Sociolinguistics
Gender
Dr Emma Moore
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Contents
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What is gender?
When did linguists start thinking about
gender?
What have variationist sociolinguists found
out about gender?
What have interactional sociolinguists found
out about gender?
What is gender?
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Sex = a biological
category
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Gender = a social and
cultural concept
Is the way we behave (our gender)
determined/constrained by our biology (our sex)?
How Are We Gendered?
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At birth:
How Are We Gendered?
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In childhood:
How Are We Gendered?
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In adulthood:
Early Linguists’ Views
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Women’s language requires explanation
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Jesperson (1922): “The Woman”
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Women talk more than men: “The volubility of women
has been the subject of innumerable jests”
Women make excessive use of descriptive forms: “the
fondness of women for hyperbole will very often lead the
fashion with regard to adverbs of intensity”
Women are conservative speakers: “as a rule women
are more conservative than men … while innovations
are due to the initiative of men”
Types of research
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Variationist sociolinguistics
–
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Interactional sociolinguistics
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Quantitative
Qualitative
Variationist Studies of Gender
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Early survey studies found differences in
male/female use of language
–
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Labov (1966), Trudgill (1974): When all other
social factors are held constant, women use more
standard variants than do men
Is this a universal?
The Sex/Prestige Pattern (Hudson 1996: 195)
In any society where males and females have equal access to
the standard form, females use standard variants of any stable
variable which is socially stratified for both sexes more often
than males do.
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Labov (1966, 1972): NYC, USA
Wolfram (1969): Detroit, USA
Trudgill (1974): Norwich, UK
Macauley (1978): Glasgow, UK
Cheshire (1982): Reading, UK
Explaining the sex/prestige pattern
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Status and prestige
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Socialisation
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Women are more sensitive to “overt
sociolinguistic values” (Labov 1972: 243)
Sex differences occur as a consequence
of gender norms (Labov 1972: 304)
Evidence: Trudgill (1974)’s data on
self-reporting
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Trudgill (1974): variation in ear, here
–
1. /ɪə/ 2. /ε:/
% informants
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Total
Male
Female
Over-reporting
43
22
68
Under-reporting
33
50
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Accurate
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Men under-report use
of the standard form
Women over-report use
of the standard form
Different pressures exerted on men
and women
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Men: affected by the covert prestige of
vernacular variants
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Associations with masculinity
“… WC speech, like many aspects of WC culture,
has, in our society, connotations of masculinity,
since it is associated with the roughness and
toughness supposedly characteristics of WC life,
which are, to a certain extent, considered to be
desireable masculine attributes” (Trudgill 1974).
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Different pressures exerted on men
and women
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Women: affected by the overt prestige of
standard variants
–
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Associations with social status & power
“The social position of women in our society is less secure than
that of men … It is therefore necessary for women to secure and
signal their social status linguistically and in other ways, and they
are more aware of the importance of this type of signal … Since
[women] cannot be rated socially by their occupation, by what
other people know about what they do in life, other signals of
status, including speech, are correspondingly more important”
(Trudgill 1974).
Language, gender and employment
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Employment: Sankoff et al. (1989): women are
“technicians of language”
More evidence: Gal (1978, 1998)
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“Peasant Men Can’t Get Wives”
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Ethnographic study of Austrian village, Oberwart
Languages: Hungarian (traditional); German
(language of incomers)
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Different networks:
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Women leading the shift to German
Peasant (traditional farming)
Non-peasant (commercial)
Gal (1978, 1998): Male data
Shaded boxes
= peasant
networks
Unshaded
boxes = nonpeasant
networks
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For men, use of German increases
with:
YOUTH, NON-PEASANT NETWORKS
Gal (1978, 1998): Female data
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For women, use of German increases with:
Oldest category: no non-peasant networks
Middle category: NON-PEASANT NETWORKS
Youngest category: More German than any other category, irrespective of
network
Gender, status and language use in
Oberwart
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Access to different forms of status in the
community
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Peasantry:
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men control/inherit land women do
housework/agricultural work
Non-peasant networks:
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Enable women to gain financial/social independence
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Women pursue jobs and husbands in this network thus
use more German to enable access to this network
irrespective of their background
Status and gender
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These studies suggest that different pressure
operate on men and women
–
–
–
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Status
Prestige
Opportunities and social contexts
And these pressure affect language use
More recent variationist studies…
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Finding ways to analyse different settings
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Milroy’s (1980) network study
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Eckert’s (2000) community of practice
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Network involvement not just gender
Social practice not just gender
Interactional studies of gender
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Early studies explored differences in
male/female discourse styles
–
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Not just differences in the kind of variants but also
differences in whole conversational styles
Lakoff ([1975] 2004): Language and
Woman’s Place
‘women’s language’ – meaning both language
restricted in its use to women and language
descriptive of women alone.
