Gender, identity and narrative in oral
tellings of Red Riding Hood by native
speaking English teachers in South
Korea
Alexander Grevett
University of Leicester
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
Contents
1
Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 4
2
Literature review ................................................................................................................ 5
2.1
2.1.1
Deficit theory ....................................................................................................... 5
2.1.2
Difference theory ................................................................................................. 6
2.1.3
Performative theory ............................................................................................. 7
2.2
Linguistic features ................................................................................................ 8
2.2.2
Styles, topics and purposes .................................................................................. 9
Society, power & language ....................................................................................... 10
2.3.1
Reflexivity.......................................................................................................... 10
2.3.2
Socialization....................................................................................................... 11
2.3.3
Power and asymmetry ........................................................................................ 11
2.4
Identity and gender .................................................................................................... 12
2.4.1
Constructing and performing ............................................................................. 13
2.4.2
Group identity .................................................................................................... 13
2.5
4
Differences in men and women’s speech .................................................................... 7
2.2.1
2.3
3
The history of language and gender research .............................................................. 5
Narrative and gender ................................................................................................. 14
Research background and method ................................................................................... 16
3.1
Background ............................................................................................................... 16
3.2
Research method ....................................................................................................... 16
Discussion of results ........................................................................................................ 18
4.1
Character voicing ...................................................................................................... 18
4.1.1
Results ................................................................................................................ 18
4.1.2
Discussion .......................................................................................................... 19
4.2
Comments on voicing................................................................................................ 24
4.3
Narrative .................................................................................................................... 24
4.3.1
Audience ............................................................................................................ 24
4.3.2
Storytelling as a community of practice ............................................................ 25
4.3.3
Traditional stories vs. individual stories ............................................................ 29
5
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 31
6
References ........................................................................................................................ 32
7
Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... 37
8
Appendix A: Transcripts and audio links ........................................................................ 38
8.1
Woman 1 ................................................................................................................... 39
2
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
8.2
Woman 2 ................................................................................................................... 40
8.3
Woman 3 ................................................................................................................... 42
8.4
Woman 4 ................................................................................................................... 45
8.5
Woman 5 ................................................................................................................... 46
8.6
Man 1......................................................................................................................... 48
8.7
Man 2......................................................................................................................... 51
8.8
Man 3......................................................................................................................... 52
8.9
Man 4......................................................................................................................... 55
8.10
Man 5 ..................................................................................................................... 57
8.11
Man 6 ..................................................................................................................... 58
9
Appendix B: Marked up transcript .................................................................................. 59
10
Appendix C: Submission Guidelines ............................................................................... 60
11
Appendix D: Release form............................................................................................... 62
3
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
1
Introduction
Do men and women really speak differently? Much research has been carried out in order to answer
this question, and many books have been written claiming that they do. Other books, though fewer,
claim that there is little significant difference in speech styles between genders. Furthermore, the
literature disagrees not only as to whether men and women speak differently, but also as to why this
may be so. This study aims to make a small contribution to finding the answers to both questions,
and suggest a research method and some areas of study as yet underexplored, by asking men and
women to tell their own versions of a famous folktale, and analysing the differences therein.
The paper is organized as follows. It begins with a review of some of the literature relevant to the
project, in the areas of language and gender theory, features of gendered speech, the way language
constructs gender in society and individually, and the way gender links to narrative. Following this,
the research method is described, and the results are analysed.
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Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
2
Literature review
In this section the literature relating to theories of language and gender1 is reviewed. It begins with
the history of language and gender and purported differences in gendered speech, and then moves to
a wider focus on the role that language plays in society and in constructing individuals’ identities.
Finally, the relationship between gender and narrative is examined.
2.1
The history of language and gender research
This section will provide a review of recent work in the field of language and gender, covering
theories from 1970 to the present: namely Deficit, Difference and Performative, with particular
reference to a key text from each. Is has been noted by Cameron that these theories did not directly
supersede each other, but grew out of interaction, with the balance between them shifting over time
with academic developments and the changing social climate. (2005:484)
2.1.1
Deficit theory
It seems almost impossible to discuss theories of language and gender without mentioning
Language and Woman’s Place2 (Lakoff 1975). Lakoff could reasonably claim to have invented the
discipline as we understand it today. Her influence, direct and indirect, can be seen in many of the
works mentioned in this study. Importantly, Lakoff’s work dealt with language from a feminist
viewpoint which saw language as discriminating against women both in description and usage to a
dehumanizing end (1975:4–5).
The problem for Lakoff was that the way that women were taught to speak led to them not being
taken seriously and “systematically denied access to power, on the grounds that they are not capable
1
In keeping with current trends, seen for example in Wardhaugh (2009) and Cameron (2005, 2010) this paper will use
the term ‘gender’ in the ranged, socially constructed sense, as opposed to the more biologically based, and binary ‘sex’.
2
Hereafter LWP.
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Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
of holding it as demonstrated by their linguistic behaviour” (1975:7). Her ‘women’s language’3 is
marked by “powerlessness, insecurity, and triviality” (Cameron 2005:485). Lakoff saw ‘women’s
language’ as reflective of a wider oppression, in which the language that women are taught and the
subjects that it relegates women to dealing with are "not relevant to the real world of (male)
influence and power" (1975:13). This leads to what she calls a “double bind”, a “problem in our
culture” which the women are seen as unfeminine if they speak like men, and powerless if they
speak like women (1975:57).
2.1.2
Difference theory
Difference theory was perhaps a reaction to criticism of LWP and the idea that it saw ‘women’s
language’ as inherently deficient (see for example McConnell-Ginet 2004:108). Its most famous
text, You Just Don’t Understand (Tannen 1990), attempts to counter the view that "Experts and
nonexperts alike tend to see anything women do as evidence of powerlessness" (1990:225), by
revising Deficit theory and presenting men and women’s speech styles as separate but equally
valuable “genderlects” (1990:279).
Tannen’s genderlects are characterized by a focus on status and hierarchy in men, while women
tend to use language to establish connection and intimacy (1990:279). This basic distinction is often
the cause of misunderstanding in the way that men and women communicate with each other. These
differences are pronounced enough for Tannen to proclaim that it is akin to cross-cultural
communication (1990:18).
Like Lakoff, Tannen sees these differences as being produced by society, but for her they are a
result of the way that children are exposed to and acquire language in early childhood, in particular
during single sex play. As she says: "Even if they grow up in the same neigborhood, on the same
3
Lakoff’s scare quotes.
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Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
block, or in the same house, girls and boys grow up in different worlds of words" (1990:43). It is
this difference that informs the way we speak as adults, and causes the misunderstandings that
Tannen deals with in her book.
2.1.3
Performative theory
Performative theory came about with a “postmodern turn” in which less importance was placed in
grand narratives such as binary gender difference, and more attention given to a range of locally
constructed, gendered identities (Cameron 2005:487). This turn led to Cameron writing The Myth of
Mars and Venus (2007) in which she showed that the differences that Tannen claimed for men and
women held neither over time in Western society, nor in different cultures today.
Performative theory is based on the ideas of philosopher Judith Butler, who suggests that rather than
being essential, gender comes about through continuous practices that constitute it – in her words
“gender is the repeated stylization of the body” (1990:33). These practices are located in society,
but the individual can either reinforce them or attempt to challenge or revise it (Bucholtz 1999:206
citing de Certeau 1988). This theory is reflective of current Western society, where gender is
increasingly seen as a product of personal choice rather than an inescapable essence (Cameron
2005:490).
This section examined three current and historical theories of language and gender and gave brief
descriptions which will be elaborated upon in the coming sections.
2.2
Differences in men and women’s speech
This section will examine some of the claims in the literature about the features, styles, topics and
purposes of men and women’s speech.
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Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
2.2.1
Linguistic features
In LWP, Lakoff suggested a number of features that characterized women’s speech. These included
trivial adjectives such as minute colour distinctions, or perceived feminine adjectives such as
“divine”; tag questions; uptalk (declarative sentences spoken with rising intonation); powerless
exclamations (“fudge” instead of “shit”); and intensifiers such as “so” which bring little extra
meaning to the utterance (1975: 53-56).
These claims were based on Lakoff’s impressions, but were investigated further by a generation of
researchers. Some found little support for Lakoff’s claims; for example Dubois & Crouch (1975)
found that in a meeting men used 33 tag questions to women’s 0 (they did not however count the
amount of talk by different genders). Siegler and Siegler found that people thought that women used
more tag questions, even when they didn’t (1973). Holmes improved Lakoff’s hypothesis by
dividing the functions of tag questions into modal and affective. She found that women used more
modal tags, and men used more affective ones (Holmes 1984 cited in Cameron, McAlinden
& O’Leary 1989: 82). Overall though, little evidence was produced to validate or disprove Lakoff’s
findings. However, the importance of Lakoff’s observations may not be their empirical legitimacy,
but that they all serve to “weaken or mitigate the force of an utterance” (Cameron, McAlinden
& O’Leary 1989:75).
