Language and Gender

Gender Differences in Language Use
(A Short Look at Lakoff’s and Tannen’s Theories)

I Dewa Putu Eka Adi Putra
NIM. 0929011016
English Education Department
Post-Graduate Program
Ganesha University of Education

Abstract

Everyone knows that the speech of women and men do not sound the same–a person generally can tell a male voice from a female’s, and knows what constitutes “masculine” or “feminine” speech. This relationship between language and gender is one that has been explored in increasing depth in the past thirty years. Consequently, many works have been conducted concerning this matter. Among others, the works done by feminists Robin Lakoff and Deborah Tannen are the most popular. Their works provide basic theories and concepts that can greatly serve as the basis for much research on the subject on the present day. Regarding such the fact, this paper then tries to provide Lakoff’s and Tannen’s theories about language and gender systematically. The presentation of these theories and concepts, in this paper, is complemented with some samples of everyday-Balinese conversation, intended to make the theories and concepts provided more understandable.

Key words: Language, Gender, Female’s and Everyday-Balinese Conversations

1. Introduction

From childhood, males and females are different in many ways, both physiologically and psychologically. According to Eisenman (1997), women have better memory than men. Meanwhile, men are quite accurate in maintaining a sense of direction but women are not (Eisenman, 1997). This is consistent with the claim that men tend to do better than women on visual-spatial tests and in mathematics (Nemati and Bayer, 2007). Apart from that, there also exist social differences between men and women. According to Nemati and Bayer (2007), men and women, even those within the same group, live in different or separate cultural worlds and, as a result, they promote different ways of speaking. In simple terms, although men and women live in the same environment, they establish different relations with the society as if each belongs to a different environment and culture; the result of which is consequently reflected in the language of both genders as in other aspects of their lives.
Men and women use different linguistic forms in their interaction (cf. Holmes, 1993; Climate, 1997; Tannen, 1990; Kaplan and Farrell, 1994; and Lakoff, 1975). The linguistic forms used by men and women contrast to some extent in all speech communities. For example, Holmes (1993) mentions the Amazon Indians’ language as an extreme example, where the language used by a child’s mother is different from that used by her/his father, and each tribe is distinguished by a different language. In this community, males and females speak different languages.
Less dramatic are communities where men and women speak the same language, but some distinct linguistic features occur in the speech of women and men. These differences range from pronunciation or morphology to vocabulary (Holmes, 1993). Holmes (1993) refers to Japanese, where different words, with the same meaning, are used distinctively by men and women. For example, in this language when a woman wants to say ‘water’, she uses the word ‘ohiya’, whereas a man uses the word ‘miza’.
Furthermore, women tend to use standard language more than men do. Climate (1997) believes that females generally use speech to develop and maintain relationships. They use language to achieve intimacy. Moreover, Tannen (1990) states that women speak and hear a language of connection and intimacy, while men speak and hear a language of status and independence. According to Kaplan and Farrell (1994), messages produced by women are short and their participation is driven by their desire to keep the communication going rather than the desire to achieve consensus. In addition, Lakoff (1975) proposes a theory on the existence of women’s language which states that women’s language is immature, hyper-formal or hyper-polite, and non-assertive, whereas men’s language is assertive, adult, and direct.
All arguments given by the mentioned scholars clearly reveal that women and men use language differently. Regarding such the fact, the writer, in this paper, intends to provide a theoretical description concerning how women’s language different from men’s language, or vice versa. In this paper, theories and concepts about language and gander, especially those which are proposed by Lakoff (1975) and Tannen (1990), are presented. The presentation of these theories and concepts is complemented with some samples of everyday-Balinese conversation, intended to make the theories and concepts provided more understandable.

2. Gender Theories
The biological theory defines gender in terms of biological sex. The theory assumes that men outsize and outpower women and that gender polarities exist in language use (Tannen, 1990). The theory gives little regard to language individualization (Coates, 1993). The biological theory also assumes that gender roles are static and contextually independent. On the other hand, the social constructionist theory defines gender in light of social contexts in which interactions occur (Leaper & Smith, 2004 in Bell, 2007). It assumes that gender roles are fluid and contextually situated, that gendered identities are voluntary, and that males and females choose their gendered identities (Leaper & Smith, 2004 in Bell, 2007).
In terms of language use, the social constructionist theory assumes that males and females are not confined to one particular language style, but exchange styles based on the social context of their interactions (Leaper & Smith, 2004 as cited in Bell, 2007).

