) doubt about accuracy of transcription
‘……’ speaker quotes others
CAPITALS or %……% increased or decreased volume
bold print speaker emphasis
>…< faster speed of utterance delivery
- incomplete word or utterance
/ rising intonation
\ falling intonation
yeah::::: lengthened sound
= latching on
(.) micropause, less than 2/10 of a second
(-) pause shorter than one second but longer
than a micropause
(1); (2) timed pauses (longer than one second)
/…./ phonetic transcription
.hhh; hhh in-breath; out-breath

You should always take note of how conversational data have been
transcribed, always study explanations on transcription conventions
that are given in books, chapters and journal articles. For an in-depth
discussion of linguistic transcription, see Cameron (2001) Working with
Spoken Discourse, Chapter 3: 'Transcribing spoken data'.

Analysing gender in spoken interaction

As you work through your preparatory and further readings you should
always ask yourself about the research design, methodology and
particularly about what Joan Swann refers to as ‘warrants for analysis’.
That is, you need to consider the question of how we can decide that
speakers’ specific choices of words, sentence structures, conversational
26
 Chapter 2: Approaching language and gender studies

style etc. should be interpreted, and specifically how we can be sure that
these choices are part of speakers’ self-presentation as women or men.

Activity
On the basis of your preparatory reading and the following list based on Swann
(2011): ‘Yes, but is it gender?’, discuss the advantages and drawbacks of a range of
such ‘warrants’, including:
• quantitative and/or general patterns
• indirect reliance on quantitative/general patterns
• participants’ orientations as evident in the text
• speakers’/participants’ solicited interpretations
• analysts’ theoretical positions
• analysts’ intuitions
• speakers/participants are female, male.

Many of the decisions about how to approach the analysis of gender

in spoken interaction, which warrants analysts rely on when they
examine the relationship between language and gender, will depend
on the theoretical and methodological stance taken by the analysts.
For example, this stance will have implications for how scholars
conceptualise gender, whether they see gender as predominantly
constructed in interaction or not, and what approach to research
design and analysis they take. For a detailed overview of a range of
methodological approaches to the analysis of spoken interaction see
Cameron (2001) Working with Spoken Discourse; and, with specific focus
on gender, see Harrington et al. (eds) (2008) Gender and Language
Research Methodologies.

Learning outcomes
By the end of this chapter, having studied the essential reading and
some of the recommended critical texts, you should:
• have developed an understanding of the wide range of
conversational strategies and linguistic features that have been
examined by language and gender scholars as well as of the
multiple functions that have been attributed to these features
• have considered stereotypical beliefs of women’s and men’s way
of talking and their relationship to actual research on gendered
language
• be able to discuss the deficit approach to language and gender
critically, contrasting it with other explanatory frameworks
• have read and reflected critically on Robin Lakoff ’s work on
language and gender
• have examined a range of different transcripts and transcription
conventions employed by language and gender scholars
• have developed an ability to critically discuss different ‘warrants of
analysis’ employed by language and gender scholars.

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Language and Gender

Sample examination questions

1. What evidence is there to support the view that women are more
polite than men?
2. What evidence is there to support the view that women use more
standard grammar and pronunciation features than men?
3. Is there such a thing as women’s and men’s conversational style?
What evidence is there to support or challenge such a claim?
4. Critically discuss the deficit approach to language and gender.
5. Think of a small-scale research study that you would be able to carry
out to investigate one aspect of the relationship between language
and gender. What would your research question be and how would
you go about investigating it? Your answer should refer to data and
data collection, participants/informants, transcription of data and
approaches to analysis.
6. Critically discuss at least three ‘warrants of analysis’ usually
employed by language and gender scholars to support their claims
of the relevance of gender in their research on conversational talk.
7. Select one or two features of conversational practice that Robin
Lakoff believed to be used differently by men and women, such as
hedges, question intonation, or minimal responses. Then compare
and contrast Lakoff ’s view with later empirical research on women’s
and men’s use of these features.

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 Chapter 3: Mixed-sex talk and the dominance approach

Chapter 3: Mixed-sex talk and the dominance

approach

Essential reading
Coates (2004) Chapter 7 ‘Conversational dominance in mixed talk’,
pp.111–24.
DeFrancisco, V. ‘The sounds of silence: how men silence women in marital
relations’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.143–52.
O’Barr, W. and K. Bowman Atkins, ‘Women´s language’ or ‘powerless
language’?’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.451–60.
Swann, J. ‘Talk control: an illustration from the classroom of problems in
analysing male dominance in conversation’ in Coates and Pichler (eds)
(2011) pp.161–70.
West, C. and D. Zimmerman ‘Women’s place in everyday talk: reflections on
parent-child interaction’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.139–42.

Further reading
Cameron, D. Working with Spoken Discourse. (London: Sage, 2001)
[ISBN 0761957737] especially Chapter 7, ‘Sequence and Structure:
Conversation Analysis’.
Edelsky, C. ‘Who’s got the floor?’ in Tannen, D. (ed.) Gender and
Conversational Interaction. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993)
[ISBN 0195081943] pp.189–226.
Fishman, P. ‘Conversational insecurity’ in Cameron, D. (ed.) The Feminist
Critique of Language. (London: Routledge, 1983) second edition
[ISBN 0415164001] pp.253–58.
Greenwood, A. ‘Floor management and power strategies in adolescent
conversation’ in Bergvall, V., J. Bing and A. Freed (eds) Rethinking
Language and Gender Research: Theory and Practice. (Harlow: Longman,
1996) [ISBN 9780582265738] pp.77–97.
Herring, S. et al. ‘Participation in electronic discourse in a ‘feminist’ field’ in
Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.171–82.
Jie Yang Zuiqian ‘“Deficient mouth”: discourse, gender and domestic
violence in urban China’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.183–92.
Lakoff, R. Language and Woman´s Place. (New York: Harper & Row,
1975) [ISBN 0060903899].
Mills, S. ‘Rethinking politeness, impoliteness and gender identity’
in Litosseliti, L. and J. Sunderland (eds) Gender Identity and
Discourse Analysis. (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Pub Co., 2002)
[ISBN 9781588112132] pp.69–90.
West, C. ‘When the doctor is a lady: power, status and gender in physician-
patient encounters’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.468–82.
Wetzel, P. J. ‘Are ‘powerless’ communication strategies the Japanese norm?'
in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.461–67.

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Language and Gender

References
Beattie, G. ‘Interruptions in conversational interaction, and its relation to
the sex and status of the interactants’, Linguistics 19, 1981.
Beattie, G. Talk: Analysis of Speech and Non-verbal Behaviour in Conversation.
(Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1983) [ISBN 9780335104147].
Cameron, D. ‘Rethinking language and gender studies: some issues for the
1990s’ in Mills, S. (ed.) Language and Gender: Interdisciplinary Perspectives.
(London: Longman, 1995) [ISBN 9780582226319] pp.31–44.
Coates, J. Women Talk. Conversation Between Women Friends. (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1996) [ISBN 9780631195955].
Coates, J. Men Talk. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003) [ISBN 9780631220466].
Fishman, P. ‘Interactional shitwork’, Heresies 2, 1980, pp.99–101.
Hutchby, I. and R. Wooffitt Conversation Analysis. Principles, Practices and
Applications. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998) [ISBN 9780745615493].
James, D. and S. Clarke ‘Women, men and interruption’ in Tannen, D. (ed.)
Gender and Conversational Interaction. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1993) [ISBN 9780195081947].
Kollock, P. et al. ‘Sex and power in interaction: conversational privileges and
duties’, American Sociological Review 50, 1985.
Menz, F. and Al-Roubaie, A. ‘Interruptions, status and gender in medical
interviews: the harder you brake, the longer it takes’, Discourse & Society
19(5), 2008.
Pichler, P. Talking Young Femininities. (London: Palgrave, 2009) [ISBN
9780230013285].
Sacks, H., E.A. Schegloff and G. Jefferson ‘A simplest systematics for the
organisation of turn-taking for conversation’, Language 50, 1974,
pp.696–735.
Talbot, M. ‘‘I wish you’d stop interrupting me’: interruptions and
asymmetries in speaker-rights in equal encounters’, Journal of
Pragmatics 18, 1992, pp.451–66.
West, C. and D.H. Zimmermann ‘Small insults: a study of interruptions in
cross-sex conversations between unacquainted persons’ in Thorne, B.,
C. Kramarae and N. Henley (eds) Language, Gender and Society. (Rowley,
MT: Newbury House, 1983) [ISBN 9780838429372] pp.103–18.
Zimmerman, D.H. and C. West ‘Sex roles, interruptions and silences in
conversation’ in Thorne, B. and N. Henley (eds) Language and Sex:
Difference and Dominance. (Rowley, MT: Newbury House, 1975) [ISBN
9780883770436] pp.105–29.

Introduction
In this chapter we will focus on how women and men speak to each
other, or, in other words, on mixed-sex talk. We will take a closer look
at some of the conversational features that have been introduced in
the previous chapters, with a particular focus on features that can
be associated with dominant conversational behaviour. The term
‘conversational dominance’ is particularly relevant with respect to
mixed-sex talk, as much of the seminal research on the talk between
men and women suggests that men dominate conversations with

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 Chapter 3: Mixed-sex talk and the dominance approach

women. The explanatory model that has been adopted by researchers

of mixed-sex talk since the 1970s and 1980s has become known as the
‘dominance approach’. We will also ask if this model is still as relevant
today and/or if patterns of conversational dominance in mixed-sex talk
can be expected to differ in the twenty-first century.
Conversational dominance is one way of displaying power in
interaction. In order to be able to explore how power is exerted
in conversations, or how some speakers position themselves as
more dominant than others when they talk, we will consider a
methodological approach called ‘Conversation Analysis' (or CA). CA has
influenced linguistics with its insights into the so-called ‘turn-taking-
model’, that is, its understanding of how speakers take turns when they
talk, how they support each other or interrupt each other.
Throughout the chapter we will encounter a range of empirical
studies which will exemplify the theoretical arguments surrounding
the dominance approach. These studies will range from private to
institutional (school and medical) contexts.

Conversational dominance in mixed-sex interaction

Activity
Read DeFrancisco, V. ‘The sounds of silence: how men silence women in marital
relations’ (2011, pp.143–52).
DeFrancisco recorded seven married couples in their homes for about a week and
later examined patterns of power or conversational dominance, or ‘turn-taking
violations’ on the basis of her recordings and transcripts.
Which conversational features are being used to display dominance?

Example 1

(From DeFrancisco, 2011, pp.156–57)

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Language and Gender

As this transcript shows, conversational dominance can be exerted

by interruptions, topic control or absent/delayed minimal responses
as well as silence. In addition, verbosity can also signal conversational
dominance; when speakers take many turns or very long turns, it
can – but does not have to – signal that they are trying to establish
themselves as more powerful. In the above example, the female
speaker takes longer turns than the male speaker but in this case it
seems that she is not the more powerful speaker. On the contrary, she
is doing a lot of conversational work to keep the conversation flowing,
but she is not very successful, as her husband is reluctant to engage
in a conversation with her. DeFrancisco’s analysis of the transcript was
supported by interviews which she carried out with the participants
after the recordings. Bud, the male speaker in this transcript, said
afterwards that ‘he had heard it all before’.
DeFrancisco’s work replicates an earlier study by Fishman, who was
one of the first scholars to demonstrate that women work harder to
keep conversations going when they talk to men in private contexts.
She argues that in mixed-sex interaction women end up doing, as
she phrases it, the ‘interactional shitwork’ (Fishman, 1980, pp.99–101).
Opposing Lakoff ’s theory of women’s lack of assertiveness Fishman also
argues that this ‘conversational shitwork’ cannot simply be down to
feeling ‘insecure’. She suggests that women use language the way they
do because:
The underlying issue here is likely to be hierarchy, not simply
gender. Socially-structured power relations are reproduced
and actively maintained in our everyday interactions.
Women’s conversational troubles reflect not their inferior
social training but their inferior social position.
(Fishman, 1983, p.258)
This quotation captures the theoretical position that characterises the
‘dominance approach’ of mixed sex interaction. It assumes that men’s
more powerful position in society is reflected and enacted at the micro-
level of interaction through the use of particular linguistic features.

Interruptions and conversational dominance

The most famous example of the ‘dominance approach’ to mixed-
sex interaction is Zimmerman and West’s work on ‘conversational
dominance’. In their 1975 study Zimmerman and West analysed
conversations between friends or intimates in familiar surroundings
(cafes or coffee shops), investigating several features that can
accomplish dominance in conversation (Zimmerman and West, 1975;
Coates, 2004, Chapter 7, p.114). They found that women are interrupted
by men after they have uttered on average 12.1 syllables whereas men
are interrupted by women only after they have uttered 25.4 syllables.
In their 1983 study West and Zimmerman examined conversations
between men and women who were not acquainted with each other.
The results of this study confirmed that the majority of interruptions
(75 per cent) are initiated by men. Like Fishman, Zimmerman and West
suggest that the reason for the conversational dominance of men is
likely to be rooted in society:

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 Chapter 3: Mixed-sex talk and the dominance approach

[...] men deny equal status to women as conversational

partners with respect to rights to the full utilisation of their
turns and support for the development of topics. Thus we
speculate that just as male dominance is exhibited through
male control of macro-institutions in society, it is also
exhibited through control of at least one micro-institution.
(Zimmerman and West, 1975, p.125)
Thus, in Zimmerman and West’s research, men interrupted women
considerably more than vice versa. Whereas some later research
confirms Zimmerman and West’s findings, other studies provide
conflicting evidence. One of the central questions of much of this
language and gender research was whether power asymmetry in
(mixed-sex) interaction is caused by the gender or the status of the
speaker. Thus, O’Barr and Bowman Atkins (2011) argue, on the basis
of courtroom data, that (un)assertive conversational behaviour is a
reflection of the social status and the previous courtroom experience
rather than the gender of the speaker. They found that women who
were of higher social status and were experienced in giving testimony
at court did not display features of what Lakoff (1975) termed ‘women’s
language’, that is, features such as hedges, hesitation forms, question
intonation in declaratives and polite forms (including use of ‘sir’). So
they argue that Lakoff ’s (problematic) claim, that women tend to use
language that lacks assertiveness, can be explained by the fact that
women’s social status in our society is usually inferior to that of men.
Although O’Barr and Bowman Atkins’ work can be critiqued for several
reasons, for example, for disregarding the form and function problem
(see above) and for accepting many of Lakoff ’s empirically unfounded
observations, for example that lack of conversational assertiveness
equals lack of power, the central question they raise remains highly
relevant. Subsequent studies have investigated whether (lack of )
conversational dominance can be attributed to gender and/or to
social status. For example, in a context of doctor-patient talk in the
late 1970s, West’s US study (2011) found doctors interrupted patients
disproportionately, except where the doctor was female, as in that case
patients tended to interrupt as much or more than the doctor. West
explains this apparent anomaly by arguing that gender outweighs
social status in determining social (including linguistic) behaviour.
Conflicting evidence from the same medical context of doctor/patient
talk, but from a different linguistic, cultural and historical background,
is provided by Menz and Al-Roubaie (2008). In an outpatient clinic
in Vienna, Austria, it seems that status does outweigh gender with
respect to interruptions, as both male and female doctors interrupted
their patients more than vice-versa. However, gender outweighed
status with respect to supportive conversational behaviour, which was
displayed much more by women doctors and patients alike than by
their male counterparts.
We can therefore conclude that the relationship between interruptions
and conversational dominance is a complex one, mediated by either
gender or social status (and this does not mean only social class but
powerful situational roles assumed by doctors and attorneys, etc.) or by
a combination of both.

