A PRAGMATIC APPROACH TO GENDER DIFFERENCES
IN CONVERSATION
By Shi Fang
A Thesis
Submitted to the Graduate School and College of English
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
the Degree of Master of Arts
Under the Supervision of Professor Li Jian
Acknowledgements
I feel greatly indebted to those who have helped me during various stages of my
graduate study. Without their encouragement and support, the completion of this thesis
would be impossible.
First and foremost,, my sincere thanks go to my supervisor, Professor Li Jian, who
has provided essential support, valuable advice, and constant assistance throughout the
thesis writing. I have gained inspiration from his profound knowledge, remarkable
expertise, and have profited so much from his guidance .The completion of this thesis is
inseparable from his instruction and kind help. His attainments and rigor in academic
research have inspired me throughout my research process and will exert a great
influence on my future career.
I am also grateful to all the conscientious and respectable teachers of the School of
English in Shanghai International Studies University, whose instructions and guidance
have made my two and a half years at this university a rewarding and unforgettable
experience.
Deep appreciation goes to a number of my classmates and friends who are
generous with their reference books and provide me with helpful advice.
Last but not least, I would like to extend my profound and utmost thankfulness to
my dear parents, whose unfailing support and deep love have always been my most
cherished treasure.
摘要
性别语言是指男性和女性所使用的具有性别特征的语言以及某一语言中用来
区别男性与女性的语言现象。这是一个受到语言学家广泛关注的课题，其研究几乎
涉及所有语言在不同语言学层面上体现出的性别差异。从 20 世纪初开始，大量国
外研究表明，性别因素以某种特定的方式在影响着人们的言语行为:男性讲话通常较
为直接，女性较为委婉;男性讲话以传递信息为主，女性以表达情感为主;男性讲话
语气显得坚决、肯定，女性讲话语调柔和，显示出一种征询对方意见的意向。
在社会语言学和语用学理论研究成果的基础上，本文主要对文学文本《简·爱》
中男女会话进行语用学分析。通过分析男女主人公在会话中对语用原则中的言语行
为理论，合作原则，礼貌原则，面子理论的遵守与违反，发现会话在语用学视角内
存在的性别差异。论证在会话中，男性与女性对于交际规约的遵守与违反各不相同，
他们采用不同策略，扮演不同角色。本文分析了会话中性别差异产生的原因，指出
这种差异主要是由男女不同的亚文化背景，社会权势和性别心理因素造成的。
本文还分析了男女在会话中的差异所带来一系列的负面影响。首先是女性在工
作中处于不利的地位。除了成长和教育背景等因素外，这与女性的会话方式有很大
的关系。例如女性喜欢运用问句和模糊语，给人的感觉是女性优柔寡断，没有主见，
没有魄力，不适于当领导。其次是导致异性交际的失误，影响男女话语交际的顺利
进行。为了克服会话中性别差异所带来的负面影响，本文提出了一些尝试性的建议。
关键词：
性别语言 言语行为理论 合作原则 礼貌原则 面子理论
Abstract
Male and Female languages refer to those which are usually used by men and
women or those which characterize gender differences. It is a widely studied subject and
the differences between male and female languages have been recorded in almost all
languages at all linguistic levels. Since the early 20th century, linguists have made
systematic studies on male and female linguistic distinctions and identified similar
tendencies: such as, men tend to make relatively direct speech while women make
comparatively indirect speech; men make status-oriented speech while women make
friendship-oriented speech. With a pragmatic approach, this thesis addresses the question
of male and female languages as reflected in conversations in the fictional text of Jane
Eyre.
Based on the theories of sociolinguistics and pragmatics, this thesis makes a
pragmatic study of gender differences in conversations. It intends to demonstrate how
women and men differ in observing or flouting such pragmatic principles: the Speech Act
Theory, the Cooperative Principle, the Politeness Principle and the Face Theory .The case
study of conversations between Jane and Rochester reveals that women and men adopt
different conversational strategies, and play different roles in speech interactions. This
thesis analyzes the reasons that cause gender differences in conversations: different
sub-cultures, social power, and psychological factors between females and males.
