[7] The early studies on the notion of language and gender are combined into the fields of linguistics, feminist theory, and political practice.
These researches were related to the women's liberation movement, and their goal was to discover the linkage between language usage and gender asymmetries.
[11] Descriptions of women's speech as deficient can actually be dated as far back as Otto Jespersen's "The Woman", a chapter in his 1922 book Language: Its Nature and Development, and Origin.
The "dominance approach" (see below) is considered a refinement of the deficit model, positing that perceived gendered 'deficits' result from power differences in society.
[18] Dominance is an approach whereby women are seen as the subordinate group whose difference in style of speech results from male supremacy and also possibly an effect of patriarchy.
They argue how, in the past, philosophers, politicians, grammarians, linguists, and others were men who have had control over language, so they entered their sexist thoughts in it as a means to regulate their domination.
Deborah Cameron notes that throughout the history of scholarship on language and gender male-associated forms have been seen as the unmarked norm from which the female deviates.
However, the men working in this call center do not orient to the covertly gendered meanings when they are tasked to perform this emotional labor.
While this does not mean that the 'woman's language' is revalued, nor does this necessarily call for a feminist celebration, Cameron highlights that it is possible that with time, more men may work in this service industry, and this may lead to a subsequent "de-gendering" of this linguistic style.
[27] Direct indexicality is the primary relationship between linguistics resources (such as lexicon, morphology, syntax, phonology, dialect and language) and gender.
[8] As these norms are the results of the present hierarchy in society, doubting them leads to challenging the social orders which originate these patterns.
As femininity and masculinity are not fixed concepts, their style of talking can also be a result of power relations in society regulating social standards.
[3] In each society, the notion of gender is learned from early childhood through conversation, humour, parenting, institutions, media, and other ways of imparting knowledge.
As people use language concerning these norms, it plays a vital role in manifesting and sustaining social standards[30] and can be a tool for reproducing power relations and gender oppression.
The other form of speech is submissive which many people assume is the female voice which consists of indirectness, politeness, and a focus on the listener's needs.
[36] Men generally use them less frequently than women, and when they do, it is usually to show agreement, as Don Zimmerman and Candace West's study of turn-taking in conversation indicates.
For example, "minimal responses appearing "throughout streams of talk", such as "mm" or "yeah", may only function to display active listening and interest and are not always signs of "support work", as Fishman claims.
They can—as more detailed analysis of minimal responses show—signal understanding, demonstrate agreement, indicate scepticism or a critical attitude, demand clarification or show surprise.
[43] According to Bruce Dorval in his study of same-sex friend interaction, males tend to change subject more frequently than females.
[48] Deborah Tannen's work argues that men and women have different views of self-disclosure, that women have a tendency toward self-disclosure, i.e., sharing their problems and experiences with others, often to offer sympathy,[49] which contrasts with men's tendencies to non-self disclosure and professing advice or offering a solution when confronted with another's problems.
[50] While there are some gendered stereotypes and expectations about self-disclosure, other research shows that people have the ability to still self disclose very clearly regardless of masculine or feminine communication traits.
Similarly, researchers asked heterosexual couples who had just begun dating to complete a self-disclosure measure and to answer the same questionnaire four months later.
[56] In one study, Underwood followed 250 third-graders and their families in order to understand how anger is communicated in relationships, especially in face-to-face and behind-the-back situations.
"[55] In a study done measuring cartoon character's aggressive acts on television, these statistics were found:[57] In a conversation, meaning does not reside in the words spoken, but is filled in by the person listening.
[37] Men, however, interrupt far more frequently with non-related topics, especially in the mixed sex setting and, far from rendering a female speaker's responses minimal, are apt to greet her conversational spotlights with silence, as the work of Victoria DeFrancisco demonstrates.
Men on the other hand, will place a higher priority on power, their communication styles will reflect their desire to maintain their status in the relationship.
In male-dominated fields, such as politics,[66] women employ a balance of masculine and feminine behaviors to appear both competent and likable to an audience of male peers.
[67] In a study that reviewed speeches given by female members of the United States Congress throughout the 2010s, congresswomen performed masculine verbal behavior (i.e., accusations, attacks on character) similarly to male members of Congress, but congresswomen performed more feminine non-verbal behaviors (i.e., smiling, facial expressions, varied tone of voice) compared to their male counterparts.
Mulac et al. collected data for 37 language variables, from which they determined the thirteen that showed significant differences between usage by male and female characters.
[73][74] Within the context of US and English-speaking trans and gender diverse communities, linguistic features at various levels, whether phonetic features (e.g., pitch and /s/ production),[75][76][77] lexical items (e.g., body part names and pronouns),[78][79][80] and semiotic systems (e.g., linguistic and aesthetic style),[81] have been shown to be important resources for naming trans identities and for constructing and communicating these identities to the world.