The “Female Deficit” approach
There are different approaches to explanation of cross-sex differences. The female deficit approach to language and gender studies can be traced as far back as the early 1920s when Otto Jespersen devoted a chapter of his influential book “Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin” (1922) to “The Woman”. In this chapter he claims that women in a number of cultures throughout the world exhibit speech patterns which differ from those of men and that these differences derive from differences in biological make-up. Among the features of “women’s speech” Jespersen notes that
· women have less extensive vocabularies than men
· they use simpler sentence constructions
· they speak with little prior thought.
In other words , women’s speech was held to be deficient when compared with the male “norm”. O. Jespersen’s ideas remained unchallenged within the field of linguistics for nearly half a century, even though most of his evidence comes from art, literature rather than from real-world behaviour.
In 1973 Robin Lakoff published her important article “Language and Women’s Place” and the language researchers returned to an examination of differences between men’s and women’s speech. R.Lakoff’s work was highly influential for a number of years but now it has been discredited because R.Lakoff, like O.Jespersen, subscribes to the female deficit theory as she views women’s speech as weak in comparison with men’s speech. She, like O.Jespersen, relies on literary texts for her data.
However, unlike O.Jespersen, R.Lakoff is sympathetic to women and says that women’s deficient speech patterns are not the result of inherent biological or mental deficiency but rather of differential experience. She believes that men’s greater power in society may be a factor in woman’s weaker use of language.
A sampling of women's speech features, per Lakoff (1973)
● Heavy use of "tag questions"
R.Lakoff claims that women use more structures such as, "That sounds OK, doesn't it?" than men. The little questions which women often "tag onto" the ends of statements have the effect, R.Lakoff says, of diminishing the force of the statement; in addition, they convey a lack of confidence, or even a lack of personal opinions or views, on the part of the speaker.
● Question intonation on statements
R.Lakoff maintains that women often end statements with the rising intonation which is characteristic of questions rather than with the falling intonation which characterizes assertions. The effect of "question intonation" is similar to that of tag questions, in that it turns utterances into questionable propositions rather than definitive statements.
● “ Weak'' directives
According to R.Lakoff, women tend to frame directives or commands as requests rather than direct commands. For example, women are more likely to get someone to close an open door by saying "Would you mind shutting the door?" than by saying "Shut the door!" Requests, R.Lakoff maintains, carry less authoritative force than directives which are framed as imperatives.