Aside from Lakoff, other researchers have also made claims that women use more questions than
men (Fishman 1980), and that boys at play tend to give “aggravated directives” (such as “Gimme
some rubber bands”) while girls use more “mitigated directives” (“Let’s go around Subs and Suds”)
(Goodwin 1998). However, as theory moved on, researchers moved from exploring individual
features to examining the speech styles of men and women, which will be covered in the following
section.
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Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
2.2.2
Styles, topics and purposes
Lakoff claims that women seem more polite because they are socialized to be indirect, deferential
and unclear in order not to offend (1975: 73). These claims were developed by Tannen (1990), who
saw this politeness as an attempt to avoid conflict and strengthen bonds between people. Men, on
the other hand, see themselves in a hierarchy of power where challenge and respect are much more
important. Some effects of this are in the table below:
Men (Hierarchical)
Women (Community-minded)
Independence: men will take decisions
alone, and be less willing to show
sympathy or concern for fear of seeming
“one-up” or “one down”.
Connectedness: women take decisions in
consultation, and are happier to show
empathy.
Public speaking: men will speak more at
public events in order to win respect.
Private speaking: women will speak more at
home in order to build intimacy with their
partners or friends.
Conflict: men seek conflict or challenge
to demonstrate their hierarchical position.
Avoidance: women try to avoid conflict as it
threatens intimacy.
Interrupting: Men interrupt to gain the
floor (see also Zimmerman & West
1975:116)
Overlapping: women use overlapping speech
to choose topics and build conversations
collaboratively (see also Coates (1993: 138).
Tannen claims that these differences contribute to different “genderlects” spoken by men and
women (1990: 279).
While Tannen’s theories seem to relate to a universal concept of men and women, other researchers
investigated at a more local level. This came from notions of Speech Communities (Milroy
& Milroy 1978) and Communities of Practice (Eckert 1992). Coates examines 2 studies (Milroy
& Milroy 1978 and Cheshire 1982) that showed that where a variable could be labelled prestige, it
was generally used more by women (1993: 77). Eckert and McConnell-Ginet found that in a high
school community, “jock” girls used far less non-standard forms, and “burned-out burnout” girls
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Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
use far more. The boys use of non-standard forms falls between the two (2003:295). Given that
“jocks” tend to adopt middle class norms (including standard language) while burnouts reject them,
we can see this as these girls taking the linguistic behaviour of their respective groups to the
extreme. Cameron theorizes that this was due to the fact that women are "judged more by style than
achievement" (2007:148), and therefore expend more energy in the area where they will be greater
rewards. If we can draw a parallel between prestige language in society, and language of identity in
a group, which has its own prestige, then we may be able to claim that this is one aspect of women’s
speech styles that is used across several Western contexts.
This section has examined several features and styles of men’s and women’s speech found in
studies by Deficit, Difference and Performative theorists.
2.3
Society, power & language
In this section, the relationship between society, power and language will be examined in greater
detail. The section begins by describing the reflexivity of language and society, before discussing
how children are socialized through language, and finally demonstrating how power and inequality
in society manifest themselves in language.
2.3.1
Reflexivity
Both Deficit and Difference theories see language as being firmly rooted in society (Tannen
1990:243, Lakoff 1975:3). For Lakoff, this concept is related to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (Hoijer
1954:93) which says that language constructs and limits our view of the world. Thus the world that
we experience will simultaneously be affected by language, while at the same time being reflected
in that language. This property is known as “reflexivity” (Gee 2010:101).
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Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
2.3.2
Socialization
The reflexivity of language means that we acquire and maintain concepts embedded in it, such as
the way men and women are supposed to speak (Goddard & Patterson 2000:86). This is known as
socialization:
This [socialization] is a two-way process: in becoming linguistically competent, the child
learns to be a fully fledged male or female member of the community; conversely, when
children adopt linguistic behaviour considered appropriate to their gender they perpetuate the
social order which creates gender distinctions (Coates 1993:143).
Socialization is particularly important in Tannen’s work; throughout that she relates the differences
in genderlect to studies of children’s play, claiming that this is crucial to developing the linguistic
styles that we use in later life (1990). Her work leans heavily on an article by Maltz and Borker
(Malz & Borker 1982), which examines a range of studies of childhood play (including the
aforementioned Goodwin 1998). The study suggests that girls play is by invitation, and requires
closeness. If conflict occurs, the group breaks up, so girls learn to engineer closeness and avoid
conflict (Malz & Borker 1982:205) The boys play is much more inclusive, but involves the use of
speech to assert dominance and gain audiences for stories (1982:209). These patterns mirror the
linguistic behaviour of the adults in Tannen’s book.
2.3.3
Power and asymmetry
One criticism of Tannen’s work is that it largely ignores the influence of power on language and
society (Cameron 2007:77–78). Tannen sees genderlects as springing innocently from children’s
play. For Lakoff, the differences are much more pernicious. Women are “taught” (1975:4) language
which is not so much ‘women’s language’ as powerless language: "These words aren’t, basically,
“feminine”; rather, they signal “uninvolved,” or “out of power.” (1975:14). This idea is furthered by
a study that examined the linguistic behaviour of participants in trial, and found that many of
11
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
Lakoff’s features of women’s language corresponded not with gender, but perceived power in the
courtroom. (O'Barr & Atkins 1998)
One manifestation of power, language and society all interacting is what Coates calls the
Androcentric Rule: "Men will be seen to behave linguistically in a way that fits the writer's view of
what is desirable or admirable; women on the other hand will be blamed for any linguistic state
which is regarded by the writer as negative or reprehensible" (Coates 1993:16). This explains the
fact that men and women are judged differently even if they speak the same way (Tannen
1990:228).
This final example is one of asymmetry – the tendency for male language to be considered the
norm. (Tannen 1990:244) gives an example that male language tends to feature in mixed groups. In
a study of British parliament, Sylvia Shaw (2006) found that powerful men had access to powerful
strategies such as transgressing the rules of debate, where women did not. Linked to this asymmetry
is Cameron’s view that while women have become a more powerful group in modern society, they
have achieved it through “masculinization” of themselves to lessen this asymmetry, rather than a
feminization of society (2007:175). Thus it is perhaps power and the desire for it, rather than
gender, that has a greater effect on the language that we use.
This section has outlined some of the ways in which power, society, language and gender interact.
2.4
Identity and gender
In recent years research has focused less on wider society, and more on gender as a part of group or
individual identity. This section will outline some of the key concepts in this area.
12
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
2.4.1
Constructing and performing
In 2.1.3 performativity was defined as a range of gendered practices, which can be adhered to or
subverted according to the desires of the individual. Cameron demonstrates this with an example of
Japanese schoolgirls adopting rebellious ways of speaking from comic books (2007:143). The
importance of this was that they did not originally pick the particles up from play as infants, nor
were they taught them by adults. They adopted them in order to signify their independence. Further
evidence of this concept comes from Bucholtz’s study of “nerd girls” who use hyper-correct
language both in order to distinguish themselves from the “Jocks” and “Burnouts” and to construct
a positive identity for themselves (1999:212). These linguistic practices cannot be explained by
theories of socialization (Cameron 2007:143).
2.4.2
Group identity
The two examples in the preceding section show individuals choosing identities so as to mark
themselves out as part of a group. This notion has been called a “community of practice” – a group
centred on a mutual endeavour (Eckert 1992:464) and relates closely to Gee’s notion of language as
“doing and being things” (2010: 2). Thus the language that people who are (or wish to be) members
of a particular group use, will serve to identify them as such. Wardhaugh suspects that communities
of practice may be a better indicator of speech style than a single variable such as gender
(2009:348). Cameron points out that "A further key insight is that gender identities may be
constituted less by the contrast with the other gender and more by contrast with other versions of
the same gender" (Cameron 2005:487–488) .
The research examined in this section suggests that looking for universal differences between men
and women is unlikely to succeed, but insights may still be gained in more local contexts.
13
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
2.5
Narrative and gender
This section will explore the links between narrative and gender. The investigation of narrative is a
powerful sociolinguistic tool because “stories have a pervasive role in our daily life” (Thornborrow
2005:1) and by telling stories we “actively create worlds” (Johnstone 1993:67). Being the teller4 of
a story is a powerful position, from which choices can be made to reflect both the subculture that
the teller exists in, as well as the psychological, social and cultural situation of the individual
(Johnstone 1993:67–68). Threadgold takes a different position that narratives “perform identities
and rehearse, enact and change social realities and norms” (2005:265). These differing viewpoints
reflect Difference and Performative theories, the first in which individuals reflect society, the other
in which they are given more agency in order to change it. Thornborrow also points out that by
telling a story, one becomes part of a community of practice (2005:15), and this may also have an
impact on the telling.