Furthermore, this thesis also makes an analysis on the negative effects caused by
gender difference. On the one hand, gender differences lead to females’ disadvantage in
work, which can be closely related to females’ speech styles. For example, females are
inclined to employ hedges which show they are indecisive, have no judgments of their
own, and are not qualified as a leader. On the other hand, gender differences cause
miscommunication in cross-gender conversations. And as for the negative effects
mentioned above, this thesis intends to develop some suggestions.
Key words:
male and female languages; the Speech Act Theory ;the Cooperative
Principle; the Politeness Principle; the Face Theory
Contents
1. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1
1.1The Objective of the Study .................................................................................................. 1
1.2 Literature Review ............................................................................................................... 2
1.2.1 General Review of the Study of Gender Differences in Language .......................... 2
1.2.2 Theories in Analyzing Gender Differences in Language ......................................... 3
1.2.2.1 Deficit Theory ............................................................................................... 3
1.2.2.2 Dominance Theory ....................................................................................... 4
1.2.2.3 Difference Theory ......................................................................................... 5
1.2.2.4 Conversation Analysis (C A) Theory ............................................................ 7
1.3 Organization of the Thesis .................................................................................................. 8
2. Analysis of the Framework ..................................................................................... 9
2.1 Speech Act Theory.............................................................................................................. 9
2.2 Cooperative Principle ....................................................................................................... 11
2.3 Politeness Principle........................................................................................................... 13
2.4 Face Theory ...................................................................................................................... 15
3. A case Study of Jane Eyre ...................................................................................... 17
3.1 Application of Speech Act Theory to Jane Eyre ............................................................. 18
3.1.1 How Women and Men Differ in Forms of Address ............................................... 18
3.1.2 How Women and Men Differ in Requesting.......................................................... 20
3.2 Application of CP to Jane Eyre ........................................................................................ 22
3.2.1 Application of Maxim of Quanity toMale and Female Languages ........................ 22
3.2.2 Application of Maxim of Relevance to Male and Female Languages ................... 23
3.3 Application of PP to Jane Eyre ......................................................................................... 24
3.3.1 Complying with and Violating the Tact Maxim and Generosity Maxim (in
Impositives and Commissives) ....................................................................................... 24
3.3.2 Complying with and Violating the Approbation Maxim and Modesty Maxim ..... 26
3.3.3 Complying with and Violating the Agreement Maxim and Sympathy Maxim...... 28
3.4 Application of Face Theory to Jane Eyre ......................................................................... 29
4. Implication .............................................................................................................. 32
4.1 Causes of Gender Differences .......................................................................................... 32
4.1.1 The Factor of Historic Influence ............................................................................ 32
4.1.2 The Factor of Religion ........................................................................................... 35
4.1.3 The Factor of Social Influence............................................................................... 36
4.1.4 The Factor of Physiological Differences ............................................................... 38
4.2 Result of Gender Differences ........................................................................................... 40
4.2.1 Being Inferior in Work Position for Women .......................................................... 40
4.2.2 Miscommunication ................................................................................................ 41
4.3 Suggestions ....................................................................................................................... 43
5 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 46
5.1 Summery of the Study ...................................................................................................... 46
5.2 Significance of the Study .................................................................................................. 47
5.3 Suggestions for Further Study…………………………………………………………….47
Reference
1. Introduction
The relationship between language and gender has long been a fascinating issue.
Strictly speaking, a systematic study of language and gender started at the birth of
sociolinguistics in the 1960s. Besides linguists, scholars in anthropology, folklore,
psychology, child development, education, sociology, speech communication, history and
literature have contributed a lot to this area. At the beginning, linguists have just made a
static study on gender differences in language, and the early research is mainly interested
in lexical, phonological and morphological differences between females and males. Later
on ,with the quick development of linguistics scholars begin to make a dynamic
investigation into gender differences in language use , studying females’ and males’
different speech styles and strategies in conversations and exploring the principles that
people observe and roles that people play in social interaction. Furthermore, the 44th
International Linguistic Association held in New York University of America in April
1999, took language and gender as the central issue, indicating that gender differences
have already become an important research issue of modern linguistics.
1.1The Objective of the Study
As the title of this thesis indicates, it deals with the issue of male and female
languages from a pragmatic perspective. Sociolinguists have been devoted to the
relationships between language and gender, the reasons for the origin of the gender
differences in language and the relevant variables, such as social status, power, age and
education. And this research is an inquiry that falls into the fields of sociolinguistics and
pragmatics.