3. Gender Differences in Language Use: A Short Look at Lakoff’s and Tannen’s Theories
The investigation and identification of differences between men’s and women’s speech date back across time. Until 1944, no specific piece of writing on gender differences in language appeared (Grey, 1998). As stated by Grey (1998), it was in 1970s that comparison between female cooperativeness and male competitiveness in linguistic behavior began. Since then, the relationship between language and gender has attracted considerable attention. As a result, there is an increasing number of researchers who focus on studying linguistic differences employed by men and women in their interaction. Among those researchers, Robin Lakoff and Deborah Tannen are the most well-known researchers, as they could provide influential theories and concepts concerning language and gender relationship, especially about the differences existing in men’s and women’s language.
3.1 Lakoff’s Theory
Robin Lakoff is a feminist who was one of the premier linguists who initiated an extensive research concerning language and gender. Lakoff’s work has served as the basis for much research on the subject of women's language.
Lakoff (1975) suggests that: “Women’s language – meaning both languages restricted in use to women and language descriptive of women alone – submerges a woman’s personal identity, by denying her the means of expressing herself strongly”. Furthermore, she explains that by doing this, or encouraging women to use expressions that suggest triviality in subject matter and uncertainty about it, they are treated as objects and never as serious persons with individual views. She recognizes that this phenomenon is especially clear linguistically but nevertheless other forms of behavior have the same purpose in society. In addition, the phenomenon leads to women being systematically denied access to power (Lakoff, 1975). She claims that there is a discrepancy between English used by men and women and that the social discrepancies of male and female positions in society contribute to linguistic disparities (Lakoff, 1975).
According to Lakoff (1975), women’s speech differs from men’s speech in several ways. She mentions vocabulary as one level of grammar where there are differences. One example she gives is color names, where she suggests that women have more words describing color. Her example is a man and a woman looking at a wall in pinkish purple and the woman says: “The wall is mauve”. But if a man was to say that the wall was mauve one might conclude that he is either making fun of a woman, is gay or an interior decorator. Additionally, Lakoff (1975) claims that men find color an unworldly, trivial, and irrelevant to the world topic, and since it is nothing important women get to name/decide colors. Men, on the other hand, have a larger vocabulary regarding sport for example. This assumption can be illustrated in Balinese interaction as the followings:
(1) Two young females are talking about clothes
A: “Dije meli baju, Mang?”
(Where did you buy your cloth, Mang?)
B: “Di Hardy’s. Engken teh?”
(At Hardy’s. What’s wrong?)
A: “Melah gati. Ake demen jak warnane.”
(It is really nice. I like its color.
B: “O… Demen ci jak warna ungu?”
(O… Do you like purple?)
A: “Demen gati. Kali meli ah.”
(I like it very much. I want to buy.)

(2) Father and his son are talking about football
Father : “Nyanan dudun je bapak nyaan nah, De.”
(Wake me up later, De.)
Son : “Kenape teh?”
(Why?)
Father : “Bapak kal mebalih sepakbola.”
(I will watch football match.)
Son : “Ape maen?”
(What teams will play?)
Father : “Arsenal ngelawan Juventus.”
(Arsenal versus Juventus)
Son : “Nah. Yang kal mebalih masi.”
(O.K. I will watch as well)

Conversation (1) is typically women’s conversation. Meanwhile, conversation (2) can clearly be seen as men’s conversation. We can come to such a conclusion, as we can see typically-women or -men’s vocabulary in both conversations. In conversation (1), we can see the word “purple”; the word that is closely related to women. Men will not talk about color, especially about purple. They tend to talk about something different like sport as shown in conversation (2). In conversation (2), as we can see, a father and his son are talking about football; this is really men-related word. Women seldom talk about such a thing.
Aside from lexical items, Lakoff (1975) mentions “meaningless” particles (one example of such a meaningless article would be “Oh, dear”) as a special feature of female speech. These particles may have no referent but instead indicate the relationship the speaker feels between herself and her addressee, between her and what she is talking about, as shown in the following conversation:
(3) Wife is asking her husband to wake up
Wife : “Beli , Bangun je malu. Be tengai ne.”
(Beli, please wake up. It has been late morning)
Husbund : “Uh…. Adeng malu.”
(Uh… later.)
Wife : “Dewa ratu……”
(My God…..)