Investigating the differences between men and women’s personal narratives, Johnstone (1993)
found important differences in the ways men and women told personal anecdotes. In men’s stories,
men were almost always the protagonist (supported by Cheshire (2000:253)) and often acted alone
with successful results. In contrast, women generally tell stories with a group of protagonists and
violation of social norms. Again, Cheshire finds similar evidence (2000:256) although the social
norms violated by her subjects tend to be more frightening than embarrassing. However, they are
linked by the fact that women’s stories often seem to involve things happening to women.
Johnstone (1993) also finds that women use reported speech (and even reports of unspoken speech
(1993:73)) more often in order to build rapport with the listener. They also include names more
often in their stories, whereas men focus more on time and place. Cheshire reports an interesting
4
The term “teller” for the performer of the story is borrowed from Blum-Kulka 2005:151, along with its sister terms
“tale” for the text of the story, and “telling” for the performance of the story.
14
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
finding in a similar vein, that in telling third person narratives, boys use third party subjectivity
(reporting the thoughts and feelings of the protagonist), while girls use first person subjectivity
(reporting their own reactions to events). Again it is suspected that women do this in order to build
rapport with an audience (Cheshire 2000:255).
This section examined theories of narrative related to gender, and found close links between gender
and narrative theories, along with important differences in the way men and women tell stories.
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Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
3
Research background and method
3.1
Background
The idea for this study comes from Cameron’s claim that "if you study situations where men and
women are doing the same things and playing the same roles, you may find... that the expected
differences between men and women do not appear" (Cameron 2007:50) and sets out to test this
hypothesis. Her claim is based on performative theory (see 2.1.3), which suggests that gender can
be made more or less relevant according to the will of the performer and the expectations on them.
Performative theory superseded difference theory, which held that men and women speak in
inherently different ways due to socialization and that gender was always an influence on speaking
(see 2.1.2).
Johnstone’s (1993) study found major differences in the way men and women told personal
anecdotes, both in content and style (see 2.5). This would seem to suggest that difference theory
was more valid, especially as the content and style differences matched with the aspects of
“genderlect” claimed by Tannen (1990). However, telling personal narratives is very general task,
and if men and women are essentially different, Johnstone may actually have been asking them to
perform different tasks. By asking different genders to perform a text already known to society, the
task is the same for both, and variation may not be expected. In addition, by telling the stories in
isolation, some of the social aspect is removed, especially the problem of the gender of the
interviewer. This experiment was designed to give as similar a task as possible to both genders in
order to test Cameron’s hypothesis.
3.2
Research method
The study was carried out with ex-patriot English teachers living in South Korea, all of whom spoke
English as their L1. All were aged 22-32 and were living and working in South Korea at the time.
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Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
This group was selected for ease of access, and all subjects were previously known to myself.
Participants were asked to record themselves telling the story of Little Red Riding Hood (with no
researcher present) and submit it for analysis5. In total 6 men and 5 women submitted recordings.
The Red Riding Hood story was chosen to give participants the chance to create some stereotypical
gendered characters - the predatory wolf, the defenceless girl and grandmother, the avenging
woodsman - and also because it is a well-known folktale, but with opportunities for content and
style choices within a relatively fixed story. Participants were told that they were telling the story to
no particular audience, and that they could tell the story as they felt it should be told. The only
stipulation was that they could not read from a text, though they could first research the story. These
choices were designed to give participants maximum creative control over their story worlds, and to
remove them from any expectations.
The recordings were transcribed, with long and short pauses noted. They were then printed and
annotated by hand, particularly where intonation was examined6. The transcripts were then analysed
to produce the discussion that follows.
All participants agreed to participate in the experiment but were not told in advance the nature of
the project in order to not influence their recordings. However, once the recordings were complete,
the purpose of the study was revealed to them, and they signed release forms7 allowing use of their
stories. All of them participated on the condition of anonymity, and agreed that the data they
supplied could be published or shared as long as their identity was protected.
5
A copy of the request document can be seen in section 10.
6
A marked up transcript can be seen in section 9.
7
An example of the release letter can be seen in section 11.
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Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
4
Discussion of results8
This section will analyse the stories submitted, present significant findings and their relation to
language and gender9.
The 11 stories analysed showed a great deal of variation. Length ranged from around two minutes
to over 5 minutes for both men and women. In creating their tellings, all narrators stuck closely to
the original storyline, but there were elements that varied between stories such as whether Red
Riding Hood10 meets the wolf in the forest, and whether she is eaten by the wolf. None of this
variation appeared to be typical of male or female11 narrators.
4.1
Character voicing
4.1.1
Results
There were, however, elements of creating the story where men and women’s tellings varied
significantly. One of these was voicing the characters, especially feminine ones. Table 1 (below)
shows a description of the voices used for each character, if they spoke. The voice the teller used for
narration was taken as a standard against which the voices used for the characters could be
compared. In the table, a black square indicates that the character did not speak directly in the story;
8
The small scale nature of this experiment means that any quantitative data will be insignificant and not suitable for
presentation. This section will therefore move straight to a discussion of some of the issues arising from the analysis of
the recordings and transcripts.
9
Full transcripts and links to audio recordings are in section 8
10
Hereafter RRH.
11
This study agrees with Bucholz that “contemporary feminists view identities as fluid, not frozen; they note that,
although identities link individuals to particular social groups, such links are not predetermined” Bucholtz 1999:209.
Therefore, terms such as “male”, “female”, “man”, “woman”, “masculine” and “feminine” are used advisedly, and for
the purposes of an easily understandable discussion, but not in order to establish a binary opposite view of gender.
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ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
grey shading indicates that the character’s voice varied significantly from the narrator’s, and no
shading indicates minor or zero variation from the narrator’s voice.
There was little difference between men and women’s narratives in the amount of characters who
spoke directly – 18 characters in 5 women’s stories compared to 20 characters who spoke in 6
men’s stories. As predicted by Cameron (2007: 133), there were significant differences between
individuals within each group, and the number of characters who spoke seemed to vary, predictably,
with the enthusiasm that the teller displayed for the task. However, in giving the character a voice
different to the narrator, women were much more willing – 13 characters to men’s 6. Furthermore,
of the 6 characters voiced by the men, 3 were the wolf and 2 were the wolf as the grandmother, with
no attempt at sounding feminine. This means that a single feminine12 voice was attempted by men.
By contrast, all of the women who gave the wolf a voice altered it significantly from the narration
by lowering their pitch and becoming gruffer or huskier. In addition, the one woman who voiced the
huntsman also gave him a voice with considerably lower pitch. While the number of male voices
created by women was only 4 in total, this was four times as many as the female voices created by
men, and may be lower due to the low number of male characters in the story. It is suspected that
the number of male voices performed would be higher were there more male characters.
4.1.2
Discussion
These results seem to show that men are less willing to give female characters a female voice. – but
why is this so? An explanation may be found in the concept of power. While Lakoff talked more
about lexical items than voice quality; it is suspected that feminine voice qualities also contribute to
the powerless position in which Lakoff states that women are placed (1975:7). There is some
evidence for this in Lakoff’s mention of intonation patterns (1975:56). In creating a story, the
12
The story has both female characters, and male characters pretending to be female characters, hence the term
“feminine” is preferred here.
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Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
position of narrator is a powerful one involving choices (Johnstone 1993:71–72), and thus adopting
a powerless manner of speech is perhaps seen by men as a threat to their role.
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Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
Table 1
Participant
Narrator
RRH
Woman 1
Even and slow, but
with more
intonation at key
points.
Woman 2
Natural, quite
conversational.
Same pitch,
but more
intonation and
emphatic
stress.
No different at
first. Then a
bit more sing
song.
Much greater
emphatic
stress.
Woman 3
Normal pitch, but
very precisely
enunciated and lots
of intonation and
emphatic stress.
Normal pitch,
carefully spoken.
Exaggerated
stresses.
Woman 4
Very high
pitched and
sing-song.
No different to
narrator at
first, but
slightly higher
later.
Mother
Wolf as Wolf
Wolf as
Granny
No different
from narrator.
Granny
Actually starts
higher –
unthreatening?
Then pitch
lowers but is
still more singsong than the
narration.
Drop in pitch
below narration
and huskier at
“eat you”.
Much lower
pitch – almost
booming. Gruff
and fierce at
“eat you”.
Slightly more
intonation than
narrator. Lower
and gruffer at
“eat you”.
21
Higher, very
similar to
Granny. Drops
in pitch later.
A little
higher, but
not as
exaggerated
as Wolf as
RRH.
Frail but not
much change
in pitch.
Exaggerated
stress.
Noticeably
higher pitch.
Very high
pitched.
