UNIT 12

what are holmes universal statements about mens and womens speech patterns? explain each one in detail. 4.

-function: women tend to focus on the affective functions of an interaction more often than men do. -solidarity: women tend to use linguistic devices that stress solidarity more often than men do. (hedges and boosts) -power: women tend to interact in way which will maintain and increase solidarity, while (especially in formal contexts) men tend to interact in ways which will maintain and increase their power and status -staus: women are stylistically more flexible than men

Describe some of the differences in lang between man and woman with respect to different parts of the world

-carib: men use expressions women dont use and women use words not found in mens speech. said this happened because carib speaking men invaded area of arwak speaking people and killed all the men. women continued to speak arwak. now carib and arwak are mixed but there are many words of arwak origin which only occur in the speech of women -yana: womens words are sometime shorter than mens. ex: ba (women) ba-na(men) = deer -japanese/thai: different word in male and female speech -english: words describing a color. boy says pink, girl says blush

explicate trudgills explanation of the differences in the lang used by women and men

-he starts with examples from koasati and chukchi. women use more standard historical forms of the lang to avoid low status forms of speech -women in middle class range has a speech closer to men of higher class. thus women may be more sensitive to how their speech relates to a particular class. also the working class speech tends to be related to masculinity thus is a speech disfavored by some -pressure on women to acquire prestige while pressure on men to be masculine and to identify with their class background - covert prestige -in tests women over reporter their form of speech because they want that prestige while men under reported themselves because they aim for covert prestige

what are hedges and boosts?

-hedges: lexical hedges like the expression "sort of" a tag question such as "isnt it" "arent you" ex: its sort of nice, the lectures at 12:30 isnt it? -boosting: devices intensifying objective and adverbs such as "really" "so" and emphatic stress. ex: its a really good film. thats so nice of you. women use hedges and boosts more when unconfident or to just convey friendliness and informality. part of universal statement solidarity.

describe at least 2 phonological differences between men and women

-japanese/english: women speak in higher pitch -britain/new england: ing gets reduced to in walking = walkin, men do this more than women british/australian english: henry=enry. happy=appy. men drop h sounds more than women

what is holmes view of the difference in women's speech

-social status: women are said to be more status conscious so seek to speak standard form for prestige. in some societies women dont have easy access to prestigious jobs so how they speak and appear to claim higher status -women role as guardian of societys values: another explanation for womens speech is that in past society tends to expect better behavior from women than men. women also tach child how to speak -subordinate groups must be polite: compared to men, women as a subordinate group are to avoid causing offense to men so women are pressure to speak carefully and politely -vernacular forms show masculinity: women dont want to be masculine. those who use non standard speech show masculinity

describe the lang change led by women observed in the austrian town of oberwart

-trudgill found that changes in speech in a community is normally led by women (usually a speech towards a higher class or national form) -in oberwart, hungarian was the common lang then german began to be taught in schools and was more associate with economic success so women began to speak german in all social domains while men spoke hungarian for cover prestige

what are the 2 ways in which lang manifests itself in potentially sexist forms?

1) linguistic marking of words for women. -masculine form is usually unmarked and feminine marked. dog-bitch, lion-lioness -generic representative expression for both men and women supports the primacy and visibility of males. ex: man power -work force, man made-artificial. 2) existence of lexical gaps: an absence of words to refer to womens experience. -men have a larger vocab to insult women than women do for men -overtime word referring to women have acquired negative and often sexual connotations. ex: mister - mistress, wench

Describe what is men 'men speaking like women'

in madagascar, men speak softer to try to keep a balance in their relations and avoid confrontation while women openly and directly express anger. women are more aggressive and carry out tasks such as trade.

women to use forms which are more prestigious. explain

margaret thatcher lowered her voice as prime minister of uk when making public addresses to appear more like an authoritative man because before her were only male prime ministers