{"id":706,"date":"2010-06-06T22:00:25","date_gmt":"2010-06-06T20:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=706"},"modified":"2010-05-11T14:23:13","modified_gmt":"2010-05-11T12:23:13","slug":"women-men-and-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=706","title":{"rendered":"Women, men and language"},"content":{"rendered":"
Women, men and language<\/strong>. By Jennifer Coates<\/strong>. 3rd edn. Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2004. Pp. xi, 245. ISBN 0582771862<\/a>. $43.<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Elizabeth Grace Winkler<\/a><\/strong>, Western Kentucky University<\/em><\/p>\n

Jennifer Coates begins by deftly describing the history of gender research. She traces the change from the deficit\/dominance approach in which women\u2019s language was compared to men\u2019s and found deviant, to more positive approaches that viewed differences in women\u2019s language as reflecting different conversational goals. Recently, a broad-based approach looks at gender less as a biological binary divide than as a social construct; in other words, that gender is something we do rather than something we are.<\/p>\n

The second chapter provides a linguistic background of \u2018scholarly\u2019 writing on women\u2019s language going back hundreds of years on diverse topics such as differences in pronunciation and grammar, levels of literacy, and use of obscenity. Ch. 3 takes a historical look as well, yet from the viewpoint of anthropologists and dialectologists. C points out that the focus of these studies was frequently on variation in \u2018primitive\u2019 cultures, with little understanding that the same studies could have been done on their own cultures.<\/p>\n

Chs. 4 and 5 analyze structural differences between women\u2019s and men\u2019s speech, specifically differences in grammar, pronunciation, and lexicon. Ch. 5 briefly looks at the importance of social networks in explaining structural variation and for evaluating why speakers in a network vary in their usage of particular forms.<\/p>\n

In Ch. 6, C artfully discusses stylistic differences in approaches to creating meaning, for example, offering and accepting apologies and compliments, using questions and hedges, as well as swearing and gossiping. Ch. 7 focuses on how dominance in mixed-gender conversations contributes to differing approaches to turn-taking and interrupting. Ch. 8 shifts to same-sex talk and how turn-taking and question usage, along with the use of minimal responses and hedges, differ depending on whether participants are engaged in competitive or cooperative conversations.<\/p>\n

The final section of the book deals with the causes and consequences of doing gender. C surveys research on how children develop gendered ways of using language. In the final chapter, C shows how gender differences have consequences for everyone, not just in our social lives, but at school and at work as well.<\/p>\n

The changes made to this edition are significant enough to warrant a new review. In 1986, gender was conceptualized as binary, at least in the literature. This book encompasses a broader understanding, envisioning gender less as a physical property than \u2018as something we do\u2019 (vi.). This resulted in not just a more complex treatment of gender throughout the text, but also the addition of new chapters that reflect new directions in research, including an understanding of same-sex talk and conversational dominance, as well as gender at work.<\/p>\n

This text is an excellent choice for either an undergraduate or graduate class in gender. Every section is easily supplemented by the very studies C introduces. The text is quite accessible yet comprehensive in scope without being shallow in content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Women, men and language. By Jennifer Coates. 3rd edn. Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2004. Pp. xi, 245. ISBN 0582771862. $43. Reviewed by Elizabeth Grace Winkler, Western Kentucky University Jennifer Coates begins by deftly describing the history of gender research. She traces the change from the deficit\/dominance approach in which women\u2019s language was compared to men\u2019s and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=706"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":707,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions\/707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}