Huntsman/
Woodsman
Wolf as
RRH
Very high
pitched.
Lower pitch.
Very high
pitched.
More so
than RRH
herself.
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
Participant
Narrator
RRH
Woman 5
Normal pitch.
Weary sounding .
Not much
intonation.
Slow, deliberate.
Normal pitch.
No difference
Man 2
Steady, normal
pitch. Average
intonation and
some emphatic
stress.
Man 3
Slow, informal.
Marginally
softer, higher
and more
intonation.
More
exaggerated at
the climactic
exchange.
No different
from narrator.
Man 4
Slow, pronounced
intonation.
Slow. Exaggerated
emphatic stress.
Man 1
Man 5
Man 6
No different
from narrator.
No different
from narrator.
Slightly
higher. More
intonation.
Slow. Little
No different
intonation or stress. from narrator.
Mother
Wolf as Wolf
A tiny bit
more
deliberate,
but no change
in pitch.
No different
to narrator.
No different
from narrator
except some
gruffness on
“eat you”.
Significantly
lower pitch and
gruffer.
Wolf as
Granny
Barely
noticeable
increase in
intonation.
Very small
increase in
pitch and
softness.
Huntsman/
Woodsman
Significantly
lower pitch
and gruffer.
Slower and
more stressed.
Same pitch.
Lower pitch.
Huskier.
No different
from narrator.
No different
from narrator.
No different
from narrator.
22
Granny
Same pitch.
Huskier.
No different
from narrator.
No different
from narrator.
Wolf as
RRH
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
Performative theory may provide another insight into the reasons for this difference. Asking
participants to create characters of the opposite gender is in fact a dual task. Firstly, the teller must
create the gender of the character in the story. While doing this however, they have to manage the
presentation of their own gender as narrator or teller. Clearly from these results, women are less
worried about using stereotypical aspects of a male voice (lower pitch, gruffness) than men are
about using equivalent aspects of a female voice (higher pitch, sing-song quality). Participants knew
that the recordings would be examined by myself (a male researcher known to them). It is theorized
that a desire not to be seen as either effeminate or powerless in my eyes may have contributed to
men’s reluctance to speak in female voices. This may also be explained by Terry Threadgold.
Invoking Butler’s claim that “gender is the repeated stylisation of the body” (Butler 1990:33) he
describes the difficulty that children had in performing a role of “pro-asylum roles” in a play, when
they had been “stylised” to “anti-asylum” roles by the press (Threadgold 2005:276). The male
participants difficulties in performing feminine features of voice may be because they never
perform them, as opposed to the women, who may be more comfortable, or used to performing as
men, in order to succeed in a society which still bears marks of androcentrism (Coates 1993:16).
This may contribute to the feminine being cast as “outside” (Butler 1993:42) and thus difficult or
distasteful for men to perform.
So far, reasons why men are unwilling or unable to use features of female voices have been
examined, but it is also important to investigate why women use features of men’s voices. If Tannen
(1990) is correct and we do really speak inherently different genderlects, but society has undergone
a process of masculinization (Cameron 2007:175), then perhaps women have arrived at a position
of greater flexibility in how they can perform gender. While the difficulty of a position in which
women must learn to speak like men was lamented as uncomfortable and energy-sapping by
(Lakoff 1975:7), it does give a lot more flexibility and could even be an advantage in tasks such as
this. A more positive idea is that recently the performance of gender has come to be seen as more
23
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Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
choice than socialization (Cameron 2005:490), and the evidence from the stories suggests that
women may have more choice in their self-presentation, and feel either more confident in
displaying features of male speech, or less bound by either their own or society’s notions of
femininity. In this experiment, there would seem to be an asymmetry in favour of women, in that
they can speak as either men or women, while men may only speak as men, though this may be a
reflection of a wider asymmetry to the reverse in society.
4.2
Comments on voicing
One further interesting feature of these tellings was the comments of the tellers on the voices used.
Women tended to comment on the femininity of their voices, even where it was the wolf, (“In his
sweetest girl voice he could come up with” – Woman 2), and men only commented on more
masculine features of voices (“a loud gruff voice” – Man 2). In both of these examples, the actual
voice used displayed these features, so there was no need to mention them. This phenomenon may
well be revealing about attitudes to stereotypes of gender, as the voices used were at the extremes of
what might be called stereotypical speech (high and shrill for feminine, deep and gruff for
masculine). The descriptions of the voices may be acting as a hedge against an extreme
performance of gender. However, this theory is based on very small amounts of data, and more
research is required in this area.
4.3
Narrative
4.3.1
Audience
Use of different voices may make women more effective tellers of stories like these. In this study,
women seemed, on average, the more enthusiastic tellers (although these are, of course, subjective
judgements). However, it is important to consider the conditions of the telling that may be
significant, and what we may be able to learn from the literature on this. In an informal
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Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
conversation after Man 1 had submitted his recording, he revealed that he found it difficult making
a recording without any audience. From the evidence of the recordings, it can be assumed that
women find this less difficult – but why is this? Tannen’s claim that men do “public speaking” in
order to curry status with observers, whereas women do “private speaking” in order to create
intimacy with friends (1990:76–77) may answer this question. By asking the tellers to speak
without an audience, the telling was perhaps seen as more private, and so perhaps disadvantageous
to men. A similar experiment conducted with a live audience would provide some evidence to prove
or disprove this theory.
4.3.2
Storytelling as a community of practice
In the previous section it was suggested that in this experiment women were the better storytellers.
One explanation for this may come from theories of communities of practice (Eckert 1992). In
telling a story, one is naturally orienting to a tradition of a storytelling that could be viewed as a
community of practice, as it is organized around a common goal (Thornborrow 2005:15). If women
tend to follow the linguistic norms of a group closer than men do (see 2.2.2), and we extrapolate
this theory to the practice of telling a story, we may expect women to follow more closely its norms.
In contrast, given the evidence in section 2.5, if men are more focused on the audience than the
practice, then it is expected that they will consider the audience more than the tale itself. Table 2
examines some ways in which we may be able to evaluate this.
Two common features of folktale tellings are the use of traditional openings and closings, and
having a strong moral to the tale. These are examined in the first two columns of the table.
Following this, instances where the telling diverts from the norm, or tradition. First, instances of the
story breaking down are examined, either where it loses logical cohesion, or where something is
forgotten or unknown by the narrator. After this, ways in which the tale is deliberately subverted
from the norms, either in terms of language or plot are listed. Finally the table looks at attempts to
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Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
involve an audience in the telling, either by first person subjectivity (Cheshire 2000:255) or by
addressing them directly using the pronouns “we” or “you”.
Table 2 (below) shows little variation in the usage of traditional openings and closings between
genders. However, there does seem to be a stronger moral to the women’s tales, with 3 out of 5
women mentioning the importance of not straying from the path, compared to 2 out of 6 men. This
could perhaps have been expected. Johnstone (1993) found that mid-western women tended to tell
stories with multiple protagonists which focused on building community bonds. If we see moral
tales as the passing on of advice between generations (in this tale the advice is from mother to
daughter in order to keep her safe) then it seems to bear out both Johnstone’s findings and the wider
views of Tannen (1990) that women are focused on interconnectedness whereas men are more
hierarchical.
If this is true of men, then we may expect them to focus more on their relationship with the
audience, which naturally involves relations of power (See 2.3.2). In the context of this study,
where there is no defined audience, it was theorized that men may still try to create an imagined
audience (something akin to Eco’s “model reader” (Eco 1994:9)), and a relationship with it to
legitimize themselves as narrators. This tendency was expected to be reflected in features such as
direct address to the audience and first person subjectivity. In fact, the only instance of direct
address was by a man, excepting a “you know” in Woman 5’s story, but this was insufficient
evidence from which to draw a conclusion. Cheshire suggested that in telling third person stories,
boys use third person subjectivity more, and girls use first person (2000: 255). Again, table 2 shows
that both men and women use first person subjectivity in their stories, both to comment on events in
the story (“luckily”, “strangely”) and to pass judgement on the characters actions (“naively”). In this
26
Alexander Grevett
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Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
Table 2
Participant
Beginning / Ending
Moral?
Breakdowns
Subversions
1st Person Subjectivity
Direct Addresses
Woman 1
“Once upon a time”
Story unfinished.
“Once upon a time”
“Happily ever after”
No
“The wolf somehow
got into her house”
None
None
“Luckily”
None
None
None
“Once upon a time”
Moral ending
“Once upon a time”
“The end”
Yes, strongly
emphasized.
No
None
None
“Luckily”
“Being the sweet girl
that she was”
None
See breakdowns.
This could be seen
as subversion.
“Because it was very
gory”
None
Woman 5
“A long time ago”
Moral ending
Yes, strongly
emphasized.
