An answer to the question... Womens talk is naturally cooperative and mens is naturally competitive. Revision for English Language AQA A Level paper 2. This was marked by my teacher and scored 26/30.
Evaluate the idea that women’s talk is naturally cooperative whereas men’s talk is
naturally competitive. (30)
The difference theory believes that men and women have innate differences in the style and function
of their speech and writing. Therefore,it is possible for women’s speech to be cooperative and men’s
as competitive because of the belief men and women’s language have different intentions. Deborah
Tanenn presented her theory of the Difference Approach, illustrating the way in which men and
women use language differently to reflect and reinforce their gender roles in society. Through
socialisation, girls are taught how to perform ‘femininity’ and be girls,this can be linked to the type of
language they then develop by teaching them to be more passive and not interrupt. However,boys are
taught to perform masculinity,for example by not telling boys off for using too loud language and using
the saying ‘boys will be boys’. This is due to the ideology that masculinity and femininity should be
binary opposites and it is undesirable to have traits associated with the opposite gender.
Therefore,there could be differences in the gender’s language due to socialisation. Tannnen builds on
this by giving examples of the genders' cross communication.She explains men are competitive and
use conversation to build status,this could be to appear ‘macho' and ‘alpha’ to others.
Whereas,women use conversation to give and receive support demonstrating compassion and
cooperation. Tannen also found men use imperatives in conversations which could give the
impression of competitiveness by giving orders to those they see as inferior whilst women use
politer,mitigated forms in order to come across less harsh and brutal. Furthermore, it can be argued
men use ‘report’ talk to show independent status and make their way up an imagined hierarchy in
conversations,whereas women use ‘rapport talk’ in order to connect and develop intimacy. This
provides evidence for the fact that women and men have differences in their speech codes. Thus
supporting the claim womens talk is naturally cooperative and mens is competitive. However, it may
be that in some cases there are little differences in genders languages,for example,sociologist Read
found in her study of teachers,both male and female teachers were just as likely to use the ‘male’
disciplinary discourse to talk to pupils.This speech code indicates dominance and control,so there
may not be as much difference in genders speak as Tannen suggests. It can also be criticised by the
dominance model which suggests differences are not due to innateness or socialisation but instead
due to the hierarchical dominance of men in society.
However, one idea questioning this statement is Deborah Cameron found that the idea of ‘bitching’ is
stereotypically a part of female language challenging the view that women’s language is cooperative.
The dominance theory of language suggests language differences such as those in the statement can
be explained by the hierarchical dominance of men in society. Zimmerman and West’s study
concluded that 96% of interruptions in conversations between men and women were from men. This
does suggest mens language is competitive as they use language to constantly hold the floor and
engineer others, especially womens, silence. Women are also seen to interrupt less, have shorter
turns and speak less, potentially indicating their cooperation as they are happy to let the man
overpower in the conversation, potentially in fear of causing conflict. Fishman also found women use
more tag questions than men (4 times as many) such as ‘y’know’, this was coined interactional
shitwork as Fishman concluded women do the work in conversations and this could be explained by
their inferior social status. The fact women have to actively work to maintain conversations with men
shows their cooperation as they aren’t willing to let the conversation die out. Women may also be
naturally cooperative as according to Dale Spender women who do interrupt are seen as rude and
domineering. However, as this view would suggest as women gain more equality in society, men and
women's language should become more equal. Therefore, this idea and its research lacks temporal
validity and may be outdated in today’s society.
On the other hand, deficit theory does not analyse the differences in genderlects as cooperative or
competitive, but simply argues women's language is always inferior to mens. For example, in the
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