snapshot

Language and Gender

Congruence of two areas: Sociolinguistics

and Gender Studies



• Sociolinguistics: linkage of linguistic variables to social

factors.

• Gender studies: the social phenomenon of gender.

• Results in the study of the linkage of linguistic variables

and socially defined gender roles.

Sex versus Gender

• Sex Differences: biologically based

• Gender Differences: socially constructed

• Sociobiology:

– The study of genetically-based behavior in humans.

– Could be applied to ethnic groups: x is inferior because of "unfortunate" gene

distribution.

– Sociobiology might argue that women have higher voices because their vocal cords

are shorter.

• This does not explain why French women's voices are so high.

• Why high pitch may be employed by men in certain circumstances. E.g. West African griots.

• Most Scholars consider differences in behavior between men and women to be

largely socially constructed.

– Some gender distinctions may build on sex differences.

• No comparable distinction for the basis of race differences.

• What has happened is that behavior by gender has

been socialized.

• Consequently one must look to social factors for an

explanation.

• The social elaboration of gender

• Sex differences v Gender differences

• Need to examine the dimension of

dominance/subordinance v equal

Lexicon: lexical Asymetries



• Mistress v master postman v lettercarrier (postperson)

• Spinster v bachelor chairman v chairperson, dept head, chair

• Witch v warlock stewardess v flight attendant

• governess v governor

• Lady v lord

• Cow v bull

• Secretary v secret-ary

• s/he v cameroon pidgin i-

• the lexical bias reflects a social bias in the culture

• What happens when you try to correct lexical bias?

• Once alternatives have been offered, each speaker is faced with a choice of

which form to use.

Sociolinguistic Variables





• Differences can be:

• Morphological: Haas. Gender differentials among the

Koasati.

• Whole languages: Carrib v Aarwak

• Example: Interruptions and overlap (Zimmerman and

West 1975).

Interruptions and overlap

Zimmerman and West (1975)



Survey of faculty X Inter- Over-

meeting interrupts ruptions laps

Y

% of utterances MM 43% 35%

that

FF 57% 45%

involved

interruptions and MF 96% 100%

overlaps



FF 4% 0%

Crossing the Sex barrier: Asymmetries



• What happens when women adopt a masculine form

• What happens when men adopt a feminine form?

• Crossing the race barrier

• What happens when blacks talk like whites

• What happens when whites talk like blacks

• Why is it more of a stigma for men to use female

speech than the other way around?

– downward mobility?

What do men and women talk about



• Komarovsky (1962 describes the extensive sex segregation in the lives

of blue-collar couples in America, a segregation that also affects

patterns of talk. In her study, each sex felt that it had little to say to the

other, and even in social situations involving couples, the sexes split up

for conversation. The women talked to other women about family and

interpersonal matters; the men talked to male friends about cars,

sports, work, motorcycles, carpentry, and local politics. The men

ridiculed female conversation (... a derogation the women were aware

of, but did not apparently reciprocate, although they did complain about

a lack of communication in their marriages. Thorne and Henley, p 21

Stages of Awareness of

Underprivileged Groups in the minds of

Overprivileged Groups



• Stage 1: Invisibility: Group does not exist.

• Piaget's work on intellectual growth (cf. Gilligan

• Stage 2: Marginality: Group Exists, but not seen as significant

• Women are classified by class according to husband's

occupation.

• Stage 3: Problematic: Group exists and is seen as problematic

because it does not conform to the views and expectations of the

majority.

• Working Class Women hyper correct.

• Stage 4: Resolution

Hypercorrection

• Hypercorrection is defined by authors as "whereby in formal styles

their [the users'] scores on certain variables are nearer to the

prestige standard than the scores of the highest status group

indicating conscious overcompensation". This is not to be

confused with the term "hypercorrection" as used in language

acquisition and elsewhere where a rule is applied to forms it

shouldn't.



UMC LMC UWC LWC

MEN 6.3 32.4 40.0 90.1

WOMEN 0.0 1.4 35.6 58.9





Percentage of multiple negation, Tugdgill 1978: Detroit

Trudgill’s Explanations of deviance



• #1. Conservatism: women stick to older

patterns than men.

• #2 Status sensitivity: women are more

sensitive to social connotations of speech.

• #3. Covert prestige: Nonstandard speech is

associated with the working class which has

connotations of masculinity.

#1. Conservatism: women stick to older

patterns than men.

• Which is the conservative form?

– Not much agreement by linguistics as to which form is

conservative: both forms have been around for a long time.

• Women as innovators

– There is considerable counter evidence to suggest that

women are often in the vanguard in linguistic change.

• Women are not always conservative.

– While true in middle class women, it is not true with

working class

#2. Status sensitivity:

women are more sensitive to social connotations of speech.



• Trugdill speculates that women may be more status

conscious than men because:

– society sets more standards for women and

– Women’s typical activities do not confer status itself.

– this insecurity offers a parallel with the insecurity of

the lower middle class who also hypercorrect.

• But if so, why does society set different

standards for women?

#3. Covert prestige



• Nonstandard speech is associated with the working

class which has connotations of masculinity.

• But why should the working class be associated with

masculinity?

Limitations in the traditional model; Occupation as an

indicator of Social Class.



• Both Trugdill and Labov use a standard sociological model which place

a heavy emphasis on occupation as an indicator of social class.

• But this model on which sex-difference findings depend - itself uses

sex differentiated criteria. Men are rated on their own occupations, but

women are classed with the men on whom they are assumed to be

dependent.

