Sociolinguistics Four

Here we go, boys and girls: Language and Gender. This is the big one.

1. Cocks

So big, in fact, that it’s hard to even know where to start. In the absence of an obvious single jumping off point I’m going to get hideously self-referential and point you back at my Peacocks and Stags theory of cultural relativity. In its initial incarnation it is just a reminder not to be taken in by superficial differences between cultures. Peacocks have massive tails and stags have huge antlers, but their female counterparts lack these adornments. If you saw a peacock next to a peahen and you didn’t know any better then you might assume they were a different species. Of course they’re not, but to realize that they’re just different expressions of essentially the same thing you’ve got to look a bit below the surface.

If you don’t you get stuff like this –

“Women are also reported to use more polite forms and more compliments than men. In doing so they are said to be seeking to develop solidarity with others in order to maintain social relationships.”

(Wardhaugh loc 8335. Emphasis added)

In almost all of the reading there seemed to be this implicit assumption that women seek to ‘maintain social relationships’ whereas me are more about bigging themselves up at the expense of others. To me this rather seems to miss the point that bigging yourself up at the expense od others is also very clearly a way of maintaining social relationships. It was , frankly, a huge relief to read this –

“It seems possible that for men mock-insults and abuse serve the same function – expressing solidarity and maintaining social relationships – as compliments and agreeing comments do for women.”

(Holmes, p317)

Seems pretty obvious, right? It does seem to get missed a lot though.

2. Don’t make me say it

“The male equivalent of women’s gossip is difficult to identify.”

(Ibid)

Oh Christ. It’s ‘banter’ isn’t it? You’re going to make me use the word ‘banter’ twice in the same paragraph and now I need a long lie down before attempting to wrestle the lid back on to that seething, writhing, oozing barrel of worms. Ugh.

From 5.55. Also here.

3. Interactional Shitwork

Lovely turn of phrase. Not sure it holds. It’s interesting how, for all that the literature rightly points out the fallacy inherent in assuming ‘male’ language as the unmarked variety there is still this assumption that ‘female’ conversation is the more sophisticated. It’s a question of means and ends. Every participant in a conversation will have a set of things she/he/yt wants to achieve from it and, crucially, the smooth and comfortable continuation of said conversation may not necessarily be high in the list of their priorities.

Would be interesting to see how this all lines up against Belbin’s Team Role Inventories.

4. In or Out?

“Linguistic variation is seen as a set of facts that should be observed from an outside point of view (the observer’s paradox) through a methodology very similar to the one used in the social sciences.”

(emphasis added)

Dissasociative much?