None
“Stupidly”
“Or smarter than Red
Riding Hood”
“Miraculously”
“Apparently”
“You know”
Man 1
“There once lived”
“Happily ever after”
Strong moral, but
only mentioned
once.
None
“as girls are wont to”
“being a little bit
naïve”
“Somehow”
“Strangely”
None
Man 2
“Once upon a time”
“Happily ever after”
No
“Then it’s possible
that red riding hood
and the woodsman
got married”
“And whatnot”
“And so on like
this”
“I guess he’s maybe
the grandmother’s
neighbour”
“I believe the
huntsman killed
him. I’m not sure.”
“Simple enough”
“Or I guess he
opened the door – it
was already open.”
“Somehow she was
still alive”
None
None
None
None
Woman 2
Woman 3
Woman 4
Yes, but not strongly
emphasized.
27
None
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Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
Participant
Beginning / Ending
Moral?
Breakdowns
Subversions
1st Person Subjectivity
Direct Addresses
Man 3
“Once upon a time”
“That’s the story of little
red riding hood”
Yes, strongly
emphasized.
None
Talks about Red
riding hood being
from the ‘hood.
“As you know”
“As we said”
“As we just
explained”
Man 4
“Once upon a time”
“Happily ever after”
No
None
Man 5
“Here is the story of Little
Red Riding Hood”
“That is the story of”
No
“Awesome
goodies”
None
None
Man 6
Story title
“At which point they all
celebrated”
No
“She
met…err…who was
watching her”
Cuts short the
climactic exchange
between RRH and
the wolf.
“Ah sorry and was
seen by a wolf”
“Or Little Red
Riding Hood told
the woodsman”
“I’m not exactly
sure how the
woodsman was
following…”
“Window or door or
whatever”
“I’m not sure why
the wolf didn’t
attack her”
“Little Red Riding
Hood wasn’t the
brightest of the bunch”
“Very naively”
“She’s not very smart”
“It was a miracle”
“Both miraculously
unharmed”
“Anyway”
None
None
28
None
Alexander Grevett
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Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
second category, there may be a suggestion that men are more willing to comment on the
thoughtlessness of RRH’s actions, but the data is not significant enough to draw a firm conclusion.
This may however be an area for further research.
4.3.3
Traditional stories vs. individual stories
The narrators’ comments on the story highlight one further interesting power relation here, that of
the individual and the traditional telling. In creating their stories, the narrators are exercising
creative power over the story, but the traditions of the story simultaneously exercise power over
them. This can be best observed in areas where the story breaks down, diverges from tradition, or is
deliberately subverted. Again, given men’s desire to act independently (Tannen 1990:24–25), we
may expect to see evidence of both, as men’s desires conflict with the story’s traditions, whereas
women may be happier to follow those traditions. In fact, the data shows that men may be happier
to subvert both the story (RRH’s being from the ‘hood in Man 3’s story) and the language used to
tell it; “Awesome goodies” (Man 5) and “Anyway” are also examples of non-traditional language
for a fairy story.
This tendency may also be visible in the breakdowns observed (see table 2), with 6 in the women’s
stories compared to 10 in the men’s. The type of breakdown is also important, and in men’s stories
often come as an attempt to rephrase or explain something necessary for the cohesion of the story
(“I’m not exactly sure how the woodsman was following…” – Man 6) or to express some kind of
reaction, such as surprise, when the traditional story and the teller’s story appear to be in conflict
(“Grandma answered the door and the wolf gobbled her up. Simple enough” – Man 1). It is
suspected that the higher number of these kinds of breakdown in men’s stories may have been
caused by friction between their own narratives and those of the traditional story.
29
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Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
In this section the stories submitted were examined, and some significant differences were found
between men and women’s tellings. Male tellers did not use traditionally female features of voice
such as high pitch, but female tellers were able to use equivalent features of male speech. It was
theorized that this was principally because male tellers did not want to or could not present
themselves as more feminine, perhaps because of the male researcher. It also found that the
audience may be more of a concern to male speakers, and that men’s stories suffer breakdown more
often than women’s do. This may be because of friction between the individually created narrative
and the traditional one.
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Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
5
Conclusion
This study did not find that if men and women are given the same task, the expected differences did
not appear (Cameron 2007:50). In fact, the stories in this study showed significant differences
between men and women’s tellings in voicing of characters and in story breakdown. Time and
space restrictions on the study also prevented other suspected differences from being examined,
such as differing levels of politeness in the character of RRH, differences in detail levels when
describing clothes, and amount of speech acts. All of these examined and unexamined features may
be explicable in terms of Deficit and Difference theory, suggesting that they still carry some weight.
However, a valid criticism of the work of Tannen (1990) by Cameron (2007) is that we cannot
create a stereotype of all women or all men by examining a small group of them. Given this, and the
extremely small scale of the study, these results are not claimed to be significant of anything outside
of the context examined in this paper.
If this study has value, it is more likely in suggesting new directions and techniques for further
research. Little has been done in some of the areas that this paper has touched upon. For example,
while there is some research (for example Barrett 1998) into men presenting themselves as feminine
(or not!) there is little outside the context of queer studies. Asking men who would identify as
heterosexual to perform femininity may provide some useful insights into both their and society’s
attitudes. Similarly, while there is a raft of research on personal narratives, there is little on the
telling of traditional stories, at least within the area of language and gender. Finally, the comments
that narrators made on extremely feminine or masculine voices may also provide another of these
interesting avenues for research. Therefore, my aim in presenting this paper is, to borrow Lakoff’s
term, as a “goad” (1975: 5) to explore them.
Word count: 6,457 (not including cover, contents, section numbers and Tables 1 and 2)
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Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
6
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7
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to the 11 friends and acquaintances who took the time and
effort to record and submit their stories to this project. This was not an easy task, so I am all the
more appreciative. I hope that having read this project, you feel that your efforts were worthwhile;
to me, they were invaluable. I would also like to pass on my thanks to my supervisor Dr. Fei-yu
Chuang for her help and support.
37
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
8
Appendix A: Transcripts and audio links
On the following pages transcripts of the 11 stories submitted can be found. There is a link to a
downloadable audio version below each story.
These electronic transcripts were the basic versions. They were then printed and marked up by hand
with notes and some intonation and stress markers. A marked up version can be seen in appendix B.
38
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
8.1
Woman 1
ok here’s the story of little red riding hood
um once upon a time little red riding hood was
told by her mom to go visit her grandma to bring her a basket of fruit and cookies um little red
riding hood skipped through the forest and picked flowers and took her time then
meanwhile err her grandma was sick and err the big bad wolf somehow got into her grandma’s
house and was really really hungry so he ate the grandma and then he disguised her-himself as
little red riding hood’s grandma so err little red riding hood gets to her grandma’s house and um
when she knocks on the door [cough] and [cough]
?