• ... it can hardly be denied that there is a problem for sociolinguistics in

using the traditional model which takes the family as the primary unit of

social stratification at a time when our traditional concept of the family

(...) is breaking down.

• [What would an alternative look like?]

. Network Analysis: Milroy

• Networks are measured by:

– Density: number of associations

– Multiplexity: kinds of associations (more types ascribed to men than women

• Network analysis allows one to examine the nature of the

individual as opposed to the membership of the individual in a

social role. A praxis oriented approach.

• Milroy argues that sex differences [in language use] can be

explained by the controlling influence of the network:

• men's tighter-knit networks maintain vernacular norms, where as

women’s relatively looser-nit networks have less capacity to

enforce linguistic norms.

Networks









Sparse Dense

Market forces



• Some evidence to suggest that different

economic forces (secretaries v unskilled labor

may be of relevance.

• That is, individuals take an active role in deciding

how to speak.

• Note, this focuses on praxis. The individual’s

point of view.

Island v mainland residents

Group description Deg of Creolization

MAINLAND ELITE:Small group of educated elite Least

professionals (teachers, preachers, school board

members, political figures, business men)

ISLAND LAND HOLDERS: Several generations on In between. All but one

island. Originally communual rice farmers, now islander adult could

construction workers and domestic laborers. read and write.

MAINLAND POOR: Most

Larger group of poorer, less educated, construction

workers and domestic laborers.





• Both economically and linguistically, island residents contrast with Black

mainland residents.

• Men worked as construction workers

• Women worked as domestic workers (homes & motels), sales clerks, & 1 mail

carrier. Some island women became teachers but moved off the island to do so.

Groups



• ISLAND V MAINLAND RESIDENTS

– Both economically and linguistically, island residents contrast with Black mainland

residents. 57

• MAINLAND: Groups

– small group of educated elite professionals (teachers, preachers, school board

members, political figures, business men)

– larger group of poorer, less educated, construction workers and domestic

laborers.

– (this group had most creolized speech)

– For mainland residents, women have a higher percentage of creolized speech

than men.

• ISLAND

– land holders, several generations on island, originally communual rice farmers,

now construction workers and domestic laborers.

– Overall, speech is less creolized than mainland poor and less standard than

mainland elite. All but one islander adult could read and write.

Island Groups

• Old adults: over 65 who stayed mainly on the island.

– For island residents, men and women in the oldest age group use

approximately the same percentage of creolized speech.

• Middle age adults: between 30 & 50 who commuted to daily mainland

jobs

– Men work as construction workers

– Women work as domestic workers (homes & motels), sales clerks,

& 1 mail carrier. Some island women became teachers but moved

off the island to do so.

• Young and middle island women use the least.

– Young adults: between 15 and 25 (typically in school, unmarried,

and socially interactive as a group. 59

– Young island men use the most.

INDICATORS OF CREOLISMS

PRONOUNS i- 3rd sg and possessive pronoun; and

um 3rd sg object}

ex. i took i mother 'long with um.

cf. CP* i bin tek i mama witi am



COMPLEMEN- fo Use of particle to mark senential verb complement

TIZER ex I come fo get my coat.

cf. CP A bin kom fo get ma kot.



LOCATIVE to Use of generic locative marker

ex Can we stay to the table?

cf. CP We fit ste fo tebu?

cf. Krio We ebul ste na tebul?





CP=Cameroon Pidgin English: A Creole spoken in Cameroon. Krio is spoken in Sierra Leone

Distribution of Creolisms

ANALYSIS

• Language use patterns within the black speech community suggest that where

educational and occupational opportunities are limited, women will show more

"conservative" linguistic behavior than men in their group.

• When these opportunities begin to expand,they do so along sex-segregated lines.

• White collar jobs in sales, nursing and elementary school teaching are opening up

primarily for women, in part because of the low salaries associated with such jobs.

• Somewhat paradoxically, such jobs are also ones that require knowledge and use of

standard English, even heavy investment in higher education.

• Families often make great sacrifices to send their daughters to college, recognizing the

importance of their earning power to the family; 63

• Blue collar jobs are largely available to men. They pay more, but require little formal

education.

• [Thus] island men have far less incentive to change their linguistic patterns or their

traditional educational goals in a similar way.

• What seems clear is that future studies of sex-differentiated language can no longer

rely on traditional sociological models of social class if their results are to have any

validity.

Conclusion



• Language use patterns within the Black speech

community [in South Carolina] suggest that,

where educational and occupational

opportunities are limited, women will show more

conservative linguistic behavior than men in the

group. Nichols 1983

CONCLUSIONS



• Linguists have long understood that the interaction of language and social life

has important consequences for linguistic behavior (Ferguson 1959; Hymes

1967, 1973). Hymes observes that inequality among speakers arise because

some speakers participate in social situations not available to other speakers.

If men and women have differentiated social roles within society, we must

expect language use to reflect that fact. If their life experiences are sharply

different, their speech will be different. However, the way and the extent to

which they differ can be expected to vary from social group to social group. In

some speech communities, men or sub-groups of men may exhibit more

conservative linguistic behavior than women; in others, the reverse may be

true. The linguistic choices made by both men and women are always

constrained by the options available to them, and these options are available

always and only in the context of the group which shares rules for the use and

the interpretation of language. To speak fo "women's language" outside that

context is linguistically naive. Nichols 1983:66

The End