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Language and Gender

There are other issues to be considered. Confusingly some research,

for example, James and Clarke (1993) and Menz and Al-Roubaie (2008),
use the term ‘interruption’ for all instances of simultaneous speech,
even simultaneous speech that is intended to be supportive. As a
result, it may then be necessary to specify that despite a lack of gender
difference in overall use of simultaneous speech, women produce
many more supportive ‘interruptions’, that is, instances of simultaneous
speech, than men.
We also have to bear in mind that, as with all linguistic forms, it is
not always easy to determine which function certain instances of
simultaneous speech perform in a specific conversational extract. Does
a specific occurrence of simultaneous speech support the speaker or
does it disrupt and aim to take over? Can we really just rely on syntactic
criteria, such as closeness to a Transition Relevance Point (TRP) (see
below) to say whether something is an interruption, or do we need to
take functional criteria into account, including the intentions of the
interruptor, as discussed by Beattie (1981)?
Functional criteria are certainly considered in Menz and Al-Roubaie’s
analysis of doctor/patient talk in Austria.

Example 2

(Adapted from Menz and Al-Roubaie, 2008)

None of the instances of simultaneous speech in this example are

disruptive or constitute attempts at hijacking the conversation. First,
the patient appears to predict the end of the doctor’s utterance,
overlapping the doctor’s last word, ‘pain’, with a minimal response
‘uh\/ uh\/’ before continuing. Then, the doctor ‘interrupts’ the patient
with the utterance ‘i-in your chest’. However, this utterance only seeks
to clarify the patient’s previous, rather vague answer, ‘in front’, and
therefore is also not intended to disrupt. Menz and Al-Roubaie term
this a ‘clarifying interruption’, but, as stated above, many discourse
analysts would only use the term ‘interruption’ for non-supportive
instances of simultaneous speech. The main point here is that analysts
frequently do not only take into account where one speaker starts to
overlap another, but also for what purpose, that is, what function this
instance of simultaneous speech serves.
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 Chapter 3: Mixed-sex talk and the dominance approach

However, at times speakers can feel interrupted, even if the intention

of the person producing the simultaneous speech may have been to
support them, as Talbot (1992) shows in her research on a conversation
of two heterosexual couples. Interesting contributions to the topic in
this respect come from Edelsky (1993) and Coates (1996), who found
that there are two different types of ‘floor’, one where speakers prefer
to speak one-at-a-time (Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson, 1974), and one
where speakers are very comfortable with producing (supportive)
simultaneous speech. Coates (1996, 2003) shows that women friends,
in contrast to men, very much enjoy the jointly developed floor, having
no problem with understanding utterances produced simultaneously.

The turn-taking model

Language and gender research that seeks to investigate patterns of
conversational dominance frequently draws on a methodology called
‘Conversation Analysis (CA)’, which has been employed to generate a
lot of research on how people take turns when they talk.

Activity
Having read West and Zimmerman (2011) try to answer the following questions
about turn-taking.
• What is the turn-taking model?
• What are ‘unit-types’?
• What, according to West and Zimmerman, is the difference between
interruptions and overlaps?
• What is a ‘transition (relevance) place’? How is it relevant to your analysis?
• What is ‘latching’?
• What do speakers display or’ accomplish’ when they interrupt one another?
(Can we answer this question categorically, independent of the context?)

Zimmerman and West’s analytic framework is based on the turn-taking

model by Conversation Analysts, Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff
and Gail Jefferson. Conversation Analysis (CA) is derived from
ethnomethodology, a breakaway school from quantitative sociology.
It provides an analytic framework to describe what is going on when
people engage in spoken interaction/talk:
What do we do when we talk?
Talk is a central activity in social life. But how is ordinary talk
organized, how do people coordinate their talk in interaction,
and what is the role of talk in wider social processes.
(Hutchby and Wooffitt, 1998, p.1)
CA methodology is characterised by a lack of a priori hypotheses, so
rather than starting with a specific hypothesis in mind, CA scholars instead
take an inductive approach, with patterns first being observed and then
generalisations being made about them. CA investigates vast amounts
of naturally occurring data to identify typical patterns of what they call
‘talk-in-interaction’. Their research investigates how speakers take, hold and
yield turns in conversation, and has allowed them to establish patterns of
‘turn-taking’, which they sum up in the so-called ‘turn-taking model’:

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Language and Gender

• Speaker change occurs.

• One person usually speaks at a time.
• More than one person speaking at a time does occur, but only for
brief periods.
• Exchanges of turn with no gap and no overlap are common.
• There are ‘Turn allocation techniques’ (For example, current speaker
can select next speaker; next speaker can self-select; current
speaker can go on speaking.)
• Turns can vary in length (words, phrases, clauses...)
• Speakers can predict the end of a turn = Transition Relevance
Point (TRP) = which is a suitable place for the next speaker to start
speaking.
• There is no pre-planning in the order of speakers.
Some of these observations seem very obvious; certainly as speakers
we all seem to have an implicit, subconscious understanding of this
model, for example, that speakers do take turns. However, CA certainly
goes considerably beyond our own everyday observations, as the
model is based on observation of vast amounts of empirical data. If
you want to read more in depth about this model, then you can find
a very good introductory chapter, entitled, ‘Sequence and structure:
Conversation Analysis’ in Cameron (2001).
Note also that whereas Sacks et al. (1974) use the term ‘overlap’ to refer
to all instances of simultaneous speech, Zimmerman and West use it
only to refer to a brief stretch of simultaneous speech in the vicinity
of a TRP. They define interruptions as violations of the turn-taking
system that accomplish conversational dominance. The following two
examples capture this difference. They are taken from the talk of one
friendship group of 16-year-old British private school girls.

Example 3

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 Chapter 3: Mixed-sex talk and the dominance approach

Example 4

(From Pichler, 2009, p.218; pp.230–31)

Activity
Compare the two examples above from the same group of speakers. Try to decide
whether the simultaneous speech in Example 3 and Example 4 (particularly in
stave 2) represent instances of supportive simultaneous speech or interruptions.

You will probably have decided that Example 3 does not contain an
interruption. Jane starts talking very near a completion point or, as
CA would term it, a Transition Relevance Point (TRP). Elizabeth may
well have completed her utterance after saying ‘twelve’, and Jane
simply predicts this possible point of completion very well. This in fact
shows speakers who are very well tuned in with each other. Example
4 is more difficult to interpret. If we only take syntactic criteria into
consideration then we have to say that in stave 2 Roberta starts talking
half way through Nicky’s turn without Nicky being anywhere near a
completion point. On the other hand we could say that Roberta may
have anticipated how Nicky was going to complete her utterance (for
example, by saying ‘... with many different women’). These types of
predictions and also incomplete utterances (such as Nicky’s) are very
common in groups of female friends (see Coates, 1996). So Roberta’s
intention may not have been to interrupt Nicky and take over from her.

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Language and Gender

In fact, Roberta does not continue speaking afterwards, as staves 3–5

show. Nevertheless, it is clear that Nicky had not finished her utterance
and that she is struggling to take over again in staves 3–5, producing
several repetitions and false starts which suggests that she is feeling
disrupted. This example shows how difficult it can be to decide if an
instance of simultaneous speech constitutes an interruption or not, and
this, of course, has implications for language and gender studies that
seek to establish whether there is a difference in turn-taking behaviour
between women and men.

Co-constructing conversational dominance

It is also worth considering if conversational dominance is always
just the product of one party exerting more power over another. In
fact, Swann (2011) redefines what might have been interpreted as
‘male dominance’ to some extent in her analysis of the linguistic and
nonverbal practices of primary school children. She video-recorded
two 20-minute sequences of small group teaching and found that
although it was generally true to say that boys dominated by speaking
more, the teacher was actually co-constructing this ‘male dominance’
by looking at boys much more than at the girls when asking a question.
Thus, we have to realise that (male) conversational dominance is
frequently more complex than we think.

Critiquing the dominance approach

The dominance approach can make very valuable contributions to
our understanding of mixed-sex (spoken) interaction. It can be very
useful and revealing to interpret gendered conversational patterns
(of dominance) as reflections of the (unequal) relationship between
women and men in society at large. This approach has not lost its
relevance, as several of the studies in institutional context in Chapter 6
will show.
However, there are also many potential and real problems with the
dominance model. It is, of course, not easy for either sex to accept
that women are powerless victims in the face of male oppression in
mixed-sex talk as well as larger-scale social interaction. Similarly to the
deficit (see Chapter 2) and the difference approaches (see Chapter 4),
the dominance approach can be critiqued for generalising too much
about women and men. It would be very problematic to maintain that
all men always dominate all women in all conversations, without other
contextual features. In fact, we have seen that there is no consensus
about whether gender overrides the status of the speaker or vice versa.
Cultural context also has to be taken into consideration. For example,
in Japan polite male speech displays many features that would be
considered as powerless in the West (Wetzel, 2011). On the other
hand, a study of China provides supporting evidence not only for male
power in conversational and other social contexts, but also shows how
even physical violence against women is justified by a widespread
popular discourse that blames women’s conversational behaviour
for the abuse they suffer. Women suffer this (physical) abuse for their
so-called ‘deficient mouths’, that is, their alleged preference for talking

38
 Chapter 3: Mixed-sex talk and the dominance approach

about trivial things at length as well as their alleged inquisitiveness and

noisiness (Jie Yang, 2011).
So, although it is certainly true when Cameron (1995, p.39) argues that
this approach needs to be seen in its historical context as ‘a moment
of feminist outrage, of bearing witness to oppression in all aspects of
women’s lives’, it is also the case that it has not lost all its relevance for
today.

Learning outcomes
After working through this chapter and having done a substantial
amount of reading on the topic you should:
• have an understanding of the conversational strategies that can be
examined in an analysis of conversational dominance, including
interruptions, topic control, or absent or delayed minimal responses,
silence and verbosity
• be able to discuss the dominance approach to language and gender
critically, contrasting it with other explanatory frameworks
• have read and reflected on a range of empirical studies on mixed-
sex interaction
• have developed a critical understanding of the relationship
between language, gender and power
• have developed an insight into the turn-taking model used in
Conversation Analysis.

Sample examination questions

1. Is gender more important than the social or situational status of a
speaker regarding conversational dominance?
2. Why is it problematic to claim that speakers who talk for longer and/
or at the same time as others are dominant speakers?
3. Critically discuss the ‘dominance model’ in language and gender
research, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses with respect to
theory and empirical research.
4. What evidence is there to support claims that women’s and men’s
conversational behaviour differs in mixed-sex interaction?
5. How is (Conversation Analytic and other) research on turn-taking
relevant to language and gender studies?

39
Language and Gender

Notes

40
 Chapter 4: Same-sex talk and the difference approach

Chapter 4: Same-sex talk and the difference

approach

Essential reading
Coates, J. ‘Gossip revisited: language in all-female groups’ in Coates and
Pichler (eds) (2011).
Coates, J. (2004) Chapter 8 ‘Same-sex talk’.
Maltz, D. and R. Borker ‘A cultural approach to male-female communication’
in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.487–502.
Tannen, D. ‘Asymmetries: women and men talking at cross purposes’ in
Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.503–17.
Troemel-Ploetz, S. ‘Selling the apolitical’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011)
pp.518–28.

Further reading
Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) Part IV ‘Same-sex talk’, pp.193–286.
Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) Part VIII ‘Theoretical debates 2: difference or
dominance’, pp.483–528.
Cameron, D. ‘Performing gender identity: young men’s talk and the
construction of heterosexual masculinity’ in Coates and Pichler (eds)
(2011) pp.250–62.
Cameron, D. The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do Men and Women Really
Speak Different Languages? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)
[ISBN 9780199550999].
Coates, J. Women Talk: Conversation between Women Friends. (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1996) [ISBN 9780631195955].
Coates, J. ‘One-at-a-time: the organisation of men’s talk’ in Meinhof, U. and
S. Johnson (eds) Language and Masculinity. (London: Blackwell, 1997)
[ISBN 9780631197683] pp.107–29.
Coates, J. ‘Changing femininities: the talk of teenage girls’ in Bucholtz, M.,
A. C. Liang and L.A. Sutton (eds) Reinventing Identities: The
Gendered Self in Discourse. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)
[ISBN 9780195126303] pp.123–44.
Coates, J. Men Talk. Stories in the Making of Masculinities. (Oxford: Blackwell,
2003) [ISBN 9780631220466].
Coates, J. ‘Pushing at the boundaries: the expression of alternative
masculinities’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.263–74.
Eckert, P. ‘Cooperative competition in adolescent “girl talk”’ in Tannen, D.
(ed.) Gender and Conversational Interaction. (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1993) ISBN 9780195081947].
Edelsky, C. ‘Who’s got the floor?’ in Tannen (1993) pp.189–226.
Edley, N. and M. Whetherell ‘Jockeying for position: the construction of
masculine identities’, Discourse & Society 8/2, 1997, pp.203–18.
Goodwin, M. ‘Cooperation and competition across girls’ play activities’ in
Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.89–111.

41
Language and Gender

Goodwin, M.H. He-said-she-said: Talk as Social Organisation among

Black Children. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990)
[ISBN 9780253206183].
Goodwin, M. The Hidden Life of Girls: Games of Stance, Status, and Exclusion.
(Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006) [ISBN 9780631234258].
Hewitt, R. ‘“Box-out” and “Taxing”’ in Meinhof and Johnson (1997) pp.27–46.
Johnson, S. and Finlay, F. ‘Do men gossip? An analysis of football talk on
television’ in Meinhof and Johnson (1997) pp.130–43.
Kiesling, S. ‘Playing the straight man: displaying and maintaining
male heterosexuality in discourse’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011)
pp.275–86.
Meinhof, U. and S. Johnson (eds) Language and Masculinity. (London:
Blackwell, 1997) [ISBN 9780631197683].
Sacks, H., E. A. Schegloff and G. Jefferson ‘A simplest systematics for the
organisation of turn-taking for conversation’, Language 50, 1974,
pp.696–735.
Tannen, D. You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation.
(London: Virago Press, 1992) [ISBN 9781853814716].
Tannen, D. (ed.) Gender and Conversational Interaction. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1993) [ISBN 9780195081947].

References
Benwell, B. and E. Stokoe Discourse and Identity. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2006) [ISBN 9780748617500].
Bucholtz, M. ‘Why be normal? Language and identity practices in a
community of nerd girls’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.224–35.
Cheshire, J. (ed.) English around the World. (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991) [ISBN 0521395658] pp.200–09.
Jones, D. ‘Gossip: notes on women’s oral culture’ in Cameron, D. (ed.) The
Feminist Critique of Language. (London: Routledge, 1990) first edition
[ISBN 0415042607] pp.242– 50.
Holmes, J. ‘Social constructionism, postmodernism and feminist
sociolinguistics’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.600–10.
Kuiper, K. ‘Sporting formulae in New Zealand English: two models of male
solidarity’ in Labov, W. Language in the Inner City. (Oxford: Blackwell,
1977) [ISBN 9780631176701].

Introduction
Whereas in the previous chapter we focused on the talk between
women and men in what we referred to as ‘mixed-sex interaction’,
the current chapter will present empirical data from and theoretical
approaches to the study of same-sex talk. Early research in the field
of language and gender was dominated by interest in mixed-sex
interaction, but interest in the talk of women in all-female groups and
of men in all-male groups has been strong since the 1980s, although, at
least initially, it frequently retained a comparative perspective, that is, it
investigated both women’s and men’s talk. This comparative approach
to same-sex talk resulted in a now-famous and – for many scholars –
problematic dichotomy, describing all-female talk as collaborative and
all-male talk as competitive.
42
 Chapter 4: Same-sex talk and the difference approach

Many of the scholars interested in same-sex talk in the 1980s and 1990s
started to think about the relationship between language and gender
from what we now refer to as a ‘difference perspective’, arguing that
women’s and men’s styles of conversations differ (rather than one being
better or more dominant) as they belong to different sub-cultures
with different conversational practices that we are socialised into in
our childhoods. This ‘cultural difference’ approach to language and
gender studies also offered explanations for conversational problems
or ‘miscommunication’ in mixed-sex interaction without positioning
women as victims of male dominance. It is a model that has remained
highly popular in non-academic writing, particularly for self-help
books on what is perceived as almost inevitable miscommunication
between women and men, whereas within the field of language and
gender, it has been heavily criticised. Of course, interest in same-sex
talk continues up to the present day, although the collaboration vs.
competition binary has been challenged by a number of studies (see
Chapter 5).