she says “whoa what big- what a big nose you have” and grandma says “all the better to smell
you with” and then finally little red riding hood says “Whoa what big- [cough] My what big
teeth you have” and grandma goes “all the better to eat you with” [cough cough] and goes to
eat little red riding hood and
chases her around the house but luckily there’s a woodcutter in
the forest and hears little red riding hood’s screams and bursts through the door and then he
punched the wolf in the stomach and the wolf spit out the grandma and grandma and little red
riding hood are safe and the wolf…
Total words: 229
Length: 1:56
Audio File: https://www.box.com/s/f6ab4e59e09e3f5ff153
39
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
8.2
Woman 2
This is the story of little red riding hood once upon a time there lived a young girl and her family
in the woods and they were quite happy her name was little red riding hood
grandmother
nearby lived her
once little red riding hood’s grandmother became ill so being the sweet girl that
she was she decided to bring her grandmother a basket full of treats to make her feel better
on
her way through the woods to get to grandmother’s house little red riding hood encountered a
wolf and she had been warned many times by her parents to be careful of wolves but this wolf
seemed friendly “where are you going little red riding hood” oh I’m going to grandmother’s
house to bring her these treats she’s very ill” “oh what a sweet girl you are” answered the wolf
“be on your way then get off to grandmother’s house” however the little red riding hood had no
idea that the wolf was actually being malicious and cunning in his questions he was off to
grandmother’s house himself as soon as he heard this and at breakneck speed he ran through the
woods and got to grandmother’s house before little red riding hood had a chance
he knocked on
the door and said “hello granny it’s me little red riding hood” in his sweetest girl voice he could
come up with “come in dear” answered grandma once inside the wolf gobbled her up “tralalala”
along came little red riding hood not knowing the danger that was awaiting her inside the granny’s
home knock knockknock “grandma it’s me”
“come in dear” answered the wolf there he laid
in bed disguised as grandmother with a bonnet and the blankets pulled up close to his face
“oh
granny you must be very ill” “oh dear I’m fine don’t worry come closer” “oh my grandmother
what big eyes you have” “oh the better to see you with my dear” “oh dear granny what a long
nose you have” “oh the better to smell those lovely treats” “and granny what big teeth you have”
“the better to eat you” growled the wolf and he was off after little red riding hood she was
running through the woods screaming “oh my dear” and the wolf was fast on her tail luckily
there was a nearby woodsman who had been working chopping away at some trees
the ruckus
and he heard
he stopped what he was doing and ran right into the direction of the wolf and saw
40
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
that he was hot after little red riding hood using his axe he cut down the wolf and in doing so the
wolf opened up and they found granny luckily still alive inside the wolf’s gut they were able to
save granny and they lived happily ever after
Total words: 471
Length: 3:32
Audio File: https://www.box.com/s/9fe33974a716f6a0235e
41
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
8.3
Woman 3
Once upon a time in a village far away there lived a little girl
but most so by her grandma
the girl was loved by everyone
when she was young her grandma gave her a red cloak she loved
it so much that she wouldn’t take it off so people started calling her little red riding hood and the
name stuck
one day little red riding hood’s mother asked her to take some things to her grandma
who was sick and unable to get out of bed
as this was the first time little red riding hood had
gone to her grandma’s house alone her mother cautioned her to be careful and not to dawdle on
the way
Soon after entering the woods that her grandmother lived in little red riding hood
became distracted by the BEAUTY of the forest
suddenly a wolf appeared to her but not
knowing what a wicked creature he was little red riding hood was not afraid
young lady” said he “good afternoon mr wolf” she replied
“good afternoon
“where are you off to?” he asked
“to my grandmother’s she’s sick and I’m bringing her food to make her strong again”
“This is
a dangerous forest for a young girl to be walking in alone and you are alone right?” he asked in
the sweetest voice he could muster
I’m a big girl”
“yes my mother said I could come all by myself because
“maybe I should accompany you”
“That won’t be necessary mr wolf her
house isn’t that much further down the road it’s in the clearing past the three large oak trees”
“oh yes I know that house that old woman looks quite delightful” he replied “and delectable”
he added to himself
“I should hurry mr wolf my grandmother is expecting me soon bye bye”
as the girl skipped down the path towards her grandmother’s house the wolf took a shortcut
through the woods to the house and knocked on the door
hood” relied the wolf “I have food to make you stronger”
“who’s there”
“little red riding
“come in my dear” called out the
grandmother “I am too weak and cannot get up” the wolf threw open the door and without
saying word he went straight to the grandmother’s bed and gobbled her up
clothes dressed himself in her cap and laid himself on the bed
a little while later little red
riding hood appeared she was surprised to find the cottage door partially ajar
42
then he put on her
she felt uneasy
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
but went on in she called out “good morning grandma” but received no answer so she went to
the bed and opened the curtains there laid her grandmother with her nightcap pulled over her face
and looking very strange
“oh grandmother” she said “what big ears you have”
“all the
better to hear you with my child” was the reply “but grandmother what big eyes you have” she
said “all the better to see you with my dear” “but grandmother what large hands you have” “all
the better to hold you and hug you with” “oh but grandmother what a big mouth you have” “all
the better to eat you with” and scarcely had the wolf said this that one within one bound he was
out of bed and swallowed up red riding hood
when the wolf had finished his meal he laid back
down on the bed and fell asleep and began to snore VERY loudly
a little while later a kind
huntsman who was passing the old woman’s house decided to stop and see if the old woman was
feeling better
being accustomed to letting himself into the house he didn’t bother to knock
going right on in he saw the wolf laying down right on top of the bed the old woman’s clothing
being shed from him when he devoured little red riding hood
now the huntsman and the wolf
had a longstanding nasty feud seeing him there the huntsman immediately drew the rifle he always
carried but just as he was about to blow the wolf to smithereens a thought occurred to him
“this wicked beast might have swallowed the old woman maybe she’s STILL ALIVE!” and
with that he grabbed the carving knife that was laying on the kitchen table and began to slowly
cut open the sleeping wolf’s stomach
when he made a long enough cut he saw the little girl’s
red hood having seen that the huntsman dug his fingernails into the slice he’d made and began
to RIP the huge wolf in half with his hands
little girl out
that dark wolf”
soon the hole was big enough for him to pull the
as she sprang out she cried “thank you huntsman I’ve been so in frightened inside
after that the old woman came barrelling out with the fiery vengeance that one
can only get after being swallowed by a wicked animal
the grandmother although still sick and
a little weak from her ordeal grabbed the carving knife that the huntsman had dropped and cut
straight through the wolf’s neck
then all three were delighted because the wicked beast was no
43
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
more
after the huntsman drew off the wolf’s skin and proudly went home with it
the
grandmother butchered and baked the wolf’s kidney and liver into a delicious pie that helped
revive her ailing health
and red riding hood she thought to herself “as long as I live I will never
talk to strangers or spend time alone in the woods”
Total words: 921
Length: 4:55
Audio File: https://www.box.com/s/8ba9b673f2d694904ec7
44
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
8.4
Woman 4
Once upon a time there was a little girl who lived near a forest
one day her grandmother was
sick so her mother made her a basket of picnic goods and told her to take it up the mountain to her
grandmother
so she was walking through the woods
and she ran into a wolf
and the wolf
said “where are you going little girl” and she looked at him and said “my grandmother is sick
and so I’m taking her this food
and the wolf said “aha! good luck” and off she went and the
wolf decided to take a shortcut up to her grandmother’s house so he ran up the mountain and he
got there well before little red riding hood and he went inside and he gobbled her grandmother up
and then he put on her clothes and lay in her bed
and he waited
a little while after that little
red riding hood arrived and knocked on the door and the wolf said “come in” doing his best little
old lady voice
and so she came in and she saw him lying in the bed with her grandmother’s
bonnet and dress and she said “is something wrong with your voice grandmother you sound
funny” and the wolf said “oh [short cough] it’s just this cold I have” and she said “my!
grandmother what big eyes you have” and the wolf said “all the better to see you with my dear”
and she said “my! grandmother what big EARS you have” and the wolf said “all the better to hear
you with my dear” and she said “my! grandmother what big TEETH you have” and the wolf said
“all the better to EAT you with” and he sprang out of bed
and he was just about to eat her up
when a woodsman who had been passing by heard her screaming for help and he ran inside and
he chopped the wolf’s head off with his axe
and then because it was very gory they cut the wolf
open and stacked him full of rocks and sewed him up again and threw him into the river so that
he would never bother anyone again and then it’s possible that red riding hood and the woodsman
got married
the end
Total words: 382
Length: 2:09
Audio File: https://www.box.com/s/a1b5435b4cff9c7ce3e8
45
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
8.5
Woman 5
This is the story of little red riding hood
a long time ago in a village there was a little girl who
was loved by her mother and her grandmother and the grandmother loved her so much that she
had a red riding hood made for the little girl and it looked so good on her that she became known
as little red riding hood
one day the mother made some cake and packaged it up with some
wine and asked little red riding hood to [pause] to take it to her grandmother’s house
her
grandmother lived in in the woods quite far from the village and the mother taught little red riding
hood to go straight there and not to diverge
the cake and wine to her grandmother’s house
little red riding hood agreed and so she set out with
on the way err a wolf saw little red riding hood
and thought she looked delicious and that he wanted to eat her so he asked her where she was
going and little red riding hood said you know she was going to her grandmother’s and he asked
where that was and she explained you know it’s under some trees and whatnot and so the wolf was
a little bit smart or smarter than red riding hood and he said to her why don’t you enjoy the
scenery why don’t you pick some flowers and enjoy the sunlight and so little red riding hood
stupidly did so and the wolf took off towards the grandmother’s house when he reached the
grandmother’s house he had seen that the grandmother was very sick and quite old and helpless
he ate her up and then little red riding hood went to the grandmother’s house and had seen that
the door was open and she thought that it was a bit strange she went in anyways and she called out
to her grandmother but her grandmother didn’t reply so she went to her grandmother’s room to
bring her the cake and wine and the flowers that she had picked while she was traipsing around in
the woods [cough] she said she knows that her grandmother looked a bit strange so she said to her
grandmother “Oh my what big ears you have” and the wolf replied “well better to hear you with”
and so on like this until little red riding hood said “my what a terrible mouth you have- terribly big
mouth you have” and the wolf said “well you know what better to eat you with” and then he
gobbled her up
so the huntsman had realized that I guess he’s maybe the grandmother’s
46
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
neighbour um he realized that there was something- something amiss amiss at the grandmother’s
house so he went over to investigate and he had seen that the wolf was sleeping in the
grandmothers bed and at first he was going to shoot the wolf but then he realized that maybe the
wolf had eaten the grandmother so instead he began to cut open the wolf ??? the wolf’s stomach
while the wolf was sleeping and the huntsman saw the red riding hood so he pulled out little red
riding hood as well as the grandmother who were both miraculously alive and then little red riding
hood stuffed the wolf with some stones and they stitched him up and the stones were so heavy
that the wolf couldn’t escape and he fell over and died and they were all happy and they celebrated
with their cake and wine
then there was another wolf who was trying to do almost the same thing
and he wanted to eat little red riding hood because she apparently looked so delicious and the wolf
was trying to trick her and the grandmother realized this so the grandmother had made some
sausages and then she asked little red riding hood to go fill the trough with the water that she had
used to boil sausages so she did this and then the wolf smelled it went to go investigate and then I
believe the huntsman killed him I’m not sure anyway after then little red riding hood was free
and she went back to her grand- her mother and never diverged from her mother’s direction again.
