3D's Essay English Language AS

The idea of language and gender combined together to create one idea of how men and women differ is an extremely interesting topic. It deals with the likes of Robyn Lakoff, Jennifer Coates, Zimmerman and West and many other interesting linguistic wizards. The main approach to the topic of language and gender is the 3 D’s. That’s right the deficit, dominance and difference approaches to language and gender. All three ideas give us the ability to create an understanding and opinion of the how and why we speak in particular ways. It asks us whether we are socially created as a ‘man’ or ‘woman’ or whether we do it because it’s in our genes. There are plenty of arguments to suggest why we behave in the way we do and how language is a lot more complex than you might think.
So, let us begin with the first D! HOORAY FOR DEFINCIENCY! This is my favourite D. It all began with Robyn Lakoff and her observation that language is defined by women being discouraged by society to speak in a way that is inappropriate. She says that women are socialised into sounding like ‘ladies’. Women, according to Lakoff, tend to use a greater range of colour terms. By this, she means that instead of saying ‘That tree looks green’ they would precisely say ‘That tree looks a lovely shade of lime’. She also says that women use vague language and hedges in their language. This like ‘stuff’ are used to describe something or to over-exaggerate a comment. Hedges are words like ‘uh’ and ‘um’ which we use to fill the silence of a conversation. The only problem with Robyn Lakoff’s research was that she did not use a big enough sample and so we may not be able to fully rely on what she states as fact.
Another main point made by Robyn Lakoff is that women use tag questions, such as ‘you know?’, during conversation as a sign of uncertainty. However, other researchers have questioned this theory. Fishman said that women carry out conversational labour, and that tag questions simply encourage others to participate. Janet Holmes agreed with Fishman and said that tag questions were simply a way of showing that the woman is maintaining the discussion and is simply being polite. She says that tag questions are multi-functional.
Another main individual who contributed to the deficiency approach was John Locke. He was a strong supporter who said that men use language in a very competitive manner, whereas females use language to collaborate with each other. He said that men are ‘duellers’ and women are ‘duetters’. Locke stated that men’s language is adversarial, goal-directed and focused n factual information, differing from women’s, which is more cooperative, inter-personal and emotional. He also said that women’s language supports their need for a collaborative society for children to help them survive, implying that it is in their nature to use language inclusively.
The second approach to language and gender is the dominance approach. This approach simply states that during mixed-gender conversation, the male dominates it; also finding that parents dominate conversation with themselves and their children.  Zimmerman and West state that men and women do not hold equal conversational rights. The pair committed further research into this theory of men dominating conversation and found extremely interesting data. They found that overall out of their research 98% of all interruptions came from men. This data is shocking yet supports the dominance approach perfectly. I agree massively with this idea that men dominate conversation. Throughout my life I have, myself, noticed this happening all around me.
Deborah Tannen also agrees with this point but states that men interrupt women in order to help them. For example if a woman is telling a story, the man might interrupt to help her along with it. This could also be seen as the man ‘stealing the limelight’ also. It is simply a matter of opinion.
The third and final D is the difference theory of language and gender. This is the simplest theory of all. It merely states that men and women are biologically different and have also been brought up differently to each other. It is the idea that women use language to be friendly, suggesting that they care more about what others think of them.  Some people argue that women are more collaborative because of their maternal instincts. Jenifer Coates found that language is cooperative when all female. She said that women negotiate and support each other’s rights as speakers. In support, Koenraad Kuiper found that during all-male conversation (in a rugby team) the participants were less likely to save face but used insults as a way of expressing solidarity.
The difference approach to language and gender suggest that language is androcentric – male dominant- and that women are emotionally unstable.  It suggests that language has a sexist nature. For example Spender said that ‘boats, as well as cars, are seen as female because they have traditionally been placed under the control of men and are physically attractive objects’.
Conversation between both male and female is very different all together. I feel that the deficit theory applies the most to this idea. It gives the most examples to why and how we speak in the way we do and uses examples to support each point. I feel that in the exam I will have the most to write about the deficit approach because there has been the most information given by it. I feel that the dominance approach is very one sided. This is because females can also dominate conversations as we all know from our day to day lives. I think that this approach to language and gender could be specifically defined and altered to show more examples. Finally, I feel that the difference approach does support the idea that we are biologically different because of maternal instincts etc but does not give enough examples of researchers and opinions from scientists. I feel very supportive of each theory however and find it extremely interesting to study.