The meaningless particle in conversation (3) is Dewa ratu. This particle has no any referent in this conversation, but it shows what the speaker feels.
“Empty adjectives” is the third level of grammar where male and female speech differs (Lakoff, 1975). The specific category of adjectives that she mentions is the kind that besides their specific and literal meanings could be used to indicate the speaker’s approbation for something. Some of these adjectives are neutral to the gender of the speaker but others are largely curbed to women. Listed in the table below are some of these adjectives.
Table 1: Typical neutral and female adjectives
Neutral Women only
Great Adorable
Terrific Charming
Cool Sweet
Neat Lovely

Beside the three lexical differences mentioned above, Lakoff (1975) claims that syntactically too, women’s speech is peculiar, and that is when it comes to the formation of tag-questions. The definition of a tag question: “a question (as isn’t it in “it's fine, isn't it?”) added to a statement or command (as to gain the assent of or challenge the person addressed); also a sentence ending in a tag question” (Lakoff, 1975). An example; “You are happy, aren’t you?” Tag questions are being used when the speaker is stating a claim, but lacks full confidence in the truth of the claim (Lakoff, 1975). This sentence type disables the speaker to commit and enables him/her to avoid coming in to conflict with the addressee. And, according to Lakoff (1975), this could also give the impression that the speaker is not really sure of him-/herself and lacking opinions of their own, and this criticism has been pointed at women. Tag questions, then, are typical for women’s speech, as shown in the following husband-wife interaction:
(4) Husband and wife are talking about an invitation
Husband : “Pidan nak kundangan ke Banyuning?”
(When do we have to come for the invitation to Banyuning?)
Wife : “Seinget tiang, bin telun je, bin telun kan?”
(As I remember, it is three days later, isn’t it?)
In conversation (4), the use of tag-question shows that the wife (woman) is not sure about when they have to come for the invitation. Apart from that, it can also be interpreted that she does not want to show up their power, even though she, in fact, knows exactly when it is and the answer she gives is true. With tag-question, she wants to decrease her power and allows her husband to decide whether it is true or not.
The use of hedges in various kinds is also a typical feature for female speech (Lakoff, 1975). Hedges are words or sentence fragments like “well”, “y’know”, “kinda”, “I’m not an expert but…” and “sorta”, which convey that the speaker is uncertain about the utterance (Lakoff, 1975). She also claims that women use hedges more because they are socialized to believe that affirming themselves strongly is not polite or ladylike. The utterance “Seinget tiang…..” spoken by the woman (wife) in conversation (4) is consistent with this assumption. The woman produces this utterance, as she does not want to affirm herself. She believes that not affirming herself, especially in the front of her husband, is considered polite.
Moreover, Lakoff (1975) suggests that women use intensifiers like “so”, “rather” and “quite”, more than men do. She gives an example where the speaker is trying to express that they feel strongly about something but does not dare to make it clear how strong it is. So to say, “I like him very much”, is stating exactly how much you like someone, but instead the speaker chooses “I like him so much” to hide the intensity. Again, this feature of female speech is used to hide strong emotions or assertions (Lakoff, 1975).
Hypercorrect grammar, avoidance of coarse language, more frequent apologizing and the usage of super polite forms are additional features women speech (Lakoff, 1975). In other words, women speak as close to the standard language as possible. Lakoff (1975) connects these features with each other since they all come down to the fact that women are not supposed to talk rough or less polite than men. For instance,
(5) A man is talking with his female workmate about her son.
Man : “Engken I Gede? Be Seger?”
(How is Gede? Is he already better?)
Woman : “Sampun. Awakne manten kari panes.” Benjang check-up malih”
(Already. But, his body is still warm. He will do “check-up” tomorrow.)
Man : “Sekenang malu to!”
(Take care of him!)
In conversation (5), the woman’s speech is more polite than the man’s. The woman uses middle speech level of Balinese, while the man uses the lowest level.
Women do not tell jokes. According to Lakoff (1975), this is an American axiom that women cannot tell jokes, always ruin the punch line, get the order mixed up and so forth. Furthermore, they do not get the jokes, because they don’t have a sense of humor (Lakoff, 1975).
Finally, women speak in italics by using intonation equal to underlining words. Lakoff (1975) states that “The more ladylike and feminine you are, the more in italics you are supposed to speak”. She claims that this is another way to express uncertainty about your own self-expression. However, she also claims that it could appear as the opposite that italics seem to strengthen an utterance (Lakoff, 1975).
Lakoff’s ideas about the features of women’s language can be summarized as the followings:
1. Lexical hedges or fillers, e.g. you know, sort of, …
2. Tag questions, e.g. she is very nice, isn’t she?
3. Rising intonation on declaratives, e.g. it’s really good.
4. Empty adjectives, e.g. divine, charming, cute.
5. Precise color terms, e.g. magenta, acqamarine.
6. Intensifiers such as just and so.
7. Hypercorrect grammar, e.g. consistent use of standard verb forms.
8. Superpolite forms, e.g. indirect requests, euphemisms.
9. Avoidance of strong swear words, e.g. fudge, my goodness.
10. Emphatic stress, e.g. it was a BRILLIANT performance.
What it all comes down to is that segregation between male and female language is a result of segregation between male and female power in society. Lakoff (1975) states that most of the features of female speech are a result of female submission.
3.2 Tannen’s Theory
Deborah Tannen is a linguist who began as a student of Lakoff’s. Her work concerning linguistic differences between men and women has become popular as help with relationship improvement. In one of her most famous books, You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, she suggests that taking a sociolinguistic approach to a relationship makes it possible to enable understanding and explain dissatisfactions without blaming the relationship for it (Tannen, 1990).
