Language & gender theorists.

DEFINES GENDER AS - 'the term used to descrive socially constructed categories based on sex'                    Assimilation - in professions and politics take on male values e.g deeper voices,swearing,assertive style,prosodic features (falling not rising) , expolot use of non-standard accents,interpersonal skills,negotiate conflict/good social relations. 

women use prestige english more than men do, men tend to reflect the charactertistics of stigmatic english. 

prestige - sophisticated pronounciation,strategy for protecting face of powerless speakers,girls adoapt to prestige norms more easily in school (lesly milroy) 

Womens speech is closer to standard, because women are less ffiecient at enforcing venacular norms in the tightknit networks to which they belong 

Stigma - vernacular,useing non-standrd forms , they signal solidarity with eachother,use vernacular with teachers to display  hostility, mean connet in more ways than women (multiplex) 

coaters (1989) - female single sex discourse 'hedges used to prevent intimate talk from being too face threatening ' 

'women are the experts at euphemism' 

overlapping - women tend not to do this , whereas men do in mixed conversations                                          interruptions- women tend not to do this, whereas men do in mixed conversations                                          verbosity - in relationships women talk more because they want to keep conversation going, and are less successful, men talk more on serious topics                                                                                                       silence - caused by women in mixed conversations, men use this more in male interactions - listening to the dominant                                                                                                                                                                minimal response - females indicating active listening in mixed conversation (support for speaker),( indicates who has power/powerlessness) fishman 1980                                                                                    delayed minimal response- women tend not to do this, whereas men do in mixed conversation to indicate lack of interest.                                                                                                                                                       interaction based on power- (leet pellegrini 1980) males speakers who are well informed tend to dominate interaction based on power                                                                                                                                   interaction based in co-operation - female speaks prefer interactional style based on solidarity & support ( pellegrini 1980, coates 1991)                                                                                                                                 

Jeperson published a set of ideas about women's language in the book : Language:its nature,development and origin - they included ; 

women talk alot ,                                                                                                                                         women use half-finished sentences as they do not think before they speak,                                             women link sentences with and because it is more emotional rather than grammatical,                                 Adjectives pretty and nice are used excessively,                                                                                               use adverbs too much and tend toward hyperbole,                                                                                     small vocab in comparison to men, novels written by women are easier to read and less complex,     women speak foreign languages better but men could prove superior in a test of translating a text                women shrink away from coarse and gross expressions                                                                                    women have a preference 'for veiled and indirect expressions' preventing them from being as effective as men                                                                                                                                                                        Men are responsible for introducing new words into the language                                                                     There is a danger of language becoming insipid if we are to content ourselves with women's expressions.

Wow ! what a **** (: