Language, Gender, and Sexuality in the 21st Century
Presenter Title/Affiliation
University of Texas at Austin
Start Date
21-5-2021 11:30 AM
Event Name
Panel discussion
Panel Number
3
Panel Chair Name
Sean Nonnenmacher
Zoom URL to Join
https://ciis.zoom.us/j/99646871834
Zoom Meeting ID
996 4687 1834
Abstract
In the seminal 1972 book Language and Woman’s Place, Robin Lakoff theorizes a framework of gendered language, indicating that men and women exhibit distinctive lexical characteristics in their speech. Lakoff’s ‘women’s language’, or WL, is characterised by linguistic hedging and the use of lexicon belonging to traditionally feminine domains, such as child-rearing, housekeeping, and cooking. In contrast, ‘men’s language’, or ML, is associated with direct speech and vulgarity. Lakoff’s theory of gendered language has inspired further investigation into the relationship between language and gender, which has propmted new theories in queer linguistics, including that proposed by Queen in her 1997 article ‘I Don’t Speak Spritch: Locating Lesbian Language’. Drawing from stereotyped conceptualizations of queer language, Queen suggests that lesbian women exhibit characteristics of men’s language at a much higher rate than heterosexual women.
The present study seeks to determine the relevance of Queen’s theory in today’s evolving social and linguistic landscape. The following questions are proposed: (1) Do previously identified examples of lesbian speech remain relevant today? (2) What, if any, other examples of lexical items or syntatic structures are associated with lesbian speech? To examine these topics, a short Qualtrics survey was distributed to student organizations at a large southern university. 34 participants completed the survey, which focused on two themes: (1) ‘Is x (phrase) an example of lesbian language?’and (2) ‘Do you associate x (phrase) with the speech of males, females, neither, or both?’. Phrase samples were adapted from Lakoff (1972) and Queen (1997) in order to facilitate comparisons with previous findings. Analysis of the responses failed to exhibit a significant effect for marked lesbian language. Similarly, participants failed to identify a significant lexical or syntactic association with gendered language.
The failure of the survey to elicit decisive bias towards gendered speech must be investigated further, given the findings outlined in Coates (2017), which suggest that gendered differences in speech remain salient. In order to further investigate these topics, we intend to distribute an additional survey to explore the effect of implicit meaning in gendered language.
Presenter Contact
tarahazel@utexas.edu
Language, Gender, and Sexuality in the 21st Century
In the seminal 1972 book Language and Woman’s Place, Robin Lakoff theorizes a framework of gendered language, indicating that men and women exhibit distinctive lexical characteristics in their speech. Lakoff’s ‘women’s language’, or WL, is characterised by linguistic hedging and the use of lexicon belonging to traditionally feminine domains, such as child-rearing, housekeeping, and cooking. In contrast, ‘men’s language’, or ML, is associated with direct speech and vulgarity. Lakoff’s theory of gendered language has inspired further investigation into the relationship between language and gender, which has propmted new theories in queer linguistics, including that proposed by Queen in her 1997 article ‘I Don’t Speak Spritch: Locating Lesbian Language’. Drawing from stereotyped conceptualizations of queer language, Queen suggests that lesbian women exhibit characteristics of men’s language at a much higher rate than heterosexual women.
The present study seeks to determine the relevance of Queen’s theory in today’s evolving social and linguistic landscape. The following questions are proposed: (1) Do previously identified examples of lesbian speech remain relevant today? (2) What, if any, other examples of lexical items or syntatic structures are associated with lesbian speech? To examine these topics, a short Qualtrics survey was distributed to student organizations at a large southern university. 34 participants completed the survey, which focused on two themes: (1) ‘Is x (phrase) an example of lesbian language?’and (2) ‘Do you associate x (phrase) with the speech of males, females, neither, or both?’. Phrase samples were adapted from Lakoff (1972) and Queen (1997) in order to facilitate comparisons with previous findings. Analysis of the responses failed to exhibit a significant effect for marked lesbian language. Similarly, participants failed to identify a significant lexical or syntactic association with gendered language.
The failure of the survey to elicit decisive bias towards gendered speech must be investigated further, given the findings outlined in Coates (2017), which suggest that gendered differences in speech remain salient. In order to further investigate these topics, we intend to distribute an additional survey to explore the effect of implicit meaning in gendered language.
https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/lavlang/2021/friday/10
