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Women and language : From deviants to
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Views from the crossroads

presented by

Claudia Salazar

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WOMEN AND LANGUAGE: FROM DEVIANTS TO STRATEGISTS

VIEWS FROM THE CROSSROADS

BY

Claudia Salazar

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION

1987

ABSTRACT

WOMEN AND LANGUAGE: FROM DEVIANTS TO STRATEGISTS
VIEWS FROM THE CROSSROADS

BY

Claudia Salazar

Three theoretical perspectives on language and
gender (the deficit position, the feminist difference
position, and the strategies position) are identified,
reconstructed, and tied to larger intellectual currents in
the social sciences, including feminist theory. An
assessment of the inconsistent research findings that have
riddled the field of language/gender studies since its
inception period is provided and an analysis of how some of
these inconsistencies have been resolved by the different
theoretical perspectives identified above is offered. The
main thread running throughout this discussion is the
thesis that shifting conceptualizations of gender in the
research tradition have influenced different
interpretations and conceptualizations of the ways women
and men speak. Recommendations for communication research
on language and gender that aims at transcending both
gender labels and gender dichotomies are given, followed by
a discussion of the implications that this might have for a
transcendence of disciplinary boundaries in epistemology as

well.

To Lilia and Alvaro

ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Jack Bain and Mary Bresnahan
from whose suggestions and critical comments I have greatly
benefited.

To Barry Thorne, my deepest appreciation. Without
her guidance, advice, corrections, and encouragement I
would not have "come through." I particularly cherish the
moments I spent dialoguing with her in her office and with
other students in her seminars on gender and feminist
scholarship.

I am profoundly indebted to Leonardo, who has always
been there when I needed him.

Finally, to Juan Pablo, who has shown me that he can

be a feminist too.

iii

Chapter
I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . .
Overview of the Field of Language and
Gender . . . . . . .
Aims of the Study . . . . . .
II. THEORETICAL POSITIONS ON LANGUAGE AND GENDER
The Deficit Position . . . . .
Women as Deviants . .
From Women' 3 Language to Powerless
Language . . . .
Perceptual Studies of Language and
Gender . .
Deficiencies of Earlier Language/Gender
Research . . . . . .
Concluding Remarks . . .
The Feminist Difference Position . .
Reinterpreting the Findings of
Language/Gender Research . .
Feminist Critiques of Objectivism .
Cultural Feminism and the Discourse
on Difference . . . .
Some Problems with the Discourse on
Difference . . . . . .
The Strategies Position . . .
The Division of Labor by Gender and
Patterns of Language Use . .
Some Examples from the Literature .
Concluding Remarks . . . . .
III. GENDER AND LANGUAGE: CONCEPTS AND RESEARCH
Gender as a Binary Variable . . .
Gender as Dichotomized Roles . . .
Gender as a Psychological Variable . .
Gender as Relational . . . . .
Implications for Communication Theory and
Reseach . . . . . .
IV. CONCLUSION . . . . . . . .
FOOTNOTES . . . . . . . . . .
REFERENCES . . . . . . . . .

TABLE OF CONTENTS

iv

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

When I first approached the field of language,
gender, and communication, by means of research conducted
within the positivist tradition, my readings centered
around the (problematic) concept of "women's language."

The studies I reviewed at the time all attempted to find
consistent empirical evidence (or lack thereof) for the
hypothesis that women and men use language in different
ways. Inconsistent and contradictory results have
characterized most of their findings.

Attempting to understand the problems bound up with
the construct "women's language," I eventually encountered
innumerable studies, mostly by feminist scholars from
varying fields, which provided me with fresh insights into
more encompassing and dynamic understandings of the
interconnections among language, gender, communication, and
society. These same interconnections had been largely
obscured for quite some time by a reified idea of a
"woman's language."

The purpose that motivates this study is not,
therefore, so much an inquiry into whether there is such

thing as "women's language." That there is not has been

well established in this field by now. My interest here is
more to inquiry into the reasons why belief in a separate
women's (and men's) language has persisted for so long.
In order to achieve the above objective, I will
review the literature on this area around three positions
on language and gender (which I identify as the deficit
position, the difference position, and the strategies
position). I will point out the inconsistencies of each
position, discuss some ways of resolving these
contradictions, and show some of the merits of each
position. The purpose in carrying out this analysis, and
the central thesis of this study, however, is to show how
different conceptualizations of gender in the research
literature have influenced different ways of interpreting
and conceptualizing the speech of women and men. I will
conclude by giving some suggestions for communication
research on language and gender that aims at transcending

both gender labels and gender dichotomies.

Overview of the Research 92 Language and Gender

 

 

Since the rise of the women's movement in the later
1960s and earlier 19708, women have been facing the central
issue of how to gain access to resources, economic
exchanges, and political control in a patriarchal society

(see Footnote 1). Some of the reasons given for women's

inferior status in contemporary society included their use
of language. According to some authors of "how-to" manuals
(e.g., Baer, 1976; Phelps & Austin, 1975), women's
subordinate position is partly due to a lack of
assertiveness in both their nonverbal and verbal behaviors.
These authors suggest that women, as opposed to men, use a
linguistic style characterized by powerlessness and
hesitancy. They contend that women, by adopting a more
commanding and direct personal style, will greatly enhance
their chances of occupying positions of power and
authority.

Before this renewed interest in the linguistic
performance of women and men, accounts of separate "men's
and women's languages" came from early 20th-century
anthropologists' analyses of reports of missionaries
working in other cultures (Thorne, Kramarae, and Henley,
1983). McConnell-Ginet (1980) tells us that claims of
gender-based differences in language predate European
explorations of the New World, appearing in Ancient
sources.

Otto Jespersen (1922) was the first linguist to
develop a full-fledged discussion of the deficiencies of a
Western "female language." According to him, women leave
sentences unfinished, while men do not; women use many
adverbs, avoid "course and gross expressions," and are

linguistically "quicker" than men. Concluding his chapter

on The Woman, Jespersen writes

 

The superior readiness of speech of women is a
concomitant of the fact that their vocabulary is
smaller and more central than that of men. But this
again is connected with another indubitable fact,
that women do not reach the same extreme points as
men, but are nearer the average in most respects

(p. 253).

For linguists like Jespersen, women's speech was
assumed to be "abnormal" or inferior, a view that
reinforced the idea of men's linguistic style as superior.
Jespersen went further to say that, if allowed by men,
women could have a debilitating effect upon language, since
"women's expressions" could make language become languid
and insipid.

Men will certainly with great justice object that

there is a danger of language becoming languid and

insipid if we are always to content ourselves with
women's expressions, and that vigor and vividness

count for something (p. 247).

These authoritative pronouncements on the ways
women speak were based, in most cases, on speculations and
unconvincing evidence. As Kramer (1974) notes, many of the
writings on women's language since then have been shaped
more by popular beliefs about what constitutes women's
speech rather than by sophisticated analyses of empirical
evidence, and by the assumption that language is the
particular preserve of men. According to Kramer, there

seems to be a conflict not only about what women's speech

is really like, but also about what people think women's

speech is like and what they think it ought to be like.

In 1973, Robin Lakoff published a provocative
essay on women and language in which she claimed that women
are discriminated against both in the language they are
taught to use and in the general way language use treats
them. Based on her analysis of her own speech and that of
her friends, Lakoff (1973) claimed (in a way that reminds
us of Jespersen nearly 50 years ago) that women have a
distinctive style of speech which avoids strong statements,
has connotations of uncertainty and triviality, and
projects a subordinate position. She labeled this
configuration of speech patterns "women's language."

Lakoff concluded that women can alter the image of
subordination that their language projects by altering the
language they use.

Lakoff's claims that speech style influences how
people are perceived (i.e., that how a person says it is as
important as what she or he says) have been confirmed by a
wide body of research (Giles & St. Clair, 1979; Newcombe &
Arnkoff, 1979; Mulac & Lundell, 1980).

Both Lakoff's work and the concerns of the women's
movement with women's inferior status in society spawned a
flurry of research attempting to study the ways in which
gender and language interact in defining, maintaining, or
changing patterns of social and political inequality

between men and women. As Henley (1975) observes, language

represents a micro-political structure that helps maintain
the social structure and power relationships in a society;
as a social indicator of social structure and cultural
values, language both reflects and reinforces social order
through the "trivia of everyday life:" such as using gig or
first name, interrupting, or apologizing. (Henley, 1975,

p. 184). However, as we will be seeing in the discussion on
the strategies position, language as a micro-structure can

also challenge more macro inequalities.

 

Aims of the Study

 

From a historical perspective we can notice that
inquiries into language and gender have moved from highly
particularized and decontextualized studies of sex-based
language differences to more situated and contextualized
research. As McConnell—Ginet (1980) summarizes this
development,

The shift is from a focus on the individual
speaker/bearer, who possesses ea particular
(socio)linguistic identity, to her' social
relationships and interactions with others as those
are realized in language use. From an investigation
of static linguistic structures... to investigation
of dynamic processes of discourse (p. 17).
(However, since the term development or progress may
suggest to some a linear evolution towards higher stages, a
word of caution is in need. It is important to stress that

these stages in language/sex research do not represent a

linear, progressive development towards more

contextualized analyses of language use. We still
encounter today some studies on language and communication
[e.g., Warfel, 1984] which implicitly or explicitly take
the existence of a women's language as an unproblematic
given and go on to test the effects of such speech style on
people's perceptions and attributions of speakers.)
Corresponding to these domains of inquiry, we can
identify three basic attitudes or positions with respect to
women's (and men's) ways of speaking:
(l) the deficit position;
(2) the feminist difference position;

(3) the strategies position.

In the chapter that follows I will discuss each of

these positions.

