Week 6 Language and Gender

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Week 6Language and Gender

• Tyler Schnoebelen
• Kyuwon Moon

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Big themes

• These chapters talk a lot about moves and
  positioning
• This connects to the course theme about gender
  (and other constructs) being something we do.
• Were walking that tightrope between agency (if
  youre going to talk about moves, someone is
  making em) and social structure (constraints,
  prior positionings)

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An alternate universe
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Agency

• Quick follow-up
• You can think of agency as the ability to do
  things in the world. The important thing is that
  it happens relative to larger social structures.
• People (agents!) can do a lot of stuff, but
  social structures are everywhere, so a
  super-agentive theory (Up With People) still
  has to figure out what the constraints are, where
  they come from, how people interact with them.

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Agency and

• Agency, intention, and consciousness
• I didnt mean/intend it!!
• Because you use dude and occasionally say that
  is so gay!, you are a male chauvinist pig?
• Indexical field
• The meanings are out there, and we only have an
  access to it (although we are all participating
  in meaning making processes).
• Doesnt have to be an intentional or conscious
  move

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Face

• Positive face
• We, affiliation with others
• Getting approval, building belonging
• (We like each other)
• Negative face
• I, a separate individual
• Carving out a space
• (I deserve respect, you shouldnt impose too
  much, I have needs)

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Face-threatening Acts

• Inevitable component in social interactions
• Negative Face-threatening Acts
• When speakers/hearers do not avoid disrupting
  their interlocuters freedom of action.
• Positive Face-threatening Acts
• When the speakers/hearers do not care about their
  interlocuters feelings.

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So, what?

• Face positive and negative
• the basic wants in any social interaction
• Importance of cooperation in interaction
• Universality of Face?

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Politeness

• Positive politeness
• To minimize the threat to the hearers positive
  face
• Admiration, playfulness, familiar terms of
  address
• Negative politeness
• To emphasize avoidance of imposition on the
  hearer
• Showing respect/deference (not quite the same)
• Apologies, thanking, formal terms of address

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Tag questions

• Epistemic modal (uncertainty)
• She was behind the 2-meter line, wasnt she?
• Facilitative
• That was amazing acting, wasnt it?
• Softening
• You didnt have right of way, did you?
• Challenging
• You designed this software for you not your
  users, didnt you?

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Tag question questions

• Which ones of those are actually weak?
• What else do they do?
• Is it gender? Powerlessness?
• Do you create weakness for yourself? Can you
  really be more assertive?

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Hedges and discourse particles

• Hedges probably, sorta
• Discourse particles You know, of course
• These arent really about content, but
  positioning.
• (Things are very rarely empty, as we keep
  seeing.)

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Intersections

• Okay, weve got the following things in the mix
  (and a lot more). How do they interact with the
  idea of politeness?
• Gender
• Social class
• Culture

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Other stuff
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Typology of speech acts

• Know about performative speech acts
• I now declare you husband and wife.
• But probably worry less about the others
• Locutionary acts
• Normal speech/writing
• Illocutionary acts
• Promise, invite, praise
• Perlocutionary acts
• Persuade, frighten, comfort, impress

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Affective/instrumental speech

• Affective
• How sad, Damn it, What ___ they are
• Instrumental
• The hippo is the most dangerous mammal in
  Africa
• But really, all speech is both

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Chapter 5 examples

• All of these mark relationships between speakers.
  What are the similarities and differences in how
  they work?
• Terms of address (boy, miss, Dr.)
• French tu/vous
• Japanese honorifics (verb forms, o- suffix, wa/zo
  particles)

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