Tannen's Difference Approach
Tannen suggested that there are 6 contrasts between men and women:
Status Vs Support
Independence Vs Intimacy
Advice Vs Understanding
Information Vs Feelings
Order Vs Proposal
Conflict Vs Compromise
Tannen came up with these 6 contrasts, and implied that the words down the left side are all typical male traits.
- Status - Males see conversation as competitive, they need to be the dominant person in conversation whereas women seek support and guidance
- Independence - Men focus on seeming not reliant on someone else - concerned with status and whether they seem strong whereas women appreciate support from other people, show intimacy
- Advice - Men revolve around wanting to solve an issue instead of a woman's objective of showing understanding and sympathy for an issue
- Information - Men are interested in the facts and figures of an issue, whereas a woman is more concerned about the well being of other people and how they feel
- Order - Men prefer using/hearing direct imperatives to do something whereas women use cloaked imperatives and often positive face to hide the fact they are using a command
- Conflict - Men seem to not be phased of the conflict between people and will happily state their opinion, whereas women are more likely to hide away their opinion to please others
Despite these observations and suggestions that Tannen has made, it is not to say that these apply to all situations. There will be males and females who do not adhere to these expectations and will be the complete opposite to what we would think.
Yes - contrast Tannen with Cameron's idea of 'doing' gender and context-based speech.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that Tannen put the male part of the pairing first (as we often do in collocations such as Mr and Mrs, Lords and Ladies - but not Ladies and Gentlemen, interestingly) and you have defined the female against the male half - it just shows how much androcentrism there still is in language because it is subconscious but perpetuated through these means.
Check fazed/phased. I've never heard 'comply to' only 'comply with' or 'adhere to'.
Keep up the good revision.