CHAPTER 2

THEORETICAL POSITIONS ON LANGUAGE AND GENDER

The Deficit Position

 

Women as Deviants

Influenced by Lakoff's work, most of the earlier
researchers studying gender-based language differences
regarded women's language as deficient. According to
Lakoff, men and women differ in their linguistic styles in
ways that both result from gender stereotypes and reinforce
those same stereotypes. One of the primary ways in which
the speech of men and women is expected to differ is in the
strength and confidence of the style employed. For Lakoff,
women's linguistic style is viewed as weak and uncertain,
characterized by the use of hedges (e.g., words or phrases
such as "you know," "kinda," "I guess," "maybe," which
blunt the force of an assertion); use of compound requests
(e.g., "won't you close the door?") rather than simple
requests (e.g., "close the door"); use of tag questions at
the end of declarative sentences ("It's really cold here,
isn't it?"), which are said to indicate lack of confidence;
empty adjectives ("cute," "so nice"); hypercorrect grammar
and pronounciation; lack of a sense of humor; and

questioning intonation in declarative contexts (assumed to

convey hesitancy). In summary, women's speech is perceived
as high pitched, gossipy, gentle, emotional, concerned for
the listener, using good grammar, and being polite; men's
speech is perceived as boastful, straight to the point,
authoritarian, forceful, blunt, and using a sense of humor
(Kramer, 1974). For Lakoff, then, these sex differences in
speech style contribute to images of women as deficient or
deviant, and to images of men as assertive and self-
confident.

Although the linguistic forms believed to constitute
the speech of women can be also found in the speech of men,
certain language features or constructions are claimed to

be present with higher frequency in the language of women.

The overall effect of women's language -- meaning
both language restricted in use to women and
language descriptive of women alone -— is this: It

submerges a woman's personal identity by denying her
the means of expressing herself strongly, on the one
hand, and in encouraging expressions that suggest
triviality in subject matter and uncertainty about
it; and, when a woman is being discussed, by
treating her as an object -- sexual or otherwise --
but never a serious person with individual views
(Lakoff, 1975).

Lakoff concluded that women can alter the image
of subordination that their language projects by altering
the language they use. The clear implication is that women
must learn to use stronger language forms; that is, they
need to appropriate men's (or "normal") language forms for
themselves if they want to be perceived as assertive and

confident.

 

10

Recent assertiveness training manuals that teach
women to "speak up" share the assumptions of this position
on women's speech (e.g., Baer, 1976; Phelps & Austin,
1975). Men's ways of speaking are taken as the norm and
women's speech is measured against it. "One outcome of this
procedure," Spender (1980) writes, "is to classify any
difference on the part of women as ‘deviation'" (p. 8).
Moreover, instead of focusing on the political and
institutional structures that oppress women and on the need
to change these structures, these popular writings on
"women's language" emphasize instead individual change as a
key to success.

Notwithstanding Lakoff's claims in her 1973 and 1975
works, many empirical studies on the hypothesized
distinctions between men's and women's speech have yielded
inconsistent findings. As Thorne et a1. (1983) write,

No consistent sex differences have been found in

amount of vocabulary or choice of adjectives or

adverbs, although in different social groups the
sexes may use somewhat different lexicons(...)

Finally, no consistent sex differences have been

found in the use of various syntactic forms, such as

patterns of question asking. (...)

A review of the literature shows that very few

expected differences between the sexes have been

firmly substantiated by empirical studies of
isolated variables. Some popular beliefs about
differences between the sexes appear to have little
basis in fact, and in a few cases research findings

actually invert the stereotypes (p. 13).

In short, after some failed attempts to substantiate

empirically and consistently Lakoff's claims of sex

11

differences in language some researchers, following the
lead of sociolinguists, attempted a reconceptualization of
language "not in terms of isolated variables, nor as an
abstracted code, but within contexts of actual use" (Thorne
et al., p. 14). In what follows we turn to some of these

attempts and to an assessment of their results.

From Women's Language 39 Powerless Language

 

 

The work of O'Barr and Atkins (1980) represented a
serious challenge to Lakoff's equation between women's
language and the language of powerlessness (Borker, 1980).
In studying language variation in a specific institutional
context — the American courtroom — O'Barr and Atkins found
that the stylistic features of women's language are not by
any means restricted to women, but are associated with
persons (men and women) of low social status and,
consequently, low social power. These authors contend
that, since women do occupy the majority of subordinate,
lower status positions in society, features of the speech
style associated with them have been labeled "powerless."
That is, linguistic behavior differences linked to status
would coincide largely, but not exclusively, with gender
differences (Kramarae, 1982). O'Barr and Atkins suggested
that Lakoff's concept of "women's language" be renamed

"powerless language."

12

Other sociolinguistic works support the idea that
status differences are more influential in determining the
speech style than gender alone (Dubois & Crouch, 1975;
Erickson, Lind, Johnson, & O'Barr, 1978; Bradac, Hemphill,
& Tardy, 1981; Key, 1972; Ervin-Tripp, 1979). In one way
or another, these authors contend that gender functions as
a status characteristic in this society, with women usually
possessing lower status than men. As Bradley (1981) puts
it, "linguistic forms used by women are devalued, not
because they are inherently weak or inappropriate, but
because of the lower status of its source" (p. 73).

Along the same lines Henley (1977) and Zimmerman and
West (1975) observe that differences in language associated
with gender usually interact with those associated with
socioeconomic status and power. For example, Eakins and
Eakins (1979), studying verbal turn-taking in faculty
meetings, found that (1) men interrupted women more
frequently; and (2) high-status faculty members (men and
women) often interrupted those of lower status. One of the
conclusions of the above is that the norms for
interruptions in this specific context are sensitive both
to rank and gender.

On the other hand, Crosby and Nyquist (1977),

examining male and female communication behavior in three

different settings (laboratory, information booth and

13

police station), found that women used the "female
register" (empty adjectives, tag questions, and hedges)
more extensively than did men only in the first and third
settings. In the police station context they found that
even more important than gender differences were
differences due to £913: clients used the female register
more often than did police personnel. Moreover, Crosby and
Nyquist conjectured that failure to find gender differences
in the second study may be explained by the characteristics
of the setting: information booth encounters are more
ritualized, and settings which elicit ritualized behavior
tend to be associated with the diminishing of gender
differences. Nonetheless, it should be observed that
contexts can be ritualized and still can elicit gender-
specific behaviors. An example is ballroom dancing, which
is highly ritualized along gender dimensions and in which
gender differences are not attenuated but exaggerated.

In addition to looking at power, status, or role,

there are some studies that found gender 9f addressee to be

 

a better predictor of the use of certain forms supposedly
characteristic of women's language than, for instance,
status characteristics (Brouwer, Gerritsen, & DeHaan, 1979;
Edelsky, 1979). Following Giles (1973), Brouwer et a1. call
for a more detailed investigation into what particular
qualities of the addressee (e.g., sex, social class,

attitude, race, and age) cause what particular reaction on

14

the part of the speaker. The degree to which the gender of
the researcher can potentially affect the speech style of
male and female study participants becomes an important
issue with significant methodological consequences for the
study of speech (see Footnote 2).

Finally, Petrie (cited in Moi, 1985) found in her
research £9219 to be more important than gender in
producing differences in speech.

So far in this review of the literature on
"women's language" it becomes clear that in the discussion
of gender and language further clarification is necessary
to determine whether the choice of speech style is a
dimension of speaker's gender, role, social status, power,
or of all these factors combined. Future research on this
area should pursue and explore more systematically the
interactions of gender with other social categories and
bases of stratification (forms of inequality), which yield
a much more complex picture of the dynamics of gender and
language. As Ervin-Tripp (1979) suggests, "we need to
examine the variables that are related to degree of
likeness or difference (in the way men and women speak) and
to trace those same variables in other comparisons than
those across sex" (p. 8). In addition, we should also be
cautious in assuming that the connections between macro and

micro levels of social life are direct and unproblematic

15

(Maltz & Borker, 1982).

As we will be seeing shortly, more recent studies
on language and gender employing ethnographic methods
(Brown, 1980; Goodwin, 1980; Nichols, 1983) have tried to
bridge this gap in the literature by providing more
systematic accounts "of how gender is spoken." The value
of using ethnography in the study of language should be
emphasized. As shown by Nichols (1980),

Sociolinguistic respect for and interest in

variation in linguistic structures as they are used

by different segments of a social group must be
combined with an ethnographic concern with language
as it is used in specific contexts within the
speech community. Ethnography is "any rigorous
attempt to account for people's behavior in terms of
their relations with those around them in differing
situations." An ethnographic approach to language
use sees it as behavior occurring within social and
cultural contexts that are systematically linked to
one another. It grounds the analysis of language use
in the realities of the lives of individuals within
particular social-cultural systems and requires that
language use be understood in terms of speakers'

positions within those systems (p. 141).

However, when adopting ethnography as a research
method one should also be aware that speech communities are
rarely characterized by relations of symmetry among
participants as the concept of a speech community itself
suggests. Sociolinguists and communication researchers
should attempt to uncover the power relations that traverse
any community if they want to understand individuals'

linguistic choices.

 

16

In this sense, some researchers (Dittmar, 1983;
Milroy, 1980) have replaced the concept of speech community
by concepts of social and institutional networks. An
analysis of networks, then, would

take into account contacts that occur as a result of

social class and of economic activity, while letting

us also consider how some contacts may have greater

inluence on language use than others (Nichols, 1984,

p. 41).

To summarize, the studies reviewed here have not
been able to substantiate in any consistent and systematic
way Lakoff's claims of a "women's language." Many of the
hypothesized gender differences in language were found to
be more indicative of differences in social power than of
differences due to gender of the speaker alone.

In the next section we turn to another area of
inquiry in language and gender: studies on the effects of

women's and men's speech style on listeners and its

influence on speaker evaluation.

Perceptual Studies of Language and Gender

 

 

As stated previously, because virtually none of
Lakoff's assertions about male-female speech differences
has been supported empirically, a need for a shift in focus
from an analysis of language production per se to the study
of language attitudes and stereotypes is in order (see
Footnote 3). As Kramarae (1982) argues, "women's and men's

speech cannot be defined apart from discussion of

 

17

attitudes" (p. 85). Since differing expectations for women
and men have an effect upon the communicative behavior of
speakers (Hilpert, Kramer, & Clark, 1975), and because sex-
roles standards exert some pressures upon individuals to
behave in prescribed ways (Broverman, Vogel, Broverman,
Clarkson, & Rosenkrantz, 1972), the study of gender
stereotypes in language acquires significant importance.
Studies of folklinguistics (popular beliefs about
what constitutes women's and men's ways of speaking) have
shown that:
1. The same linguistic markers (i.e., tag questions and
disclaimers) may be perceived as indicators of uncertainty
when used by women but as tools of politeness when employed
by men (Bradley, 1981).
2. Certain syntactical, grammatical, and lexical components
of communication may be stereotypically attributed to men
and women (e.g., tag questions and incomplete assertions
tend to be attributed to women, while strong assertions and
slang are attributed to men) (Siegler & Siegler, 1976;
Berryman & Wilcox; 1980).
3. Gender-associated speech is a more important determinant
of how a speaker is evaluated than is the gender of the
speaker in the courtroom context (Erickson, Lind, Johnson &
O'Barr, 1977). This finding indicates that perhaps the

relationship between gender and speech is not a one-way

18

process. As observed by Smith (1979), "beliefs about sex-
associated speech may act as guides to where we seek
confirming and disconfirming evidence for other sex-
differences" (p.129).