Women’s talk and conversational collaboration

Sociolinguistic research until the 1970s was androcentric, just like
early dialect studies which completely excluded women as informants.
Famous early sociolinguistic studies, such as William Labov’s (1977)
pioneering study of the Black English Vernacular of inner-city
adolescents in the USA, also only focused on male adolescents.
Deborah Jones was the first scholar to address the topic of all-women
talk in 1980.
Jones (1990) concentrates on one particular aspect of female language
use: gossip. She challenges the still very prevalent androcentric view of
gossip as trivial, mindless and aimless, re-evaluating it as a significant
and effective linguistic practice. Jones argues that gossip:
• provides informal training for the female role, regarding, for
example, traditional tasks in the home
• allows women to establish and monitor norms, including sexist
moral codes about women’s behaviour that are internalised by
women and men alike
• constitutes a verbal means to show support and solidarity through
‘mutual self-disclosure’, that is, by sharing feelings through mirroring
each other’s experiences.
However, Jones’s paper does not offer many details on formal features
of gossip; indeed, her paper does not draw on any empirical research.
Jennifer Coates (2011) aimed to develop Jones’s ideas on the basis of
empirical research on all women’s talk.

Activity
Read ‘Gossip revisited: language in all-female groups’ by Coates (2011), and
consider her examples of women using simultaneous speech in a collaborative
way. Why is the term ‘interruption’ not appropriate when referring to these
examples? What do these examples show us with regard to the multi-
functionality of linguistic forms or strategies such as simultaneous speech?

43
Language and Gender

In her paper on gossip, as well as her later monograph Women Talk

(1996), Coates argues that the function of the talk of women friends is
to establish and maintain social relationships. The formal conversational
features that Coates discusses in her influential research on all-women
talk include topic development, hedging, questions, minimal responses,
repetition and collaborative turn-taking. On the basis of her in-depth
analysis of a range of these features Coates concludes that women’s talk
is highly cooperative, or, as she refers to it in later research, collaborative.
Topic development. Women cover a wide range of topics, usually
related to personal experiences and other people (Coates, 1996, 2011).
Topic development in women’s talk tends to be smooth, rather than
erratic, with speakers building on each other’s contributions. The
following schema of topic development was developed by Coates on
the basis of her research on women’s talk.
1. A introduces topic
2. B tells anecdote on the same theme
3. C tells another anecdote on same theme leading to
4. general discussion
5. D summarises
6. A has last word
Hedging. Women use hedges such as ‘I mean’, ‘I think’, ‘just’, ‘you know’
‘sort of’, ‘well’ for various purposes. Hedges allow women to signal
their sensitivity to the feelings of others, to establish closeness when
negotiating sensitive topics or revealing very intimate experiences.
Also, the use of hedges makes it possible for women to avoid playing
the expert when giving their opinion (Coates, 1996, pp.154–67).
Questions. Like hedges, women’s use of questions allows them to
do important friendship work. According to Coates, women’s talk
contains few examples of information seeking (or speaker-oriented)
questions. On the contrary, women’s questions are other-oriented;
they are employed to maintain the flow of the conversation and
signal collaboration by framing opinions as questions rather than as
assertions. Coates found that rhetorical question were used by women
friends to express general truths, shared by the entire group. Tag
questions frequently allowed women to signal that their utterance was
representative of the entire group’s view (Coates, 1996, pp.191–96).
Minimal responses. Women use minimal responses such as ‘mhm’,
‘yes’ or ‘yeah’ very frequently in order to signal their attention to and
support for each other (Coates, 2004, p.87). Coates (2011, p.209) found
that in all-female discussion sessions, the use of minimal responses
signalled ‘the listener’s active participation’, whereas in narratives
minimal responses occurred not only less frequently but also with a
different meaning, as a sign of agreement.
Repetition. Coates found a high occurrence of repetition in women’s
talk. Her analysis shows that lexical, semantic, syntactic and thematic
repetition not only creates a high level of coherence in women’s talk
but also signals solidarity by ‘affirming the group voice’ (Coates, 1996,
Chapter 9).

44
 Chapter 4: Same-sex talk and the difference approach

Collaborative turn-taking. One of the most interesting features of

women's talk is the ‘collaborative floor’. According to Coates (1996,
pp.117–51), women’s conversational collaboration is expressed in the
form of jointly constructed and frequently simultaneous utterances,
by shared searches for a word as well as by utterance endings that
are left to be anticipated by the hearer rather than completed by the
speaker. Whereas previous research of conversational turn-taking had
highlighted that occurrences of simultaneous speech are rare and
brief (Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson, 1974), Edelsky (1993) and Coates
(1996) argue that preference or lack of preference for simultaneous
speech may be gendered. On the basis of her conversational data,
Coates suggests that simultaneous speech is very common and does
not disturb the conversational flow. She uses the metaphor of a ‘jam
session’, describing the talk of women friends as:
... a joint effort. All participants share in the construction of
talk in the strong sense that they don’t function as individual
speakers. In other words, the group takes priority over the
individual and the women’s voices combine (or meld) to
construct a shared text.
(Coates, 1996, p.117, italics in original)
She shows that women friends complete each other’s utterances:

Example 1

(Coates, 1996, p.118)

Frequently two or more speakers collaborate and speak at the same

time in their search for the right word, a collaboration which tends to
involve simultaneous speech:

Example 2

(Coates, 1996, p.121)

Example 3

(Coates, 1996, p.125)

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Language and Gender

On a content level, Coates (1996) found plenty of evidence of self-

disclosure in the talk of women friends. She argues that self-disclosure
makes people vulnerable but it also gives them the opportunity to
find out about similar experiences and feelings shared by their friends,
and allows groups to show their support and solidarity (Coates, 1996,
p.89). By contrast, self-disclosure is rare in conversations between
male friends (Coates, 1996, 2003). Coates’ (2003, p.118) quantitative
comparison shows that women self-disclose in 33 per cent and men
only in 9 per cent of their first-person stories. However, not only do
women self-disclose more often than men, but their self-disclosures are
usually also mirrored by other speakers. Coates (1996, p.61) therefore
concludes that mirrored self-disclosure is unique to women’s talk, as
men do not respond to a friend’s self-disclosure with another one of
their own.
Thus Coates’s (1996, 1999) findings show that the talk of white, middle-
class women is characterised by collaboration and by a display of
sensitivity for the needs of the other speakers.

Activity
Now consider the following extract from Coates (1996) p.198. There are
five speakers in the group: Meg, Mary, Jen, Bea and Sally, and their topic of
conversation here turns to child abuse. Find examples of the formal features listed
above and discuss their function.

Example 4

46
 Chapter 4: Same-sex talk and the difference approach

Men’s talk and conversational competition

Several of the language and gender studies in the 1980s that sought
to compare all-female and all-male talk supported the notion that the
former is collaborative and the latter is competitive.
Coates (1997, 2003) also investigated men’s talk, concluding that the
men in her study prefer a ‘one-at-a-time floor’ rather than a ‘collaborative
floor’ as Coates’s female speakers did. Men did not produce as much
simultaneous speech as women; they also did not participate in
collaborative ‘jam sessions’ that included mutual self-disclosure. In fact,
Coates (2003) found evidence to suggest that men did not appear to be
as comfortable with conversations that produced simultaneous speech.
This can be explained by men’s desire to ‘play the expert’, to engage in
long monologues that frequently highlight personal achievement or
boast about getting themselves into trouble. Hand in hand with this
preference for a one-at-a time floor, Coates found a lack of preference
for personal topics, which, in turn, affected some of the formal features
of conversational interaction, for example the use of hedges, as less
personal topics require fewer face-saving (or politeness) strategies.
At times Coates has been accused of being too ‘essentialist’ in her
claims about the gender differences in conversational style, that is, of
presenting women’s and men’s way of talking as two homogenous
varieties directly opposed to one another (Benwell and Stokoe, 2006,
but see Holmes, 2011, p.602 for a counter-critique and a defence of the
word ‘essentialism’). However, Coates is certainly not alone in providing
data and arguments which support the ‘collaborative’ vs ‘competitive’
dichotomy. For example, Labov (1977) and Cheshire (1991) show how
verbal duelling and abusive language is central to displays of solidarity
in all-male groups.
Goodwin (1990, 2011) also finds evidence of male competition and
female cooperation in children’s playful interactions. Goodwin carried
out a one-and-a-half-year long ethnographic study of black working
class boys and girls, observing them and recording their conversations
as they were playing in the streets of West Philadelphia in the USA. Her
ethnographic observations revealed that boys' groups are structured
more hierarchically with leaders and girls’ groups have a more
‘egalitarian’ friendship structure.
Goodwin (2011) investigates how 10 to 13-year-old children use
directives while carrying out task-activities (boys: building slingshots
from hangers; girls: making rings out of rims of glass bottles). When
speakers use directives, they want to get the addressee to do something
for them; however, there are different ways of performing directives,
ranging from aggravated/bold imperatives to very mitigated requests
that look like suggestions or questions. Goodwin found clear gender
differences in the use of directives. In the boys’ groups, leaders used
unmitigated directives to make a suggestion and non-leaders made
requests for information. In the girls’ groups, directives tended to be
phrased as proposals for future action, such as ‘let’s’; directives were
mitigated by hedges such as ‘maybe’, and by modal verbs such as ‘can/
could’. When imperatives were used, they were often accompanied by
accounts, which also functioned as mitigation.
47
Language and Gender

However, Goodwin is careful to point out that girls are in fact capable
of issuing bold imperatives, and they do so when this is beneficial
for the addressee (for example, when the safety of a group member
is at stake), and when acting in different roles: for example, as
‘mothers’ when playing ‘house’ (in this context girls show awareness
of hierarchical structures in the family). So although to some extent
Goodwin’s research provides supporting evidence for the claim that
boys adopt a competitive and girls a collaborative conversational
style, she concludes by highlighting that girls’ capability of producing
unmitigated directives contradicts claims that girls avoid direct
competition and negotiation. Gendered language use needs to be
considered in relation to the specific interactional context (for example,
girls playing ‘house’).
For a full discussion of these interesting data and findings on girls’ and
boys’ talk, see Goodwin (2011).

The difference approach and cross-sex miscommunication

The dichotomy of female collaboration vs male competition is very
much at the heart of what has become known as the ‘difference
approach’ or the ‘cultural difference’ model. This approach was first put
forward by anthropologists Daniel Maltz and Ruth Borker in the early
1980s, using John Gumperz’s framework for investigating intercultural
communication (Maltz and Borker, 2011).
Gumperz’s research investigated how cultural differences between, for
example, Anglo and Asian/Indian speakers conversing in English can
lead to miscommunication, as both parties have different expectations
and interpretations of conversational strategies and cues such as
rising intonation, minimal responses and turn-taking. Maltz and Borker
argue that in analogy to John Gumperz’s findings, gender differences
in communicative behaviour also are a reflection of the two different
subcultures men and women belong to. Drawing on previous social
psychological and sociolinguistic studies, such as Goodwin’s (1990),
they argue that girls and boys tend to socialise more in single-sex
groups when they are children. Girls establish friendship through talk
and avoid aggressive encounters, whereas boys’ groups are arranged
more hierarchically, and speech is used to assert dominance. These
differences in the way in which boys and girls interact with their friends
are, according to Maltz and Borker, carried over into adulthood, where
they are responsible for the different ‘sub-cultural’ conversational rules/
styles of women and men which can result in miscommunication. One
such example of miscommunication, cited by Maltz and Borker, is that
women interpret minimal responses as signs of active listenership and
men as signals of agreement. If you would like to find out more about
this example, read Maltz and Borker (2011).
To sum up, the cultural difference approach argues that women use a
collaborative/cooperative and men a competitive conversational ‘style’.
Attributing conversational style to cultural difference moves away from
the deficit and dominance approaches that are perceived as positioning
women as weak/victims of male oppression. This approach is seen as
a positive ‘celebration’ of difference and has served as an explanatory
framework for many same-sex studies of conversational style.
48
 Chapter 4: Same-sex talk and the difference approach

One of the most famous proponents of this approach is Deborah

Tannen, a linguist with great interest in both cross-cultural and
gendered conversational style. In addition to her scholarly work she
also published popular books like You Just Don’t Understand (1992) in
which she views ‘miscommunication’ between men and women as
arising out of different orientations to ‘power’ and ‘solidarity’.

Activity
Read the chapter ‘Asymmetries: women and men talking at cross-purposes’ by
Tannen (2011) and answer the following questions:
1. In what way are Tannen’s arguments representative of (an extreme version) of
the difference approach?
2. What arguments would you present in a critique of Tannen?

Tannen’s work has been strongly criticised by many feminist linguists.

One of the fiercest critics is Senta Troemel-Ploetz (2011, pp.527), who
argues that it is problematic to think of women and men belonging to
different sub-cultures and that Tannen’s work ‘trivializes our experience
of injustice and conversational dominance; it disguises power
differences; it conceals who has to adjust’.

Activity
Read Troemel-Ploetz’s (2011) critique of Tannen’s work. Sum up her arguments
and consider your own view.

Deconstructing the ‘competitive’/’collaborative’ dichotomy

During the last 20 years many language and gender studies have
provided evidence which goes some way to challenge or at least
deconstruct the binary opposition between cooperation and
competition and female vs. male conversational style. Like the
dominance approach, the difference approach can treat women and
men as homogenous groups, implicitly or explicitly suggesting that all
women and all men speak in the same way, that there is such a thing as
‘women’s conversational style’ and ‘men’s conversational style’.
Sally Johnson and Frank Finlay (1997), as well as Deborah Cameron
(2011), show that gossip is not an all-female speech genre, and that
male gossip is similar in form and function to female gossip; it serves
a similar purpose: nurturing intimacy and solidarity. Penelope Eckert
(1993) and Roger Hewitt (1997) show that boys and girls use features
of collaboration as well as competition in their talk. Cameron’s (2011)
research on the talk of young, male US college students also finds that
the competitive/cooperative dichotomy is not adequate to describe
her data. On the one hand, she finds that the young men use a large
number of hedges such as ‘you know’ and ‘like’ which may (but do not
have to – see Chapter 2) be used to mitigate the force of utterances in
collaborative talk. Her data also contains further evidence of features
frequently listed in studies on collaborative women’s talk, for example
simultaneous speech and latching. When one speaker latches onto
the previous utterance without overlapping with the previous speaker
it shows that she/he has predicted the end of the previous speaker’s
turn with extreme precision, which is only possible when speakers are
49
Language and Gender

paying very close attention to what is being said. On the other hand,
there are also clear signs of a competitive verbal style, documented by
interruptions, open contradictions and competitive jokes.

Activity
You should now read Cameron’s (2011) critique of the competitive-collaborative
dichotomy in her paper on young men’s talk. We will return to this paper again
in Chapter 5 when we consider the social constructionist or performative
approach to language and gender, which, in many ways, offers a critique of more
essentialist claims about women’s and men’s language style as ‘collaborative’ vs.
‘competitive’.

