Do men interrupt more? Do women ‘umm’ and ‘ahh’?
“I’m not bossy. I’m the boss.” So said Beyoncé, in response to being called “bossy” in many aspects of her life when she was simply taking on leadership roles. The connotations of this word are very negative compared to the compliment of being called a leader, the label that is rarely given to a girl who is self-confident. The language used about men and women is strikingly different, so it seems to follow that the language used by men and women is strikingly different as well.
This rings true doesn’t it? Tag questions like the one I just used are a more female trait in language, according to the studies of Robin Lakoff in 1975. Lakoff claimed that tag questions are a way for females to seek reassurance in what they are saying. Personally, I find myself using tag questions as a demand for agreement more than a search for affirmation and I notice my peers, regardless of gender, doing the same. Perhaps the research of Robin Lakoff has become obsolete - 40 years have passed so surely societal changes are reflected in our use of language? Hmm. ..(I just used a filler-feminine language?) I’m not convinced. When I was researching Robin Lakoff, it took a couple of pronouns and a picture to make me realise that she was not a man. How can we speak the same language when even a name that is supposedly gender-neutral is intrinsically either male or female?
Another one of Lakoff’s theories was that men interrupt more than women. The implications of this are that men naturally dominate conversation. Maybe this is a result of cultural conditioning -I’m sure they can’t just be born like that.
Another linguist, Deborah Tannen, claimed that while men give orders, women make proposals - clearly neither Lakoff nor Tannen have been in a board room with Beyoncé.
There might well be masculine language and feminine language. But much like gender itself, I think this is only part of a social construct. Examining my own use of language through the eyes of Lakoff might suggest that I am a masculine speaker. I know boys that use fillers, hedges and intensifiers with gay abandon. It doesn’t mean they themselves are feminine but that the style of their language has characteristics we associate with femininity.
Men and women speak differently in particular situations and for particular purposes but not necessarily differently from each other. Well (filler) maybe (hedge) this is true. That’s what I think, but I might just be being bossy.
Comentários