Linguistics; gender and language; part 1 -- leftovers....

[ozarque]

Thank you for all your excellent comments. I'm working on posts that address some of your questions, but there are a few miscellaneous leftover items I'd like to post first

Comments

[interactiveleaf]

we are more likely -- in purely statistical terms -- to see men using S-items and women using D-items.

What? Is that a typo, or am *I* just confused now?

I ask because it seems to me that you've been crystal clear in your explanations so far; I believe I've understood, and agreed with, everything you've said.

And I feel the same way about (at least the quotations from) the book that you do; I resent them and they anger me.

In general, I think it's a mistake to try and break up people into chunks of "male" and "female" behaviors. People are people, and while some of our behaviors, broadly taken, may be seen to divide down gender lines, that really is not indicative of a fundamental difference between genders.

[interactiveleaf]

And I'd like to add: The book bothers me more because it absolutely does NOT represent the way I think, behave, or talk at all. And I am AAAALLLLL woman. I feel it belittles women in general.

[archangelbeth]

It... hm. It resonates some places, gives me the "WTF?"s in others, and matches like a sunsign horoscope...

But I think that it is, indeed, more likely that it's actually D/S and that's being mapped onto M/F. Mind, it's entrenched, and easy enough to learn and make it "true."

Although, I just realized. I'm "onstage" when there are other people around who are Not Family. Spouse -- who is definitely male -- doesn't make me feel on-stage. Sometimes we are on-stage, such as demonstrating Couple Telepathy, when in front of Other People, though. Interesting.

[interactiveleaf]

It could very well be D/s. I'm dominant, my husband a submissive (thought not mine) and it carries through in the way I look at the world.

the stereotype

[anonymous]

"To my mind, they support the stereotype of women as shallow and frivolous and over-emotional and immature .... as airheads."

Absolutely! The only woman in my acquaintance who fits the quotes you've given is pitiably immature. The rest of us are just typical professional women in their 30s to 50s with careers and families; several have young children, and none have any particular power in our jobs (except, perhaps, the glorious freedom of being left alone to do our jobs well). All of us are a much closer fit to the male profile as given in Tannen's quotes. Curious.

Incidentally, this is in Texas, where women, we are told, are women.

Ali

Carol Gilligan

[idiotgrrl]

Some of this stuff - the more serious parts - seems to me to mesh with Carol Gilligan's "In A Different Voice." But let me also tell you what I see here:

Some of what you've quoted seems to reference the old-fashioned gender roles of "Men and women both do what they do *with reference to men*. Women are on stage around men; men are on stage around other men. Or are they on stage around women? Only in some things! i.e. they go into "pretending to be civilized" mode. As I said, extremely old-fashioned.

But the "women bonding over secrets --- can't bond if you have no secrets"--- is so alien to me I accept it in the spirit of an anthropologist from Mars.

Suppose we say Tannen has her finger on something but it concerns people operating on a conventional and old-fashioned level which most people on this blog (and most people of my acquaintance) left behind when we graduated from high school, if not before, but wich still prevails in many circles.

Re: Carol Gilligan

[neversremedy]

Suppose we say Tannen has her finger on something but it concerns people operating on a conventional and old-fashioned level which most people on this blog (and most people of my acquaintance) left behind when we graduated from high school, if not before, but wich still prevails in many circles.

I agree with this entirely. It seems to me as if she's speaking to a segment of our population that continues on in these out-moded, conservative gender constructs. They do exist, for occasionally I run right into them on the street or on the bus, but because they are not included in my daily social circles, I tend to forget this possibility until once again I run into it.

Re: Carol Gilligan

[lilairen]

I got a button from nancylebov a while ago with the text, "Deborah Tannen thinks that I'm a man."

[hilleviw]

I feel quite ignorant here: do linguists get to just draw psychological conclusions like Tannen's and still retain academic credibility? Or must they establish a basis for such claims, perhaps work with actual psychologists and organized studies with control groups and repeatable results? Your quote #8, for example, is a heck of a claim for her to make (and one which strikes me as not only incorrect but also wrong). (Because, you know, if saying it makes it so: there will be a prompt end to strife in the middle east; there is no racial or gender inequity; Dennis Kucinich is the next president of the United States; I have healthy knees.)

[porcinea]

Dennis Kucinich is the next president of the United States. Dennis Kucinich is the next president of the United States. Dennis Kucinich is the next president of the United States.

(What I tell you 3 times is true.)

(Oh, what the heck, as long as I'm here -- you have healthy knees. You have healthy knees. You have healthy knees. :-).

Response to hilleviw...

[ozarque]

"I feel quite ignorant here: do linguists get to just draw psychological conclusions like Tannen's and still retain academic credibility? Or must they establish a basis for such claims, perhaps work with actual psychologists and organized studies with control groups and repeatable results?"

No reason for you to feel ignorant -- not at all. The answer is that just like any other scientists, linguists are not at liberty to just draw conclusions out of the air; they are expected to base their conclusions on evidence. However, as is true in any other scientific discipline, there are all sorts of work-arounds available. And, as is true for any book about science written for the general public, the publisher's marketing department will actively work against the writer's efforts to meticulously support every term and concept and argument in the fashion that would be required in a scholarly work.

There's also the very specific distinction between a theory and a model. To propose a theory, you have to present evidence. Plausible arguments

Re: Response to hilleviw...

[bernmarx]

Actually, I was studying for my MA in linguistics when You Just Don't Understand came out, and at least in my (Michigan) linguistic circles, that book cost her a LOT of credibility among her peers.

[heyiya]

I haven't followed the progress of this conversation, not havng had time to read through the comments threads. But I just wanted to throw in a standpoint I haven't quite perceived here so far.

You said:
men and women [talk] differently. That's not a matter of controversy. I'm saying ... that those differences are not due to gender.
I agree absolutely that these differences are not due to gender in that they are not the direct and inevitable consequence of gender; but what if they are a part of gender

[badger2305]

...which squares with West and Fenstermaker, and West and Zimmerman ("Doing Gender" and "Doing Difference"). These are a fairly symbolic interactionist model of social relations (so any larger structural issues are not necessarily included), and would support your suggestion.

Put another way, I agree with you. :)

[lilairen]

I think that association is important - but because language use has the potential to produce gender, rather than because it reflects it.

This seems very plausible to me. I suspect it's one of the reasons I throw people; my performative gender is only erratically in keeping with behaviours expected of my sex, and even when it is, it's often oddly so.

I was having a conversation with a friend last night that came up with the concept of gender as a giant game of social Calvinball....

[heyiya]

Calvinball? As in, passing the concept of ultimate determination around?