4. Gender-stereotypes affect people's abilities to judge
frequency differences in linguistic features in the speech
of men and women (i.e., the stereotype of women as non-

assertive contributes to perceptions that their speech is

 

characterized, relative to men's, by a higher frequency of
linguistic forms connoting uncertainty, such as tag
questions and qualifying phrases) (Newcombe & Arnkoff,
1979).

As the above suggests, many of the hypothesized
gender differences in language may be more a result of
beliefs about differences than of actual differences.
According to Kramarae (1982), these stereotypes mediate
language behavior, guiding us in what we say and how we
interpret speech.

Receivers may, hearing one trait stereotypically

associated with women's speech, assume that other

traits are present, or (...) if not hearing the
expected characteristics, explain their absence in
terms of the situational constraints (Kramarae,

1982, p. 97).

Thus, we may say with some confidence that language
style does not affect our evaluations of speakers in

autonomous ways. Among other variables mediating

perceptions are the norms, expectations, ideologies, group

19

alliances, identities, social status, and goals of
speakers, as well as the constraints of the particular
situation (Giles & Ryan, 1982).

Subsequent empirical studies of language attitudes
have found that different dimensions of perception are
influenced by different linguistic features. For instance,
investigating the contribution of hedges and intensifiers
to impression-formation, Wright and Hosman (1983) found
that:

1. Speakers' usage of hedges is inversely related

to impression of their attractiveness. Speakers

using a low number of hedges were perceived as
highly credible. However, women using a high number
of hedges were perceived as less credible than men
in the same category.

2. Men and women using a few intensifiers did not

differ significantly in attractiveness ratings.

However, female speakers using a large number of

intensifiers (thus increasing the force of a

statement) were perceived as more attractive than

male speakers using a large number of intensifiers.

This study implies that intensifiers and hedges

affected differently perceptions of speaker. Hedges

contributed to perceptions of credibility, while

 

intensifiers contributed to perceptions of attractiveness.

 

Moreover, it was found that hedges and intensifiers did not
influence perceptions of speaker regardless of speaker's
gender. In fact this study demonstrates that gender and
features of speech do interact in complex ways.

Similar findings of an interaction effect between

speaker's gender and features of speech emerged from

20

Warfel's (1984) investigation of speech style and
perception of speakers. According to this author, there is
some kind of trade off involved with the use of certain
linguistic features. Warfel found that although hedges
contributed to perceptions of lack of dominance, they also
produced perceptions of competence.

These findings illuminate the strains women holding
positions of authority may experience as a consequence of
their higher status and power. In the specific case of
women in academic settings, Richardson, Cook, and Statham
(1983) have shown a chain of double binds. In their role of
professors, these women had first to establish their
legitimacy as an authority. In order to be viewed as
legitimate, they had to adopt a masculine gender-typed
style of interaction. However, because this style led to
resentment by students, the women teachers felt pressed to
increase their feminine gender-typed behavior, thus

reducing their appearance as an authority. In so doing,

 

they were judged as less competent.

Finally, in a critique of Lakoff's claims about
"women's language," Kuykendall (1980) writes that there is
no evidence that the relationship between gender and
assertive power is part of the structure of language apart
from both listeners' interpretations of the speaker's

utterances and the social circumstances and social

21

relationships of speakers.

Characteristics of sentences that appear to identify

the speaker as deferent cancel what manifests the

speaker's intent as dominant. If at times women
utter the tag question rather than its corresponding
declarative sentence knowing that they may be taken
as nonassertive, nonserious, and even powerless by
doing so, they regain their assertive power by
exploiting the ambiguity such sentences convey

(Kuykendall, 1980, p. 90).

Under this new prism, tag questions and indirectness
are not taken as symptons of powerlessness, but rather as
strategies of control women use in doing things with words
(I will be exploring this point later in this chapter).
Moreover, in the specific case of tag questions, it has
been argued elsewhere (McConnell-Ginet, 1983; Kramarae,
1986) that these linguistic forms do not always make
statements more tentative. With a falling intonation a tag
question may in fact be taken as a statement.

The picture that emerges from the perceptual studies
mentioned above is a much more complex one than Lakoff's
observations initially suggested. It becomes increasingly
clear that one cannot simplistically label a speech style
assertive or unassertive given the structure of a language
and the use of that language by the sexes who speak it.
There are other important variables, aside from language
attitudes, that mediate the relationship between gender and
language.

For example, Brown and Fraser (1979) have remarked

that gender-stereotyped speech may be less a reflection of

22

sex than the fact that speech is associated with activities
that tend to be segregated by sex (e.g., occupational
domains of action). Similarly, Smith (1979) argues that by
discovering the social divisions and contexts that
determine the distribution of a speech marker of sex, we
may be able to better understand sources of gender
stereotypes as well as relations between speech markers and
gender-stereotypes.

The accumulated data indicate that there are
probably more similarities in the speech of women and men
than previously hypothesized. That we are dealing with a
phenomenon that overlaps the boundaries of male/female
dichotomies becomes evident. However, we cannot adequately
assess such phenomena without providing a discussion on
some of the methodological concerns facing most
experimental (quantitative) research on gender differences

in language.

Deficiencies 9f Earlier Gender/Language Research

 

It can be pointed out that one of the major
shortcomings of many empirical studies reporting sex
differences in language use has been the neglect to take
into account both the social context (situation) in which
language occurs (including the social networks and social

relationships of men and women), and the different

23

communicative functions certain linguistic forms may play
from context to context. As O'Barr and Atkins (1980) have
indicated, syntactic tag forms occur more often in some
contexts than in others. For example, in the courtroom
context, witnesses' speech does not use tag forms due to
its inappropriateness. However, the opposite holds for
lawyers' speech.

Concerning the communicative function of these
linguistic forms, some authors (McConnell-Ginet, 1980;

Baumann, 1979) have argued that tag questions have multiple

 

uses, depending on its intonation. As previously observed,
it is not always the case that tag forms convey hesitancy:
"It may constitute an invitation for the hearer to engage
actively in conversation" (McConnellGinet, p.18), hence
functioning as a politeness device to maintain the flow of
conversation.

Other equally serious shortcomings of the research
on sex differences in language, we find that:
1. Many studies involved judgements of a small sample of
written sentences or recorded speech segments with
attention implicitly or explicitly drawn to the dimensions
of interest (e.g., Berryman & Wilcox, 1980; Siegler &

Siegler, 1976; and Newcombe & Arnkoff, 1979).

2. Most studies, with few exceptions, were conducted by

employing a single variable design wherein language is

24

sampled in some highly constrained context (usually a
laboratory), with speaker sex serving as the sole
determinant of the speech style being investigated. As
Rubin and Nelson (1983) point out, this practice precludes
insights into the simultaneous effects of other social
variables on speech, such as power, status, role, class,
age, and race. As McConnell-Ginet (1985) puts it, "rigor

in linguistics has been achieved at the price of rigor

 

mortis: The radical operation required to ‘isolate' the

language system has killed it" (p. 161).

3. The focus of many of these earlier studies has been on
correlations between small details of speech (e.g.,
frequency of hedges and tag questions) and either

(a) perceptions of such details (as in the case of the
perceptual studies discussed above); or (b) speaker's sex,
without consideration for the social context of speech. As
Kramer, Thorne, and Henley (1978) observe, "breaking speech
into such small and abstracted units of study may lead to
neglect of larger patterns relevant to gender," such as the
uses of silence, intonation patterns, and the relationship
of nonverbal and verbal behaviors (p. 642). Moreover, as
alerted by Smith (1979), we can only claim a direct
relationship between speech and sex if the correlation is
perfect. Otherwise the association between the two "may be

the result of a coincidental correlation of sex with

25

another social division (e.g., occupation) which has

stronger implications for speech than does sex" (p. 115).

4. Most studies have generalized language findings about
sex differences of a white, middle-class and upper middle—
class, student population into an overall characterization
of the ways men and women speak (Kramer, Thorne, and
Henley, 1978). Claims were then made about some general sex
differences by piecing together findings from different

studies which used different groups of speakers in

513‘

different contexts.

 

5. During this initial phase of research on gender and
language, studies have been characterized by an emphasis on
sex differences to the neglect of analyses of sex

similarities (Thorne et al., 1983).

6. An important, but rarely considered, shortcoming of most
of the ealier research on language-based sex differences is
its tacit assumption of men's standpoint. Since men in this
field created the frameworks of analysis (e.g., Jespersen,
Grice) which influenced the works of linguists such as
Lakoff and others, it is not surprising to find out that
(a) there were more reports of differences than
similarities between men's and women's speech; and that

(b) women's speech was usually treated as a deviation from

men's speech which, in turn, was taken to be the norm for

26

speakers of both sexes. It has also been pointed out that
the sex of the researcher (when in the role of the
addresee) may influences the linguistic behavior of study

participants (Brouwer et al., 1979; Edelsky, 1979).

7. In perceptual studies, as pointed out by Giles and Ryan
(1982), speakers are usually presented to listeners-judges
as anonymous entities (i.e., with no clarification ofsocio-
economic backgrounds, interests, occupations, values, or
beliefs). The consequence of this practice is that findings
from such studies are of little value to the understanding
of how language works in interactions. For example, Ryan
and Sebastion's study (1980) has demonstrated that the
negative consequences of nonstandard speech diminished when
the speaker was known to come from a middle-class

background.

8. Finally, most of the past research on sex-based
linguistic distinctions has used dichotomous models to
analyze the verbal interactions of men and women.
Categories such as male/female, intrumental/expressive, and
powerful/powerless, became basic to the understanding of
interactions between people. However, these categories or
imposed divisions are not the most descriptive nor the most
illuminating of the ways people actually speak for three

reasons:

 

27

First, the construct "powerful language,"
operationalized by O'Barr and Atkins (1980) as a language
devoid of powerless cues, fails to take into account the
fact that power is a dynamic concept; it is developed and
exercised by individuals through a multiplicity of shifting
relations of force and resistance (Foucault, 1980). Viewed
as such, powerful language would best be conceptualized as
the aggregate of linguistic strategies that a speaker uses
in an attempt to control conversational content, evaluation
of that content, and organiztion of the exchange (Owsley &
Scotton, 1984). Since these attempts at control by one
speaker are met by the other participant's resistance, the
strategies employed change from moment to moment, including
the use of what O'Barr and Atkins would consider "powerless
language."