This does not mean that there are not very dominant cultural norms
about masculinity and femininity that are reflected in language use.
However, some of the more recent research that we will deal with in
Chapter 5 suggests that these cultural norms are less noticeable at the
level of conversational style than on the level of discourse, that is, the
ideologies that influence the way that people speak or think about
certain topics. Thus, for example, both Deborah Cameron (2011) and
Scott Kiesling (2011) show how important displays of heterosexuality
are for male US college students. These young men tend to present
themselves as traditionally male not only by using a competitive verbal
style, but even more so by boasting about female conquests and
fiercely distancing themselves from what they perceive as 'gay' or, in
other words, inappropriate masculinity.
It is, of course, also necessary to consider that not all women and
men speak in the same way, even if they are from a similar age and
educational background. For example, Nigel Edley and Margaret
Whetherell (1997) investigate the talk of two groups of 17 to18-year old
middle-class male students. They found that one group of young men,
labelled the ‘the Common room guys’, built their identity in opposition
to the hard, ‘chauvinist’ masculinity of the ‘sporty or hard lads’. These
‘Common room guys’ identified themselves as ‘wimps’ but at the same
time praised mental strength over physical strength, thus redefining
being a ‘wimps’ as the new dominant masculinity in their group. For an
account of an alternative young feminine identity, see Mary Bucholtz’s
research on nerd girls (2011), which we will also discuss in Chapter 5.

Learning outcomes
After working through this chapter and having done a substantial
amount of reading on the topic you should:
• have an understanding of the conversational strategies and
functions that have been associated with either a collaborative or a
competitive conversational style
• have developed a critical understanding of the multi-functionality
of conversational features, for example, of the fact that
simultaneous speech can either function as an interruption, or as a
form of collaboration

50
 Chapter 4: Same-sex talk and the difference approach

• be able to discuss the difference approach to language and gender

critically, contrasting it with other explanatory frameworks
• have read and reflected on a range of empirical studies on all-men’s
talk
• have read and reflected on a range of empirical studies on all-
women’s talk

Sample examination questions

1. What is the evidence for and against claims that women use a
collaborative conversational style and men a competitive verbal
style?
2. Do only women gossip? What functions does gossip fulfil? Refer to
empirical research in your answer.
3. Critically discuss the ‘difference model’ in language and gender
research, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses with respect to
theory and empirical research.
4. How does a collaborative floor differ from a one-at-a time floor?
What is the evidence to support or challenge claims that these two
types of floor are gendered?
5. Why and to what extent are some of the claims made by popular
literature about male-female miscommunication problematic from
a feminist linguistic perspective?
6. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the deficit, difference and
dominance approach? Do we need to favour one over the other?

51
Language and Gender

Notes

52
 Chapter 5: Constructing gender and sexual identities

Chapter 5: Constructing gender and sexual identities

Essential reading
Bucholtz, M. ‘Why be normal? Language and identity practices in a
community of nerd girls’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.224–35.
Cameron, D. ‘Performing gender identity: young men’s talk and the
construction of heterosexual masculinity’ in Coates and Pichler (eds)
(2011) pp.250–62.
Eckert, P. ‘Gender and Sociolinguistic variation’ in Coates and Pichler (eds)
(2011) pp.27–37.
Eckert, P. and S. McConnell-Ginet (2011) ‘Communities of Practice: where
language, gender and power all live’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011)
pp.573–82.
Pichler, P. ‘Hybrid or in between cultures: traditions of marriage in a group of
British Bangladeshi girls’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.236–49.

Further reading
Please choose some of the suggestions for further reading from this
section. We have indicated particularly relevant and/or accessible
chapters with an asterisk (*).
Barrett, R. (2011) ‘Indexing polyphonous identity in the speech of African
American drag queens’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.413–29.
Bucholtz, M. and K. Hall ‘Theorizing identity in language and sexuality
research’, Language in Society 33, 2004, pp.469–515.
Cameron, D. ‘Relativity and its discontents: language, gender, and
pragmatics’, Intercultural Pragmatics 2–3, 2005, pp.321–34.
Cameron, D. and D. Kulick Language and Sexuality. (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003) [ISBN 9780521009690].
Cameron, D. and D. Kulick (eds) The Language and Sexuality Reader.
(London: Routledge, 2006) [ISBN 9780415363075].
Coates, J. Women, Men and Language. (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2004)
third edition [ISBN 0582771862] Chapter 12 ‘New developments in
language and gender research’.
* Coates, J. ‘Changing femininities: the talk of teenage girls’ in Bucholtz, M.
et al. (eds) Reinventing Identities: The Gendered Self in Discourse. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1999) [ISBN 9780195126303].
* Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) Part 6 ‘Language, gender and sexuality’.
*Eckert, P. and S. McConnell-Ginet ‘New generalizations and explanations in
language and gender research’, Language in Society 28, 1999, pp.185–201.
*Eckert, P. and McConnell-Ginet. Language and Gender. (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003) [ISBN 0521654262] Chapter 1 ‘Constructing,
deconstructing and reconstructing gender’, Chapter 9 ‘Fashioning selves’.
*Eckert, P. and S. McConnell-Ginet ‘Constructing meaning, constructing
selves: Snapshots of language, gender and class from Belten High’ in
Hall, K. and M. Bucholtz (eds) Gender Articulated: Language and the
Socially Constructed Self. (New York: Routledge, 1995)
[ISBN 9780415913997] pp.469–508.
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Language and Gender

*Goodwin, M. ‘The relevance of ethnicity, class and gender in children’s

peer negotiation’ in Holmes, J. and M. Meyerhoff (eds) The Handbook of
Language and Gender. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004) [ISBN 9780631225034].
Goodwin, M.H. He-said-she-said: Talk as Social Organisation among
Black Children. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990)
[ISBN 9780253206183].
Goodwin, M. The Hidden Life of Girls: Games of Stance, Status, and Exclusion.
(Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006) [ISBN 9780631234258].
Hall, K. ‘Boys’ talk: Hindi, moustaches and masculinity’ in Coates and Pichler
(eds) (2011) pp.384–400.
Hall, K. and M. Bucholtz (eds) Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially
Constructed Self. (Longman, 1995) [ISBN 9780582226319].
*Holmes, J. ‘Social constructionism, postmodernism and feminist
sociolinguistics’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.600–10.
Leap, William 'Queering gay men's English' in Coates and Pichler (eds)
(2011) pp.401–12.
*McElhinny, B. ‘Theorizing gender in sociolinguistics and linguistic
anthropology’ in Holmes, J. and M. Meyerhoff (eds) The Handbook of
Language and Gender. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003) [ISBN 9780631225034].
Pichler, P. Talking Young Femininities. (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)
[ISBN 9780230013285].
Sauntson, H. and S. Kyratzis (eds) (2007) Language, Sexualities and Desires:
Crosscultural Perspectives. (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)
[ISBN 9781403933270].
*Sunderland, J. Gendered Discourses. (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)
[ISBN 1403913455] especially Chapter 1 ‘Discourse, discourse analysis
and gender’, pp.5–26.

References
Bergvall, V. ‘Toward a comprehensive theory of language and gender’,
Language in Society 28, 1999, pp.273–93.
Coates, J. Women Talk: Conversation between Women Friends. (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1996) [ISBN 9780631195955].
Bucholtz, M. and K. Hall ‘Theorizing identity in language and sexuality
research’, Language in Society 33, 2004, pp.469–515.
Butler, J. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. (New York:
Routledge, 1990) [ISBN 9780415900430].
Eder, D. ‘Serious and playful disputes: variation in conflict talk among
female adolescents’ in Grimshaw, A. (ed.) Conflict Talk. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990) [ISBN 0521335507] pp.67–84.
Eder, D. ‘Go get ya a french!’: romantic and sexual teasing among
adolescent girls’ in Tannen, D. (ed.) Gender and Conversational
Interaction. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993)
[ISBN 9780195081947] pp.17–31.
Hasund, I. K. and A.-B. Stenström ‘Conflict talk: a comparison of the
verbal disputes between adolescent females in two corpora’, Corpus-
based studies in English. Papers from the Seventeenth International
Conference on English Language Research on Computerized Corpora.
(Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997) pp.119–133.

54
 Chapter 5: Constructing gender and sexual identities

Kiesling, S. ‘Playing the straight man: displaying and maintaining male

heterosexuality in discourse’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011)
pp.275–86.
Kulick, D. ‘Gay and lesbian language’, Annual Revue of Anthropology 29,
2000(a), pp.243–85.
Kulick, D. ‘No’, Language and Communication 23, 2000(b), pp.139–51.
Kulick, D. ‘Language and desire’ in Holmes, J. and M. Meyerhoff (eds) The
Handbook of Language and Gender. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004)
[ISBN 063122503X] pp.119–41.
Labov, W. The Social Stratification of English in New York City. (Washington
DC: Centre for Applied Linguistics, 1966).
Labov, W. Principles of Linguistic Change: Social Factors. (Oxford: Blackwell,
2001) [ISBN 1405112158].
Lakoff, R. Language and Woman´s Place. (New York: Harper & Row, 1975)
[ISBN 0060903899].
Milroy, L. Language and Social Networks. (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1987)
second edition [ISBN 9780631153146].
Ochs, E. ‘Indexing gender’ in Duranti, A. and C. Goodwin (eds) Rethinking
Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992) [ISBN 0521422884] pp.335–58.
Romaine, S. ‘Variation in language and gender’ in Holmes, J. and M.
Meyerhoff (eds) The Handbook of Language and Gender. (Oxford:
Blackwell, 2003) [ISBN 063122503X] pp.98–118.
Shain, F. The Schooling and Identity of Asian Girls. (Stoke on Trent: Trentham
Books, 2003) [ISBN 1858561817].
Skeggs, B. Formations of Class and Gender. (London: Sage, 1997)
[ISBN 0761955127].
Trudgill, P. The Social Differentiation of English in Norwich. (London:
Cambridge University Press, 1974) [ISBN 9780521202640].
Trudgill, P. ‘Sex and Covert Prestige’ in Coates and Pichler (2011).
Wenger, E. Communities of Practice. (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1998) [ISBN 0521663636].
Wolfram, W. A Sociolinguistic Description of Detroit Negro Speech.
(Washington DC: Centre for Applied Linguistics, 1969).

Introduction
In this chapter we will focus on ways of thinking about language and
gender that have dominated the last decades in the field. First we will
consider why it is problematic to make generalisations about ‘women’s
speech’ or ‘men’s speech’. Gender can interact with many other social
aspects of speakers’ identities, for example, with their ethnic, social
class and age background. Gender is also influenced by the practices
and views of smaller groups that individuals are members of, such as
their families, friendship or other ‘Communities of Practice’ (CofP) they
belong to.
The so-called ‘social constructionist’ model, which we introduce in this
chapter, allows researchers to highlight this heterogeneity of gender,
the fact that not all women and men use language in the same way. It
is sometimes seen as the fourth phase in language and gender studies,
following deficit, dominance and difference models (see Chapters 2 to 4).
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Language and Gender

We will also consider concepts such as ‘indexicality’ and ‘discourse’,

which are central to current thinking about language and gender.
Several empirical studies will be introduced, including a linguistic study
of US ‘nerd’ girls, of British Bangladeshi girls and of male US college
students.

Situated and sociocultural gender identities

Traditional sociolinguistic studies show that the use of standard
grammar and pronunciation varies not only according to social class
but also according to gender, or ‘sex’, as this was the term used at the
time (Labov 1966, 2001; Trudgill 1974, 2011; Wolfram 1969). Moreover,
these two variables interact with one another. For example, Peter
Trudgill (1974) showed that speakers who were most likely to use non-
standard pronunciation (for example, ‘walkin’, ‘laughin’) were working-
class men, whereas women from middle-class backgrounds were most
likely to use standard pronunciation (‘walking’, ‘laughing’).
This correlation between standard language use, gender and social
class is also very clear in Walt Wolfram’s (1969) study of African
American English in Detroit. Within each social class it was men who
used more features of African American Vernacular English, such as the
zero copula (‘he bad’ instead of ‘he is bad)’.
More recent studies on standard forms of language have often
reiterated the finding that women use more standard forms (for
example, Nordberg and Sundgreen, 1999, cited in Romaine, 2003),
although others have pointed out that the picture is more complex,
and that we have to look at other factors that interact with gender,
depending on the type of ‘networks’ (Milroy, 1987) or ‘Communities
of Practice’ (Eckert, 2011; Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 1995, 2011)
that speakers belong to. For example, Penelope Eckert’s now famous
study on two Communities of Practice in a US high school in the 1980s
and 1990s shows that linguistic choices made by students are not
only due to their gender (Eckert, 2011; Eckert and McConnell-Ginet,
1995, 2011). The Jocks, who identify with school values and orient to
middle-classness, and the Burnouts, who resist school and middle-
class norms, use both linguistic and non-linguistic resources to signal
their group membership, with the former group frequently orienting
to more standard forms than the latter. Interestingly, however, Eckert
shows that Burnout girls can even outdo Burnout boys in their use of
non-standard features, as the girls have to rely on the symbolic capital
of their language choices to signal their toughness, whereas the boys
can and do rely on actual physical displays on toughness such as street
fights. So gender here interacts with the local identities of Jocks and
Burnouts.
When we think beyond the use of grammar and accent features
and focus on conversational practices, there are many more studies
that indicate that gender cannot be seen in isolation. For example,
Donna Eder’s (1990) research on disputes among 10–14-year-old
US middle-school children shows that working- and lower-class
girls engage predominantly in playful disputes (which do not aim at
conflict solution), whereas middle-class girls prefer serious disputes.

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Eder argues that rather than developing conflict-resolving skills

which would be considered to be polite by middle-class standards,
(ritual) insulting allows working-class girls to develop communicative
self-defence skills, required by the ‘toughness’ of the working-class
culture. Hasund and Stenström (1997, p.127) support Eder’s findings
and her conclusions on the basis of their data from the UK, showing
that middle-class girls make use of mitigated disagreement and give
accounts for their positions whereas most working-class girls engage in
playful, unmitigated disputes. Like Eder (1990), Hasund and Stenström
(1997) argue that dominant middle-class femininities for girls (and
women) prescribe niceness and politeness, whereas working-class girls
have to balance their display of friendship with a display of toughness.

Activity
Does this mean that factors such as social class, ethnicity or age pre-determine
the language use of women and men? For example, do all adult black British
middle-class women speak the same? Why not?

Pichler (2009) shows how two groups of British working-class girls

differ considerably in their linguistic displays of toughness. Tough
teasing is an important practice in a group of British Bangladeshi girls
whereas this is not the case in a group of white English/Irish girls from
the same school and social class background. Pichler (2009) p.123
suggests that:
The Bangladeshi girls in this group do not use teasing or
present themselves as rebellious and anti-school because
they are working class girls but because they use it as a
resource to accomplish tough femininities, which are valued
in the context of their peer group at school. [….] for Ardiana
and her friends a display of tough and anti-school stances in
fact offers alternative subject positions, locating them in stark
opposition to the stereotype of the timid, quiet and studious
Asian girl (Shain, 2003).
The other group of working-class girls from the same school (but from
a different form group) appeared more concerned with orienting to
discourses of what Beverley Skeggs (1997) describes as respectable
middle-class femininity than with relying on this strategy of tough
verbal teasing.

Activity
Eder (1990) and Hasund and Stenström (1997) as well as Pichler (2009) show that
gender interacts with social class, but Pichler’s explanation is very much framed
by social constructionist thinking. Using the quotation from Pichler and from
what you have read so far, try to explain the relationship between language,
gender and other social variables from a social constructionist approach. Then
check with the explanation offered in the following section.

The conversational practices of women and men also vary depending

on the age of the speaker. Jennifer Coates’s longitudinal study follows
the self-recorded conversations of four British girls from the age of 12
to 15. Her aim was to observe if and how the gender identities of these
girls changed as they grow up. This change was noticeable on various

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levels; for example, Coates noted that when the girls are 12 years old
they change their topics rapidly, interrupt each other, express their
disagreement openly and produce few supportive minimal responses.
By the time they are 14 years old they seem to have appropriated
conversational behaviour that has frequently been associated with
adult white middle-class British women, sustaining one topic over
several minutes, producing many minimal responses and supportive
rather than disruptive overlaps (Coates, 1999, pp.133–36).

