Gender and identity
• Discourse analysis approaches the issue of gender in various
ways. The fall broadly into four types of approach:
• The way language itself is gendered – or has become
gendered; e.g. the way male pronouns can be used to refer to
either males or females;
• The way women and men, girls and boys are stereotypically
represented in discourse;
• the way men and women interact in discourse and whether or
not there are differences in their style of talk;
• The way language is used by males or females in specific
discourse.
Discourse and gender
• Gender is inescapably a biological construct. Each of
us is born with his or her gender.
• “However, institutions still play an important part in
establishing the nature of that gendered identity,
even if they do not establish the identity itself. It is
not so much biology that leads to gender stereotypes
as the differential behaviour and personality traits
that are associated with each gender by cultural
history”
M.Bloor and T. Bloor, 2005.
Discourse and gender identity
construction analysis
• Focuses on the way “social expectations of the
relative roles of women and men, carried
intertextually, hamper progress towards more
egalitarian structures.
Identity as constructed discursively
This aspect of identity theory stresses that
identity is not essential but constructed,
modified and consolidated through discourse.
By discourse we mean: “…the sort of language
used to construct some aspect of reality from
a particular perspective…”
Chouliaraki and Fairclough, 1999)
Gender Identities
‘Femininity is articulated in and through
commercial and mass media discourses,
especially in the magazine industry and in the
fashion industry of clothing and cosmetics.
But most of all it is articulated on women’s
bodies by women themselves.’ (Talbot
1998:71)
Dominant readings
• Benwell defines ‘dominant readings’ as the
position that the reader unconsciously
assumes in a given historical moment, basing
him/herself on a range of ideological positions
available and which make the text
understandable.
Resistant Readings
• Resistant readings are rejections of the
dominant ones and are assumed by reading
texts critically.
• What are the linguistic resources for reading
texts critically?
Theories of gender-based based
differences in discourse
• A number of linguists maintain that there are broad genderbased differences of communicative style in the discourse of
men and women. These researchers have sought to identify
‘gendered discourse styles’, in other words, ways of speaking
that signal masculinity or femininity by characteristic
combinations of linguistic features.
• These researchers often presume that “linguistic markers of
men’s style and women’s style would be functionally linked to
the traits and roles of men and women” Cameron 2006.
Models of gendered discourse
styles
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These theories can be summarised as:
Dominancemodels;
Deficit models;
Difference models.
The dominance model
This model is typified by scholars like Dale
Spender.
Man Made Language (1980) presents
language itself as a the embodiment of a
patriarchal society.
“The English language has been literally man
made, and […] is still primarily under male
control”.
• As evidence of this Sarah Mills in Femminist Stylistics(1998)
refers to:
• The use of ‘he’ as a generic pronoun;
• The sexual bias of ‘man’ nouns : postman; chairman; seaman;
etc.
• Different terms to distinguish between female and male
versions, often with negative connotations for the latter:
bachelor/spister; master/mistress; courtier/cortesan;
• Terms without a male equivalent: single mother; working
mother; career woman; unmarried mother;
• Offensive terms for unattractive women: cow; bag; crone;
frump. Etc.
The deficit model
• The most influential voice on this model is
that of Robin Lakoff.
• Her theories are most famously set out in
Language and Woman’s Place (1975), in which
she proposed that certain grammatical and
lexical patterns typified women’s speech and
expressed weakness and insecurity:
Lakoff and the construction of femininity
(from McLoughlin 100)
Lakoff claims that the following linguistic features are
characteristic of the construction of femininity:
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Topic: woman’s work
Hypercorrectness of grammar
Vagueness (empty adjective);
Emotional as opposed to intellectual evaluation;
Intensifiers;
Diminutives;
Qualifiers,
Politeness super polite forms ;
Hedging
Difference models
• Stress the differences between the language
used in male and female discourse and hence
used to construct female and male gender
identity.
• A linguist like Talbot stresses that from a
young age boys and girls tend to grow in
separate groups based on their sex and in the
course of this they devolop constrasting
linguistic habits that underlie subsequent
miscommunication between them.
• Marjorie Goodwin (1980) stressed that groups
of girls do not tend to be hierarchical;
decisions are taken in common, with use of
suggestion structures, the inclusive ‘we’ and
epistemic modality.
• Boys are seen as socialising in gangs which are
hierarchical in which competition is present.
• On the basis of Goodwin’s observations,
Daniela Maltz and Ruth Borker theorised that
men and women socialise in different cultures
and this division is expressed in different ways
of interacting.
• Male interactions are characterised by
displays of power; female communication by
displays of solidarity.