This thesis will adopt a pragmatic approach to cross-gender conversations in the
fiction Jane Eyre. The first objective of the present research is to analyze how females
and males vary in observing or violating pragmatic principles: the Speech Act Theory,
the Cooperative Principle, the Politeness Principle, and the Face Theory. All the analysis
of relationship between language and gender are expected to demonstrate how women
and men differ in language use, how the differences generate and ultimately affect
women’s and men’s social positions, their economic and political achievements, and even
their stereotyped personalities and perceived identities. At last, it explores the possible
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ways to minimize the negative effects of gender differences in language.
1.2 Literature Review
1.2.1 General Review of the Study of Gender Differences in Language
The first linguist who studies gender differences is Jespersen, a Danish linguist.
Jespersen discusses the characteristics of women’s language and points out gender
differences in vocabulary and syntax. Firstly, Jespersen finds out that vocabulary used by
females is quite different from that used by males: females use more euphemistic
expressions and less swears than males (Thorne and Henley 1975). He also points out
that males are easier to accept innovations of language but females aren’t, and he
considers that females are more conservative than males in language use. Secondly,
Jespersen also points out that in the aspect of syntax males use more compound
sentences than females which leads a conclusion that males are more intelligent than
females. Jespersen regards that English is the most masculine language that he have
known (Dai 1983).
A systematic study on gender differences has been undertaken since the 1960s
because of the progress of sociolinguistics and the development of feminist social
movement in the west. Gender, emerging as an important variable in sociolinguistics,
together with the relationship between language and gender, has attracted more attention
and been widely discussed by more and more scholars. In the 1970s, many
sociolinguists , such as Lakoff, Thorne ,Henley, Trudgill and Zimmerman, push the
research of language and gender a big step forward. It is linguist Lakoff who begins the
research of the definitive feature of females’ speech, for example, the use of (super)
polite forms, questions, tag questions, and so on(Crawford 1995).
Recent studies have demonstrated significant conversational differences between
females’ and males’ use of such features as interruptions, polite forms, turn-taking,
linguistic hedging devices, verbosity, all of which are parts of communicative
competence. Though the fact that females and males differ in terms of their
communicative competence is now widely accepted as a linguistic phenomenon, how to
explain such gender differences in communication remains a problem (Coates and
Cameron 1988). Different researchers have different views on the explanations of gender
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differences in communication. The first claim holds that females and males are
biologically different ,hence this difference causes gender differences in language use.
The second claim emphasizes the importance of stereotypes in shaping these gender
differences in interaction. Traditionally, people hold different stereotypes for females and
males. Females are likely to be characterized as more gentle, neat, emotional, sensitive
and tactful than males, while males are more likely to be characterized as active,
competitive, aggressive, dominant, and self-confident (Atwater 1983: 161; Cannary and
Dindia 1998: 73).
The first scholar who makes an academic study of gender differences in Chinese is
Zhao Yuanren. He notices the potential gender differences in phonetics and tones(1956),
but it is not until the 1980s that the real linguistic study of gender differences begins.
Most of the achievements are made in introduction and analytical comparison of male
and female languages in English. In 1980, Chen Yuan published his Language and Social
Life, in which an entire chapter was devoted to “Language and Society”. The research of
the relationship between language and gender has taken on a new look since the 1990s.
By utilizing the theories and methods of sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics,
cross-cultural communication, and pragmatics, linguists lucubrate into how women and
men make use of language effectively to achieve communicative purpose.
1.2.2 Theories in Analyzing Gender Differences in Language
The major models on language and gender studies in some English-Speaking
countries in the past 30 years include those of deficit, dominance, difference, and
conversation analysis. Some of them oppose one another, whereas others overlap in their
views. Still others are new and creative, quite different from the traditional views. To
make a better study of sexism in the English language, it is necessary to employ some
theories.
