Language Research, Secondary

Sarah Mills

She believed it is widely accepted that man and women do talk differently; men are socialised into a competitive style of discourse, whilst women are socialised with a more cooperative style of speech. Sarah Mills underwent an investigation of lexical pairs and how they are socially unequal to one another. In addition, she did extended study into the correlation between females and their stereotypically polite manner, in comparison to males and their stereotypical sense of impoliteness. She also measured whether the stereotypical politeness used was inherited. Fundamentally she focused greatly on the way in which certain genders speak and the inherited stereotypes in speech among genders.

Deborah Cameron

‘The Theory of Verbal Hygiene’

Deborah Cameron believes that no matter what, men and women face specific, stereotypical expectations about the appropriate mode of speech for their gender. The way that women conduct themselves has proved to be very significant in many cultures; women have been instructed in a ‘proper’ way to talk just as they have been instructed in a ‘proper’ way to dress. This acceptance of a “proper” speech style, Deborah Cameron describes (in her 1995 book of the same name) as “verbal hygiene”.

Deborah Cameron most certainly does not condemn verbal hygiene, as misguided. She finds specific examples of verbal hygiene in the regulation of '"style" by editors, the teaching of English grammar in schools, politically correct language and the advice to women on how they can speak more effectively. In each case Deborah Cameron claims that verbal hygiene is a way to make sense of language, and that it also represents a symbolic attempt to impose order on the social world.

Muriel Schultz

Derogation

Schulz argues that there are a significant amount of slang words used to describe women, obtaining negative connotations. She goes on to argue that the reason for this is because men fear women's attitudes and that these slang insults aimed at women, said by men are the only outlet men have. Schulz argues that words that were once used in a nice and gentlemanly way have changed and have become rude and slanderous towards women, this is derogation in action. The main issue Schulz addresses is that the language we use today will be carried on through to the next generation. In addition, if society continues to use these slang words in order to insult women then a new generation will start to use them and it creates a vicious cycle that will continue unless a generation decides to stop using this part of language.

 

Dominance theory

This is the theory that in mixed-sex conversations men are more likely to interrupt than women. It uses a fairly old study of a small sample of conversations, recorded by Don Zimmerman and Candace West at the Santa Barbara campus of the University of California in 1975. The subjects of the recording were white, middle class and under 35. Zimmerman and West produce in evidence 31 segments of conversation. They report that in 11 conversations between men and women, men used 46 interruptions, but women only two. As Geoffrey Beattie, of Sheffield University, points out (writing in New Scientist magazine in 1982): "The problem with this is that you might simply have one very voluble man in the study which has a disproportionate effect on the total." From their small (possibly unrepresentative) sample Zimmerman and West conclude that, since men interrupt more often, then they are dominating or attempting to do so.