Reading: Lakoff
Jul. 12th, 2006 11:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jhameiaPart II: Why Women Are Ladies
#1 This is so dated. So so so dated. However, her impression that women use more tag-questions ("Nice day, isn't it?" because they're socialized to believe that assertion is unlady-like) is not so outdated, but these days, men also use the tag-question hedging technique.
#2 "Women's language" consists of: specific stock of words, empty adjectives (divine, charming, cute), questioning intonations, hedging, "so", hyper-correct grammar, super-polite terms, lack of humour, italics (emphasized words). According to Lakoff, male academics are most likely to use all these instead of just a few as opposed to other men, that "the decisive factor is less purely gender than power in the real world". There's the implication that male academics use this because they do not have "power in the real world". I question that conclusion.
#3 "In any event, it should be clear that I am not talking about hundred-percent correlations, but rather, general tendencies." Correlations is not causation!
#4 Cheris Kramer surveyed this and found that men and women did not find there to be a particular women's language. Lakoff returns with that this language is likely to be used in situations where women do not feel assertive. To which I say, they are also likely to be used in situations where men do not feel they should assert themselves. (Of course, Lakoff is writing in the 70's; today men actually feel the need to be "nice".)
#5 Lakoff also ignores the fact that men speak "men's [neutral] language" because they are pressured to. Just because women speak "women's language" and are thus not taken seriously doesn't really mean anything today. We hedge because we fear being offensive, and this isn't limited to females. Maybe I'm just getting offended because language is so much more fluid today, and I've heard all these peculiarities to women also used by men.
#6 "... it is true that more women than men are institutionalized for mental illness ... fighting the paradoxes a woman necessarily faces tends to break down a woman's mental resources..." Well, now, there's a stereotype I haven't seen in a long time. There were more women than men because men faced the pressure NOT to be institutionalized, not because they did not need it. Even today, men are expected to "take it like a man" and not go to the doctor/counsellor if they face emotional problems.
#7 The passive voice in academia is NOT to appear "cool and above it all", but to show an objective detachment from the writing and research subject. Conclusions that are made with too much involvement with the subject are not quite as trustworthy. Being too wrapped up and too involved means that something could be missed in the research. Distance is therefore necessary, not just a formality.
#8 Deference does not always mean an unwillingness to assert. Some people just like to plain fucking respect others.
#9 Grice's Four Basic Rules of Conversation:
Quality: Say only what is true.
Quanitity: Say only as much, and just as much, as is necessary.
Relevance: Be relevant.
Manner: Be perspicuous. Don't be ambiguous. Don't be obscure. Be succint.
What am awfully boring man Grice must be!
#1 This is so dated. So so so dated. However, her impression that women use more tag-questions ("Nice day, isn't it?" because they're socialized to believe that assertion is unlady-like) is not so outdated, but these days, men also use the tag-question hedging technique.
#2 "Women's language" consists of: specific stock of words, empty adjectives (divine, charming, cute), questioning intonations, hedging, "so", hyper-correct grammar, super-polite terms, lack of humour, italics (emphasized words). According to Lakoff, male academics are most likely to use all these instead of just a few as opposed to other men, that "the decisive factor is less purely gender than power in the real world". There's the implication that male academics use this because they do not have "power in the real world". I question that conclusion.
#3 "In any event, it should be clear that I am not talking about hundred-percent correlations, but rather, general tendencies." Correlations is not causation!
#4 Cheris Kramer surveyed this and found that men and women did not find there to be a particular women's language. Lakoff returns with that this language is likely to be used in situations where women do not feel assertive. To which I say, they are also likely to be used in situations where men do not feel they should assert themselves. (Of course, Lakoff is writing in the 70's; today men actually feel the need to be "nice".)
#5 Lakoff also ignores the fact that men speak "men's [neutral] language" because they are pressured to. Just because women speak "women's language" and are thus not taken seriously doesn't really mean anything today. We hedge because we fear being offensive, and this isn't limited to females. Maybe I'm just getting offended because language is so much more fluid today, and I've heard all these peculiarities to women also used by men.
#6 "... it is true that more women than men are institutionalized for mental illness ... fighting the paradoxes a woman necessarily faces tends to break down a woman's mental resources..." Well, now, there's a stereotype I haven't seen in a long time. There were more women than men because men faced the pressure NOT to be institutionalized, not because they did not need it. Even today, men are expected to "take it like a man" and not go to the doctor/counsellor if they face emotional problems.
#7 The passive voice in academia is NOT to appear "cool and above it all", but to show an objective detachment from the writing and research subject. Conclusions that are made with too much involvement with the subject are not quite as trustworthy. Being too wrapped up and too involved means that something could be missed in the research. Distance is therefore necessary, not just a formality.
#8 Deference does not always mean an unwillingness to assert. Some people just like to plain fucking respect others.
#9 Grice's Four Basic Rules of Conversation:
Quality: Say only what is true.
Quanitity: Say only as much, and just as much, as is necessary.
Relevance: Be relevant.
Manner: Be perspicuous. Don't be ambiguous. Don't be obscure. Be succint.
What am awfully boring man Grice must be!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-12 04:08 pm (UTC)Quanitity: Say only as much, and just as much, as is necessary.
Relevance: Be relevant.
Manner: Be perspicuous. Don't be ambiguous. Don't be obscure. Be succint.
Sounds more like a damn seminar or the speech and debate team than a conversation. =P
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-12 04:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-12 05:03 pm (UTC)Maybe the author had a social phobia and his idea of utopia is a society where people hardly spoke or interacted unless it was absolutely necessary?