Total words: 713
Length: 4:36
Audio File: https://www.box.com/s/dc1324f5934acef67fa4
47
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
8.6
Man 1
There once lived a young girl named little red riding hood
always used to wear a red cloak wherever she went
she got this name because she
she lived in a small village with her mother
her mother used to always warn her “never go into the forest never go into the forest alone it’s a
very dangerous place for young girls like you”
so one day the mother sent her off into the forest
to deliver some wine and some cookies to her grandmother
was believed at that time that wine would cure her her illness
her had been sick recently and it
so off she went into the forest but
her mother said “don’t stray away from the path stay on the path in the forest”
along the way
she was walking in the forest and through the pa- through the path in the forest and she saw some
flowers at the side of the path a little bit into the forest so as girls are wont to do she went over
over and started looking at the flowers and smelling the flowers and watching the bees buzzing
around when suddenly a big wolf appeared
“Oh what are you doing here” said the wolf
“oh
I’m just on my way to see my grandmother she’s very sick these days” said little red riding hood
“Is your- Does your grandmother live in the forest” the wolf said “oh well kind of she lives in ain a hut that’s in the forest so I’m just on my way there” said riding hood
“oh well how exactly
do you get to this hut” asked the wolf little red riding hood being a little bit naïve and not knowing
much about wolves and how dangerous they are just easily answered by saying “oh straight down
this path over the bridge and to the left”
the wolf said “I see well I’ll be seeing you later” “ok”
said little red riding hood and the wolf took off
unbeknownst to little red riding hood the wolf
actually knew a shortcut to the grandmother’s house
way down the path
little red riding hood then continued on her
the wolf thought to himself “hmm this’ll be perfect away from the road
where people can’t see me I can go into the grandmother’s house eat her and then wait for the
girl and eat her too this’ll be perfect I’ll be able to eat both of them at the same time
so the
wolf arrived at the home at the grandmothers home and knocked on the door and when the
grandmother answered the door the wolf ate her simple enough ah after the wolf ate her he
48
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
decided the best way to trick red riding hood err would be to wear the grandmother’s clothes so
the wolf went through the grandmother’s wardrobe and chose some clothing to cover his face as
much as possible or his head as much as possible his body as much as possible his face would
have still been revealed slightly he then got under the covers of the grandmother’s bed
meanwhile red riding hood was crossing over the bridge turning and going towards her
grandmother’s home she arrived at the home and she knocked on the door she noticed it was a
little bit open so she just pushed the door open called out to her grandmother “grandmother are
you there” said riding hood and she could hear a faint call from the bedroom “I’m in here I’m in
here sweetie”
and so red riding hood walked towards the bedroom red riding hood entered the
bedroom and could see a figure in the bed looked a little bit strange though didn’t look exactly
like her grandmother and she said “grandmother is that you” and grandma said “yes dear come
closer” so red riding came a little closer and then stopped and said “oh but grandmother what big
eyes you have” “oh yes the better to see you with my dear” the wolf said and red riding hood
came a little closer and riding hood said “oh but grandmother what big ears you have” “yes yes
the better to hear you with my dear” so riding hood came a little closer and stopped and said “oh
grandmother what big teeth you have” and immediately the wolf jumped up and said “the better to
eat you with“ and immediately jumped on red riding hood and ate her up
while she was being
eaten she started screaming and screaming and a local woodsman heard the screaming the wolf
swallowed her completely as the woodsman came by he broke down the door or I guess he
opened the door it was already open and came in and saw the wolf and realized this wolf must
have eaten the grandmother because the grandmother lives here
the woodsman then grabbed the
wolf pinned him down took his axe and slit open the wolf’s stomach pulled out the grandmother
somehow the grandmother was still alive and came right out and then cut a little bit more of the
wolf open and also somehow the little red riding hood was also alright the wolf was unconscious
at this point and the three of them decided on what should be the fate of the wolf and strangely
49
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
they decided to put rocks in his stomach and sew him back up this resulted in the wolf waking up
and then trying to run away but being in terrible pain and then the wolf died and they all lived
happily ever after
Total words: 930
Length: 6:37
Audio File: https://www.box.com/s/60676076565febd0c746
50
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
8.7
Man 2
the little red riding hood
once upon a time there was a little girl named little red riding hood
she lived in a small forest with her mother one day she asked her mother if it would be ok to go
visit grandma “of course” her mother said “but let me bake you some cookies so you can take
them to her”
once the cookies were finished she put on her little red bonnet took the cookies
and hopped along down the path towards grandma’s house
when she stopped to pick some
flowers by the side of the path she did not notice a large black wolf watching her from just inside
the forest
when the wolf found out where little red riding hood was going he ran along ahead of
her to grandma’s house
when little red riding hood got to her grandmother’s house she felt a
little nervous so she called out first “grandmother are you there?”
her “of course I am come on in darling”
a loud gruff voice answered
when little red riding hood opened the door she saw
her grandmother in the bed covered with blankets “oh my are you sick grandmother?” “[cough]
just a little but it’s ok come on in”
“what big eyes you have grandma”
ears you have”
little red riding hood approached the bed cautiously
“all the better to see you with my dear”
“all the better to hear you with”
better to eat you with”
“and what big
“and what big teeth you have”
“all the
the wolf jumped out of the bed and lunged toward little red riding hood
but just before little red riding hood was about to get eaten by the wolf a lumberjack swung open
the door wielding his axe and grabbed the wolf by the tail
of him
he took the wolf outside and took care
once he was finished he went back inside and him and little red riding hood
discovered grandma hiding in the closet
she told them the whole story that she saw the wolf
coming and ran to hide in the closet because she was afraid
after that little red riding hood
her grandmother and the lumberjack all sat down and ate cookies with some fresh lemonade and
they lived happily ever after
Total words: 382
Length: 2:37
Audio File: https://www.box.com/s/a93d1ca21696aca51aa5
51
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
8.8
Man 3
Once upon a time there lived a young girl named little red riding hood
now they called her this
because she wore a red cloak and she was from the hood so she was from you know the bad
part of town some would call it the ghetto
well one day little red riding hood’s mother told her
that she needed to go visit her grandmother so she was going to send little red riding hood to see
her grandmother and give her some medicine because she had been sick
well little red riding
hood agreed and she looked forward to visiting her grandmother she hadn’t seen her in a long time
now little red riding hood and her mother lived in the city but her grandmother lived out in the
woods out in the forest far away so her mother told little red riding hood that she needed to be
safe stay on the path and don’t wander off into the forest where there are dangerous creatures
and criminals so little red riding hood agreed and she said that she would do exactly as her
mother said
so she set off with the medicine the food to see her grandmother but as she was
going she noticed but as she was going she noticed a lot of interesting flowers and animals that
she wanted to chase after and play with so she spent about a good hour wandering around in the
forest off of the path before she decided to go on to her grandmother’s house but during this time
little did she know that she was being watched by a big hungry wolf
as she decided to make
her way to her grandmother’s home the wolf approached her and asked her where she was going
little red riding hood wasn’t the brightest girl of the bunch so she told the wolf exactly where she
was going very naively
then she went on her way but the wolf was really hungry and he
thought little red riding hood looked delicious but he didn’t wanna kill her on the path on the
public path where he could easily be seen so he decided to go to little red riding hood’s
grandmother’s house and be waiting for her there so that he could eat her at the opportune time
so he went along on to the grandmother’s house in a hurry as you know he’s a wolf so he’s very
fast quick footed little red riding hood trotted along at normal pace to her grandmother’s house
as she arrived at her grandmother’s house she knocked on the door and said “hello grandmother
52
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
I’m here” but she didn’t receive any answer so she just opened the door and walked in
there
she saw her sick grandmother who was tucked away in her bed very comfortably up to her
mouth err the covers were up to her mouth so her face couldn’t really be seen
and little red
riding hood approached a little bit and noticed that her grandmother looked very strange so she
said “oh grandmother what’s the matter with your eyes? they’re so big” and her grandmother
said “well I can see you better now my dear” and little red riding hood also noticed her ears
were extra large so she asked her grandmother “grandmother why are your ears so large?” and
grandmother said “oh the better to hear you with my dear” and little red riding hood was becoming
a little suspicious at this time so she approached a little closer err grandmother pulled down the
covers from her mouth and little red riding hood saw how big her mouth was so she asked
“grandmother why is your mouth so big?” and grandmother answered “the better to eat you with
my dear” now this was a very strange answer for little red riding hood and as we said she’s not