Tannen, as well as Lakoff, claims that there are gender differences in ways of speaking (Tannen, 1990), but she focuses more on conversational differences as such. Many of these differences “arise because boys and girls grow up in what are essentially different cultures, so talk between women and men is cross-cultural communication” ( Tannen, 1990). This in contrast to Lakoff’s view that male and female communication does not work because of men’s tendency to dominate women.
Additionally, Tannen (1990) mentions several ways in which conversational styles differs between men and women. Talking about trouble is one thing she mentions where men and women’s views are different and cause problems. Another thing that differs is asking for information such as directions (Tannen, 1990). She also claims that men are more comfortable doing public speaking, while women do private speaking. From this she has developed her famous terms report-talk and rapport-talk. At the heart of this theory lies the idea that many men are more comfortable than most women in using talk to claim attention.
3.2.1 Rapport talk
According to Tannen (1990), the language of conversation between women, is foremost a language of rapport (Tannen, 1990). The purpose of it is to establish connections and negotiating relationships. Women tend to display similarities and matching experiences with each other, and in meetings, women tend to argue by using their own experience as evidence. For instance,
(6) Two young women are talking about their boyfriends.
A : “Uh…. Jek inguh gati nok.”
(Uh… I am stressed.)
B : “Kenape, Met?”
(Why, Met?)
A : “Kabak akene kal megae ke Qatar. Inguh ake.”
(My boyfriend will work in Qatar. I am getting stressed.)
B : “Sante gen. Ake pidan nak keto masi. Pidan kabak akene 6 bulan training di Singapur. Engkenang men? Demi masa depan masi.”
(Rilex! I had the same situation before. My boyfriend was on his job training in Singapore for 6 months. What should we do? That is for our future.)
A : “Ake ngerti je. Cuman…. Ake sedih gati. Nu je ye kal inget jak ake?”
(I understand. But…. I am really sad. Will he still remember me?)
B : “Pasti… Jani sabar gen malu. Mun ci sabar ye kan bisa tenang megedi. Ake ipidan nak inguh masi, cuman ake berusaha sabar. Paling aminggu ci lakar inguh, setelah to biasa be, patuh care ake ipidan.”
(Sure… Be patient. If you can be patient, he can go with a nice feeling. I was also stressed in that time, but I tried to be patient. I am sure you will get stressed for a week, after that everything will be normal. It is the same as I felt before.)
3.2.2 Report talk
For most men, on the other hand, language is a way to preserve independence and negotiate and maintain status in the hierarchy. According to Tannen (1990), men do this by exhibiting their knowledge and skill. And men also do it through “holding centre stage” by, for example, telling stories, joking, or conveying information. Men in meetings for example, tend to argue by making categorical statements about right and wrong. For instance,
(7) A young man is trying to install Window Software in his laptop, but he does not know how to do it. Therefore, he asks his friend who is sitting next to him.
A: “Kene carane ng-install widow o?”
(Is it the way how to install Window, right?)
B: “Sing keto! Lengeh gati cai!”
(It is not like that. You are so stupid!)
A: “Mai, ake ng-install-ang. Kene carane.”\
(Let me do it. This is the way)
3.2.3 Antithesis
Some other differences, which also contributes to report and rapport talk, suggested by Tannen (1990), are listed below:
• Orders vs. Suggestions
Men/boys give orders, while girls and women express their preferences as suggestions (Tannen, 1990). Men/boys’ orders in Balinese can be like “Beliang jep rage roko” (Buy cigarette for me!), “Jemak piring!” (Take the plate!), “Dini negak!” (Sit here!), etc, while girls/women’s expression of their preference can, for example, be “Kenken asanange yen yang ane meli?” (What do you think if I buy?).
• Conflict vs. Compromise
Men choose the conflict, while women compromise instead, in order to try to prevent fights. For instance,
(8) Husband can’t find a newspaper, and he is asking his wife where it is.
Husband : “Dije kaden korane!”
(I can’t find where the newspaper is)
Wife : “Sing beli ane ngejang? Seinget tiang beli je tuni mace ne terakhir.”
(You put it, don’t you? As I remember you are the last person who read it.”
Husband : “Pidan maan mace?” Kaden ye tuni mace.”
(When did I read it? You read it just now.)
• Status vs. Support
Moreover, it is suggested by Tannen (1990), that men grow up in a world where conversation is often a contest. The goal is either to achieve status among other people, or to prevent them from pushing them (the men themselves) around. Women, on the other hand, use talking to exchange confirmation and support. For instance,
(9) Two young men are talking about football players.
A : “Ronaldo di Chelsea jani maen o?
(Ronaldo plays with Chelsea, right?)
B : “Nyen ngorahang? Kene be sing taen bebalih berita! Sing tawang ye di Madrid main?”
(Who says? It is the effect of never watching news. Don’t you know that he plays with Madrid?)
A : “O….. Sing di Chelsea?”
(O… Not with Chelsea?)
(10) Two women are talking about beauty salon.
A: “Salon Wella ngadep eye shadow?”
(Does Salon Wella sell eye shadow?)
B: “Ngadep. Ake ditu pidan meli.”
(Yes. I bought there last time.)
A: “Aji kude jani besik?”
(How much is it?)
B: “Ake meli aji Rp. 45.000 pidan.”
(It was Rp. 45.000 when I bought.)
According to this assumption, conversation (9) shows typical men’s conversation, while conversation (10) shows women’s conversation
• Advice vs. Understanding
Men give advice, while women show understanding. Tannen (1990) uses the example of Eve to illustrate it:
“Eve had a benign lump removed from her breast. When she confided to her husband, Mark, that she was distressed because the stitches changed the contour of her breast, he answered, “You can always have plastic surgery”. This comment bothered her. “I’m sorry you don’t like the way it looks,” she protested. “But I’m not having any more surgery!”. Mark was hurt and puzzled. “I don’t care about a scar,” he replied. “It doesn’t bother me at all.” “Then why are you telling me to have plastic surgery?” she asked. “Because you were upset about the way it looks.”
Mark sees the complaint as a “challenge” to come up with a solution but Eve just wants sympathy/understanding (Tannen, 1990).
Tannen’s view of male and female language and speech, can be summarized by saying that: women and men use different conversational styles due to different purposes with the speech, and therefore communication might break down.

