Language & gender: ‘DONE not is’

1. Language & gender: ‘DONE not is’ Linguistics 187 / Cultural Anthropology 187 / English 187 / ICS 151C Variety in Language: English in the United States Duke University Erin Callahan-Price Spring 2011

2. FIRST: from l & G  D.A.

3. Defining gender (i.e. vs. sex) Gender is… • Simply put: social relations and discursive practices • Learned • Functions invisibly • Not something we have, but something we do • Critically intersects and functions with respect to a constellation of other social categories (race, class, nationality, ethnicity, citizenship, etc. etc.) • Structurally assymetrical(women living below poverty line, starting salaries, etc.) • Ubiqutious: one of the central dichotomies we live by

4. Critical (enduring!) Questions in the Study of L & Gfrom Eble (1975: 1) 1.Does language itself, by its structures, treat female and male differently? (language-internal effects) • grammatical gender, pronoun systems, etmology, word-formation (mailman, etc.) 2. Are there differences in form and/or frequency between female and male use of the language? (language-external) • lexicon (“divine,” “magenta”), apology, uptallk, discourse marker “like,” /o/ and /u/-fronting 3. Does the variable sexoverlap with, or is it linked to, other variables like age, region, education, class, race, personality type? (language-external) • females as leaders of language change, conversational styles (“high-involvement” vs. “high-considerateness) 4. Can female/male differences either inherent in language or observable in language use be correlated with the different roles assigned to females and males by society? (language-external)

5. What does this have to do with gender and language? • Well, questions 2.-4. address issues/phenomena which are EXTERNAL to the linguistic system “itself” (e.g. phonemes, morphemes, words, sentence intonation, etc.) • For the purposes of this class, we’ll call this “stuff” discourse

6. The D-word • Thus, gender shows up sociolinguistically (most recogizably in terms of our disciplinary practice, at least) “above the level of the sentence”: in terms of conversational structure, CONTEXT, speech acts, social interactions, interpersonal relations and purposes, intertextual relations, (language) ideologies and attitudes, etc. etc. • …in other words: DISCOURSE.

7. Gender & Sexuality Exploded:Sex (assignment), Gender (performance), and Desire Sexuality SEX Gender Gender Gender

8. Historical trajectory of l & G

9. 4 stages of Research on L & G • Since the early 19th century to today, there have been 4 (loosely defined) theoretical/descriptive frameworks for considering speech and language differences between women and men. • Deficit • Dominance • Launched by Lakoff (1972); • Two claims: 1. MEN AND WOMEN TALK DIFFERENTLY 2. THESE DIFFERENCES BOTH PRODUCE AND REINFORCE POWER DIFFERENCES • Women’s speech is “tenative, powerless, and trivial,” which excludes them from positions of power/authority. • As such, language is a tool of opression. • Difference • Dynamic

10. The Deficit Hypothesis • Women are essentiallyless precise, intelligent, & rational, etc. etc. and as such the forms of their language are naturallyless precise, intelligent, and rational. • FOCUS on bodily/biological differences which are essential to language differences. • Hystera=womb (women got crazy because their wombs overpowered their brains). • “Articulateness” Anatomy The 19th century “hysterical woman”

11. The Dominance Hypothesis • Lakoff (1972) • Two claims: 1. MEN AND WOMEN TALK DIFFERENTLY 2. THESE DIFFERENCES WORK to BOTH PRODUCE & REINFORCE SUBORDINATE POSITIONS IN SOCIETY. • Women’s speech is “tenative, powerless, and trivial,” which excludes them from positions of power/authority. • Data? Evidence? Frequency of mitigators (sort of, I think), qualifiers (really happy, so beautiful) and tag questions (right? Don’t you think?) • As such, language is a tool of oppression: “party of learning to be a woman, imposed by societal norms, and in turn… keeps women in their place.”

12. Dominance, cont. • Zimmerman & West (1975): • Recorded 11 conversations between men and women; found men used 46 interruptions, but women only two. • Interpreted interruption as a form of conversational dominance which recapitulates societal dominance • However: recasting interruption as overlap (i.e. with distinct social/interactional meanings) changes the terms of the debate Kanye West interrupts Taylor Swift at 2009 VMA Awards

13. Structural Effects of GenderDo women choose lower-paying occupations? 2006 Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS] Report finds (from Lips 2009): http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-intro-2009.htm

14. Structural Effects of GenderParenthood & Pay • 2006 Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS] Report (p.999) (from Lips 2009):

15. Next week, on “Variety in Language…” • Stay tuned for the rest of the story! • Monday: the Difference and Dynamic hypotheses (1980 to present)

16. DA #1 and Final Project Tips • In other news: • Data Assignment 1 due Sunday by 11:59 EMAILED TO ME • Final project can be an extension/continuation of Data Assignment One if you are interested in DM or quotativelike: we’ll discuss the terms of elaboration at our meeting. • Read Final Project document/instructions sent by me as well as C12 BEFORE your meeting with me. Address the issues raised in these readings– whether they are in terms of answers/ideas or questions/doubts about your project. • Page limit for final project: 5-7 pages not including charts, graphs, figures, bibliography • At least 5 PEER-REVIEWED sources (journal articles, conference proceedings, books published by a University/scholarly press. Probably no websites (email me if in doubt), definitely no Wikipedia.) • Where are you guaranteed to find acceptable rigorous sources? Why, the Language and Linguistics database

17. Data Assignment #1 • 2 kinds of like: quotative & discourse marker • Continue to tab QUOTATIVES, but expand into tabbing discourse marker like • Read Tagliamonte Article and consider graphs on pp.