Secondly, as previously discussed, a (reified)
notion of, or belief in, a "women's language" necessarily
assumes a co-occurrence of gender markers in women's speech
that lacks empirical base. As argued by Mulac, Lundell, and
Bradac (1986), there is a fuzziness of boundaries between
men's and women's language use: These authors found that
language differentiating men from women communicators in
one study does not distinguish them in another.
Furthermore, research findings have shown that most of the
differences hypothesized to distinguish the speech style of

women and men are more a result of linguistic stereotypes

28

than of actual differences.

Thirdly, use of these gender labels tends to obscure
rather than illuminate the enormous variations in speech by
ethnicity, age, social class, and other social categories
that may intersect with gender.

To summarize the discussion in this section, one
needs only to recall Edwards' (1982) cautionary words in
criticizing the use of laboratory situations in the study
of language:

It could be argued that, of all aspects of human
behavior, speech is the most rapid to change when
attention is focused upon it. Thus the problem of
relating empirical findings to natural behavior

(...) should be of some particular concern
(p. 31).

Concluding Remarks

 

After having spent considerable time discussing what
was got found in the literature, I would like, however, to
stress that consistent gender differences in language have
been empirically documented in the following two areas (cf.
West & Zimmerman, 1985):

1. Phonetics: Women's speech is more likely than men's

 

speech to be characterized by correctness, especially in
terms of pronunciation of the /ing/ verb ending (Shuy,
Wolfram, & Riley, 1967; Labov, 1966, 1972; Trudgill, 1975).

2. Nonsegmental: Women show a wider range of pitches and

 

more variable intonation in their speech than do men

29

(McConnell-Ginet, 1983; Sachs, 1975; Takefuta, Jancosek,

& Brunt, 1972).

The dual language style framework Lakoff and some
others have been working with, as the notion of "women's
language/men's language" tend to suggest, implies that
women and men use different codes or styles when
communicating. However, as we have seen, the boundaries
between women's language/men's language are not neatly
dichotomous, but tend rather to overlap to such an extent
that it would be better to drop the whole construct of a
women's language at once. The literature reviewed here
shows us that gender differentiation of language (when
encountered) is a result of a combination of complex
frequencies in the occurrence of certain linguistic
signals.

A similar criticism applies to the idea of a gender
style (or of separate "genderlects"). The term genderlect
"conveys the notion that language behavior is as constant
as dress or hairstyle in the expression of gender"
(Philips, 1980). It also connotes, as observed by Thorne et
a1. (1983), more same—sex similarity and cross-sex
difference than is actually the case. That we are dealing
with a phenomenon that is context-sensitive --as well as
sensitive to the social elaboration of gender, the sexual

division of labor, and the structure of male dominance in

3O

society (Thorne & Henley, 1975)-- went largely ignored by
many complacent and uncritical sociolinguists and
communication scholars. As Fowler (1985) cautions us,
language must be studied in relation to power, repression,
and inequality:
Seeing language as a practice that contributes to
inequality, forces linguists to be more critical and
gives social purpose to their own investigations (p.
162).

Future research in sociolinguistics as well as in

speech communication should shift emphasis from

 

quantitative analysis of variables to the articulation of a
theoretical framework to explain the relation between
verbal interaction and macrosocietal factors such as the
modes and relations of production of a system, together
with its gender arrangements (Sanchez, 1983). Only then
will we be able to explain why and how specific linguistic
interaction patterns relate to specific socio-structural

formations.

The Feminist Difference Position

 

Reinterpreting the Fidings 9f Gender/Language Research

 

The feminist difference position emerged as an
alternative to the deficit position on "women's language."
Advocates of the difference position do not reject the

alleged reality of a "woman's language" or of a system of

31

co-occurring sex-linked linguistic signals. They do reject,
however, negative assessments of this speech style
(Johnson, 1983). The difference feminists argue that,
contrary to being weak, trivial, and uncertain, women's way
of speaking has many strengths. Among other things, it is
more sensitive, more emotionally expressive than the speech
style of men, and more consonant with women's experiences
and values; it is a reflection of women's world of
nurturance, cooperation, participation, and sensitivity
(Gilligan, 1982; Ruddick, 1982; Chodorow, 1974). Also
implicit in the reevaluation of "women's language" is the
belief that it can be used to transform "men's speech" as a
basis for social change.

Such radical theoretical approach to gender and
language emerged with feminist critiques of objectivism and
patriarchy, and an emphasis on women's construction of
cultures ("cultural feminism").

In this section I will, first, briefly point out
some of the arguments feminists have used against
objectivism and, secondly, show how cultural feminism, by
invoking a counter-culture of female principles, represents
a new way of looking at the ways women and men speak. I
will by discussing some of the serious problem that the
difference position (as espoused by cultural feminists)

unfortunately faces.

32

Feminist Critiques 9: Objectivism

 

 

Most of the feminist critiques of epistemology have
been, in a way or another, critiques of positivism.
According to feminist theorists, positivism, with its
ideology of objectivism, masks interests in its claim to
neutrality, devalues people's (more specifically, women's)
realities, and invites (male) domination.

The epistemological assumption of a neutral, active,
detached, knowing subject, and a static, passive, knowable
object on which positivism rests legitimizes a division of
the life-world in polarities

whose operating principle is difference (...).

This invitation to domination extended by this

denial of mutual recognition of subjects stresses

division and boundaries, overlooks similarities, and

obscures fluidity (Gregg, 1987, p. 11).

That there is no "immaculate perception," since "we
all harbor hidden gardens and plantings" was continuously
acknowledged by critical theorists. However, with Marx we
have also recognized that power (capital) usually
determines "how those gardens will be sown" (Jansen, 1983).

A feminist critique of positivism seeks to expose
the connections between relations of power and the
construction of knowledge (especially gender inequalities).
They have claimed that "an objectivist epistemology is
sexist in its methodological tendency to equate a male

perspective with a human perspective" (Gregg, 1987, p. 9).

In so doing, the experiences of women either have been

33

viewed as variants of a male norm or have been totally
excluded from scientific descriptions of reality (see
Footnote 4). As Dubois (1983) puts it, "the androcentric
perspective in social science has rendered women not only
unknown, but virtually unknowable" (p. 107).

A feminist epistemology, then, denounces all linear
and hierarchichal conceptions of reality and dualistic
models of human nature and intercourse as serving the
interests of the dominant group. Likewise, a feminist
methodology seeks to grasp experience and reality as part
of a matrix of complex relationships, including the
relationship between the knower and the known. It is in
feminists' and other critical theorists' claims that there
is not a "a single, constituted and discoverable reality"
(Gregg, 1987, p. 9), but many realities that can be
unveiled through a multiplicity of methods, that lies the
subversive and liberating potential of their insights. In
what follows it will be shown how one of such insights has
been applied to a reinterpretation of language and gender

research findings.

Cultural Feminism and the Discourse 92 Difference

 

As previously mentioned, cultural feminism emerged
as an attempt to infuse "reality" with a feminist
perspective. That is, cultural feminists emphasize women's

experiences as caretakers, nurturers, and peacemakers as

 

34

legitimate sources of knowledge and as the basis for the
establishment of a distinct set of cultural and aesthetic
values (Echols, 1983).

This counter-culture, based on a so—called (and
conceptually problematic) "female principle," would not
only be different from patriarchal culture and values, but
even superior. Difference, then, became a code word to mean
that women have a different voice, a different psychology,
a different experience of love, and so forth (Gordon,
1986). According to Gilligan (1982), women's world of
nurturance, cooperation, participation, and sensitivity to
the needs of others leads them "to attend to voices other
than their own and to include in their judgments other
points of view" (p. 16). Concerns such as the above may
influence women's speech style by assuming it more
personal, relational, and context bound than men's
language. The fact that women's talk has been characterized
as powerless, ineffective, and uncertain only reveals the
ways by which the dominant groups (men) have distorted and
silenced women's expressions of an alternative (and
superior) model of the world.

The most compelling argument for seeing women's talk
as a sociolinguistic subculture distinct from men's is put
forth by Maltz and Borker (1982). According to these

authors, men and women come from different sociolinguistic

 

35

subcultures -—based on extensive separation in the networks
of girls and boys in childhood-- in which they have learned
different rules for interaction, different modes of talk
(despite access to the same general language system), and
different speaking and listening rights and duties;
whenever they attempt to carry on conversations with one
another (even in equal terms), cultural miscommunication
may result.

For Maltz and Borker, girls learn to do basically

three things with words:

 

‘IA 'a.

l. to create and maintain relationships of closeness

and equality;

2. to criticize others in acceptable ways;

3. to interpret accurately the speech of other girls

(p.205)

In other words, what girls are learning to do with
words is to cope with the contradictions created by an
ideology of equality and cooperation and a social reality
that includes difference and conflict. On the other hand,
boys learn to use speech:

1. to assert one's position of dominance;

2. to attract and maintain an audience [e.g., in

storytelling];

3. to assert oneself when other speakers have the

floor (Maltz & Borker, 1982, p. 205)

As Treichler and Kramarae (1983) put it, boys' and
girls' ways of talking are not just different. Built into
that difference is an asymmetry of power: "males in our

culture learn that they can take charge of situations;

girls learn that males are allowed to control" (p. 120). In

36

addition, these different modes of talk are not only a
sympton of different social organizations (in the case of
girls, non-hierarchical and collaborative; in the case of
boys, hierarchichal and competitive), but are rather
constitutive of them (Goodwin, 1980) (see Footnote 5).
That the structure and strategies for friendly talk \
among women are in many ways very similar to, and }
continuous with, the findings about the talk of girls was ‘

demonstrated by Kalcik (1975). Further evidence of a

 

relational, participatory, and collaborative interactional
orientation in women's culture is provided by Edelsky's
(1981) ground—breaking work. This author, analyzing the
nature of "the floor" in a mixed-sex faculty committee
interaction context in terms of the familiar turn-taking
model (one speaker at a time holds the floor), actually
discovered two kinds of floors: In the first one (Fl), men
dominanted the contruction of the floor (e.g., they took
more and longer turns and did more of the joking, arguing,
directing, and soliciting responses). Edelsky identified a
second floor (F2) was identified where women participated
more actively than they did in F1 and more often than did
men. In this "second" floor, women joked, argued,
directed, and solicited responses more and men less. As
Edelsky explains, this floor was collaboratively

constructed by participants operating " on the same

 

37

wavelength" (i.e., women and men interacted more as equals
on many dimensions), and provided

both a cover of ‘anonymity' for assertive language

use and a comfortable backdrop against which women

can display a fuller range of language ability

(p. 416).