Activity
Compare the following two extracts from the girls’ talk from Coates (1999). Which
one is likely to represent the girls’ talk when they were younger, and which one
when they were older? Give reasons to support your choice. For transcription
conventions return to Chapter 2. Remember, for example, that all the words that
are aligned within one stave indicate simultaneous speech. The square brackets
capture the exact onset and end of the simultaneous speech.

Extract 1

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 Chapter 5: Constructing gender and sexual identities

Extract 2

Extract 2 contains a sample of the girls' talk when they are older. As Coates
(1999, p.136) sums up: 'The girls don't change topic frequently any longer, this
turn-taking is now very collaborative, with frequent use of minimal responses,
supportive simultaneous talk and hedges'.

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Language and Gender

Community of Practice (CofP)

Whereas earlier quantitative sociolinguistic studies were interested
in making generalisations about the language use of ‘women’ or
‘working-class speakers’, or ‘speech communities’, many sociolinguists
have since found that within these larger groups there is considerable
heterogeneity of linguistic and other practice. The Community of
Practice approach (CofP) has been adopted for language and gender
studies by Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet (2011) and
directs our focus to more local contexts of language use, without, it is
claimed, denying the influence of larger-scale sociocultural categories.
They argue that people are members of various Communities of
Practice, which influence our way of behaving, talking and thinking,
and ultimately also our ways of being feminine or masculine. The
following quotation defines the concept and its relationship to gender:
A Community of Practice is an aggregate of people who
come together around mutual engagement in some
common endeavour. Ways of doing things, ways of talking,
beliefs, values, power relations – in short, practices – emerge
in the course of their joint activity around that endeavour.
[…]
A Community of Practice might be people working together
in a factory, regulars in a bar, a neighbourhood play group,
a nuclear family, police partners and their ethnographers,
the Supreme Court. […] Individuals participate in multiple
Communities of Practice, and individual identity is based in
the multiplicity of this participation. […]
(Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2011, pp.578–79)
Gender is produced (and often reproduced) in differential membership
in Communities of Practice. People’s access and exposure to, need for,
and interest in different Communities of Practice are related to such
things as their class, age, and ethnicity, as well as their gender.

Activity
After reading Eckert and McConnell-Ginet’s chapter ‘Communities of Practice:
where language, gender and power all live’ consider which Communities of
Practice you are a member of. What are the non-linguistic and linguistic practices
that define these CofPs? Are you aware of how your membership in these
Communities of Practice influences you? In what way may it affect how you
present yourself as either masculine or feminine?

One Community of Practice that has been investigated by Bucholtz

(2011) in the context of US high schools is the community of nerd girls.
Unlike the Jocks (students identifying with school and middle-class
values) and the Burnouts (students resisting school and middle-class
values) in Eckert’s famous study of US high school CofPs, ‘nerds’ do not
seek coolness and define themselves in opposition to both Jocks and
Burnouts.
Bucholtz lists a range of linguistic identity practices adopted by the
nerd girls she studied:

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Table 5.1

Linguistic level Negative identity practices Positive identity practices

Phonology Resistance to colloquial Employment of
phonological processes superstandard and
such as vowel reduction, hypercorrect phonological
consonant-cluster forms […]
simplification, and
contraction
Syntax Avoidance of non-standard Adherence to standard and
syntactic forms superstandard syntactic
forms
Lexicon Avoidance of current slang Employment of lexical items
associated with the formal
register (for example, Greco-
Latinate forms)
Discourse Orientation to language
form (for example, punning,
parody, word coinage)

Table adapted from Bucholtz (2011, p.226). Note that ‘discourse’ is used
differently in this table from how it is used in the remainder of this
chapter. Bucholtz uses it here to refer to discourse or language/style.
As this list of features shows, nerd girls aim for standard grammatical
and pronunciation forms and witty use of language (for example,
puns). These linguistic practices (together with a range of non-linguistic
practices such as their choice of books, clothing and leisure-time
activities) allow the girls to ‘construct’ a nerd identity which, in many
ways, stands in opposition to dominant models of young femininity.
As Bucholtz (2011, p.227) argues, ‘[f ]or girls, nerd identity also offers an
alternative to the pressures of hegemonic femininity – an ideological
construct that is at best incompatible with, and at worst hostile to,
female intellectual ability’. Reading Bucholtz’s chapter will allow you
to develop your understanding of the language practices and identity
work carried out by nerd girls.
This notion that speakers use linguistic and other resources to
‘construct’ their identities is central to the social constructionist
approach to gender, which we consider in the following section.

The social constructionist approach

This approach, which is variously named as ‘social constructionist’ (for
example, Holmes, 2011), ‘postmodern’ (for example, Cameron, 2005),
‘performative’ (Butler, 1990), and ‘dynamic’ (Coates, 2004), highlights
not only the heterogeneity but also the agency of (gendered)
speakers. It argues that we do not speak the way we do because we are
determined by our gender (or social class, ethnicity and age). Instead,
we use various grammatical, accent and conversational features as
well as discourses (see below) to ‘construct’ our gender identities. For
example, in many cultural contexts swearing is seen as very unfeminine

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(although many women, do, of course, swear). So, we could say that
a woman who wants to present or construct herself as feminine in a
traditional sense may choose to avoid swearing. Equally, if we would
like to construct an alternative (resistant or perhaps simply tough or
cool) feminine identity, women may choose to swear more, use more
non-standard grammatical or accent features.
This approach attempts to move away from ‘gender dichotomy’, that
is, binary and static notions of gender, which have frequently been
labelled ‘essentialist’ (but see critiques of the negative connotations
of ‘essentialist’ in Holmes, 2011). Instead, the ‘social constructionist
approach’ links language and gender studies to postmodern thinking
on identity as something that is not predetermined and fixed but
constructed. Linguists are, unsurprisingly, particularly interested in
the language resources that speakers use for these constructions of
gender identities, although individuals can use many other modalities,
including clothing, hairstyle as well as body posture and movement.

Activity
Does this mean that ‘anything goes’, that is, that speakers can and do choose to
present themselves exactly as they wish? Consider the following quotation from
Judith Butler (1990) to answer these questions. ‘Gender is the repeated stylization
of the body, a set of repeated acts within a rigid regulatory frame which congeal
over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a ‘natural’ kind of being
(Butler, 1990, p.33)’. You will first have to reflect on what Butler means when she
speaks of a ‘rigid regulatory frame’ and of ‘acts […] which congeal over time to
produce the appearance of […] a ‘natural’ kind of being’.

This is a famous quotation from Butler which highlights the

performative or socially/culturally constructed rather than essential/
biological nature of gender. Certain acts or practices are repeatedly
‘chosen’ by speakers to stylise or constitute/construct themselves as
either feminine or masculine, so that, in time, it seems that women
and men naturally behave the way they do. However, our ‘choice’
is made from within a rigid framework of dominant ideologies and
other sociocultural or even political boundaries that ‘regulate’ what
constitutes appropriate gender practice. So, to return to our focus
on language and our example of swearing, femininity is frequently
associated with lack of swearing. Women may choose to swear, but
their choice is restrained by dominant ideologies which stigmatise
women who swear as unfeminine, laddish, etc. So, when women
(subconsciously) comply with this dominant ideology and avoid
swearing, they perform or construct femininity; in fact, over time,
lack of swearing almost becomes seen as ‘naturally’ feminine. Note
that ‘performance’ here does not imply that a speaker pretends to be
somebody they are not, it simply highlights that gender is not ‘natural’
or ‘biological’.

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Indexicality
For language and gender scholars, the question about which linguistic
‘acts’ or practices constitute gender is an important one. Elinor Ochs
highlights that it is very rare for language features to ‘index’ gender
directly:
…the relation between language and gender is not a simple
straightforward mapping of linguistic form to social meaning
of gender. Rather the relation of language and gender
is constituted and mediated by the relation of language
to stances, social acts, social activities, and other social
constructs.
(Ochs,1992, pp.336–37)
Ochs (1992, p.341) gives an example of this ‘indirect indexicality’
from Japanese, where linguistic features that index the stance ‘coarse
intensity’ are used to constitute a speaker as male, whereas features
which index ‘delicate intensity’ are associated with and therefore
position speakers as women. If we return to our example of swearing
this means that swearing itself does not constitute masculinity, but it
indexes first and foremost toughness or coarseness. On a second level
we can then argue that toughness and coarseness signal masculinity
(but also many other aspects of social identity, such as working-class
membership), so that a ‘performance’ of conventional femininity may
well be indexed by opposition to or lack of swearing.

Discourses
Linguistic resources are, however, not restricted to grammatical and
conversational features. Many language and gender scholars have
been particularly interested in what they refer to as ‘discourses’. There
are many different definitions of ‘discourse’, but the way it is understood
here is as an ideology, a way of thinking and seeing the world, reflected
in language. For example, a speaker could be influenced very much
by dominant ideologies which see men as the breadwinner and not as
the prime carer of children. A careful, in-depth analysis of this speaker’s
talk about subjects such as work, parenting, or gender equality could
reveal a range of different discourses (that is, ways of speaking that
reflect ideologies) on masculinity, fatherhood, gender roles, etc. These
discourses shape the (gender) identities that individuals construct in
their spoken (and also written) language use.
Coates sums up this relation between discourse(s) and feminine gender
identity in the following way:
‘...there is no single unified way of doing femininity, of being
a woman. In the contemporary developed world, many
different versions of femininity are available to us. More
mainstream discourses position us in more conventional
ways, while more radical or subversive discourses offer
us alternative ways of being, alternative ways of doing
femininity. We are unwittingly involved in the ceaseless
struggle to define gender...’
(Coates, 1996, p.261)

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Language and Gender

Activity
There are many different discourses that speakers can draw on when they
speak about a topic; frequently these are competing discourses, that is, they
are informed by very different and even opposing ideologies. Read Pichler
(2011) ‘Hybrid or in between cultures: traditions of marriage in a group of British
Bangladeshi girls’ and study the following extract ‘Kissing in public’ from the same
group of friends. Then consider which (competing) discourses the four British
Bangladeshi girls draw on when they talk about traditions of marriage and kissing
in the street. What types of gender identities are the girls constructing on the
basis of these discourses?

Extract 3: ‘Kissing in public’

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 Chapter 5: Constructing gender and sexual identities

(Extract from Pichler, 2009, pp.208–13).

Language, gender and sexuality

The social constructionist approach to gender has been influenced
considerably by research from queer studies, which focuses on gay,
lesbian, bisexual and transsexual communities and problematises
binaries such as ‘man’ vs ‘woman’.
The beginnings of this interest in language and sexuality in many
ways mirror the beginnings of research and theory in language and
gender. Language and gender pioneer Robin Lakoff ’s (1975) concept of
‘women’s language’ has long since been criticised for signalling that all
women use language in the same way (see Chapter 2). Similarly, early
attempts by queer linguists to capture the essence of ‘homosexual
slang’ or ‘gayspeak’ or ‘gay men’s English’ have since been superseded
by research that does not aim to correlate specific linguistic features
with a speaker’s sexuality. For an overview of this early period of
language and sexuality theory and research see Part 1 and Part 2 of
Deborah Cameron and Don Kulick (2003), but see also William Leap
(2011) for a discussion of some of this early terminology.
A large body of recent work in language and sexuality explores
sexual identities from a constructionist approach. This research is
very much influenced by Judith Butler’s (1990) work on identity and
performativity (see above), highlighting that the way we use language
is not predetermined by our identities, but instead that we perform
or construct our identities flexibly (but now without constraint) by
drawing on certain linguistic features and styles.
One of the most famous studies, which has influenced language and
gender research to a great extent, is Rusty Barrett’s work on the way
African American drag queens use language features to perform a
range of identities. The gay men whose language use Barrett observed
during their work as drag queens in gay bars used a variety of speaking
styles, including a ‘white woman’s style’ as well as African American
Vernacular English and ‘gay male speech’ (Barrett, 2011, pp.422–23).
Their performances of identities as drag queens is thus a performance
of a multifaceted or, as Barrett calls is, ‘polyphonous’ identity, indexing
sexuality, gender, race and social class.
The interrelation of sexuality with a variety of other aspects of identity
is also evident in Kira Hall’s (2011) work on ‘Boys’ talk’ in New Delhi.
Hall explores how sexuality, masculinity and social class emerge in
the spoken interaction of a group of female Hindi-English speakers
who identify as ‘boys’. The boys are male-identified women who are
attracted to other women but who do not identify as lesbians. Instead
the boys ‘orient to the other-sex models of gender eroticism long
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Language and Gender

associated with rural India, aspiring to a semiotics of masculinity that

has sexual reassignment surgery as its endpoint’ (Hall, 2011, p.385). The
linguistic resources that the boys draw on in their local construction
of masculinity include their marked use of Hindi (rather than English)
for their discussion of sexuality, and their adversarial stance taking
(indexed by playful verbal competition, Bollywood villain intonation).
Hall’s rich ethnographic data shows how the local linguistic and
identity practices of the boys are informed by larger-scale ideological
association, for example, between Hindi and backwardness or even
crudeness (whereas English is associated with femininity and elite-
stances). Together with their strong orientation towards biological/
physical signs of male sexuality, such as the moustache, these resources
allow the ‘boys‘ to index an oppositional, non-elite class position which
aligns them with the traditional masculinity which is central to boy-
identity. Boy-identity is therefore a class-based and gendered sexuality
in this group.
Barrett and Hall’s work on the interrelation of language, sexuality,
gender and identity captures one of the main interests of queer
linguistics. Many of these studies on sexual identities have made
considerable contributions to the study of language and gender and to
our understanding of the relationship between gender and sexuality.
However, there are other foci in the study of language and sexuality,
exemplified by Don Kulick’s (2000a, b, 2004) work on sexual desire that
seeks to move away from a concern with identity.
Although Kulick (2000a, p.270) warns that research should not ‘vaporize
sexuality into gender’, his later collaboration with Deborah Cameron
acknowledges the strong link between sexuality and gender, arguing
that ‘while gender does not subsume sexuality, it is clear that no
absolute separation between them is possible. An investigation of
either will involve the other as well. Whenever sexuality is at issue,
gender is also at issue – and, importantly, vice versa’ (Cameron and
Kulick, 2003, p.142).
There has been a surge of publications on language and sexuality in
the new millennium, many of which have greatly influenced language
and gender (identity) theorisation by highlighting how identities are
flexible, multiple and multifaceted performances drawing on a range
of ideologies and linguistic styles in a variety of different situations
(Bucholtz and Hall, 2004; Cameron and Kulick, 2003, Cameron and
Kulick, 2006; Sauntson and Kyratzis, 2007).
Not all language and sexuality research explores the linguistic
construction of gay, lesbian and queer identities. A substantial
body of research problematises heterosexuality and/or explores the
performance of heterosexual identities in talk (for example, Cameron,
2011; Kiesling, 2011; Pichler, 2009). One of Deborah Cameron's
most famous papers captures not only the social constructionist
or performative approach to language and gender, but also the
relationship between gender and sexuality (Cameron, 2011).

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 Chapter 5: Constructing gender and sexual identities

Activity
Read Cameron’s (2011) chapter and then try to answer the following questions,
which will also be helpful in your summary of the main issues addressed in this
chapter.
• In what way does this chapter challenge traditional views on and approaches
to language and gender?
• What is performativity (see also Butler’s quote above)?
• Does the label ‘gay’ really mean ‘homosexuality’ when it is used by the young
men? What type of masculinity is being performed by the young men?
• How is this performance accomplished by them, that is, what linguistic and
discursive resources do they draw on?
• How do gender and sexuality interact in the identity-performance of these
young men?
• What is Cameron’s view of the notion of gendered conversational styles?
To answer these questions also consider the following extract and quotation
from the chapter: ‘[..] I hope it makes us think twice about the sort of analysis that
implicitly sees the meaning (and sometimes the value) of an interaction among
men or women primarily in the style, rather than the substance, of what is said’
(Cameron, 2011, p.261).