1.2.2.1 Deficit Theory
R. Lakoff, the representative of the deficit theory, reflects her views in her
influential work Language and Women’s Place, which is published in the 1970s. She
argues that language reflects the social stipulations and plays the role of strengthening
the social stipulations as well. The different language use between male and female
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reveals their different social roles. Gender differences in language use express the
inequality of social positions held by the two genders. Lakoff (1986: 409) argues: the
inequality in language cannot be removed as long as the inequality in social status and power still
exists. In the masculine society, the conversational style of males is regarded be the norm,
while the females’ style is considered disobedience and departure to the norm. That is to
say, we should realize the fact that being a female is some kind of deficit, departure to the
norm.
Lakoff also believes that the unique conversational style for females comes into
being when they are young. The deficit of female language is the result of socialization
of gender roles. She proposes that, in the field of academe, there is no obvious difference
between the two genders’ language use. And sometimes, they even use the same
language. She explains this is not because the males and females in academic field enjoy
the same social environment, but because they play the same or similar roles, and have
the same knowledge on the social and psychological environment they live in.
Meanwhile, Lakoff emphasizes that the reform of gender differences in language use is
not aimed to transform the language to the male’s style, but to the neutral. Pitifully, in
fact, when the differences between gender roles become vague, generally, it is always the
female who tries to adopt the characteristics of male’s language and the case of reversal
is quite few. For example:
1) Oh dear, you’ve put the peanut butter in the refrigerator again.
Shit, you’ve put the peanuts butter in the refrigerator again.
It is safe to predict that people would classify the first sentence as part of
“women’s language”, the second as “men”s language”. It is true that many
self-respecting women are becoming able to use sentences like the second above publicly
without flinching, but women’s language is not being adopted by men. This is analogous
to the fact that men’s jobs are being sought by women, but few men are rushing to
become secretaries.
1.2.2.2 Dominance Theory
The scholars who hold the view of dominance theory are Zimmermari, West, and
Fishman(1975). They argue that women are in a social position of powerlessness, so they
are always passive and dominated in the language communication. The most typical
4
example among their investigation is that when females talk to males, males always
interrupt them. Besides, there is an obvious limitation to the topic choice and the amount
of talk of females. Their research shows that from the view of conversational styles and
strategies, male demonstrates a great dominance, tending to control the topic and talk
turn, and interrupting female’s talk constantly. Generally speaking, males get more
chances to speak and can master and control the process of the talk, whereas females
have fewer opportunities to speak, and while speaking, they cannot get their deserved
attention and response from males. When female’s speech is interrupted, what they adopt
is always being silent, instead of trying to recapture the speech right.
Owing to Brown and Gilman’s pioneering study in 1960s, and the subsequent
contributions of Friedrich (1972) and Brown and Levinson (1987), the concept of power
and solidarity becomes fundamental to sociolinguistic theory. Power is associated with
nonreciprocal forms of address: a speaker addresses another by title-last name but is
addressed by first name. Power governs asymmetric relationships where one is
subordinate to another; solidarity governs symmetric relationships characterized by
social equality and similarity. Although the relationship between power and solidarity
seems at first to be opposites, they also entail each other. Any show of solidarity
necessarily entails power, in that claiming similarity and closeness limits freedom and
independence. At the same time, any show of power entails solidarity by involving
participants in relation to each other.
The key to solving the puzzle of whether power or solidarity is primary is to be
symmetrical. If speaker A repeatedly overlaps and speaker B repeatedly gives the way,
the resulting communication is asymmetrical, and the effect is domination. But if both
speakers avoid overlaps, or both speakers overlap each other and win out equally, there is
symmetry and no domination. The dynamics of power and solidarity are also seen in the
tension between similarity and difference. Scollon (1982: 344-345)
explains that all
communication is a double bind because of the conflicting needs to be left alone and to
be accepted by the society. Becker (1982: 125) describles this double bind as “a matter of
continual self-correction between exuberance and deficiency.”
1.2.2.3 Difference Theory
The major view of difference theory is that males and females grow up in different
5
sub-cultural background and different process of socialization, so that they show
difference in language use. Through investigation, Goodwin (1980) proposes a viewpoint
that anastomoses to the view of folk linguistics, that is, the conversational style of males
makes a showy display of one’s abilities, and is full of competition, while the females is
full of skills of connotation, and tends to be cooperative.
Maltz and borker (1982) analyze the factors leading to gender differences in
language use from the angle of sub-culture of society. They believe that the American
males and females come from different sub-cultures of society, which make them possess
the different conversational styles respectively.
