When researching Language and Gender, what is striking is the amount of literature that there is on the subject. This essay will look at some of this literature and draw conclusions as to the methodology of the researcher, the findings of investigations and the conclusions drawn by both the authors of previous research and myself. Since Language and Gender is such an extensive subject, I have chosen to focus in particular on three approaches to Male and Female speech: The Deficiency approach, The Difference approach and the Dominance approach. I will look at how these theories were devised, what research has been done to support them and the conclusions gained from this. I will focus on meaning rather than form and so my viewpoint will be sociological and qualitative. I will also look at the relationship between gender and power and how this affects the theories. I will give a brief overview of each of the approaches before more detailed comparisons. The deficiency theory was proposed by Robin Lakoff in 1975. Lakoff suggested that women speak an inferior version of the language spoken by males. She was the first linguist to point out that women use more tag questions than men. It had been pointed out that women used several devices in their speech more than men. Along with tag questions, these included: more hedges, more overt prestige forms and over-reporting on usage of prestige forms, more intensifying devices, finer discriminations in, for example, colour terms, more baby talk and weaker expletives such as 'oh dear'. These are still accepted as features of women's speech but it was how Lakoff interpreted this research that led to the 'deficiency theory'. Lakoff saw language as reflecting society and suggested that women spoke an inferior version of the language because they were inferior in society. According to Lakoff, women 'are socialised to believe that asserting themselves strongly isn't nice or ladylike or even feminine' (Lakoff 1975:54 in Coates 1993:116). Lakoff therefore described women's language as, among other things, tentative and unassertive, hence the 'deficiency theory'. This theory is now thought of as dated since changes in society, and follow up research have discounted many of the principles. Lakoff's observations are generally supported but her reasoning gained from the studies has been replaced by other more modern theories. It was noticed that most of the research done had been focused on female language. The focus may have been leading to false theories and further research was needed into male language. Five years later another similar theory was put forward by Dale Spender, which was named the dominance theory. The difference with this theory was that it saw language as both a construction and a reflection of society. It also looked at male language compared to female language. Spender saw female language as 'borrowed' and highlighted that language is andocentric. Evidence for this includes gender marking. The male form is usually the unmarked form and the female form is usually marked e.g. Mr/Mrs, Prince/Princess. Semantic derogation also occurs on many words relating to females. Many of the words used to denote female could also imply that the female is either inferior or sexually promiscuous for example master/mistress, bachelor/spinster. Our language however, is historical and many of these presumptions contained in the language could be out of date. This will be discussed further later in the essay. Linguists are now generally split between the dominance theory and another approach known as the difference theory. This theory is more recent and strives towards a less negative view of female language. Some researchers in the late 1980s argued that "the dominance model had become a deficit model, that is a way of interpreting the linguistic facts that represented men's language as the norm and women's language as deviant" (Coates 1998:413). The theory focuses on different conversational goals, and by doing so, does not see one as superior to the other. Research into the different theories on language and gender is very broad. As stated earlier, the two later theories have overshadowed the deficiency theory now and many linguists do not count it as a valid and research-led approach. "Lakoff seems happy to present folklinguistic material without the support of any research findings to confirm her statements" (Coates 1993:23) Coates also suggests that Lakoff may be trying to prescribe how women ought to talk rather than describing how they do talk. This perhaps spurred research and development of the difference theory. On reading some of the literature on the deficiency approach, I agree with Coates in that today's society should look more to description rather than prescription. Lakoff's theory has not stood the test of time. Society has changed so much in the last 30 years and generally women are no longer seen as inferior. I will therefore take a focus from this point on the dominance theory and the difference theory. The dominance approach focuses on the male's dominance in society and therefore concludes that the speech developed by the male of the species has inherent supremacy. Being man-made, language is not neutral. It contains attitudes and beliefs about what it is to be male and what it is to be female. The dominance approach views language as a gendered system. Before going any further in this discussion, it has to be pointed out that power has a large influence when studying