Extract 4: ‘The antithesis of man’

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Performative or social constructionist models of identity have been

very influential in language, gender and sexuality research. However,
models such as the deficit, dominance and difference approaches can
still offer useful explanatory frameworks, depending on the data that
you consider (see, for example, Chapter 6 on language and gender
in public settings). There is also considerable debate in language and
gender studies about how much agency individual speakers really
have, or how strong the regulatory framework that Butler refers to
really is (see above). The Community of Practice approach claims
to offer a balance between structure and agency, but many studies
aligning themselves with this approach actually focus more on local
rather than on larger-sale structures and ideologies (see Bergvall, 1999,
for a critique).

Learning outcomes
After working through this chapter and having done a substantial
amount of reading on the topic you should:
• have an understanding of the relationship between language,
gender and sexuality
• have an understanding of the relationship between language,
gender and other (sociocultural) aspects of identity, such as social
class, ethnicity and age
• be able to discuss the social constructionist approach to language
and gender critically, contrasting it with previous explanatory
frameworks
• have read and reflected on a range of Communities of Practice
(CofP) studies on language and gender
• have developed a critical understanding of concepts such as
‘indexicality’, ‘performativity’ and ‘discourse’.

Sample examination questions

1. How does gender interact with other sociocultural or situational
factors? Draw on (linguistic) theory and empirical studies in your
answer.
2. Critically discuss the ‘social constructionist’ approach to language
and gender, contrasting it with the ‘deficit’, ‘dominance’ and
‘difference’ approaches.
3. What, if anything, has the concept of ‘Community of Practice’
(CofP) to offer research on language and gender? Your answer
should contain substantial reference to at least two CofP studies on
language and gender.
4. What difficulties may analysts encounter when they seek to
investigate the relationship between linguistic resources (such as
grammatical, phonological, conversational features and different
discourses) and gender? Refer to empirical studies and theory in
language and gender.

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 Chapter 5: Constructing gender and sexual identities

5. What has research and theory on language and sexuality been able
to offer language and gender studies?
6. In what ways can sexuality be said to be intertwined with gender?
Your answer needs to be based on a critical discussion of language,
gender and sexuality research and theory.

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Language and Gender

Notes

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 Chapter 6: Language and gender in public settings

Chapter 6: Language and gender in public settings

Essential reading
Ehrlich, S. ‘Trial discourse and judicial decision-making: constraining the
boundaries of gendered identities’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011)
pp.356–70.
Holmes, J. and S. Schnurr ‘Doing ‘femininity’ at work: more than just
relational practice’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.315–31.
Reynolds, K.A. ‘Female speakers of Japanese in transition’ in Coates and
Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.291–99.
Shaw, S. ‘Governed by the rules? The female voice in parliamentary debates’
in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.300–14.
Talbot, M. ‘Public Talk’ in Talbot, M. Language and Gender. (Malden, MA:
Polity Press, 2010) second edition [ISBN 9780745646053] pp.184–203.
West, C. ‘When the doctor is a lady: power, status and gender in physician-
patient encounters’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.468–82.

Further reading
Baxter, J. (ed.) Speaking Out: The Female Voice in Public Contexts.
(Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) [ISBN 9781403994080].
Cameron, D. ‘Theorising the female voice in public contexts’ in Baxter, J.
(ed.) Speaking Out: The Female Voice in Public Contexts. (Houndmills:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) [ISBN 9781403994080] pp.3–20.
Carli, L. ‘Gender, language, and influence’, Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology 59(5), 1990, pp.941–51.
Coates, J. ‘The social consequences of gender differences in language’ in
Coates, J. Women, Men and Language. (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2004)
third edition [ISBN 9780582771864].
Coates, J. ‘Language, gender and career’ in Mills, S. (ed.) Language and
Gender: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. (Longman, 1995)
[ISBN 0582226317].
Crawford, M. Talking Difference: on Gender and Language. (London: Sage,
1995) [ISBN 9780803988286].
Edelsky, C. ‘Who’s got the floor?’ in Tannen, D. (ed.) Gender and
Conversational Interaction. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993)
[ISBN 9780195081943] pp.189–226.
Herring, S. et al. ‘Participation in electronic discourse in a “feminist field” in
Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.171–82.
Holmes, J. ‘Women’s talk in public contexts’, Discourse and Society 3 (2),
1992, pp.131–50.
Holmes, J. ‘Social constructionism, postmodernism and feminist
sociolinguistics’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011) pp.600–10.
Holmes, J. ‘Men, masculinities and leadership: different discourse styles
at work’ in Pichler, P. and E. Eppler (eds) Gender and Spoken Interaction.
(Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) [ISBN 0230574025] pp.186–210.
Holmes, J. and M. Stubbe ‘‘Feminine’ workplaces: stereotype and reality’
in Holmes, J. and M. Meyerhoff (eds) The Handbook of Language and
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Language and Gender

Gender. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003) [ISBN 9780631225034] pp.573–99.

MacRae, S. ‘“It’s a blokes’ thing”: gender, occupational roles and talk in the
workplace’ in Pichler and Eppler (eds) (2009) pp.163–85.
McElhinny, B. ‘‘‘I don’t smile much any more”: Affect, gender and the
discourse of Pittsburgh police officers’ in Coates, J. (ed.) Language and
Gender: A Reader. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998) [ISBN 1405191279].
Menz, F. and A. Al-Roubaie ‘Interruptions, status and gender in medical
interviews: the harder you brake, the longer it takes’, Discourse and
Society 19(5), 2008, pp.645–66.
Mills, S. and L. Mullany Language, Gender and Feminism: Theory,
Methodology and Practice. (London: Routledge, 2011)
[ISBN 9780415485968].
Mullany, L. Gendered Discourse in the Professional Workplace. (London:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) [ISBN 9781403986207].
Ostermann, A.C. ‘Communities of Practice at work: gender, facework and
the power of habitus at an all-female police station and a feminist
crisis interventions centre in Brazil’ in Coates and Pichler (eds) (2011)
pp.332–55.
Tannen, D. Talking from 9-5: Men and Women in the Workplace: Language,
Sex and Power. (New York: Avon, 1994) [ISBN 9781860492006].
Woods, N. ‘Talking shop: sex and status as determinants of floor
apportionment in a work setting’ in Coates, J. and D. Cameron (eds)
Women in Their Speech Communities. (London: Longman, 1989)
[ISBN 0582009693] pp.141–57.
West, C. ‘‘‘Not just doctors’ orders”: directive-response sequences in
patients’ visits to women and men physicians’ in Coates (ed.) (1998).

References
Eakins, B. and G. Eakins Sex Differences in Human Communication. (Boston,
MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1978) [ISBN 9780395255100].
Goffman, E. Frame Analysis. (New York: Harper & Row, 1974) [ISBN
9780140551099].
Goffman, E. Forms of Talk. (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1981) [ISBN
9780631128861] ‘Footing’, pp.124–57.
Lakoff, R. ‘Why can’t a woman be less like a man?’ in Lakoff, R. Talking
Power: the Politics of Language. (San Francisco: Basic Books, 1990)
[ISBN 9780465083596].
Tannen, D. (ed.) Framing in Discourse. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1993) [ISBN 9780195079968].

Introduction
With the exception of Chapter 3, most of the previous chapters tended
to focus on language and gender in informal, conversational settings
among friends and couples. Indeed, interest in language and gender in
work and other public settings has become particularly strong only in
the last decade, and has resulted in an increasingly substantial body of
research (see suggestions for reading).
In this chapter we will begin by examining how public talk is different
from informal everyday conversations. We will consider some of the
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characteristics of public talk and ask whether these are informed by

androcentric norms and practices, that is, norms and practices which,
consciously or not, support a male perspective/worldview. We will
subsequently consider a wide range of research to find out more about
gender differences in the workplace or other public interaction. We
will also consider examples of research which suggest that it may be
problematic to claim that women’s interactional style at work is always
collaborative and men’s always competitive. In line with the social
constructionist argument in the previous chapter we will ask if women
and men can construct their (gender) identities at work in opposition
to this dichotomy of collaboration and competition. For example, we
will look at examples of research that highlight the heterogeneity
of gendered leadership styles at work. However, we will also
consider research which suggests that even when the collaborative/
competitive dichotomy cannot be sustained with regard to women’s
and men’s conversational styles, gender remains relevant and gender
relationships remain unequal in the workplace and beyond, as recent
statistics by Sara Mills and Louise Mullany capture:
• Women make up 33 per cent of managerial and administrative
posts in the developed world. In Africa and Asia-Pacific the figure is
even lower – 15 per cent and 13 per cent respectively.
• Two-thirds of illiterate adults in the world are women.
• The majority of the 1.3 billion people in the world living in poverty
are women.
• Only 6 of the 194 presidents in the world are women.
• In 2007 only 19 per cent of countries achieve the recognised
benchmark of 30 per cent female parliamentary representation
(Bennett, 2009).
(Adapted from Mills and Mullany, 2011, pp.23–24.)
The question remains how performances of non-stereotypical gender
identities are perceived by the public, and this question will be
examined in the final section of the chapter.

Some initial questions for consideration

Activity
Consider the following questions based on your essential reading:
1. What are the most prominent differences between talk in the private and the
public sphere? Consider the overall function of speech events, participants’
relationships, turn-taking norms, etc. Give examples.
2. Are workplaces and professions gendered? If so, in what ways?
3. Is talk in the public sphere gendered? If so, in what ways?
4. Can you think of any examples of workplaces where women would have to
adapt to androcentric interactional norms and/or men would have to adapt to
gynocentric interactional norms?
5. What are the possible benefits for women to adapt their conversational
style to a ‘normatively’ or stereotypically masculine style and/or for men to a
‘normatively’ or stereotypically feminine style? What are the drawbacks?

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6. What is the relationship between gender, status/occupational role and

conversational/interactional style? (For example, think of West’s work on
interruptions.)

Institutional talk and work/public contexts

Talk is multifunctional. At the very least, we can imagine that talk serves
two main functions of talk, often simultaneously. One function which
most people can think of immediately is the exchange of information,
sometimes referred to as its reporting or referential function. The second
function serves a very different purpose: it is about establishing and
maintaining social relationships, a rapport-building or social function.

Activity
Which of these two functions of talk is predominant in the public sphere and
which in the private sphere? Is it correct to assume that in public contexts talk
always functions in one way, and in private contexts in another? Or can you think
of situations where both functions are relevant, to similar or different degrees?

The activity above will have helped you to understand that it depends
very much on context which function of talk is predominant in a
specific situation. Speakers in public and institutional contexts can
draw on the rapport-building or social function of talk, for example,
when tutors engage with students just before or after a formal
lecture, or even when they joke or reveal personal anecdotes during
a seminar or tutorial. However, it is true to say that much public or
institutional talk exemplifies its referential function: just think of a cross-
examination in court or a police interview, a job interview, an academic
conference or any other public meeting, a medical examination, an
exchange in Parliament or a political debate. (If you wish to refine your
understanding of how functions of talk can shift during an interactional
exchange you may want to read up on Erving Goffman’s (1974, 1981)
notions of conversational frames, refined in Tannen’s 1993 work).
Traditionally women have been associated with the private sphere, and
men with the public. This means that women have had less access to
and practice in talking in public, and therefore in talking that is about
report rather than rapport, in creating or maintaining status rather than
equal social relationships. As Coates (2004, p.197) argues, ‘[t]the public
domain is a male-dominated domain, and the discourse patterns of
male speakers have become the established norm in public life’. The
continuing relevance of and historical link between ‘public/private’ and
‘male/female’ binaries and their relationship to language and discourse
practices is discussed also by Cameron (2006) and Talbot (2010).
Even in the twenty-first century many public domains, including
academia, businesses and the British Parliament, are still male
dominated. Nevertheless, it is also true to say that in the twenty-first
century it is not as unusual for women to be found in these public
arenas as it once was. It is therefore interesting to consider if this
change has affected interactional patterns at work and in other public
and institutional contexts, or whether the old dichotomy of male/
public = referential/competitive talk and women/private = rapport/
collaborative talk still holds.

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Language and gender in public settings

There is a body of research that highlights the difference between
women’s and men’s conversational styles at work, as well as the
dominance of men in the workplace. For example, men were found to
interrupt more than women in similar employment positions (West,
2011; Woods, 1989). Men were also found to be more verbose, that
is, take more and/or longer turns (Eakins and Eakins, 1978; Edelsky,
1993; Herring et. al., 2011; Holmes, 1992; Swann, 2011) and to adopt
a competitive/aggressive rather than a supportive/facilitative style in
workplace interaction. Thus West (2011) shows female doctors’ successful
use of mitigated orders with patients and Holmes (1992) highlights
that although men produce equal amounts of supportive and critical
elicitation after presentations at public meetings, they also produce
twice as many antagonistic elicitations as women. Moreover, Carole
Edelsky’s (1993) analysis of faculty meetings at university first described
a gendered turn-taking preference. Edelsky describes two different
types of conversational floor: when meetings keep to the agenda, male
speakers dominate and use a single floor; in off-agenda chat between
agenda items, all (men and women) adopt a more collaborative turn-
taking pattern and women speak as much as men.
However, there is also evidence that conversational style in public
can have more to do with speaker status than with gender (see also
Chapter 3). Janet Holmes’s later research (for example, Holmes and
Stubbe, 2003) suggests that conversational style in public is more
influenced by a speaker’s organisational role and status; demonstrating
that it is chairpersons who talk most in meetings, whether they are
male or female.
Susan McRae (2009), as well as Louise Mullany (2007), did not find any
evidence of this great divide of competitive vs. collaborative style in
men’s and women’s language use in the talk of business meetings at
various British companies. Mullany shows that both men and women
use the same conversational strategies when they are chairing a
meeting and McRae focuses on disagreement patterns in business
meetings and found that, regardless of the gender of the speaker,
speakers adopt what can be described as a collaborative or cooperative
speech style, characterised by the use of mitigating devices, such
as hedging, hesitation, questions and question tags, and epistemic
modal verbs. Nevertheless, both find evidence of a continuing gender
asymmetry. Mullany found evidence of highly gendered and sexist
discourses or ideologies, for example, an assertive female manager
being described as ‘bossy’ and ‘dragon-like’. And McRae’s analysis shows
that talk in business meetings reflects national gender patterns with
regard to job access and occupational roles: the talk of women in the
company is frequently concerned with administrative and support
tasks, whereas men talk about development of ideas.
In a medical setting Menz and Al-Roubaie (2008) investigated 48
instances of doctor-patient interaction in Austria. They found that
regardless of gender, doctors use more interruptions than patients and
patients fail to interrupt doctors more frequently than vice versa (even
more so with senior physicians than with doctors-in-training). However,

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both female patients and female doctors produce more supportive

simultaneous talk than males. It is also interesting that Menz and Al-
Roubaie note that interviews take longer the more physicians interrupt.
Bonnie McElhinny’s (1998) research into the linguistic and other
behavioural patterns of police officers in Pittsburgh focuses on an
occupation that has traditionally been seen as men’s work. She shows
how female police officers adopt what can be seen as a normatively
masculine conversational style, that is, a dominant, report-oriented
way of talking that does not encourage any display of emotions (such
as smiling). Although some female police officers argue that they feel
like they need to ‘wear a mask’ to cope with their police work, this
emotional distancing (for example, learning not to smile) is interpreted
as professionalism, as linked to institutional rather than gender roles:
‘When I’m in uniform, I’m not a woman/man – I’m a police officer.’
Similarly more recent research by Ana Cristina Ostermann (2011)
shows how women in different work/institutional contexts in Brazil
use different interactional styles. Ostermann compares two all-female
institutions dealing with victims of domestic violence, one an all-female
staffed police station and the other a feminist non-governmental crisis
intervention centre. The linguistic and non-linguistic patterns adopted
by the women in these two very different institutional contexts reflect
and serve the norms and requirements of their different Communities
of Practice (see Chapter 5). The women working as police officers adopt
a more face-threatening and uncooperative style of talk, the women of
the crisis centre a more cooperative conversational style with smooth
turn-taking. This suggests once more the importance of considering
gender in relation to other factors, in a specific Community of Practice,
or in this case, with regard to women’s occupational roles, but also their
social class and educational backgrounds.

