(no subject)
i'm feeling really self-conscious right now and i need some encouragement. i submitted an abstract about language, gender and power to a linguistics conference (which i'm also involved in organizing), and after reading some of the other abstracts that were sent in i'm feeling rather inadequate.... however, i may be unfairly comparing myself to these others because my project is a linguistic anthropology work and most others are straight linguistic theory. anyway, could you guys have a quick read-through and lemme know what you think? thanks :)
and i realize i have a tendency to make some sentences syntactically complex (even awkward sounding). it's a bad habit that has been fostered by reading social science papers - they like to cram in as much info and flowery language use as possible and all at once.
Y'know, It's Kind of a Conversation Analysis
Robin Lakoff's (1975) book “Language and Women's Place” was a pivotal publication that brought to light the possible ways in which language is coded with and embedded within gendered linguistic strategies, and how these patterned forms of discourse reflect macro level power structures based on gender; i.e. patriarchy. Many since then have debated, critiqued, and expanded on her claim that gendered language manifests and reproduces sexist ideology and power dynamics. In this paper, I will be exploring Lakoff's arguments in complement to others (Tannen, Holmes, etc), and applying these concepts to my own conversational analysis. I hope to show that much more than gender inequality is going on between interlocutors of different genders - that power is negotiated and mitigated by other factors including social intimacy, context, and conversation topic (holding fast certain variables like economic status, ethnic and racial identity, religious background, and level of education). In particular, I will be analysing how hedging (specifically the verbal filler you know) as a linguistic device is employed by speakers that identify themselves to be of the male and female genders, and how their use conforms to or contends with Lakoff's (and others') theories. I will be basing my classification of you know by function, as put forth by Dixon & Foster (1997) and Holmes (1986). It is also important to note that the participants in the study are a couple, and so I will also be considering how intimacy and social closeness plays out in the linguistic devices they “choose” to employ.
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