Tannan (1990) points out that because of the great differences in language using
habits, males and females coming from the same culture, living in the same society, and
speaking the same language are often involved into the conflicts and unpleasant matters
in the daily life. Tannan argues that what causes the different language using habits
between the two genders is the result of the different demands and expectations from
society on the two genders. Traditionally, males are regarded as powerful and always act
as the protector, while females are weak and need to be protected. Therefore, in the
process of socialization, according to the demands and expectations of society, males and
females cultivate their own speech characteristics coinciding with their respective social
roles. The major reflections of the conversational style are on the respects of the
preference of the speaker, the content and manner of the conversation.
Tannan finds, in the language communication, the males’ awareness of status is
always stronger. They are good at presenting themselves as the powerful side, and
presenting the tendency to compete with the opponents consciously or unconsciously.
While the females pay more attention to maintaining the good relationship with the
interlocutor. Therefore, the females’ speech is full of skills of connotation, and tends to
be cooperative. Besides, Tannen regards that as far as the content of conversation is
concerned, males generally put the stress on the exchange of information, the report of
the new information, the exchange of new situations, the purpose of their own
suggestions and viewpoints to the matter, and even the concrete solutions to the problems.
Generally speaking, males have a wider range of topics than females do, and mainly
concern in society, politics, current affairs, economy, sports and so on. Furthermore,
6
when the males are releasing news or describing something, they are generally inclined
to give the results but omit the details. If they find there is no new thing to talk about,
they often choose to keep silent.
The females’ content of conversation is different from that of males’ to a great
extent. They pay more attention to the interpersonal relationship. To them, the
participation in conversation itself is the exchange of feelings. What matters most is the
conversation itself but not what to talk. Through conversation, they try to build and
develop a good relationship with the interlocutors. As far as speech manner is concerned,
males tend to be dominant, while female appreciate to be interactive.
According to Tannen, the different speech characteristics of the two genders will
influence the communication between them, raise misunderstandings, and sometimes
even influence the affections between the couples. Because people are used to using their
own norms of language use to weigh up the interlocutors, without realizing the difference
between the norms of the two genders.
In Tannen’s opinion, it seems impossible to change drastically the different
language habits. But people can make some efforts to minimize or remove the
misunderstandings between them through careful observation.
1.2.2.4 Conversation Analysis (C A) Theory
Richard, Platt and Platt (2000: 106) define CA as “the analysis of natural conversation
in order to discover what the linguistic characteristics of conversation are and how conversation is
used in ordinary life”. According to Richard, Platt and Platt (2000), CA includes the study
of how speakers decide when to speak during a conversation (i.e, rules of turn-taking);
how the sentences of two or more speakers are related (for example the study of
adjacency pair); the different functions that conversation is used for (for example to
establish roles, and to communicate intimacy). CA is a rigorously empirical approach
which avoids premature theory construction (Levinson 1983: 286). The data of CA
consist of tape-recordings and transcripts of naturally occurring conversations.
Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1974) have established a model of turn-taking in
naturally occurring conversation. Based on the model, Zimmerman and West (1975)
analyze thirty-one tape-recorded conversations, ten of which take place between two
women, ten between two men, and eleven between one woman and one man.
7
Zimmerman and West (1975) examine two sorts of irregularities in the conversation:
overlap and interruption. They have found great differences between the single-gender
conversations and those of cross-gender ones. The results are that the ratio of
interruptions in conversation of men and women is all the same for single-gender, while
it is 4.36:1 for cross-gender conversations. Moreover, the results show that men rarely
interrupt each other in the single-gender conversations, but they frequently interrupt
women in the cross-gender conversations. The study suggests that men infringe women’s
right to finish a turn in cross-gender conversations while women are concerned not to
violate the men’s turn but to wait until they have finished (Coates 1993:107-110). Stokoe
and Smithson (2001) critically evaluate the conversation analytic approach to the study
of the links between gender and language from a feminist perspective, they suggest that a
CA approach produces a rich understanding of the links between the discourse and
gender.
1.3 Organization of the Thesis
Chapter 1 chiefly introduces the background of male and female languages and has
a brief review of foreign and domestic researches on male and female languages.