Activity
The question these studies encourage us to ask is: does gender override
occupational status or vice versa? Or, perhaps we should ask to what extent
and in what ways gender interacts with occupational status? Try to answer
these questions on the basis of your essential reading and some further reading
suggested above.

The heterogeneity of gendered leadership styles at work

Many of the above studies have indicated that it is problematic to claim
that all women use a collaborative speech style at work and all men
a competitive style. Holmes has studied workplaces in New Zealand
in depth. The Wellington Language in the Workplace Project (LWP)
that she investigates consists of 1,500 interactions, produced by 500
participants in 22 different workplaces. On the basis of this vast body
of data, Holmes (2011, p. 604) argues that ‘[g]ender is a significant and
salient variable in organisational interaction’ , adding that ‘women
and men in positions of power in their organisations draw on diverse
discursive resources (including normatively masculine and feminine
discourse styles) to effectively ‘do leadership’ (ibid.).
Holmes (2009) investigates the flexible and shifting construction of
male leadership styles in spoken interaction. Holmes’ analysis of the
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recordings from workplace meetings is supported by a range of other,

ethnographic, sources of data (including participant observation and
follow-up interviews) and shows that the male leaders switch from
one discourse style to another, according to the interactional context
in which they are operating. Drawing on a combination of tools from
interactional sociolinguistics and ethnography, Holmes identifies three
different discourse styles in the spoken interaction of male company
leaders. These include an ‘authoritative style’ which exerts strict control
over managing meetings, topic-development and speaker-turns; a
‘paternalistic’ style which is based on conflict avoidance and a display
of fatherly or patient mentoring behaviour; and an informal, ‘egalitarian
style’, based on self-denigrating and collaborative humour. These
three styles allow the male leaders to adopt different stances and to
‘instantiate’ or ‘do’ masculinity in different ways in their workplaces.

Activity
On the basis of the following extracts discuss the different conversational styles
employed by male leaders as described by Holmes (2009). What are the linguistic/
discursive characteristics of these styles? How do the styles allow male leaders to
‘do’ masculinity in different ways in their workplaces?
Janet’s Holmes does not use a version of the stave transcript and although many
of her transcription conventions are similar to the ones introduced in Chapter 1 of
this subject guide, there are some differences. The following is taken from Holmes
(2009, p.206):
yes Underlining indicates emphatic stress
[laughs] : : Paralinguistic features and other information in square
brackets, colons indicate start/finish
+ Pause of up to one second
... //......\ ... Simultaneous speech
... /.......\\ ...
() Unclear utterance
(hello) Transcriber’s best guess at an unclear utterance
? Rising or question intonation
- Utterance cut off
… Section of transcript omitted
XM/XF Unidentified Male/Female
[voc] Untranscribable noise
tangi [‘funeral’] Maori words appear in italics with translation in
square brackets

1) Context: Meeting of ten people in a commercial organisation. Seamus is the

company’s managing director. (Questions are in italics.)
1. Sea: Tommy that’s did you buy that photocopier
2. Tom: no
3. XM: [voc]
4. Tom: oh the
5. Sea: we were talking about buying a photocopier down at
6. Tom: we are buying it ( ) oh we have bought one

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Language and Gender

7. Sea: you have bought one?

8. Tom: yep
9. Sea: okay it’s about fourteen wasn’t it
10. Evan: and who’s that are we buying it from xerox
11. Tom: yeah
12. Evan: are we leasing it or are we buying it
13. Tom: I don’t know you and Deb sorted that out
14. Sea: has that deal been done
15. Tom: pretty much //( )\
16. Sea: /okay so\\ is it a programmable photocopier does it have
17. Tom: yeah
18. Sea: okay so it’s got a movable back gauge and all of that?
19. Tom: yeah
20. Sea: okay how physically big is it
21. Tom: oh it wouldn’t be more than a metre square
22. Sea: and how much did it cost
23. Tom: probably about I thought I thought it was about twelve

2) Context: Meeting between Quentin, the section manager, and a member of

his team Renee. Quentin is describing to her how to do a new administrative task
for which she is responsible.
1. Que: you know what the guidelines are eh
2. Ren: mhm
3. Que: we do that at the same time
4. Ree mhm
5. Que: cos this seems to be + this is the first one +
6. in terms of + from your point of view eh
7. of understanding //eh yeah entitlement eh\
8. Ren: /yeah yeah yeah yeah\\

3) Context: During a job interview Donald explains to Michael, a potential new

employee, how A&B Resolutionz works.
1. Don: things are looking like this year will probably be
2. our best year ever
3. um but it does come on the back of you know
4. fairly tight fairly lean times we’re just now
5. there’s four main shareholders um so it’s you know
6. it’s however deep our pockets are and
7. you can see the quality of my suit //[laughs]\
8. Mic: /[laughs]\\
9. Ann: he’s got shoes on so he must be having //a good day\
10. Don: /[laughs]\\ oh yes we try and run a relaxed atmosphere

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 Chapter 6: Language and gender in public settings

However, Holmes’s research also finds evidence of a double bind

for female leaders in the workplace. For many, women talking in
normatively feminine ways, that is, using a collaborative style, is seen
to be at odds with a position as successful manager, and talking in
normatively masculine ways by using a very assertive style will position
them as unfeminine. This is particularly the case in male-dominated
workplaces. The final section in this chapter will address this double
bind for women in institutional settings once more.

Activity
Now read Janet Holmes and Stephanie Schnurr (2011) and give examples of how
femininity is being done and judged in different (feminine and masculine) work
environments, or ‘Communities of Practice’.

Androcentric norms in public institutions

Although we have seen above that women and men can adopt
different conversational styles in work and institutional contexts, we
also need to bear in mind that many workplaces remain androcentric.
Several language and gender studies suggest that men’s interactional
styles (or normatively masculine styles, such as a competitive, status-
reinforcing way of talking) predominate in public institutions, and that
they are valued considerably more so than women’s ways of talking.
Katsue Akiba Reynolds’ (2011) research shows that Japanese women’s
repertoire of interactional styles is much more restricted than men’s,
as it is not appropriate for women to adopt an overtly assertive style
without being seen as very rude. However, this causes a conflict for
many women who are in high status positions, such as teachers, lawyers
or heads of companies. On the one hand these women need to use
assertive communicative strategies for their work roles. On the other
hand, they need to conform to traditional linguistic norms for ‘good’
women, that is, they need to talk non-assertively, politely, deferentially,
or, in other words, ‘omna-rasiku’ (‘as expected of women’). Reynolds
focuses specifically on the linguistic dilemmas of female teachers who
find it difficult to balance requirements of authority and solidarity/
understanding, signalling that they are themselves unhappy about
‘defeminising’ their talk, and revealing that parents complain about bad
influence on their daughters’ language when teachers use talk that is
more assertive.

Activity
Do you think that this dilemma also exists for women in other cultures and
languages? Can men find themselves in similar dilemmas?

In Britain, Sylvia Shaw (2011) shows how female Members of Parliament

(MPs) struggle to present themselves as powerful speakers by holding
the floor in parliamentary debates in the House of Commons. This
struggle is largely caused by their male colleagues’ practice of making
illegal interventions in the debate, for example, by shouting ‘rubbish’
or taking a turn when it has not been allocated to them. Moreover,
women do not adopt their male colleagues’ practice of purposefully
violating interactional rules by making illegal interventions or

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‘filibustering’, that is, by speaking for so long that the other party does
not have any time to debate the issue. Shaw finds that 90 per cent
of these illegal interventions are produced by men; moreover, these
transgressions are usually left unchallenged, so it is fair to say that
‘this type of rule-breaking has to some degree been accepted as a
masculine ‘norm’ in debates’ (2011, p.308). In statistical terms women
are outsiders in the context of the British Parliament and their struggle
to adapt to the androcentric interactional practices of this specific
Community of Practice confirms their status as outsiders.

Activity
Read Susan Ehrlich (2011). Then consider to what extent an androcentric view is
expressed indirectly by both the trial judge and the Court of Appeal judge of a
sexual assault trial in Canada. Consider particularly how the judges equate a lack
of the victim’s verbal refusals to have sex as signs of consensual sex, whereas the
victim and attorney invoke an alternative, feminist discourse, which positions the
victim’s act of compliance as a way of preventing more extreme and prolonged
physical violence against her.

Attitudes towards assertive women

When women and men do adopt conversational behaviour that is very
different from a stereotypically or normative feminine style, they are
frequently not judged advantageously by their listeners. For women
who adopt an assertive style at work this can have particularly negative
social consequences. Mary Crawford (1995) showed that both men
and women judged assertive speakers to be competent, regardless of
whether the assertive speakers were male or female. However, assertive
women received the lowest likeability ratings from older males and the
highest from older females. Moreover, assertive men did not receive
lower likeability ratings. Carli (1990) assessed how college students
perceived a persuasive message performed by a woman and a man
who spoke both assertively and tentatively.

Activity
Consider the following table (adapted from Carli, 1990). How were tentative and
assertive men and women judged by other men and women with regard to
trustworthiness and likeability? Did men and women agree in their judgement
of tentative and assertive female speakers? Consider the findings and discuss the
possible reasons for the different ratings.

Table 6.1

Trustworthiness Likeability
Male judge Female judge Male judge Female judge
Male speaker
– tentative language 6.73 6.73 5.93 6.53
– assertive language 6.80 7.00 6.40 6.93
Female speaker
– tentative language 8.40 5.47 8.00 5.80
– assertive language 6.33 7.27 6.53 7.73
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 Chapter 6: Language and gender in public settings

These studies suggest that in authoritative positions, women must

choose between being ‘assertive’ and less well liked, and being
feminine and well liked. This research exemplifies what Lakoff describes
as the ‘double bind’ regarding professionalism and femininity:
When a woman is placed in a position in which being forceful
and assertive is necessary, she is faced with a paradox; she
can be a good woman or a bad executive or professional, or
vice versa. To do both is impossible.
(1990, p.206)

Learning outcomes
After working through this chapter and having done a substantial
amount of reading on the topic you should:
• be able to discuss conversational strategies and functions that
have been associated with talk in a wide range of work, public and
institutional contexts.
• have an understanding why it can be problematic to claim that talk
at work is always report talk, serving referential purposes, and talk in
informal contexts always rapport talk, serving social functions.
• have read and reflected on a range of empirical studies on language
and gender in public settings.
• have studied the relationship between gender and occupational
status with respect to language use.
• have examined empirical evidence of attitudes towards women’s
and men’s transgressions of normative femininity and masculinity in
work contexts.

Sample examination questions

1. On the basis of two or more studies of language in public settings
discuss whether gender overrides occupational status or vice versa.
2. What is the evidence for and against claims that women use a
collaborative conversational style and men a competitive verbal
style in work and other public or institutional settings?
3. How are assertive women and non-assertive men perceived in
work and institutional settings? Your answer should be informed by
empirical research.
4. Critically discuss the following quotation, drawing on a range
of empirical research: ‘The public domain is a male-dominated
domain, and the discourse patterns of male speakers have become
the established norm in public life’ (Coates, 2004, p.197).
5. What is meant by the double-bind for women in a position of
leadership at work? How is this double bind reflected in women’s
language use?

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Notes

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 Appendix 1: Sample examination paper

Appendix 1: Sample examination paper

Answer THREE questions (all three questions carry equal marks).

Candidates may NOT reproduce the same material in more than
one answer, in this examination or in any other Advanced Level Unit
examination.
1. Select one or two features of conversational practice that Robin
Lakoff believed to be used differently by men and women, such
as hedges, question intonation, or minimal responses. Then
compare and contrast Lakoff ’s view with later empirical research
on women’s and men’s use of these features.
2. Critically discuss at least three ‘warrants of analysis’ usually
employed by language and gender scholars to support their claims
of the relevance of gender in their research on conversational talk.
3. Why is it problematic to claim that speakers who speak for longer
and who talk at the same time as others are dominant? In your
answers you should also consider how this question is relevant to
language and gender research and/or theory.
4. What is the turn-taking model and how can it be relevant to
language and gender research?
5. What is the evidence for and against claims that women use a
collaborative conversational style and men a competitive verbal
style?
6. Do only women gossip? What functions does gossip fulfil? Refer to
empirical research in your answer.
7. Why and to what extent are some of the claims made by popular
literature about male-female miscommunication problematic from
a feminist linguistic perspective?
8. How does gender interact with other sociocultural or situational
factors? Draw on (linguistic) theory and empirical language and
gender studies in your answer.
9. Critically discuss the ‘social constructionist’ approach to language
and gender, contrasting it with the ‘deficit’, ‘dominance’ and
‘difference’ approach.
10. What, if anything, has the concept of ‘Community of Practice’
to offer research on language and gender? Your answer should
contain substantial reference to at least two CofP studies on
language and gender.
11. On the basis of two or more studies of language in public settings
discuss if gender overrides occupational status or vice versa.
12. What is the evidence for and against claims that women use a
collaborative conversational style and men a competitive verbal
style in work and other public or institutional settings?
13. How are assertive women and non-assertive men perceived in
work and institutional settings? Your answer should be informed
by empirical research. 83
Language and Gender

Notes

84
 Appendix 2: Sample Examiner’s report

Appendix 2: Sample Examiner’s report

Advice to candidates on how Examiners calculate marks

It is important that candidates recognise that in all papers, three
questions should be answered in order to get the best possible mark
(ensuring that the rubric for the paper has been followed accordingly).
Examiners follow a simple mathematical formula when awarding a
final overall mark: they give each answer a mark out of 100 (up to
three answers only, as required by the exam paper); they then total all
available marks; and finally they divide the total by three, thus giving
an average overall mark.
So, if your first answer is given 57%, your second answer is given 56%,
and your third answer 50%, then the calculation will look like this:
57 + 56 + 50 = 163
163 ÷ 3 = 54.3
Overall mark: 54%
Two good essays and no third essay will always bring the mark
down. So, if in the example above a third answer was not given, the
calculation would look like this:
57 + 56 = 113
113 ÷ 3 = 37.6
Overall mark: 38%
In this case, even if the candidate had written a ‘poor’ third answer
getting a mark of 40% their overall mark would be higher than not
attempting an answer at all:
57 + 56 + 40 = 153
153 ÷ 3 = 51
Overall mark: 51%
Note in the example above how the 40% mark, while low, still enables
the candidate to achieve an overall mark in the Lower Second category,
which is in keeping with their first two marks of 57% and 56%. Not
answering a third question would see the candidate lose considerable
marks and drop two whole classes. It could also mean the difference
between a pass and a fail.
Candidates are thus strongly advised to give equal attention across
the paper, plan their time accordingly, and attempt to provide three
answers of roughly the same length and as full as possible. Candidates
are also reminded that it is totally unnecessary to copy out the
question again into the answer book; a question number in the margin
is sufficient, and this will also save valuable minutes.

