Gender and identity

Discourse analysis approaches the issue of gender in

various ways. The fall broadly into four types of
approach:
The way language itself is gendered or has become
gendered; e.g. the way male pronouns can be used to
refer to either males or females;
The way women and men, girls and boys are
stereotypically represented in discourse;
the way men and women interact in discourse and
whether or not there are differences in their style of talk;
The way language is used by males or females in
specific discourse.

Discourse and gender

Gender is inescapably a biological construct.
Each of us is born with his or her gender.
However, institutions still play an important
part in establishing the nature of that gendered
identity, even if they do not establish the
identity itself. It is not so much biology that
leads to gender stereotypes as the differential
behaviour and personality traits that are
associated with each gender by cultural
history
M.Bloor and T. Bloor, 2005.

Discourse and gender

identity construction
analysis

Focuses on the way social

expectations of the relative roles of
women and men, carried
intertextually, hamper progress
towards more egalitarian structures.

Identity as constructed
discursively
This aspect of identity theory stresses
that identity is not essential but
constructed, modified and
consolidated through discourse.
By discourse we mean: the sort of
language used to construct some
aspect of reality from a particular
perspective
Chouliaraki and Fairclough, 1999)

Gender Identities
Femininity is articulated in and
through commercial and mass media
discourses, especially in the
magazine industry and in the fashion
industry of clothing and cosmetics.
But most of all it is articulated on
womens bodies by women
themselves. (Talbot 1998:71)

Dominant readings
Benwell defines dominant readings
as the position that the reader
unconsciously assumes in a given
historical moment, basing
him/herself on a range of ideological
positions available and which make
the text understandable.

Resistant Readings
Resistant readings are rejections of
the dominant ones and are assumed
by reading texts critically.
What are the linguistic resources for
reading texts critically?

Theories of gender-based
based differences in
discourse
A number of linguists maintain that there are broad
gender-based differences of communicative style
in the discourse of men and women. These
researchers have sought to identify gendered
discourse styles, in other words, ways of speaking
that signal masculinity or femininity by
characteristic combinations of linguistic features.

These researchers often presume that linguistic

markers of mens style and womens style would
be functionally linked to the traits and roles of men
and women Cameron 2006.

Models of gendered
discourse styles
These theories can be summarised
as:
Dominancemodels;
Deficit models;
Difference models.

The dominance model

This model is typified by scholars like
Dale Spender.
Man Made Language (1980) presents
language itself as a the embodiment
of a patriarchal society.
The English language has been
literally man made, and [] is still
primarily under male control.

 As evidence of this Sarah Mills in Femminist

Stylistics(1998) refers to:
The use of he as a generic pronoun;
The sexual bias of man nouns : postman; chairman;
seaman; etc.
Different terms to distinguish between female and male
versions, often with negative connotations for the latter:
bachelor/spister; master/mistress; courtier/cortesan;
Terms without a male equivalent: single mother;
working mother; career woman; unmarried mother;
Offensive terms for unattractive women: cow; bag;
crone; frump. Etc.

The deficit model

The most influential voice on this
model is that of Robin Lakoff.
Her theories are most famously set
out in Language and Womans Place
(1975), in which she proposed that
certain grammatical and lexical
patterns typified womens speech and
expressed weakness and insecurity:

Lakoff and the construction of femininity

(from McLoughlin 100)
Lakoff claims that the following linguistic features are
characteristic of the construction of femininity:

Topic: womans work

Hypercorrectness of grammar
Vagueness (empty adjective);
Emotional as opposed to intellectual evaluation;
Intensifiers;
Diminutives;
Qualifiers,
Politeness super polite forms ;
Hedging

Difference models
Stress the differences between the
language used in male and female
discourse and hence used to construct
female and male gender identity.
A linguist like Talbot stresses that from a
young age boys and girls tend to grow in
separate groups based on their sex and in
the course of this they devolop constrasting
linguistic habits that underlie subsequent
miscommunication between them.

 Marjorie Goodwin (1980) stressed

that groups of girls do not tend to be
hierarchical; decisions are taken in
common, with use of suggestion
structures, the inclusive we and
epistemic modality.
Boys are seen as socialising in gangs
which are hierarchical in which
competition is present.

 On the basis of Goodwins

observations, Daniela Maltz and Ruth
Borker theorised that men and women
socialise in different cultures and this
division is expressed in different ways
of interacting.
Male interactions are characterised by
displays of power; female
communication by displays of solidarity.

