Language Research

Attitudes towards Language Research

Language and Gender:

Men interrupt women more than vice versa.

Women are more communicative.

Men do not give verbal recognition of the contributions in the conversation made by women.

Men curse more than women.

Women gossip more than men.

Women talk more with one another than men do.

Men speak more comfortably in public than women.

-        These are examples of the use of language that differ between genders, they are stereotypes and will never apply to every person, but these statements will often be found to be true. I believe, as time has got on, there has been less differences and more equality in the use of language between gender and I believe this is to do with the forever developing views of society; most notably the increasing equality between men and women, as well as the deteriorating expectations of your lifestyle, depending on your gender. This difference in language use will also be down to the stereotypical lifestyle of each gender;

-        Boys (boys will be boys):

-        Will grow up with other boys, playing sports.

-        Tend to play in large groups that are hierarchically structured

-        Their group has a leader

-        Status is negotiated via orders, or telling jokes/stories

-        Games have winners and losers

-        Boast about skills, size, ability

-        Girls:

-        More likely to grow up with girls, playing with dolls or shopping.

-        Tend to play in small groups or in pairs

-        The centre of a girl’s social life is a best friend

-        Within the group, intimacy is the key

-        Differentiation is measured not by status, but by relative closeness

-        Many of their activities do not have winners and losers (e.g. in hopscotch or jump rope, everyone gets a turn).

-        Girls are not expected to boast (in fact they are encouraged to be humble), or give orders (they would be bossy)

History - Language was a particular feature and target of Women’s feminist movements in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Robin Morgan (1977, Going Too Far) - “The very semantics of the language reflects [women’s] condition. We do not even have our own names, but bear that of the father until we exchange it for that of a husband.”

There is a shared view that language is sexist, which can be very much justified:

He is a ‘master’. She is a ‘mistress’.

Language and Power:

Define social groups and power:

Political - Power in the Law e.g. Police, Judge, Barrister

Personal - Occupation / Power within a Job e.g. Doctor, Teacher and so on.

Social Group - Friends and Family, Class in society. 

Types of Power:-

Instrumental (Written and Spoken)

Influential (Written and Spoken)

In spoken language, power can be affiliated in many different ways:

- Power behind discourse - Context. (Who, What, Where, When, Why etc.)

- Power in discourse - Features and methods used to show power, for e.g. Material Verbs.

- Ideology - Meaning/Attitudes and world views displayed in language. e.g Terrorist over Freedom Fighters.

- Modal Verb (Auxiliary Verb)

- Epistemic and Deontic Modality.

- Epistemic - Suggests possibilities that are most likely to be true. e.g "You could do that."

- Deontic - Displays certainty e.g "You must do that.”

Some consider language to be split between public and personal power.

-Public power is the ability to shape public opinion, and thus to change or maintain the social reality. Public power is controlled by institutions, but also by more vaguely defined ideological collectives.

-Personal power is the ability to change or maintain one’s local social reality.

Personal power stems from social roles, social relationships, and personal language competence.

The connotations of power are often evil or the thought of someone overpowering another person or an image of someone being forced to do something they do not wish to do. However, I believe power is used even in the subtlest of ways and power is used every day by everyone, through their language. Even in small, insignificant incidences people will use power to get what they want, ‘You’re coming with me, yes?’ – pushing the listener to a specific answer.

A father, for example, would not forcibly have to resort to force in order to impose his authority over his son. Consider the following example taken from a short story entitled A Meeting in the Dark;

‘Sit down. Where are you going?’

‘For a walk, Father,’ he answered evasively.

‘To the village?’

‘Well-yes-no. I mean, nowhere in particular.’

We can clearly see in this short conversation that the father is exerting his authority on his son. The father here does not resort to force while talking to his son. On the contrary, the father resorts to a straightforward, strict style of address with his son.

Language and Race

Racism and stereotypes do not stop at appearance and it is often found that we use other features to racially categorize people, for example, the way a person speaks.

The colour of a person’s skin will often push a person to assume the kind of language a person will use and where their accent is from. For example, a black person in England will most probably be stereotyped to have a London accent, speaking with a lot of slang, speaking ‘improper’ English. A white person from England is stereotyped to speak with very little slang, speaking standard English and would be most likely associated with the south of England.