Chapter 2 demonstrates us some pragmatic principles used to analyze the
conversation between the different genders: Speech Act Theory, Cooperative Principle,
Politeness Principle and Face Theory.
Chapter 3 conducts a case study of Jane Eyre with the frame work built in
Chapter2 by analyzing conversations excerpted from the fiction.
Chapter4 concentrates on the discussion. It discusses the factors causing gender
differences and the consequences caused by the gender differences. And then it develops
suggestions.
Chapter 5 offers a conclusion. In this chapter it makes a summary of all the
chapters. Furthermore, it discusses the implications and the limitations of the present
study, and also develops the suggestions for the further study of this issue.
8
2. Framework Analysis
Based on studies in sociolinguistics, some scholars attempt to explore and interpret
gender differences from a pragmatic perspective, which focus on analyzing gender
differences in observing or violating pragmatic principles. Holmes (1995) has described
and analyzed different language forms of females and males by using Grice’s
Cooperative Principle, Leech’s Politeness Principle, Searle’s Indirect Speech Act Theory
and Brown and Levinson’s Face Theory, and he mainly focuses on the analysis on
females’ and males’ different uses of polite language forms. According to Holmes,
females use more hedges, rising tone, tag questions and so on, and they observe the CP
more often than males. Adopting a pragmatic approach , Bai Jiehong(2000) explores
gender differences in conversations, and she mainly concentrates her analysis on gender
differences in English Based on the theories of sociolinguistics and pragmatics, and the
achievements of former scholars, this thesis will also take the pragmatic approach to
study gender differences in conversations and will make a further analysis on gender
differences in observing or flouting the Speech act theory, CP, the PP, and the Face
Theory in fictional conversations. At first, let’s have a detailed look at the basic
pragmatic theories that this thesis employs.
2.1 Speech Act Theory
As for the Speech Act theory, the works of two scholars are particularly important:
J.L. Austin and J.R. Searle. Austin (1962: 145) defines speech acts as all things we do
with words when we speak. In other words, any production of words or of sentences is
considered as the performance of speech acts, which is the unit of linguistic
communication. For example, we use language to request, to pay compliments, to order,
to apologize, to complain, and so on. In Austin’s view, any speech act is composed of
three sub-sets, which a speaker can perform simultaneously in issuing an utterance:
locution, illocution, and perlocution. A locutionary act is the act of saying something; an
illocutionary act is an act performed in saying something; and a perlocutionary act is
performed by or as a result of saying something. So “Would you please turn the music
down?” is a question, but its illocution is a request. Austin proposes to cut them into five
groups in terms of their corresponding illocutionary forces: verdictives, exercitives,
9
commissives, behavitives and expositives. Requests that are put under executives, he
defines it as “excertives are the exercising of power, right, or influence.” (Austin,
1962:150).
Based on Austin’s classification, Searle’s (1969) first attempt is to compare and
contrast the conditions specified for the performance of an act: felicity conditions and
group acts into categories according to shared conditions. She distinguishes three types
of conditions: preparatory conditions, sincerity conditions and essential conditions, and
she also proposes to make a classification of illocutionary acts as: assertives, directives,
commissives, expressives, and declaratives. Her second attempt is to point out indirect
speech acts, in which she explains acts performed to mean more than what she says
literally. For example: a speaker may utter the sentence “Can you turn the music down?”
It is literally a question about the hearer’s ability to turn down the music, but it is actually
a request to the hearer to turn it down, therefore, a request is made by means of making a
question. In such a case, an illocutionary act is performed indirectly by way of
performing another. Searle (1969) also classifies conventional and non-conventional
indirect speech acts, and in her view, the chief motivation for indirectness in such cases is
politeness for the hearer.
In order to make a further study of various illocutionary acts, Searle (1969)
classifies speech acts in terms of felicity conditions: the prepositional content condition,
the preparatory condition, the sincerity condition, and the essential condition. These
conditions are necessary for the successful performance of a particular speech act. For a
request, the following felicity condition should be fulfilled.
Felicity conditions for requests (Searle, 1969: 235):
Conditions
Requests
Prepositional content
future event X
Preparatory
1. S believes H can do A
2. It is not obvious that H would do A
without being asked
Sincerity
S wants H to do A
Essential
Counts as an attempt to get H to do X
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