Report -Rapport
Deborah Tannen (1991) took these observations a
step further, elaborating two binary styles of malefemale discourse:
male female
Reportrapport
Problem-solving sympathy
Lecturing listening
Public private
Status connection
Oppositionalsupportive
Independence intimacy

 In Tannens view male discourse has the role of

transmitting information in such a way as to
communicate competence;
This competence in turn serves to maintain
prestige;
Men tend to listen less and are inclined to
impose their opions, showing that they are more
competent in presenting an argument.
Moreover, as Coates points out, they avoid
self-disclosure and prefer to talk about
impersonal subjects.

Binary interpretation
The linguist Talbot sees a similarity between
rapport and report and affective and referential
language as defined by Janet Holmes (1984) .
Holmes, for instance, noted that a device like
the tag question, which can be used
referentially and to express doubt, and this is
the form most commonly used by men. Tag
questions can also be used affectively wth a
facilitative or a softening function, and this,
according to Holmes, is the form preferred by
women.

1935 construction of femininity

Many girls can knit such nice

wooly jumpers for dolls, and it is
just as easy to make them for
small dogs who will be so
grateful when the icy winds blow.

Of course some small dogs have

thick hairy coats of their own and
dont need anything more, but there
are several little fellows with very
thin ones who feel the cold very
much and to buy them proper cloth
coats costs quite a lot of of money.

Then there is always the chance that

one day Little Fido will take it into his
head to have a good roll in the mud
and his beautiful coat with his smart
braid will be a sad sight. But if he
wears a a woolly jumper you can just
tell him what you think of his naughty
ways, pop the jumper in the wash tub
and out it comes as good as new.

Semantic Field and

assumption

Many girls (group) can knit (traditional feminine

activity) dolls (traditional feminine toys (+the whole
semantic field of knitting: knit, needle, stitches, purl
drop, stocking stitch, cast off etc., extends the
assumption, i.e. the implication is that the text
interpreter knows how to do all this ) hence the
readers type of femininity is constructed as someone
to whom knitting and washing comes naturally and is
expected to do it.
You can always pop the jumper in the wash tub
Fellow, he, his (male dogs) beneficiaries of the action
Even if you have not done much knitting (but some,
yes, the assumption of a minimal knowledge)

Let the jumper over cover his ribs,

but do not let it get in his way
underneath
and
make
him
uncomfortable. A little Lady dog can
have more length left under her
tummy.

Contemporary sexual identity

contstruction: Kiss this!
This conveys an apparently a
diametrically opposed femminine
identity;
Apparently a more symmetrical
relationship between TP and TI.
The text producer uses the language of
the Text Interpreter community slang,
informal language.

Classic womens language

vagueness;
Naughty, not quite nibbles
But apart from this the text would
appear to encourage a much less
traditionally feminine and more
assertive kind of femmininity on the
part of text interpreters.

McGloughlin, however, warns against

complacency (101)
Why?
Firstly, The text is characterised by
imperatives, which firmly tell the text
interpreters what to do (for whose
benefit is not clear) in order to
embody a particular kind of femininity.

Typically of the ambiguous discourse

found in magazines, this
recommendation to do only what you
are happy with contrasts with the overall
discourse of the text, which suggest that
it is by using the snogging techniques it
lists it is likely to make the you, that is
the text interpreter, happy, precisely
because it is likely to please the lad.

Construction of ambivalent
femmininity
The kind of femininity achieved would
seem to depend on the ability to provide
pleasure. Interestingly all the processes
mentioned are processes material , in
which the lad is the beneficiary.
There are few processes mental in this is
version of femininity (the text interpreter is
invited to be an actor), which are normally
used to register emotional or physical
pleasure for the Senser.

Further ambivalence
Another example of this ambivalent
discourse is to be found in the nose
section, where the reader is advised to
spray some perfume on. This is followed by
the concession that your own personal smell
can be quite alluring, though we see that
this not a personal smell, but it is a product
baby powder or a Boots roll on, so the
personal smell is subtly associated with
cheap products. One wonders if there was a
feature on perfumes in the same issue.

Dominant/resistant readings
[] discourse encourages dominant
readings, while acknowledging the
potential for resistant readings and
textual ambiguity. I will attempt to point
to the potential for ambiguous or multiple
readings, and even examples where
ambiguity is an effect which serves the
dominant ideology of the magazine.
Bethan Benwell 2002.