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Introduction
A key feature of the English programme is that every subject guide
contains a past examination paper from a recent year, as a sample
to students new to the course, and a copy of the corresponding
Examiners’ report. Additionally, students can access an archive of past
papers and Examiners’ reports on the VLE.
Since Language and Gender is a new course launching in the
2013–2014 academic year, there are neither any past papers or
past Examiner’s reports. However, as this guide includes a Sample
examination paper so that students can familiarise themselves with the
format and types of questions likely to be asked, it seems only fair to
offer some sample Examiner’s comments regarding some of the ways
in which the questions might be approached.
Please note: there are no ‘model answers’ to these, or any other
questions, on the English programme – English is not an information-
based subject, but rather one that invites debate, argument and
exploration based on research both into text and context. Thus, what
follows here are some pointers and suggestions about how you might
tackle the kinds of questions asked in the Sample examination paper in
order to help you prepare for assessment.

General remarks
Make sure you familiarise yourself with the Learning outcomes and
assessment criteria for this course (see the beginning of the subject
guide) and with all the Learning outcomes for each individual chapter.
This will help you to understand Examiners’ expectations. Also
remember that the Examiners will look for your critical understanding
of research, theory and methodology as well as for evidence that you
have engaged in in-depth, independent study. Simple regurgitation of
the material in your subject guide will not be looked upon favourably,
and may even constitute plagiarism (academic dishonesty).

Comments on specific sample examination questions

Question 1
This question requires candidates to critically consider Robin
Lakoff ’s pioneering work on language and gender by comparing
and contrasting it with findings from later empirical studies on
women’s and men’s conversational style. Approaches to any question
about Lakoff ’s work will necessarily invite candidates to consider
her observations on ‘women’s language’ critically, paying particular
attention to her source of data and method of data collection as
well as to her sweeping claims about what she saw as gendered
language use. Answers to this question will, however, be focused
more on subsequent empirical language and gender research than
on Robin Lakoff, as it is this later research that provides language and
gender studies with insight into how women and men actually do
use conversational features in naturally occurring talk. All answers will
need to demonstrate some depth in their discussion of this subsequent
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 Appendix 2: Sample Examiner’s report

research. This will be achieved partly by focusing the answers on only

two of the features that Lakoff listed in her pioneering work but also by
demonstrating an understanding of why it can be very problematic to
generalise about whether women and men use certain conversational
features differently. Stronger answers will offer not only in-depth
but also critical discussions of the findings of these later studies,
evaluating them in the context of a range of issues, including the type
of data they draw on, context of data collection, type of interactional
setting, background of participants, nature and purpose of interaction.
Stronger answers will also evaluate these findings in relation to their
contributions to the field of language and gender studies overall.

Question 2
Many scholars have been accused of claiming that gender is relevant
in a particular stretch of conversational data, without having explicitly
engaged with the question of why they think gender is relevant in
these data. For example, when we consider a stretch of talk produced
by a group of female friends, are we justified in saying that the way
they talk is gendered, that they engage in ‘women’s conversational
style’, just because they are women? What if we find that different
groups of women differ in their conversational practice? To answer
these questions we need to think about ‘warrants of analysis’ and, in
relation to that, questions of methodology. Any attempts to this answer
must make sure that what is meant by ‘warrants of analysis’ has been
fully understood. A good way to make sure this understanding has
been gained is to turn to Joan Swann, ‘Yes, but is it gender?’ in Coates
and Pichler (2011), pp 161–70. This is Essential reading for Chapter 2 of
your subject guide and, together with Chapter 2 and, in particular, the
section ‘Analysing gender in spoken interaction’ will allow candidates
to gain a full understanding of the question. Candidates could, for
example, choose to focus on what Swann calls ‘analysts’ intuitions’,
‘quantitative patterns’ or ‘participants’ orientations as evident in the
text’. The critical discussion of these (or any other) three ‘warrants
of analysis’ will need to be exemplified by reference to relevant and
representative research. Not many studies are explicit about the
‘warrants of analysis’ they rely on or, in other words, which are explicit
about the kind of evidence scholars cite to support their claims that the
way in which speakers use language in this situation has something
to do with their gender. This means that candidates attempting this
question will need to study, examine and reflect on their selection of
language and gender research very carefully and critically in order
to be able to come to any conclusions about ‘warrants of analysis’
employed by the researchers. Candidates should also be aware that
frequently scholars will not only rely on one but on a combination of
‘warrants’.

Question 3
This question requires candidates to deal with what has become
known as the form-and function problem in language and gender
research, and in research on conversational practice in general. It
invites candidates to reflect on the multi-functionality of linguistic
forms and, in particular, on the various functions and meanings of
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verbosity. The question allows candidates a lot of freedom in choosing

their approach. However, only weak candidates would attempt to
answer this question in a very general way without engaging with
specific examples of language and gender research in some depth.
Good answers would be based on a critical, in-depth discussion of a
careful selection of research that studies speakers’ turn-taking and,
in particular, the length and number of speaker turns. A good way
of answering this question would be to discuss one (or more than
one) language and gender study that links speakers’ verbosity to
conversational dominance, and another (or more than one) language
and gender study that shows that verbosity can also function in
different ways, for example, as conversational support.

Question 4
This question requires candidates to engage with Conversation
Analysis (CA) and, in particular, offer critical insight into and discussion
of CA theory and research on turn-taking. Many language and gender
scholars have drawn on the methodological approach of CA in their
discussion of naturally occurring conversational data. The second
part of the question therefore directs candidates to consider the
contributions that CA research and theory on turn-taking has made to
language and gender studies. For example, some of the most classic
studies on mixed-sex interaction adopted concepts and insights from
the turn-taking model. Several of these studies were particularly
interested in exploring whether what they saw as male dominance of
women in society at large was reflected on a micro-level in everyday
conversational interaction. Candidates attempting this question
will need to consider carefully to what extent and in what ways the
turn-taking model has allowed language and gender scholars to
find answers to this and other questions, and in what other ways the
turn-taking model has shaped language and gender research. One
obvious way to answer the question would be to follow the general
introduction to the turn-taking model with a critical discussion
of a small number of language and gender studies that rely very
explicitly on CA and the turn-taking model. Very good answers will be
particularly aware of the limitations of what the turn-taking model (and
CA) has to offer to language and gender studies.

Question 5
This question invites candidates to signal their awareness of how
problematic generalisations about gendered language use can be.
All answers would need to present an initial (critical) summary of this,
most famous, dichotomy in language and gender studies. That is,
candidates would have to demonstrate their understanding of what
characterises ‘collaborative’ and ‘competitive’ conversational styles.
Candidates would also have to consider the origins of this dichotomy
and its impact on language and gender studies. Above all, answers to
this question would have to present a careful and critical discussion
of research that either supports or challenges this ‘collaborative’ vs.
‘competitive’ dichotomy. Very good answers will link this discussion of
research to a discussion of the development of the field of language
and gender and, hand in hand with this, a discussion of the different
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 Appendix 2: Sample Examiner’s report

‘approaches’ to language and gender, for example, of the ‘difference’

and of the ‘constructionist approach’.

Question 6
Any attempt to answer this question would have to distinguish
carefully between stereotypical belief and empirical research on
(women’s) gossip, although a consideration of the former can be useful,
as long as it is then critically compared with the findings of the latter. In
order to answer the first part of the question, candidates need to draw
on research and/or data that contains instances of gossiping. A very
accessible, though in-depth, discussion of gossip is offered by Jennifer
Coates in one of your Essential readings for Chapter 4: ‘Gossip revisited:
language in all-female groups’ in Coates and Pichler (2011). One of
the most famous papers that confirms but also challenges quite a few
stereotypes of gendered language use, and also discusses examples of
male gossip, is Deborah Cameron’s ‘Performing gender identity: young
men’s talk and the construction of heterosexual masculinity’, also in
Coates and Pichler (2011.). One possible way of answering all parts of
this question would be to draw on these (or any other) two papers,
offering a critical and comparative discussion of the use and functions
of gossiping and its relation to gendered language use. Excellent
answers would offer a discussion of language and gender research that
may not focus on gossiping explicitly, but which may have nevertheless
produced data that contains instances of gossip for candidates to
identify and interpret.

Question 7
There is both a vibrant popular and lucrative commercial interest
in women’s and men’s conversational practices, especially in what
are seen as examples of – and reasons for – alleged male-female
miscommunication. This interest is well documented in popular
literature, for example in the genre of the self-help book on gendered
miscommunication. One way to approach this question would
be to study some examples of these claims about male-female
miscommunication in this or other type(s) of popular literature from a
critical, feminist linguistic perspective. Questions that could be asked
include: What claims are made about women’s and men’s language
use? To what extent are these claims supported by the empirical
evidence from language and gender research? To what extent do these
claims simply reflect popular stereotypes? In what other ways can some
of these claims seen to be problematic? Who is the target audience
of these self-help books (or other types of popular literature)? If they
are targeted at women, what does this tell us about gender norms?
An example of an extract from one such popular text about women’s
and men’s ‘miscommunication’ is reprinted in one of the Essential
readings for this course (see Tannen in Coates and Pichler, 2011), as is
an example of a feminist critique of Tannen’s popular work on gender
(see Troeml-Ploetz in Coates and Pichler, 2011). So a critical summary
of both these chapters, and especially of Troeml-Ploetz’s critique,
would offer a good foundation to answer this question. However, good
answers will discuss a range of different material and arguments, well
beyond what has been suggested in your Essential reading.
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Language and Gender

Question 8
Many recent language and gender studies highlight that it can be
problematic to claim that all women and all men speak in the same
way. These studies suggest, for example, that previous findings on the
language use of white, middle-class, middle-aged women may not be
representative of other groups of women, for example, of adolescent
British Bangladeshi girls from a working-class background. Moreover,
sociolinguistic research has long established that individual speakers
change the way they speak depending on the situation they find
themselves in, so that it can be assumed that a woman praising her
child will adopt a different conversational style from the same women
when she chairs a board meeting in her company. In order to be able
to produce a valid essay for this question, candidates would have to
examine a selection of research that explores how language use is
not only gendered, but also how gender is related to, for example,
social class, ethnicity, job role and situational or historical context.
One of the recent concepts that has helped scholars to consider how
gender interacts with other sociocultural and situational factors is the
‘Communities of Practice’ (CofP), which candidates may find useful
to discuss in their answers. Excellent candidates would also have to
display an in-depth understanding of postmodern gender (and queer)
theory and its impact on language and gender studies, for example,
of gender as performative or, in other words, as gender as both
constructed in discourse and conversational interaction and shaped
by ideologies. Chapter 5 of your subject guide (‘Constructing gender
and sexual identities’) will provide you with a good starting point to
research this topic further.

Question 9
Over the last two decades language and gender research has been
dominated by what is frequently labelled the ‘social constructionist
approach’. Other terms used (almost) synonymously include
‘postmodern’, ‘performative’ and ‘dynamic’. What this approach and
these different labels highlight are both the heterogeneity and the
agency of (gendered) speakers. Any answer to this question would
need to offer a critical discussion of the social constructionist approach
to language and gender, exemplified by reference to a selection of
language and gender studies (which, for example, demonstrate that
not all women speak in the same way and that speakers have some
agency in negotiating their gender identities in everyday interaction).
The question requires students to contrast the social constructionist
approach to language and gender with other, earlier approaches (or
explanations). This comparison will allow students to become even
clearer about what distinguishes the social constructionist approach
from the others. Excellent answers will, however, also be able to
demonstrate that not all aspects of the social constructionist model are
entirely new or different from previous approaches, and will be able to
critique not only the previous approaches to language and gender, but
also the social constructionist model itself. The theoretical discussion
should be supported by examples from empirical language and gender
studies throughout. One way of achieving this would be for candidates
to select one representative example of empirical research for each
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 Appendix 2: Sample Examiner’s report

of the four approaches above. However, candidates should bear in

mind that the main focus of their discussion should be on the social
constructionist approach (and subsequently on research aligning itself
with this approach).

Question 10
This question directs candidates to base their answers on a discussion
of at least two language and gender studies that use the Community
of Practice Approach. Candidates will need to engage carefully
and critically with these two studies in order to be able to gain in-
depth understanding of what the concept of the CofP has to offer
to language and gender studies. Answers will consider the question
with respect to data (collection), methodology and relevant (language
and gender) theory, among others. Good answers will also be able to
outline any limitations of this concept and of studies that adopt the
CofP approach. There is plenty of reading on the CofP in language and
gender studies, both theoretical and empirical, and several of these
papers are reprinted in Coates and Pichler (2011). As always, candidates
are expected to read well beyond the Essential readings, and excellent
answers will demonstrate a candidate’s ability to source reading from a
range of relevant sources, including academic journals.

Question 11
The question of whether gender is more or less important than speaker
status has interested scholars from the very beginning of language
and gender studies. O’Barr and Atkins’ study, based on courtroom data,
focused on this question as early as in the late 1970s. In particular,
they were interested in ascertaining whether what Lakoff had labelled
‘women’s language’ just a few years earlier, was, indeed, gendered
language or simply ‘powerless’ language of speakers with lower social
status (and/or less courtroom experience). The focus of this early
study was on what the scholars called ‘social status’; however, this was
clearly intertwined with occupational status. This is one of the studies
that candidates could draw on in their answers to this question. There
are many subsequent studies on work or other public settings which
equally investigate the question whether conversational style (and, in
particular, conversational dominance) is due to the gender or to the
occupational status of the speaker. Moreover, the last two decades
of language and gender studies have seen a surge of interest in talk
in public contexts, so even if not all of these studies will address the
above question explicitly, or focus specifically on conversational
dominance, many will provide candidates with useful material to
answer this question. Weaker answers would seek to make an absolute
generalisation about whether gender overrides occupational status
or vice versa. Better essays will acknowledge that these types of
generalisations are problematic. Excellent answers will show in-depth
understanding of the complex (inter)relation between gender and
occupational status (as well as a range of other sociocultural and
situational factors).

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Question 12
This question is almost identical to Question 5, except that it requests
candidates to focus on talk at work or other public and institutional
settings. It invites candidates to signal their awareness of how
problematic generalisations about gendered language use can be.
All answers would need to present an initial (critical) summary of this,
most famous, dichotomy in language and gender studies. That is,
candidates would have to demonstrate their understanding of what
characterises ‘collaborative’ and ‘competitive’ conversational styles.
Candidates would also have to consider the origins of this dichotomy
and its impact on language and gender studies. Above all, answers to
this question would have to present a careful and critical discussion
of language and gender research in work/public settings that either
supports or challenges this ‘collaborative’ vs. ‘competitive’ dichotomy.
Very good answers will link this discussion of research to a discussion
of the development of the field of language and gender and, hand in
hand with this, a discussion of the different ‘approaches’ to language
and gender, for example, of the ‘difference’ and of the ‘constructionist
approach’.

Question 13
This question directs candidates to the area of what sociolinguists
call ‘attitude studies’. That is, this question is not so much about how
men and women actually do use language, but about how women’s
and men’s use of language is evaluated by others. Frequently this
type of research requires some degree of experiment-like setting, for
example, presenting a range of ‘judges’ with samples of ‘assertive’ and
‘non-assertive’ speech that needs to be evaluated. This question also
allows students to think about gender norms. Questions that students
will need to think about include: Are assertive women still perceived
in more negative terms than assertive men? And, vice-versa, are
unassertive men still perceived more negatively than assertive men?
What is the empirical evidence for this, that is, what ‘attitude’ research
is there, and what type of data has been generated by this research
to allow us to seek informed answers to these questions? Chapter 6,
and, especially the section on ‘Attitudes towards assertive women’,
will provide students with a good starting point for this question. One
possible way of demonstrating academic excellence with this question
would be for candidates to make successful use of relevant empirical
data from studies that do not aim to investigate language attitudes
but explore women’s and men’s talk in public settings and provide
critical readers with data from which evaluations of women’s verbal
assertiveness and men’s non-assertiveness could be extracted. For
example, this could be data that captures the public talk of women
leaders and the reactions of others to this talk in spontaneous and
naturally occurring settings.

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