TEXTBOOK: Ch. 5 - Gendered Verbal Communication

*matriarchal*

A majority of heterosexual women take their husbands' names upon marrying, but there are alternatives to the traditional ways of naming ourselves. Some women choose to retain their birth names when they marry. Some adopt hyphenated names, to symbolize the family heritage of both partners. In some countries, such as Spain, both there mother's and father's family names are used to construct family children's family names. Other alternative, although less often practices so far, are choosing a new surname together or renaming oneself to reflect *______________________* rather than patriarchal lineage, which involves changing a last name from that of the father's family to that of the mother's. (The term "matriarchy" mean "rule by the mothers" and generally refers to systems of ideology, social structures, and practices that are created by women and reflect the values, priorities, and views of women as a group.) Because a mother's last name still reflects male lineage - that of the mother's father - some women use their mother's first names to create a matrilineal last name. For example, Lynn Franklin's daughter, Bailey, might rename herself Bailey Lynnschild.

*minimal response cues*

Finally, masculine speech tends to be less emotionally responsive than feminine speech, especially on the relationship level of meaning. Men, more than women, give what are called, *______________________________*, which are verbalizations such as "yeah" or "um hmm." Studies suggest that this verbal communication pattern is reflect in CMC as well, with men using fewer references to emotions in email than do women. People socialized into feminine speech communities may perceive minimal response cues as indicating lack of involvement. Men's conversation also often lacks self-disclosure as well as expressed sympathy and understanding, although men report feeling more comfortable with higher levels of disclosure to romantic partners when communicating via CMC. Within the rules of masculine speech communities, sympathy is a sign of condescension, and the revealing of personal problems is seen as making one vulnerable. Yet, within feminines speech communities, sympathy and disclosure are understood as demonstrations of equality and support. This creates potential for misunderstanding between people who express themselves in different ways.

*generic language*

Gendered Language Excludes: Our vocabularies - the very words we speak and the tools for our thoughts - are marked by gender in at least 2 ways. First, *_____________________* purports to include everyone, yet literally refers only to men. Examples of generic language are nouns such as "congressman," "spokesman," "mailman," and "mankind," and pronouns such as "he" and "his" used to refer to everyone.

*speech community*

Gendered Speech Communities: Philosopher Suzanne Langer asserted that culture, or collective life, is possible only to the extent that a group of people share a symbol system and the meanings encapsulated in it. William Labov extended Langer's ideas by defining a "speech community" as a group of people who share norms about communication. By this, he meant that a *_________________________* exists when people share understandings about goals of communication, strategies for enacting those goals, and ways of interpreting communication.

*stereotype*

Language Organizes Perceptions of Gender: Two ways in which language organizes perceptions of gender are through stereotyping and encouraging polarized perceptions of sex and gender. A *_____________________* is a generalization about an entire class of phenomena based on perceptions of some members of the class. For example, if most women you know aren't interested in sports, you might stereotype women as uninterested in sports. This stereotype could keep you from noticing that many women engage in sports and enjoy attending athletic events. Relying in stereotypes can lead us to overlook important qualities of individuals and to perceive them only in terms of what we consider common to a general category.

*benevolent sexism*

Results showed that learning to name sexism made women, but not men, less tolerant of the behavior. Of particular interest to researchers was participants' learned ability to detect *__________________________*, which is a paternalistic attitude that describes women affectionately but assumes they aren't competent to do particular tasks. For instance, "that sweet little thing can't change a tire" is benevolent sexism.

*polarized thinking*

The English language may also encourage *__________________________*, which is conceiving of things as absolute opposites. Something is right or wrong; a person is male or female or masculine or feminine. Our commonly used vocabulary emphasizes all-or-none terms and thus all-or-none thinking. Queer performative theory challenges polarized language for sex, gender, and sexual orientation, claiming that polarized terms - or gender binaries - obscure the range of identities that humans express. Also, the categories of men and women erase transgender and intersex people.

*gender-linked language effect*

The Gender-Linked Language Effect: We've discussed some gendered tendencies in communication. However, these are not as hard and fast as they may seem. Recent study identifies the *_____________________________*, which notes that language differences between women and men are influenced by a variety of factors, including topics, speaker status, salience of gender in a communication situation, and other people present. One study found that women tend to speak more tentatively when talking about masculine topics (sports and automotive matters were the topics in the study), but men speak more tentatively than women when talking about feminine topics (shopping and fashion in the study). Another study showed that women communicate in more typically feminine ways when they're assigned feminine avatars than when they're assigned masculine avatars. The same is true of men: They communicate in more typically masculine ways when assigned masculine avatars. Research on the gender-linked language effect reminds us that our gender expression varies according to context and other factors.