2。1。 Study at abroad论文网

2。1。1。 Main frameworks on gender differences

 Deficit Theory

Beginning with Robin Lakoff’s (1975) pioneering work, gender differences have been explored at the level of specific phrases。 In women’s language Lakoff identified two specific types—hedges (e。g。, “It seems like”) and tag questions (e。g。, “… aren’t you?”)。 A number of studies have reported greater female use of tag questions (e。g。, McMillan, Clifton, McGrath &Gale, 1977; Mulac & Lundell, 1986), although some found the opposite conclusion (e。g。, Dubois & Crouch, 1975)。 Other scholars have explored further and found that women use phrases that may convey relative uncertainty。 Uncertainty expressions such as “I wonder if” have been found more frequently in women’s writing (Mulac & Lundell, 1994) and speech (Hartman, 1976; Poole, 1979)。 A related interpretation of women’s use of hedge phrases is that women are more reluctant to put their ideas forcibly on other people。 Consistent with this idea, Lakoff claimed that women are more likely than men in the same situation to use extra-polite forms (e。g。, “Would you mind…”), and it was supported by subsequent work (Holmes, 1995; McMillan et al。, 1977)。 Based on Bernstein’s (1972) theory of language codes, Lakoff, as one of the most famous representatives of Deficit Theory, maintained that woman’s language is relatively deficient when compared with men’s speech。 She put forward several assumptions about the constitution of women’s language in her pioneering book Language and Women’s Place。 Here are some examples: Women tend to use “empty” adjectives like “charming”, “pine”, “cute”, etc。, and women tend to use intensifiers “so”, “such”, “quite”, etc。。 She held the viewpoint that “‘woman’s language’ has as foundation the attitude that women are marginal to the serious concerns of life, which are pre-empted by men。 The marginality and powerlessness of women is reflected in both the ways women are expected to speak, and the ways in which women are spoken of。”

 Dominance Theory

A large number of studies have shown men are more likely to dominate in gendered conversation than women by interruptions or other methods。 In other words, the more incidences of interruptions there are, the higher social and economic status of men might have。 Zimmerman and West (1983) found there are interruptions distributed fairly evenly among the speakers who are the same gender。 However, things are quite amazing in cross-gender conversations—men were responsible for almost 96% of the interruptions so that they drew the conclusion that “men deny equal status to women as conversational partners”。 Based on their results, Spender (1985) believed that men can interrupt the woman’s talking at their will and any woman who tries to interrupt a man is regarded as impolite or even rude。 Earlier Fishman (1978) conducted a study and discovered that men have more power and control than women in cross-gender conversations, which laid a foundation of Dominance Theory。

 Difference Theory

Deborah Tannen (1990) published her book You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, on the subject of male-female misunderstandings。 She argued that women and men speak differently because of fundamental differences in their relation to their language, perhaps due to different cultural backgrounds and different socialization process they have experienced。 It is the essence of Difference Theory, from the perspective of anthropology, cultural factors are seen as being responsible for speech differentiation。 Cultural differences interpret why women employ conversation to communicate with others for “negotiating relationships” while men use conversations to “hold center stage” and to “get and keep attention”。 This is what Tannen promoted women’s “rapport-talk” and men’s “report-talk”。 Tannen (1993) also argued that gender discrimination in language use stems from different expectations and demands of society。 During the conversation, men tend to compete with the speaker while women tend to maintain a harmonious relationship with the talking partner。 Therefore, women have a good command of euphemisms, and are likely to come to terms without argument, which is similar to the viewpoint that women are more polite during conversations of Lakoff。 After the deep exploration of psychological analysis, women are inclined to present and share emotions instead of focusing on conversational contents and the reason why they do this is to establish and deepen the relationship with the speaker。