4. Explanative models for differences
4.1 Genetic Theories
The structural differences in the brain between men and women are argued to be a cause for differences in the language (Nemati and Bayer, 2007). According to Bell (2007), babies are suggestively born male or female; their brains develop differently and at different rates. In addition, the male brain is asymmetric, the right hemisphere is larger than the left and it contains more white matter than gray (SIC) (Bell, 2007). Furthermore, he states that women’s brains contain more gray (SIC) matter and are generally smaller (women have smaller heads and bodies) than the male brains. Research shows that this could be the reason for why women are typically better than men at verbal tasks while men are better at spatial tasks, and why men and women score equally on intelligence test, in spite of men having larger brains (Nemati and Bayer, 2007). Scientists have also established that apart from the fact that the language treatment and thinking strategy differs, women use both hemispheres to a larger extent. Men mainly use the left hemisphere (Bråmer 2003 in Nemati and Bayer, 2007). If a person’s left hemisphere is damaged, men have a harder time with their language work, while women’s language use, get less affected. (Bråmer 2003 in Nemati and Bayer, 2007).
4.2 Motherese/Fatherese
Research has shown that adults speak differently to boys and girls in most western societies. Boys are played with (especially by men) in a more rough and tumble way with an accompanying language, the so-called “fatherese” (Bell, 2007). This results in boys picking up and using male language. Further research has shown that girls are spoken to in a more standard variant than boys (Bell, 2007). This results in girls picking up a more correct language.

5. Conclusion
Language use has strong correlation with gender in such a way that it reflects one’s gender identity. One can judge someone else as male or female from their language, without seeing him/her face by face. This relationship between language and gender has intensively been explored in the past thirty years. Today, there have been a great number of researches conducted with regard to this relationship; two of those researches, which are most influential, are those conducted by Lakoff (1975) and Tannen (1990). In her study, Lakoff (1975) proposes a women theory which states that women’s language has ten characteristic features, such as lexical hedges, tag-questions, empty adjective, etc. She also states men’s language are assertive, adult, and direct, while women’s language is immature, hyper-formal or hyper-polite and non-assertive. Meanwhile, Tannen (1990) argues that women and men use different conversational styles due to different purposes with the speech, and therefore communication might break down. These two theories have served as a basis for much research on the subject on the present day.

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