Language and Woman's Place

700 Words 3 Pages
     Physically, men and women are obviously different; that is, men have a larger head and longer vocal cords than women do. From this point, women are stereotyped as being weak, subordinate, and minority in society. Moreover, in Lakoff’s study Language and Woman’s Place, she claims it does not matter whether women talk the way they are supposed and expected to do or not.
“If they talk like a lady, they are ridiculed and thought that they are unable to think clearly and participate in a serious discussion. If they do not talk like a lady, they are also ridiculed and criticized as unfeminine.” (p.6)
Another point Lakoff claims that women lack power, seriousness, and confidence. This shows that women are
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(examples from Lakoff 1975)
3.     Question intonation: tag questions and rising intonation in statement context
4.     Hedges: showing uncertainty, such as well, you know, sort of, etc.
5.     Using intensive “so”
6.     Hypercorrect grammar, such as saying without dropping “g”
7.     Superpolite forms, such as please
8.     No telling jokes
9.     Speaking in italics (more like lady and feminine): showing uncertainty in their own self-expression
All these forms are used much more frequently than by women. Holmes describes that men use language to obtain and convey information. Also, they use the devices that women do to qualify certainty and validity of the information they are asserting. Most of the reasons that men talk are to focus on the content of the talk or outcome. They tend to dominate public talking time. (Holmes 1995)
From all these previous points, we can see that men and women use language differently. Another example that men and women use language differently is that women are more polite than men. Women are the preservers of morality and civility, and they speak around and treat other people in an especially polite way, and then