The picture that emerges from both Edelsky's and
Kalcik's work is one in which women tend to orient towards
conversation as a cooperative enterprise, as a mutually
constructed product for common interest (McConnell-Ginet,
1982).

The idea of distinct male and female subcultures is
also evidenced by the works of Harding (1975), Yerkovich
(1977), and Jones (1980) on gossip as a verbal skill women
develop for challenging men's power and for transmitting
women's values and concerns; Bruner and Kelso (1980) on
women's and men's graffiti as separate universes of
discourse; and Jenkins and Kramer (1978) on women's
consciousness-raising process as a unique form of small
group interaction which embodies the ideas and ideals of
the women's movement.

As we will see, despite its obvious appeals to
feminists (including the promise of a solution to women's
powerlessness through the reassertion of a female identity

and culture), the feminist difference position is fraught

with problems at the levels of both theory and practice.

 

38

Some of these problems will be explored in the following

section.

Some Problems with the Discourse 92 Difference

 

 

Although there are very real and concrete economic,
political, historical, and ideological factors that
contribute to keep women as a separate linguistic
subculture (such as women's unequal access to resources;
occupational and social separation of women and men; the
segregation of women and their language by institutions
such as the state and the mass media; the existence of
widespread negative stereotypes concerning women's speech),
the discourse on difference, or on "separate worlds," puts
too much emphasis on difference to the neglect of important
similarities among human beings. The view of women's
language as different (not inferior) implies, first, that
women form a homogeneous coherent social group; secondly,
that women and men are sharply different ; and, thirdly,
that the linguistic alternatives are somehow fixed by the
sex of the speaker.

As discussed previously, the body of research
reviewed here indicates that the differences between men
and women in relation to language are rather few and
superficial. Moreover, the genderlect model cannot account
for differences in speech that do not correlate with sex of

speaker. Likewise, we cannot assume that there is only one

 

 

39

homogeneous "female voice." Since gender in our culture
usually intersects with other bases of stratification
(e.g., class, race, ethnicity, age) as well as with
dimensions that are within the field of gender relations
(e.g., homosexuals, heterosexuals [Connell, 1985]), we can
only speak of a multiplicity and diversity of "female
voices." On the same hand, if such diversity represents a
strength and richness, it also reflects inequality among
women (some voices [white, middle-class] will be louder
than others [black, lower class]) (Gordon, 1986). In this
respect, Thorne (1987) observes that the "separate worlds"
approach

compresses an enormous complexity into a series of

contrasts...[and] exaggerates the coherence of same-

gender interactions, glossing extensive variation

among boys and among girls (pp. 5-6).

A second problem with the difference position is
that it idealizes women's world to the point of
romanticizing oppression. Although the celebration of
femaleness may bring some positive results (e.g., raise
women's consciousness), one should realize, with Gordon,
that "the very notion of difference can function to obscure
domination, to imply a neutral asymmetry" (p. 26). Between
women and men there is not just the problem of cultural
miscommunication, but the problem of domination.

Interaction takes place not just between two

individuals but within a network of perceptions,
expectations, and "rights," and always within the

 

40

larger context of institutional structures that
themselves exert a powerful influence on patterns of
interaction (Treichler and Kramarae, 1983, p. 120).
Thus, the celebration of difference, by reinforcing
dualities and contrasts (instrumental/expressive;
competitive/cooperative) fails to challenge and transform
those institutional practices that have constructed gender
as ranked difference (gender for women being experienced as
oppression, inequality, and internalized inferiority

[Barret, 1980]). Furman (1985) contends that thinking in

terms of binary oppositions always implies the

 

subordination of the second element to the first. To
reverse the order of the terms "only repeats the system
which was at work in the initial opposition" (p. 75).

Politically, the discourse on difference is always
dangerous for feminists. For one thing, it may function as
an ideological cover-up to certain institutional practices
that attempt to keep women "in their proper place." As
Toril Moi (1985) observes, given men's greater power
difference could (and would) be used to prove that certain
unpleasant activities are natural for women and alien to
men.

Notwithstanding the fact that commonalities between
women and men exceed differences (cf. Wallston & Grady,
1985; Deaux, 1984; Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974) one could argue
here that the discourse on difference has important

strategic uses. As shown by the French feminists with

41

"l'ecriture feminine" (e.g., Helene Cixous, 1976,
1975/1986; Monique Wittig, 1980, 1973/1975) multiple,
heterogeneous differences may be used to undermine any
binary scheme of thought and linear logic embedded in the
patriarchal value system in order to create an open-ended
textuality. Similarly, Adrienne Rich (1979) observes that
to assume no difference at all is a political mistake since
it ends up by reifying the category "human" as equivalent
to "male," thus erasing women once again.

The discourse on difference still finds its
supporters and opponents. However, an alternative position
would be to abandon the either/or framework on which it has
been inscribed and to develop an understanding of both
difference Eng continuity (as well as contradictions and
complexities) in human experience. As Keller (1985) puts
it, "the recognition of difference may represent an
opportunity for a deeper and more articulated kinship"

(p. 117).

Whatever turn it takes, I believe the political
import of this controversy lies in the fact that it forces
feminists and others to debate the conceptions of
domination and resistance. This, in turn, can only result

in a strengthening of both feminist theory and praxis.

 

 

 

42

The Strategies Position

 

The strategies position on language and gender
emerged mainly as a reaction against the reductionist trend
of previous sociolinguistic studies to treat speakers as

"truncated homunculi sociologici who do what they do

 

because of the social slot in which they find themselves"
(Brown, 1980, p.113).

For Brown, what is missing from narratives of the
ways women and men speak are accounts of the choices
speakers make and the reasons for such choices. Basically,
the strategies approach to language posits that men and
women are "rational actors oriented toward goals and
employing communicative strategies to achieve these goals"
(Brown, 1976, p. 247). However, because men and women have
unequal access to valued resources, power, and political
authority, the specific strategies they use in pursuing
their goals reflect the socio-structural constraints
emanating from their social positions.

The strategies model, then, recognizes that the
syntactic-semantic variation in the speech of men and women
"is most usefully studied within the context of the social
formation of the classes meg and wgmen" (Kramarae, 1981,
p.119). That is, studying how gender is built into social
structure, we are able to explain speakers' choice of

verbal repertoires as well as the significance of such

-'u b

 

 

43

choices. In the following section we will further pursue

this point.

The Division 9: Labor by Gender and Patterns 9: Langgage

 

 

253

An analysis of communicative strategies holds that
the linguistic repertoire associated with women is largely h
a result of the influence of sex—segregated social and
occupational groupings, and of sex-typed activities

(McConnell-Ginet, 1980). Thus, an adequate account of

 

women's and men's speech will necessarily require a similar
account of women's and men's positions in society.

As Thorne and Henley (1975) argue, "every society
uses sex, to one degree or another, in allocating tasks,
activities, rights, and responsibilities" (p. 20). However,
it is with the development of capitalism and the industrial
revolution that our present sexual division of labor takes
shape. As the factory replaced the home as the locus of
production, it also effected a sharp separation between
men's and women's activities as well as between the sphere
of wage labor and domestic labor: Women became responsible
for (unpaid) domestic work and reproduction (being thus
confined to the invisibility of the household), and men for
wage work outside the home (production). Although such neat
distinctions between production/reproduction,

public/private spheres seem not to fit social reality

 

44

(first, few families have depended exclusively upon the
male wage; secondly, women have been shown to participate
as actively as men -—in some cases, even more-- in
production worldwide), the ideological conception of two
social—sexual spheres largely contributes to the social
definition of women as housewives financially dependent F
upon her wage-earning husbands. It also contributes to
women's further entrenchment in domestic and familial

responsibilities, thus detaching and disadvantaging them

 

1F—.—-_

even more in the sphere of wage labor (Barret, 1986).

The belief that women are uniquely suited for

domestic service and nurturing supports sex

segregation of occupations and the confinement of
women to jobs that resemble their wife-and-mother
roles: clerical and service work, nursing, teaching
and care of the young, production and selling of

food and clothing (Thorne & Yalom, 1982, p. 4).

As argued by Thorne and Henley (1975), the
linguistic consequences of the division of labor by gender
can be found in many areas of communication, such as in the
conversational topics of men and women, in their lexicon,
and in the verbal strategies they have devised to manage
their everyday interactions. It is in relation to this last
point that the strategies model is of utmost value.

According to Brown (1980), a strategies approach to
language draws a set of connections between linguistic

facts and the socio-political system in which they occur.

That is, this model, unlike the previous ones examined

45

here, allows us to relate individuals' linguistic choices

 

to their communicative strategies which, in turn, are a

 

result of their social motivations (i.e., the goals and

 

desires that motivate their actions) given their social
networks (i.e., the kinds of people with whom one interacts
regularly).

As Brown argues, this framework of analysis
emphasizes the importance of speakers' ability to employ
different verbal strategies depending on the requirements
of the situation. It also recognizes that all speech
devices are multi-functional. Speakers can creativelly
manipulate them to invert or subvert their usual meaning,
depending on the speakers' goal. For instance,
interruptions in many cases can function as display of
cooperation rather than as a display of power and dominance
(Murray, 1985). Similarly, questions can be used to control
the order of speakers and the topics of conversation (as in
classroom interaction) or to simply keep the conversation
going (as in Fishman's [1983] study, where the "interaction
work" was women's reponsibility in the conversational
division of labor).

In conclusion, we may say that the strategies model
recognizes that language use is judged appropriate or
inappropriate, good or bad, powerful or powerless only
according to certain situational criteria (Eakins & Eakins,

1978) and to the communicative strategies speakers choose

 

 

46

to use based on their goals (Brown, 1980).