(Lakoff [1975] 2004: 42).
Elements of ‘women’s language’
according to Lakoff (1975)
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Women use more expressive lexis e.g.
–
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W:
The weather’s awful, isn’t it?
Women’s language
reflects ‘weakness’/
lack of assertion
Women are indirect
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The wall is mauve
The wall is pink
Women use tag questions
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W:
M:
A:
B:
Can you meet me at 6?
Well, I have a doctor’s appointment at
5.45.
Explanations of gender differences
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Deficit?
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Women’s language as inadequate
Dominance?
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“I think that the decisive factor is less purely gender than
power in the real world. But it happens that, as a result of
natural gender, a woman tends to have, and certainly tends
to feel she has, little real-world power compared with a man;
so generally a woman will be more apt to have these uses
than a man will” (Lakoff [1975] 2004: 82).
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Women’s language use a consequence of their lack of power
Explanations of gender differences
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Difference?
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“If a little girl “talks rough” like a boy, she will
normally be ostracized, scolded, or made fun
of. In this way society, in the form of a child’s
parents and friends, keeps her in line, in her
place. This socializing process is, in most of its
aspects, harmless and often necessary, but in
this particular instance – the teaching of
special linguistic uses to little girls – it raises
serious problems, though the teachers may
well be unaware of this” (Lakoff [1975] 2004:
40).
Studies…
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Fishman (1983): Who does the most conversational
work in heterosexual partnerships?
–
–
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Goodwin (1980): How do boys and girls use
language to negotiate play?
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Men control the conversational floor
Women as conversational ‘shit-workers’ (questions, support
etc.)
Boys hierarchical
Girls collaborative
Summing up…
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Variationist sociolinguists have found very consistent
patterns of gender differences
–
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Interactional sociolinguists have also noted
differences in male/female discourse styles
Both types of study provide similar explanations for
gender differences
–
–
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Women tend to use more standard variants than men
Theories about status & class associations
Theories about power
Theories about socialisation
References and Reading
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Coates, Jennifer (2004) Women, Men and Language, Third Edition. Routledge:
London.
Eckert, Penelope (1998) “Gender and sociolinguistic variation”. In: Jennifer
Coates (ed.), Language and Gender: A Reader, 64-75. Oxford: Blackwell.
Fishman, Pamela (1983) “Interaction: The work women do”. In: Barrie Thorne,
Cheris Kramarae and Nancy Henley (eds.), Language, Gender and Society, 89101. Cambridge: Newbury House Publishers.
Jesperson, Otto (1922) “The woman”. In: Language: Its Nature, Development
and Origin. London: Allen & Unwin. [Reprinted in: Cameron, Deborah (ed.)
(1990) The Feminist Critique of Language: A Reader, 201-220. London:
Routledge.]
Lakoff, Robin ([1975] 2004) Language and Woman’s Place: Text and
Commentaries. Revised edition (edited by Mary Bucholtz). Oxford: OUP
Tannen, Deborah (1990) You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in
Conversation. London: Virago Press.
Required Reading: Meyerhoff (2006: Chapter 10)
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