the dominance theory of language and gender. A lot of the language that is seen as typical male language correlates with that seen as powerful language, and typical female language is sometimes pointed to as powerless. Research has been done and it has been found that males are more likely to use 'single-voiced discourse' where the subject presents only their perspective. Females are more likely to use 'double-voiced discourse' where, whilst maintaining their own perspective, they take the other person's into account also. The dominance approach sees this as unassertive and therefore less powerful. Language can be used by males to assert social dominance, hence tendencies to brag, boast, heckle and threaten. This 'conversational dominance' is described by Jennifer Coates as "strategies which enable speakers to dominate their partners in talk" (Coates 1998:161). She highlights that since research has shown that men use more of these strategies, they are seen as dominant in conversation. One of these strategies is interruption and Conversational Analysis research done by Zimmerman and West (1975) shows that "interruptions were far more likely to occur than overlaps and both types of simultaneity were much more frequently initiated by males than females. For example... 96% of the interruptions were by males to females" (Zimmerman and West in Coates 1998:168). Male language asserts status and dominance also. A higher frequency of swear words is found in male conversation and features such as minimal responses which the research done by Leet-Pellegrini shows to be a source of strength rather than defeat; making the partner feel that what they have to say is trivial and he is uninterested by it. These are seen as dominance strategies and the fact that men use them more frequently indicates to dominance theorists that men are dominant. Nevertheless, since today's society sees many women in high-status roles, is it gender or power that overrides the other where language is concerned? Candace West is among the researchers who have looked into this. It is widely accepted that interruptions are used to convey dominance and control. "Men's interruptions of women in cross-sex conversations constitute an exercise of power and dominance over their conversational partners." (West in Coates 1998:396). West's research into power, status and gender was done on physician-patient relationships. 21 patients were observed (recorded with unobtrusive cameras and microphones), 10 males and 11 females. Her findings were that out of 188 interruptions encountered in a patient-physician conversation where the physician was male, 67% were initiated by the physician and 33% by the patient. In a patient-physician conversation where the physician was female, however, the physician initiated just 32% of interruptions and the patient, 68%. It can be seen that the figures are almost exactly reversed from the male doctor figures to the female doctor figures. This leads me to think that males and females may enforce dominance and control in different ways or possibly even view power from different perspectives. The study also shows the different ways not just in how women and men talk, but how they are talked about. The main point that comes across is that if the physician is female she is referred to as a 'lady doctor' or 'female doctor' with obvious gender marking whereas male physicians are simply referred to as 'doctors', with no morphological gender marking but often an inherent male gender. West concludes: "gender can have primacy over status where women physicians are concerned" (West in Coates 1998:409). Deborah Tannen also looked at power relations in her work place study Talking from 9 to 5 (1994). Female managers are likely to soften a blow when criticising an employee whereas male managers are more direct with criticism. This shows differences in management styles. Women's management style tends to be more consultative and inclusive, whilst men's style seems to be more directive and task-oriented. The patient-physician study shows some evidence for the dominance theory but the management study by Tannen could take the difference perspective. The difference approach concentrates more on the contrasting qualities of male and female speech and points out that although the styles of speech may be different they are not necessarily unequal. It does not look at power and therefore does not see either male or female as dominant. The workplace study done by Deborah Tannen is not necessarily to do with power affecting gender or vice versa. It is to do with how each gender exercises power in different ways. In fact, men and women have different conversational goals and aims to fulfil through language and this may have underlying reasons. Women have the conversational goal of being co-operative and men have the aim of being competitive. It may indicate that values are different. It may also indicate that males and females have different sub-cultures and are socialised in different ways from a young age. For example it has been found that mothers often change their speech to match what the child can understand. A mother's mean length of utterance is likely to correlate with her child's level of comprehension. However, fathers tend to use longer more difficult words. When a father is talking with a child, they take turns less often than when a mother is talking with a child. Another socialisation difference is that girls tend to be socialised with other girls