Some examples of how the strategies framework can
shed lignt into the relationship between speakers'
motivations, language structure, and social structure are

given in the section that follows.

Some Examples from the Literature

 

The works of Harding (1975) and Brown (1980) stand

perhaps as the finest examples of how women and men have

 

developed different linguistic strategies, given their
different experiences of gender, power, and communication.
Susan Harding, in her brilliant essay on women and
words in a Spanish village, explains how the division of
labor between men and women also structures their use of
language and assigns to them distinct verbal skills and
speech genres. She discusses in detail women's side of this
division by focusing on gossip as a verbal skill women have
developed to challenge the male hierarchy by influencing
the information, images, and interpretations of village men
and women. However, and interestingly, at the same time
that gossip confers on women some measure of informal
power, it can also be used to undermine their power. If
gossip functions to influence the opinions and behaviors of
others, it also provides others with the means to control

women's opinions and behaviors. Because gossip creates

 

47

among women a sense that there is no privacy, that everyone
is under constant surveillance, it restricts the behavior
of women and helps keep them "in their place." As Harding
argues,
the nondeliberate, but collective, power that
village women exert in the form of gossip operates
as much, if not more, to control their own behavior
as that of men (p. 308). {1
Thus, although the powers of these village women are

very real, the last word, nonetheless, still belongs to the

men "who run the structures that determine the conditions

 

of everyday life" (p. 307). L
Finally, it should be observed that the cultural

campaign against women's gossip (e.g., "a woman's strength

is in her tongue") does suggest a differential distribution

of power between women and men. As Harding demonstrates,

The point is not that women are unique in their use
of verbal skills for political ends, but that these
skills must be uniquely developed by them in their
exercise of power, given the absence of explicit,
formal institutions to lobby for their desires and
needs, their subordinate economic and political
position in both the household and village spheres,
and their lack of formal access to the decision-
making processes in the society. Whatever
recognition the desires and needs of Oroel women get
derives from their verbal skills, from their ability
to have their voices heard, remembered, and
responded to by other women and men on an informal
basis. Thus, not only gossip, but women's words in
general earn a reputation for politicking, and the
reputation is a bad one because politics is not
women's prerogative.

Thus, because of their subordinate position in

society, women's attempts to gain some power are usually

 

48

regarded as socially illegitimate. On the other hand, as
Kramarae (1981) shows, the existence of so many proverbs
about women and their destructive influence on men
testifies to the fact that, after all, women are not as
passive, supportive, and powerless as many studies have
portrayed them. The value of a communicative analysis of
women's strategies lies in that it enables us to understand H
how women use words in interaction to both subvert or
maintain the social structures of any society.

Penelope Brown (1980), studying politeness

 

strategies in Tenejapa, Mexico, also shows through F
ethnographic methods how use of specific linguistic
features are systematically linked to aspects of women's
social position. She argues that women's higher level of
politeness in their speech as compared with men's can be
explained by the fact that, in Tenejapan society, women
are very vulnerable (they are usually beaten by their
husbands; also, residence is patrilocal, so the social
distance between the women is greater than between the men
of the household what, in turn, explains women's use of
negative politeness within their own group). However,
because women's economic contribution to the household is
considerable, and because there is a cultural ideology of
complementarity in Tenejapan society that downplays
differences in status and power, men and women show

relative courtesy toward one another in their interactions.’

 

49

Thus,

The analysis of communicative strategies provides an

intervening variable allowing us to relate language

and society in a direct and motivated way, rather
than simply to correlate them. The ethos of women,
in this view, is tied to culture and social
structure via strategies for behavior. By linking
behavior to social structure we are thereby enabled
to ask the question why do women talk the way they
do in this society and what social-structural
pressures and constraints are molding their

behavior? (Brown, 1980, p. 133)

Among other similar studies following a strategies
model of analysis, we have: Warren and Bourque (1985) on
how the politics of communication in two rural Andean
communities contributes to the cultural construction of
gender; Goodwin (1980) on how the different social
experiences of boys and girls influence their speech
patterns and on how they use speech to construct social
organizations; Gal (1978) on how Hungarian peasant women's
choice of German instead of Hungarian reflects their active
rejection of peasant status (which is associated with
Hungarian) in favor of worker status (associated with
German); and, finally, Nichols (1983) on how the language
of women in an all-Black community reflects the options
available to them within their particular speech
communities. Finally, it should be stressed that all the
above studies attempt to provide systematic connections

between individuals' choices, language use, and the social

structures within which speakers are embedded.

 

 

 

50

Concluding Remarks

 

The strategies framework, as we have seen in the
previous examples, allows us to study the dynamics of
speech within the larger social institutions and in view of
the complex variety of gender arrangements that are
embedded in such institutions. n

Another important feature of this model is that it

 

looks at speakers' communicative strategies through the

point of view of the speakers themselves. Rather than

 

simply correlating linguistic behavior with social
structure in a deterministic fashion, this approach grants
agency to women and men. One way of doing so is by showing,
in a way that reminds us of Foucault, how speakers use
varied strategies of resistance to counteract and to assert
power.

Notwithstanding its innumerable merits, the
strategies framework has also encountered its critics. Some
have accused it of being inherently tautological. As
Kramarae (1981) argues,

if we say that all women's and men's speech is

rational and strategic, we are more likely to hear

only rationalities and strategies in interactions

(p. 154).

Or, as she later writes,

Colleagues and I have noticed that if we begin an

examination of tapes of adult conversation by

assuming that speakers' intentions are guiding their

speech and thus that it is important that we try to
decipher intentions, we are very capable of

 

 

51

assigning motives to the speakers. The more time we
spend discussing a tape, the more elaborate the
motivations of the speakers seem to become (p. 154).
While upholding the validity and legitimacy of this
criticism, it should be remarked that "strategy," as Brown

and Levinson define it (1978), does not always imply

conscious manipulative action. Strategies also imply those

 

routines (previously constructed plans) "whose original m1
rational origin is still preserved in their construction,
despite their present automatic application as ready-made

programmes" (cited in Kramarae, 1981, p. 120). On the other

 

hand, the strategies model does tend to see only strategies
in interaction to the neglect of that which is due to
culture, tradition, and/or even emotion. Moreover, this
model ignores the important distinction -—made by Habermas
(1976/1979)-- between strategic action and communicative
action and their corresponding forms of rationality.
Strategic action, as Habermas classifies it, is a type of
action oriented toward success and guided by a rationality
of means and decisions (purposive rationality).
Communicative action, on the other hand, is a type of
social interaction that is oriented toward reaching
understanding and is guided by a dialogical model of
rationality that stresses practical-moral communal concerns
and responsibilities. It is this latter, more encompassing
type of interaction (and rationality) that the strategies

model fails to incorporate into its framework.

“‘1

 

52

Finally, and addressing Kramarae's latter criticism,
it is not the task of the researcher to assign intentions
and motivations to speakers. On the contrary, the
strategies framework requires a dialogical encounter

between researcher and speakers. (How else could one work

 

from the interactants' point of view if not by validating $1
one's perceptions against those of the interactants?)
To conclude, we can say that although the strategies

framework does show certain theoretical lacunae (e.g., a

 

heavy reliance on a strategic notion of rationality, its }_
advocacy of a theoretical and practical transcendence of

the dichotomy between knower and known, on the other hand,

constitutes its most appealing point and one consonant with

the tenets of a feminist, critical, theory.

CHAPTER 3

GENDER AND LANGUAGE: CONCEPTS AND RESEARCH

So far I have traced the shifting perspectives on
the literature on the ways men and women speak. In doing
so, I have pointed out some of the unresolved
inconsistencies and/or problems facing each perspective, as
well as its merits, whenever the case, for feminist and
communication theories. in general. I have also shown how
each "new" position on language and gender has its roots on
different schools of thought and follows different methods
of inquiry. I have argued why the strategies position on
language and gender represents a step forward toward a more
encompassing and more contextualized understanding of the
place of language in interaction and in society (concerning
this last point I have suggested, following Moi [1985] that
the power relationship between men and women is also part
of the context of language).

However, in none of my assessments of the approaches
to language and gender have I particularly focused on how
investigators have conceptualized gender in their
respective studies. In this chapter I will review various
conceptualizations of gender in the literature (from gender

as a binary variable to gender as relational and

53

 

 

 

54

contextual) in order to show how different assumptions
about gender have influenced in different and significant
ways interpretations of the speech of women and men. As
Rakow (1986) argues, "unexamined assumptions about gender

can produce research that is trivial, insupportable,

 

politically naive, or damaging to women (pp. 19-20).

Gender a a Binary Variable

 

In its inception period, most of the studies of sex

differences in language use (e.g., the majority of those

 

studies cited under the "deficit" position on "women's '
language") treated gender of speaker as an unproblematic
binary variable (male/female) lodged within the individual.
Given this theoretical outlook on gender, and within the
positivist research tradition of the field, researchers
often searched for statistical correlations between gender
of the speaker (in many instances understood either as his
or her biological sex or as dichotomous gender categories)
and certain linguistic features in order to single out
those speech traits that differentiate the language of men
and women. Failure to find the hypothesized sex differences
forced investigators to simply shift the argument to
another ground (Unger, 1979), the assumption of sex
differences itself remaining unchanged.

Deaux (1984), in analyzing the research tradition on

sex differences, points out that very few statistically

55

significant sex differences were found in social and
cognitive behaviors of men and women.

sex-of—subject differences are less pervasive than

many have thought. Main effects of sex are

frequently qualified by situational interactions.

(...) Furthermore, the amount of variance accounted

for by sex, even when main effects are reliable, is

typically quite small. Thus, when any particular
behavior is considered, differences between male and
females may be of relative little consequence

(p. 108).

As we recall, many studies cited in the previous
chapter (under the deficit position) found context, status,
power, role, topic, and stereotypes, among other factors
and categories of social identity, to be more important
than gender of speaker in producing differences in speech
(power, role, and stereotypes may also be part of "gender"
in the loose sense). This later evidence tells us that,
from the beginning, the pursuit of sex differences in
language (as well as in other areas of behavior) has been
both a theoretical dead-end and a political mistake.