very smart so she approached a little closer but at that time her grandmother jumped out of bed and
revealed her true form which was actually a wolf so the wolf had beaten little red riding hood to
her grandmother’s house and had eaten her grandmother before she had got there
started to chase little red riding hood around the house
and the wolf
now little red riding hood was faster
because the wolf had eaten her grandmother he was a bit slow at this time she was able to make it
outside of the door outside of the house and begin running the wolf close behind her but he
couldn’t quite catch her because of the extra weight of the grandmother
now at that time a
lumberjack in the area he saw what was going on and he decided to intervene he grabbed his axe
and started to run after the wolf who wasn’t quite as fast as we just explained he grabbed the wolf
by the tail and cut off his head and at that time the grandmother was able to slide out the neck of
the wolf and she was saved luckily ah she was still able to breathe after being in the wolf’s
stomach it was a miracle now anyway at that time she and little red riding hood thanked the
lumberjack greatly for his service to them for saving their lives and they decided to have him
53
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
over for dinner where they had a generous feast of wolf meat and also gave the wolf’s fur err his
pelt
over to the lumberjack so that the lumberjack could make some new clothes
received a reward and a nice meal for
his heroic act
so he
later on it was time for little red riding
hood to go back home and her grandmother urged her to follow the instructions and stay on the
path and not wander off into the woods again so this time little red riding hood promised and
she stayed on the path and she made it home safely err without any trouble from any more wild
animals and that’s the story of little red riding hood
Total words: 1013
Length: 6:45
Audio File: https://www.box.com/s/6e674e7d008edc69c589
54
Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
8.9
Man 4
once upon a time there was a little girl who was called red riding hood
she was called that
because she always wore a red riding cloak whenever she went outside
one day she decided to
travel through the forest to deliver food to her sick grandmother so she packed up a picnic basket
and headed off into the woods
Whilst she was there she met err she didn’t know it but who
was watching her was a big bad wolf and he was very hungry and he put together a plan he
decided he ran ahead of her
he found the grandmother’s house and he knocked on the door
the grandmother who was expecting little red riding hood opened up and he gobbled her up
right away
when little red riding hood finally got there she um she knocked on the door and
she heard a distant voice saying “come in dearie come in” so she opened up the door and she
walked in it was very dark inside it was hard to see but she heard the voice coming from the
bedroom “this way dearie, over here” so she walks in to see her grandmother
and the room is so
dark she can only see the shadow in the bed so she walks a little closer “grandma, are you ok”
she asks and the wolf who’d put on the grandmother’s clothes says to her “I’m fine dearie just
come a little closer I want to see you”
so little red riding hood takes another step forward and
she can start to see a little more of the shadow and she says “grandmother are you ok w-w-what
big ears you have” and the wolf says “aah the better to hear you with my dearie” come closer
so little red riding hood takes another step and she says “huh grandmother what big eyes you
have”
“the better to see you with my dear” come closer
little red riding hood takes another
step she’s right by the bed and says “oh grandmother what big teeth you have”
says “the better to eat you with my dear” and gobbles up little red riding hood
and the wolf
so the wolf sits
back in contentment having devoured two delicious people but what he doesn’t know is that a
woodsman nearby heard the scream when he ate little red riding hood
he walks to the window
and he sees the wolf lying in the bed so he busts in the door with his axe chops off the wolf’s
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Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
head cuts open the wolf’s stomach and out pop little red riding hood and the grandmother both
miraculously unharmed
and they all lived happily ever after
Total words: 450
Length: 2:56
Audio File: https://www.box.com/s/8858535cebf6304fc1be
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Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
8.10
OK
Man 5
so here is the story of the little red riding hood
you see little red riding hood was going
to see her grandmother who was very sick and ill so she was bringing some awesome goodies
with her
and while she was traipsing through the forest she sees a big bad wolf and the wolf
talks to little red riding hood and finds out where she’s going
the grandmother’s house
gets inside the house
then sprints ahead and goes to
at the grandmother’s house the wolf pretends to be the little girl and
then the big bad wolf decides to eat the grandmother whole and pretends
to be the grandmother so when little red riding hood gets there she looks at the grandma and
says “my you look different” your voice is very deep and the wolf replies “all the better to greet
you with” and then little red riding hood realizes that the hands are too big and big nose and
gets very very scared and then the big bad wolf eats her whole too and then the wolf is very full
and takes a nap
this is where the hunter comes in and saves both little red riding hood and the
grandma by cutting open the wolf’s belly and putting stones in instead that is the story of the
little red riding hood
Total words: 226
Length: 1:33
Audio File: https://www.box.com/s/67b9a504b1387ca5fd86
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Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
8.11
Man 6
little red riding hood
little red riding hood lived in the woods or along the edge of the woods
she was sent by her mother to deliver some fruit vegetables or biscuits to her grandmother her
grandmother lived in the woods so she had a basket filled with the food and left the house she
was wearing her red riding hood she walked through the woods and saw ah sorry and was seen by
a wolf
and I’m not sure why the wolf didn’t attack her but anyway she was seen by a wolf
she also met a woodsman and the woodsman was concerned why is there a child walking in the
woods she told her or little red riding hood told the woodsman “I’m walking in the woods to
deliver something to my grandmother” the woodsman said “oh my god go home it’s dangerous”
she said “no no I must deliver” anyway the wof went to the grandmother’s house ate the
grandmother whole and dressed up in the clothes of the grandmother
little red riding hood
arrived walked in started to lay out the food and said “grandmother why are you in bed” and
grandmother said “I’m a little bit sick”
so little red riding hood asked her “oh grandmother
what big eyes you have” the response “all the better to see you with” “what big ears” “all the
better to hear you” “what big nose” “all the better to smell you” etcetera and eventually little red
riding hood said “oh grandmother what big teeth you have” at which point the wolf jumped up and
said “ll the better to eat you with” um I’m not exactly sure how the woodsman was following or
if he was actually with red riding hood or so on anyway he jumped in the window or came in the
door or whatever killed the wolf and then when he chopped open the wolf there was the
grandmother inside alive at which point they all celebrated
Total words: 332
Length: 2:09
Audio File: https://www.box.com/s/33a4d7e09d4ac3224f62
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Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
9
Appendix B: Marked up transcript
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Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
10
Appendix C: Submission Guidelines
On the following page is the instruction letter sent to potential participants.
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Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
Hi,
Thanks for agreeing to participate in my project. This document will explain exactly what you need
to do.
This is a project I am doing for my MA TESOL & Applied Linguistics at University of Leicester, UK. I
am collecting recordings of people telling the story of Little Red Riding Hood. I can’t tell you much
more about the project until you have completed the recording for fear of prejudicing the
experiment, but please rest assured that its nothing sinister! Once you have submitted the
recording I will be happy to tell you more about the project.
Some instructions:

Please make a recording of yourself telling the story of Little Red Riding Hood. As a guideline, the
story should be 2-5 minutes long, but more or less is OK too.

Please record it using a computer, table or phone (Windows sound recorder will work nicely) in any
common format (.wav, .mp3, .caf, .3ga). However, please avoid using Kakao Talk as the voice
recorder has a limited time, low quality and it’s a pain to convert the files to anything usable.

When you have finished your recording, please email it to alex.grevett@gmail.com.

Please tell the story as you want to and as you remember it. If you don’t remember it well, feel free
to look at one or preferably more than one story online or in a book, so that you have an idea of
the different tellings. However, when you do the recording, please tell the story from your memory
or imagination, please don’t read it from the source.

You do not need to assume any particular audience.
If you have any procedural or technical questions, please get in touch by email or Kakao Talk (my
ID is AlexGrev).
Your privacy will be respected at all times during this experiment. You will be anonymous to
everyone but me. The audio files and transcripts will be available to staff at the University of
Leicester, and to anyone else who views the final paper.
As a participant, you have the right to refuse to do the recording, or to withdraw from the
experiment at any time up until the project is submitted on 17th August. If you wish to read the
final results, they will be available from 17th of August and I will be happy to send you a copy.
Again, please contact me if you have any questions or concerns, and thanks once again for taking
part. Sociolinguistics salutes you.
Alex
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Alexander Grevett
ED7504: Language, Discourse and Society
Gender, identity and narrative in oral tellings of Red Riding Hood by native speaking English teachers in South Korea
11
Appendix D: Release form
62