and males with males. "At school, girls sit in circles talking and each mirroring the group's body language. You cannot identify a leader" (Pease 1999:147) This shows that girls are inclusive and co-operative from an early age. "Boys' groups have a hierarchy with leaders who can be identified by their superior or assertive talk and body language, and each boy hustles for status in the group" (Pease 1999:149). This shows that a dominance hierarchy establishes at an early age, and you can tell the dominant males by their language. Although this mentions dominance, this particular dominance is not to do with gender. This is just an example of hierarchies within a gender. It does not suggest that males are dominant and females are powerless. It describes the behaviour of children at a young age and suggests this as a possibility as to why male speech and female speech are so different i.e. that they are brought up in different sub-cultures. Deborah Tannen (1994) documents diary studies of how male and female talk differs in an office. Her findings were that women chat informally far more than men in the workplace. She says this maintains social bonds and communication channels. Tannen's research shows that women are more likely to talk about relationships, children, clothes and hairstyles. Men are more likely to talk about technology, cars and sport. This supports the idea that women tend to be more affective (interpersonal) in their speech and men more referential (conveying information). Janet Holmes researched into this and in her article Women's Talk: The Question of Sociolinguistic Universals she flags an example of a man talking about his job as a school principal and mentioning in passing physical symptoms of stress that he had encountered. The woman picks up on this and concentrates her contribution to the conversation on this matter and asks if he has seen a doctor and if he is okay now. The men in the conversation see this as irrelevant because they were focussing on the information about the job and not the effects that it had on the speaker. Holmes concludes: "women tend to focus on the affective functions of an interaction more often than men do" (Holmes in Coates 1998:463). The general consensus is that men respond to things and women respond to people. Scientific research into brain functions show that girls respond to people and faces and boys respond to objects and shapes. "At 12 weeks old, girls can distinguish pictures of family from strangers, while boys cannot, but boys are better at relocating a lost toy." (Pease 1999:147) Pease cites an experiment into the different genders at pre-school age. Each child was given a pair of binocular eye-viewers that showed objects to one eye and people's faces to the other. When asked about this, the girls remembered more of the faces and emotions shown on these faces and the boys remembered more of the objects and their shapes. All these differences can potentially lead to miscommunication in male female relationships. Because of the different functions of talk for the different sexes, different vocabulary is used and that is a main area for miscommunication. This is the focus of many books about relationships between men and women. "Because vocabulary is not a hotspot in a women's brain, she can feel the precise definition of words is irrelevant. She'll then take poetic license with words, or won't shy away from exaggeration simply for effect" (Pease 1999:105). Much of this 'self-help' style literature takes the difference approach and sees both male and female styles as equal but diverse. It also focuses on what lies behind the language, in attitudes and values. Most of the research carried out on the difference theory has benefited from the recent development of the technique of Conversational Analysis (CA). The difference approach can take a more sociological perspective if CA is used and look more objectively at evidence if everything is orthographically transcribed in as much detail as possible. Since I am focussing on language and gender from a sociolinguistic point of view, most of the research I am looking at is qualitative. This may lead to more subjective results but I feel that it is impossible to get reasons from a quantitative study which is where the Conversation Analysis is needed. I feel that the dominance approach is not dissimilar to the deficiency approach in that it prescribes reasons for why language is used differently by males and females. These are focused around male dominance and an inherent male bias in the English language. I agree with Spender that language used to talk about males is often more complimentary than that used to talk about females. Although gender-marking is obvious and semantic derogation in certain instances cannot be denied, I think that the dominance view is a little outdated when looking at the language used by the sexes. To say that males use different speech styles to females is undeniable but to say that men use dominant speech styles is debatable. I do agree that power affects language but I feel that gender is a different sociolinguistic variable from power and as women gain higher status positions, the language they use is not inferior, but different from that used by a man in the same position. This is due to the different values of males and females and the different conversational aims. The difference approach gives a description of the differences and offers reasons to do with socialisation and not power. 