For example, Toril Moi (1985), following a
deconstructive, Derridean, analysis of "difference" writes
that in searching for difference as the gap between the two
parts of a binary opposition, one begins by positing
masculinity/femininity, male/female as "stable, unchanging
essences, as meaningful presences between which the elusive

difference is supposed to be located" (p. 154). In

construing the field of inquiry in terms of rigid

 

 

 

56

dichotomies, rather than complexities and/or
contradictions, researchers have blurred the rich tapestry
of meanings that gender conveys and acquires in the
day-to-day of interactions. Moreover, the context-stripping

environment of most laboratory studies reduces gender as a

 

tool of analysis to two immutable categories. Such=
methodological practice --or habit of thought-- is what
Connell (1985) refers to as "categoricalism."

In much of this theorising the categories "women"
and "men" are taken as being in no need of further
examination or finer differentiation. Theory'
operates with the categories as given: it does not
concern itself with how they come to be what they
are (Connell, 1985, p. 264).

 

Instances of categoricalism can be found in much
sociolinguistic work where, as Kramarae (1986) wittily puts
it, gender, considered a pre-linguistic variable and
possessed of body, "walk[s] into a socioliguistic study and
later walk[s] out to go, unchanged, into someone else's
sociolinguistic study in another setting" (p. 9).

To summarize, researchers' rather obsessive focus on
sex differences, added by a theoretical reliance on a
static and dualistic conceptualization of gender (which, in
turn, is deeply embedded in a mixture of biological and
cultural assumptions about sex categories), blinded them
from seeing those very social and structural mechanisms
that both impose and undermine divisions and boundaries

between men and women. Failure to find consistent empirical

57

evidence for sex differences in the speech of men and
women, coupled with larger developments in feminist theory,

prompted some investigators into a conceptual shift.

Gender as Dichotomized Roles

 

 

Some theorists, instead of viewing male and female

 

as dichotomized opposites or as individual attributes,
chose to emphasize the social character of gender, thus

conceptualizing it as "roles" individuals enact in society.

 

According to Carrigan, Connell, and Lee (1985), the g_
roles framework has been used to analyze the difference
between the soCial positions of women and men and to
explain how they are shaped for those positions.

This framework contends that through socialization,
men and women learn and internalize specific identities by
performing certain roles. Hence, masculine and feminine are
learned by performing the male or female roles just in the
same way an actor learns his or her lines by reading a
script. Further, society rewards those who conform to their
assigned roles and punish those who deviate from the role
norms which, in turn, are deduced from the structural
requirements of the social order.

Although this approach to gender represents an
improvement over the sex-difference framework --since it

analyzes gender in relationship to specific social and

58

institutinal roles and not as a trait within individuals
--it nevertheless contains questionable assumptions and
serious flaws.

The first weakness of this approach, as pointed out
by Thorne (1980), concerns the fact that the terminology of
roles is not very helpful in understanding gender. Being a
woman or a man is not equivalent to being a teacher or a
secretary.

The terminology of sex-roles obscures questions
about the effect of gender on more specific roles
- on norms, evaluations and actual behavior. For
example, women teachers often receive less
credibility, prestige, and pay than male teachers. P
Gender cuts through perceptions of, and rewards

accorded to people in the same role. This phenomenon

is best studied directly in terms of the connection

of gender to differential power and status, and not

via convoluted use of the metaphor and language of

roles to conceptualize gender (pp. 8-9).

 

Moreover, as also pointed out by Thorne, it is often
unclear what the "male role" or the "female role" refer to.
In some cases it is used to refer to a normative ideal of
behavior; in other cases it refers to stereotypes of
women's and men's roles.

A second criticism points to the fact that role
theory does not provide an adequate account of social
change (Connell, 1985). Role theorists regard change as
something that happens to gender roles (e.g., a
technological innovation may demand a change in gender-role
standards); not as something that arises within gender

relations as the result of the dialectic interplay between

59

social practice and social structure.

Finally, the roles framework does not address
questions of power and inequality (Thorne, 1980). The
ideology of male and female roles obscures the oppressive
social and material practices that sustain rigid
distinctions between men and women. By emphasizing
dualisms, role theory deflects attention from the
complexity of social relationships. Gender is better
understood in political and social terms and with reference
to local and specific forms of social relationships and
social inequalities. What the roles framework ultimately

provides is "an abstract view of differences between the

 

sexes and their situations, not a concrete one of relations
between them" (Carrigan et al, 1985, p. 580).

Despite these criticisms, there are some occasions,
that a roles analysis can be theoretically useful. For
instance, Ferguson (1984) has shown how bureaucracies, by
assigning specific positions and roles to men and women,
also structures the ways they talk. A roles analysis in
this case could provide a detailed account of the
relationship between institutional role and language use
(Ferguson does not, however, conceptualize gender per se in
terms of roles). For those interactions that occur outside
bureaucratic structures, however, the roles model is of

little help.

 

 

60

Gender §§_a Psychological Variable

 

Not quite satisfied with accounts of gender and
language based on either individual traits or learned
roles, other theorists have chosen to conceptualized gender
as a personality force or orientation (Bem, 1977, 1981; see
Warfel [1984] and Jose, Crosby, & Wong-McCarthy [1980] for F!
an example of this approach in language and gender
research).

In searching for a conceptualization of gender that

 

would be on a continuum rather than dichotomous,
investigators (mostly from psychology) developed an
instrument where differences between masculinity and
femininity would be more a matter of degree than of
opposition. In this instrument, high masculinity-high
femininity are located at either end of a scale, with
androgyny representing a combination of high scores in both
masculinity and femininity. Thus, and androgynous person
would show both masculine and feminine traits. According to
Deaux (1984),
not only was androgyny to be a particular conceptual
focus, it was also proclaimed as a value. Thus it
was good and wise and liberal to be androgynous, and
mental health was proposed to be synonymous with
androgynous scores. Androgyny soon became a code
word for an egalitarian, gender-free society, and
disciplines have advocated androgynous therapy,
androgynous curricula for school children, and

androgynous criteria for professional position
(p. 109).

 

61

As Daly (1978) defines it, androgynous came to
convey somenthing like "John Travolta and Farrah
Fawcett-Majors taped together."

Despite the popularity of androgyny, careful
examination of the construct-validity of the scale could
not determine what it exactly measured nor what it meant

(Deaux, 1984). Some investigators (Spence & Helmreich,

"T

1979) have argued that the masculinity dimension of the

scale measures intrumentality and the femininity measures

 

expressiveness. L
Since then an increasing number of authors have
analyzed the conceptual and theoretical validity of
androgyny and have offered innumerable criticisms (for a
brief sampling of these, see Lott, 1981). Feminists like
Mary Daly, for example, have denounced the concept of
androgyny as "expressing pseudowholeness in its combination
of distorted gender descriptions" (Daly, 1978, p. 387).
Others, in a more serious note, have argued that the
androgyny scale genderizes (self-reported) behavior
according to a rigid dualistic model of masculinity -
femininity which, in turn, is largely rooted in stereotyped
expectations of men and women (Lott, 1981). As Lott puts
it, despite the fact that boys and girls, men and women are
taught different sets of behaviors, to label one set as
masculine and the other as feminine "is to obscure the

essential humanness of the behaviors and to dull our

 

62

appreciation of their fundamental teachability and
modifiability" (p. 172). Thus, instead of categorizing
persons by labels and perpetuating false assumptions, Lott
proposes to identify behavior in relation to learned
antecedents as well as situational determinants.

As we can see, gender defined as a psychological
force or orientation still relies on traditional notions of
masculinity and femininity. The androgyny scale ends up by
reifying even more the distinction it proposes to blur
(Deaux, 1984).

Finally, as Rosaldo (1980) alerts us, theorizing
sexual hierarchies in functional or psychological terms, or
even as a reflection of biological constraints, minimizes
sociological considerations that seek to explain how gender

differences are created and sustained by gender relations.

Gender as Relational

 

This forth framework for analyzing gender is
undoubtly the most fruitful one for the study of language
and gender. Its point of departure is not the individual
nor his or her roles, but the system of social
relationships within which speakers are situated. Gender is
conceptualized not as a natural fact or a pre—linguistic
variable or a role, but as a social construct that acquires

meaning through cultural conventions, material practices,

 

 

63

and social interactions, and which is historically specific
(Kramarae, 1986).

A practice-based approach to gender (an analytic
strategy Connell [1985] suggests for the study of gender
that examines how labor, power, and sexual practices
structure gender relations) allows us to accomplish three
things:

1. First, to develop a dynamic conception of masculinity
and femininity as structures of social relations shaped and
given meaning by a society's sex/gender system. A
sex/gender system, in turn, refers to

a set of arrangements [which includes the social

creation of two genders, the sexual division of

labor, and the social regulation of sexuality] by
which a society tranforms biological sexuality into
products of human activity, and in which these

transformed sexual needs are satisfied (Rubin, 1975,

p. 159).

As Rakow (1986) points out, this type of analysis
avoids universal explanations of gender to focus on (a)
individuals' relationship to the means of production and
reproduction; (b) on their particular experiences of gender
in specific historical periods; and (c) on the ideological
representations of gender in public discourse.

2. Secondly, by focusing on the dynamics of social contexts
and on the particular configurations of gender
arrangements, it permits us to see gender in terms of a

plurality of masculinities and femininities as opposed to a

view of men and women as two homogeneous, undifferentiated

 

64

blocs (Carrigan et al., 1985). As Furman (1985) writes,
such vision of plurality informs much of feminist
scholarship and agenda. The seductiveness of the
(im)possibility of a multiplicity of masculinities and
femininities is also vividly expressed by Derrida (cited
in Furman) in the following passage from an interview: F5

What if we were to reach, what if we were to
approach here (...) the area of a relationship to
the other where the code of sexual marks would no
longer be discriminating? The relationship would not
be a—sexual, far from it, but would be sexual
otherwise: beyond the binary difference that governs ,
the decorum of all codes, beyond the opposition it
feminine/masculine, beyond bisexuality as well,

beyond homosexuality and heterosexuality which come

to the same thing. As I dream of saving the chance

that this question offers I would like to believe in

the multiplicity of sexually marked voices.(...) But

where would the ‘dream' of the innumerable come

from, if it is indeed a dream? Does the dream itself

not prove that what is dreamt of must be there in

order for it to provide the dream?

 

3. Thirdly, and finally, approaching gender from the
perspective of individuals' everyday social experiences and
material practices, as well as through an analysis of the
dialectics between the individual, the group, and the
larger society, allows us both to understand how gender
identities emerge and to deconstruct the meaning of gender
as simply oppositional difference. As argued by Thorne
(1987), in analyzing social relations we are also be able
to better understand how gender differences are constructed

or undermined.