Report -Rapport
• Deborah Tannen (1991) took these observations a step
further, elaborating two binary styles of male-female
discourse:
• male
female
• Report
rapport
• Problem-solving
sympathy
• Lecturing
listening
• Public
private
• Status
connection
• Oppositional
supportive
• Independence
intimacy
• In Tannen’s view male discourse has the role of
transmitting information in such a way as to
communicate competence;
• This competence in turn serves to maintain prestige;
• Men tend to listen less and are inclined to impose
their opions, showing that they are more competent
in presenting an argument.
• Moreover, as Coates points out, they “ avoid selfdisclosure and prefer to talk about impersonal
subjects”.
Binary interpretation
• The linguist Talbot sees a similarity between rapport
and report and affective and referential language as
defined by Janet Holmes (1984) .
• Holmes, for instance, noted that a device like the
tag question, which can be used referentially and to
express doubt, and this is the form most commonly
used by men. Tag questions can also be used
affectively wth a facilitative or a softening function,
and this, according to Holmes, is the form preferred
by women.
1935 construction of femininity
Many girls can knit such nice wooly
jumpers for dolls, and it is just as easy to
make them for small dogs who will be so
grateful when the icy winds blow.
Of course some small dogs have thick hairy
coats of their own and don’t need anything
more, but there are several little fellows with
very thin ones who feel the cold very much
and to buy them proper cloth coats costs quite
a lot of of money.
Then there is always the chance that one day
Little Fido will take it into his head to have a
good roll in the mud and his beautiful coat
with his smart braid will be a sad sight. But if
he wears a a woolly jumper you can just tell
him what you think of his naughty ways, pop
the jumper in the wash tub and out it comes
as good as new.
Semantic Field and assumption
• Many girls (group) can knit (traditional feminine activity)
dolls (traditional feminine toys (+the whole semantic field
of knitting: knit, needle, stitches, purl drop, stocking stitch,
cast off etc., extends the assumption, i.e. the implication is
that the text interpreter knows how to do all this ) hence
the reader’s type of femininity is constructed as someone
to whom knitting and washing comes naturally and is
expected to do it.
• You can always pop the jumper in the wash tub
• Fellow, he, his (male dogs) beneficiaries of the action
• Even if you have not done much knitting (but some, yes,
the assumption of a minimal knowledge)
Let the jumper over cover his ribs, but do not
let it get in his way underneath and make him
uncomfortable. A little Lady dog can have
more length left under her tummy.
Contemporary sexual identity contstruction: Kiss
this!
• This conveys an apparently a diametrically
opposed femminine identity;
• Apparently a more symmetrical relationship
between TP and TI.
• The text producer uses the language of the
Text Interpreter community – slang, informal
language.
Classic ‘womens’’ language
• vagueness;
• Naughty, not quite nibbles
But apart from this the text would appear to
encourage a much less traditionally feminine
and more assertive kind of femmininity on the
part of text interpreters.
McGloughlin, however, warns against
complacency (101)
Why?
Firstly, The text is characterised by
imperatives, which firmly tell the text
interpreters what to do (for whose benefit is
not clear) in order to embody a particular kind
of femininity.
Typically of the ambiguous discourse found in
magazines, this recommendation to do only
what ‘you’ are happy with contrasts with the
overall discourse of the text, which suggest
that it is by using the ‘snogging’ techniques it
lists it is likely to make the ‘you’, that is the
text interpreter, happy, precisely because it is
likely to please ‘the lad’.
Construction of ambivalent femmininity
The kind of femininity achieved would seem to
depend on the ability to provide pleasure.
Interestingly all the processes mentioned are
processes material , in which ‘the lad’ is the
beneficiary.
There are few processes mental in this is version
of femininity (the text interpreter is invited to be
an actor), which are normally used to register
emotional or physical pleasure for the Senser.
Further ambivalence
Another example of this ambivalent discourse is
to be found in the ‘nose’ section, where the
reader is advised to spray some perfume on. This
is followed by the concession that your own
personal smell can be quite alluring, though we
see that this not a personal smell, but it is a
product – baby powder or a Boots roll on, so the
personal smell is subtly associated with cheap
products. One wonders if there was a feature on
perfumes in the same issue.
Dominant/resistant readings
“[…] discourse encourages dominant readings,
while acknowledging the potential for
resistant readings and textual ambiguity. I will
attempt to point to the potential for
ambiguous or multiple readings, and even
examples where ambiguity is an effect which
serves the dominant ideology of the
magazine.”
Bethan Benwell 2002.