Dominance Theory
Definition
Dominance Theory is concerned with the imbalance of power in a conversation between both sexes, and the power in the conversation will belong to the man. It is said that women’s language is powerless which maintains their subordinate position within society whereas male dominance is preserved in their language. The theory suggests that in conversations between men & women, men are more likely to interrupt than women. The first evidence collected that supports this was done by Zimmerman & West. They concluded from 31 extracts of conversation that men were more likely to interrupt than women because women only interrupted twice compared to the 46 interruptions made by men. Dale Spender, one of the main theorists for dominance, used the data from
Zimmerman & West to say that men interrupt to sustain male dominance in conversation.
Techniques used
Other techniques that are associated with the way different genders speak are techniques such as tag questions. It is believed that women are more likely to use tag questions in conversation than men. Lakoff believed that this showed hesitation and that women were insecure during a conversation. Also, Fishman believed that men speak for twice as long as women. Christie also suggested that there are gender differences in the pragmatics of public discourse.
Lakoff provides a list of ten linguistic features that characterizes a woman’s language. These are the use of hedges or fillers in conversations. Lakoff also believed that women used more tag questions, declaratives and interrogatives. She stated that women use more ‘empty’ adjectives such as “cute” and “charming” and that women will use specific colour terms such as “magenta” whilst a man will say it’s “purple”. Women will use more intensifiers such as “so”, “hyper correct” grammar and “super polite” forms such as euphemisms. The other two things that Lakoff found characterize women’s speech was the avoidance of swear words and stressing particular words mostly adjectives when they are speaking.
Texts Where These Techniques Are Evident
Jody: Do you want ice cream?
Andy: Before lunch?
Ian: Not me, no. I’ll have some after.
Jody: I always feel like //
Ian: // You go ahead.
Jody: No?
Ian: (…?…) totally opposite
Jody: Yes, [no]?
Andy: [Is] it self-serve?
Jody: Yes.
Andy: Get me a small dish. Thanks.
Ian: So on Monday I have to go and pick up my airline ticket in the morning
Jody: [Uh huh]
Ian: and then I’ll come over after I pick that up. Will that be okay?
Jody: Yea…What time is it? I mean…what time is the //
Ian: // anytime in the morning. They’re there from eight o’clock. What time are the movers gonna come?
Jody: Ten o’clock
Ian: Okay…well…
Jody: I think //
Ian: // I’ll just pick up my things at about…at about…uh eight thirty or nine. That should be alright.
Jody: Do you have a private class on Monday?
Ian: No…Wednesday and Friday.
Jody: Okay. I like the purple.
Ian: Yea.
Jody: Ice cream. Yea.
Andy: Grape?
Jody: Is it grape?
Andy: What else is purple?
Ian: Baskins and Robbins licorice ice cream is purple…yeah.
Jody: [Mmm]
Ian: It’s yummy, too.
Jody: This is really nice. I brought some Korean teachers…some middle school teachers here and some people were eating this. It looked really good.
Ian: That’s right…yea.
Jody: We didn’t order it at the time but I’m thinking we should’ve.
Ian: Yea…we’re wishing we’d ordered it.
Jody: Who is it you’re calling?
Ian: The phone company to cancel my phone.
Jody: I should really (…?…) Ummm…cancel your phone?
Ian: Yea.
Jody: I have to give //
Ian: // It’s laying on my mind
Techniques Used in the Text:
- Jodie asked more questions in the extract
- Jodie used back channel agreement
- The boys interrupted Jodie more than she interrupted them
- Jodie used clocked imperatives & mitigated imperatives
Real Life Texts
This particular text is from a website where a couple, an Agony Aunt and Agony Uncle, where instead of working together to come up with advice from the both of them they each give their own advice as individuals. Not only are there obvious differences in their advice but there are also differences in the language they each use.
In terms of the context, Agony Aunt seems to be giving Tim some genuine advice without being too judgemental which is the complete opposite to Agony Uncle who opens his response in a mocking way, “ You’re ‘kind of’ having an affair?” and this continues throughout his response, “Why on earth as your parents arranging a marriage for you?”
In the Agony Aunt’s Response she used more words from a low frequency lexis such as “quandary” and “intrigue” whereas Agony Uncle used more colloquial phrases like when he referred to Tim as “dude” and the women as “chicks”. Also, Agony Uncle uses the acronym “WTF” and the F stands for an expletive which is more commonly used in male language. Agony Uncle also uses idioms to emphasise his point such as “fly the coop”. He also uses an idiom when telling Tim that he “didn’t have the balls to step up to the plate” could be considered a face threatening act and it is stereotypically a man who would threaten someone’s face.
It is possible that the purpose of this type of advice column could be to give sincere advice to someone through the Agony Aunt but also become more popular with the advice from Agony Uncle as his advice seems to be more entertaining than helpful which is suggested in his advice to Tim to use the “eenie meeny miny mo approach for ease”. On the other hand, this type of advice could just be done purely for advice but in a non-standard way with two sides - the advice you want to hear in a kind way and the naked truth phrased in a very harsh way.
Bibliography
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