Gossip queens or intellectual females?!

Many people, of both sexes, believe that woman talk more so than men; but is this actually true?

While we may agree with this statement, what evidence supports and contradicts it is quite a different matter.

While researching I have discovered numerous hypothesis that suggests woman tend to gossip more ,while men “talk shop”. A long with this states that women talk using more ‘bossy’ language while men somehow use more so ‘firm’ language. But who writes these, and with what evidence?

 

Infact men have proven to talk more in such situations as husband and wife conversations (Soskin and John 1963), often speaking with more depth and detail.

Many researches found men are more likely to interrupt than women, and that usually it is the women who are interrupted by the men.

 

Furthermore, it appears that women use standard speech forms much more so than men, i.e. Standard English. This appears to be true over many different languages and classes. Such examples that were found in the difference of speech include:

-Men are more likely to drop the “g” sound. For example, swimming becoming ‘swimmin’.

-“Ain’t” is much more frequent in men.

-Men are much more likely to use double negatives implying a less intelligent and educational background.

 

These points are argued between researchers as to why; some believe that social status is more important to women and therefore they attempt to demonstrate their status in a more so respectful manner. However, it could also be argued that the pressure of society to behave better than men could lead them to this. Acting ‘ladylike’ is expected in adults and this could be a main reason for speaking more so ‘proper’.

 

Theorist Robin Lackoff suggested that much conversations were controlled by the ‘politeness principle’. These specified in the following three maxims:

-don’t impose

-give options

-make your receiever feel good

She also stated that in this society, it is mainly male dominated and therefore women’s speech patterns are created by the subordinate roles. Looking into women’s speech she noticd numerous features:

-hedges and fillers, “y’know”, “’sort of”

-tag questions, “that’s right, isn’t it?”

-indirect request forms, “would you mind opening that?”

She argued that these features portrayed and reflected women’s lack of confidence; opposite to male’s linguistics, women’s appeared less direct and assertive.

 

However, it appears that Lackoff’s theory is outdated. In today’s society, people are from different backgrounds, class and ages and all can affect the use of language as well as how frequent they use it. You can’t necessarily test this due to the number of factors that could change one’s use of speech.

I do though believe that language can contribute to lack of power and status. It can present our background but also give people the chance to stereotype. O’Barr and Atkins were linguists that questioned Lackoff’s theory. They believe that speech behaviours can be a reflection of social status, and this seems more so believable in today’s society.

 

Lydia Harris