 

65

The conceptualization of gender as contextual,
relational, has opened fresh avenues to the study of
language. Similarly, because of its focus on social
relationships and social networks, the strategies approach
to language embodies an understanding of gender as outlined
above. This framework's emphasis on the linguistic choices
speakers make in interactions is consonant with the view of
gender as also shaped by "the choices of individuals,
molded by situational constraints, and understandable only
in the context of social interaction" (Deaux, 1984). In
fact, this approach provides an integrated view of language
and gender, wherein both cease to be conceived as a
monolithic systems to be grasped as complex, heterogeneous,
multiple processes.

Thus, differences and similarities in the speech of
men and women are not conceived in terms of either/or, but
rather in terms of frequencies, overlapping boundaries, and
contradictions, and understandable only in relation to the
linguistic strategies speakers use. Finally, because gender
usually intersects with other social identities, a
relational view of gender also provides a central and
organizing focus for the study of the relationship between

language use and social structures (Kramarae, 1986).

 

 

66

Implication for Communication Theory and Research

 

The importance of communication for the study of
language and gender acquires relevance when we recognize,
with Rakow (1986), that it is in communication that gender
systems are accomplished. Gender is structured and given
meaning through interaction and social practice, which are
basically communication processes.

However, analyses of communicative interactions can
provide insights into general processes of social
interaction, as well as grounds for a more comprehensive
theory about the interplay between language, gender, and
communication only to the extent that, first, we
conceptualize gender not in terms of an oppositional
dualism, but as contextual and with multiple and even
contradictory meanings; and, secondly, if we cease to look
for differences in the behavior of men and women in order
to focus instead on those instances where their behavior
cuts across gender boundaries.

To follow a more interpretive and contextualized
analysis of the relationship between language use, gender,
and communication, we start by looking at how linguistic
choices and communicative practices locate speakers in
particular positions in the fabric of social relations, and
how these structures of social relations, in turn,
constraint or mold their linguistic choices and

communicative practices. It is important to examine here

 

 

67

what Warren and Bourque (1985) refer to as the "politics of
communication:" an analysis of the interplay of speaker,
message, and action as they are influenced by power

structures, and which stresses process, context, and social

 

structures. In pursuing this line of analysis, we are able
to unravel the ways gender structures are formed and
transformed in communicative acts.

Rakow (1986) provides an excellent example of such
an interactive approach to the study of communication,

language, and gender: In her ethnographic research on

 

women's relationship to the telephone, she articulates the
ways telephone talk is both "gendered work" and "gender
work." That is,
(...) it is work that women do to hold together the
fabric of the community, build and maintain
relationships, and accomplish important care-giving
and -receiving functions, while at the same time
their use of telephone seems to confirm community
definitions of women's natural affinity for care-
giving roles in the family and community (p. 24).
Other feminists (Warren & Bourque, 1985; Nichols,
1983, 1984; Harding, 1975, to cite but a few) provide
similar examples of how bringing communication, language,
and gender back to the socio-political context from which
they have been unrooted can cast fresh light on the ways

"communication creates genders who create communication"

(Rakow, 1986, p. 23).

68

Among other implications of a more political nature
from the preceding discussion for epistemology, we have:
(1) the acknowledgment by the researcher that the context
of research is not separated from the conditions of its
production; (2) the need for a clear articulation of the
investigator's value orientations; and (3) the need to make
knowledge into a tool of emancipation (Gregg, 1987).

With respect to this last and important point,
feminist and other critical theorists recognize that
knowledge is invariably linked to human interests, and that
feminist scholarship in communication as well as in other
areas of the academia should be guided by an emancipatory
intent. That is, research must become an integral part of
the social struggle to abolish domination and inequality.
The aim of research is not to explain the world to change
it, but to change the explanations and to change the world
(Scheman, cited in Gregg, 1987).

Finally, it should be mentioned that just as we are
advocating for an overcoming of gender boundaries in the
study of language, gender, and communication, we are also
embracing a transcendence of disciplinary boundaries in
epistemology. When studying human action we cannot do so
from separate frames of reference. As Giddens (1982)
argues, human behavior "concerns not only sociology, but
anthropology, economics, politics, human geography,

psychology -- the whole range of the social sciences"

 

 

69

(p. 5). Feminist scholarship, by bringing sociology,
anthropology, philosophy, psychology, and linguistics among
others, to the communication field strengthens it in the

same way communication informs these other disciplines

 

(Rakow, 1986). We need a vision of the whole (a "whole full
of holes," as Deleuze once said) to capture the
multiplicity of forces operating in any social formation
and which sustain relations of inequalities among
individuals.

The promotion of research programmes applying a

 

multi-disciplinary approach to the study of social
phenomena constitutes a first step toward this new vision.
Blurring the contexts of discussion through the convergence
of theoretical approaches to the study of human behavior
will allow us to develop a body of theory that will account
for the structural constraints on human action while

recognizing subjects as reasoning, acting beings.

CHAPTER 4
CONCLUSION

In this study I have attempted to reconstruct the
changing theoretical perspectives on language and gender up F1
to the present moment. For each perspective identified here :
I have provided an assessment of the often inconsistent 3

findings that have riddled this field since its inception.

'.\ ‘ n'l

 

Suggestions were made both at the theoretical and E—
methodological levels concerning how some of these
inconsistencies might be resolved. However, in discussing
the shifting perspectives on language and gender, it should
be stressed that we do not have a linear, progressive model
with one school of thought revising and correcting problems
with the one that anteceded it. As the title of this thesis
suggests, the field of language/gender studies is actually
located at the intersection of many roads or larger
intellectual currents coming from different traditions. For
instance, "sex roles" conceptualizations emerged alongside,
and sometimes intersecting with, the enormous body of
research on sex differences. Strategist theorists came out
of different places, with stronger roots in ethnography
(especially anthropologY) and sociolinguistics. The

"feminist" difference position is tied to work on women's

7O

 

71

culture and the issue of revaluing women, which in turn
have been influenced by Gilligan's work in psychology
(although Gilligan's focus is not mainly on language, those
working on language have drawn from her work). In
communication, the focus has been until recently on sex—
differences research and on analyses of the effects of
women's images in the media. Developments in
language/gender studies in particular, and in feminist
theory in general, have influenced some researchers in the
field of communication to move away form conceptualizations
of gender as an individual attribute to a view of gender as
relational and situated. Hence, the picture we have is one
of many different disciplines intesecting with one another,
passing in the night, and influencing one another (see
Footnote 6).

The methods used by the different schools of thought
have also shaped different interpretations of the ways
women and men speak. In the first decade of language/gender
studies, use of statistical and quantitative correlations
by the deficit school have contributed to views of women's
and men's speech as essentially different. On the other
hand, more interpretive and meaning-focused approaches by
the strategies school have allowed us to study the dynamics
of speech within the larger social institutions and in view
of the complex variety of gender arrangements that are

embedded in such institutions.

 

 

 

72

The main thread running throughout this discussion
has been the thesis that shifting conceptualizations of
gender in the research tradition have influenced different
conceptualizations of the ways women and men speak.

In its inception period researchers, influenced by

cultural assumptions about gender, often conceptualized

gender as a unproblematic dichotomous variable. The 5}
assumption (or incorrigible proposition) that there are two '
genders --and that these are located within the individual
——led them to search for the expression of this dichotomy

L_

 

in the behavior of individuals. The development of sex-
differences research (as reviewed in chapter 2, under the
deficit position on language) testifies to such assumption.

However, the lack of consistent and reliable
evidence for the hypothesized differences in the speech of
women and men, coupled with the emergence of the women's
movement, prompted some feminist social scientists to move
away from static, dichotomous conceptualizations of gender
to "complex descriptions of relationships among speakers -
sensitive to gender in the context of setting, roles, and
other social identities such as age, class, or ethnicity"
(Thorne et al., 1983, p. 16). Following this conceptual
shift with respect to gender we also have a shift in

positions on "women's language."

73

For instance, I have shown that the feminist

difference position, despite its celebration of women's

 

experiences, values, and language, still relies heavily on
a view of male/female as two separate and distinct groups
of speakers with two equally distinct and separate
subcultures. As we have argued, this approach assumes more
homogeneity among men and women and heterogeneity between
them then is actually the case.

The strategies position on language, on the other

 

hand, represents an approach that is most consonant with a
view of gender that is not couched in terms of oppositional
dualisms or differences, but sees it as dynamic and
situated. In this respect, I have argued, with other
thinkers, that in conceiving language and gender through
the strategies spectacles, we cast fresh light into the
structures of gender relations and power relations of any
society, at the same time we grant speakers some measure of
agency. That is, studying how gender is built into social
structure (and how it is traversed by other social
identities, such as age, race, class) we are also able to
better explain speakers' choices of verbal repertoires, as
well as the significance of such choices. In my view this
position on language represents by far the most fruitful
framework for studying language in communication and in

society.

 

II“

 

 

Footnotes

1. I am using Kaplan's (1976) concept of patriarchy:
a social arrangement characterized by male dominance and
the means --symbolic and actual-- of perpetuating that
dominance. Patriarchy is a system of gender hierarchy in k
which men possess superior power and privilege.

2. See Kramer (1979) for further discussion of

research procedures and their effects on the study of

 

communicative patterns of women and men.

3. O'Barr and Atkins (1980), in their dualistic
claims about powerful/powerless speech, also fall into the
same problems facing Lakoff. Rather than doing a content
analysis of linguistic features and correlating those with
social status, we should attempt to understand speakers'
verbal choices in light of both the strategies they are
using in doing things with words and the constraints of the
speech context. The use of dualistic frameworks in the
study of language tends to obscure the multiplicity of
functions any speech feature may have depending on the
speakers' goals and the requirements of the speech setting.
The problem with the use of categories such as "women's
language," "powerless language" are further discussed on

chapter 2.

74

75

4. Carol Gilligan (1982) has shown how an emphasis
on girls'/women's experiences radically questions the
adequacy of theories based exclusively on data gathered
from male subjects.

5. Goodwin (1986), and Goodwin & Goodwin (in press)
have also documented instances of competition and
hierarchical organization in girls' interactions.

6. I am greatly indebted to Barry Thorne for

bringing up this important point.

“a-

 

F .Tfi. fl..- ._.._

 

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