Gender Differences in English Syntax (Linguistische Arbeiten) [1 ed.] 348430491X, 9783484304918

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Linguistische Arbeiten

491

Herausgegeben von Peter Blumenthal, Klaus von Heusinger, Ingo Plag, Beatrice Primus und Richard Wiese

Britta Mondorf

Gender Differences in English Syntax

Max Niemeyer Verlag Tübingen 2004

To Barbara, Dagmar, Fabienne and Rapha

D61 Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.ddb.de abrufbar. ISBN 3-484-30491-X

ISSN 0344-6727

© Max Niemeyer Verlag G m b H , Tübingen 2004 http://www.ri iemeyer. de Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Printed in Germany. Gedruckt auf alterungsbeständigem Papier. Druck und Einband: Digital PS Druck AG, Birkach

Table of Contents

1. Introduction 1.1. Subject of Investigation 1.2. Four Principles of Gender Differences in Language 1.3. Tag Questions 1.4. Adverbial Clauses 1.5. Structure of the Book

1 1 2 4 5 6

2. Theoretical Preliminaries and Hypotheses 2.1. Functional Syntax 2.1.1. Interpersonal Meaning 2.1.2. Epistemic Meaning 2.1.3. The Development of Epistemic Meaning 2.1.4. Epistemic Modality and Hedging 2.1.5. Position of Hedges 2.1.6. Positive and Negative Politeness 2.1.7. The Epistemic Contract 2.1.8. Presupposed and Asserted Material 2.2. Syntactic Variation 2.3. Theories of Gender Differences 2.3.1. Sex-Specific Socialisation Approaches 2.3.2. Reconstructed Psychoanalysis Theory and Developmental Psychology Approaches 2.3.3. Marxist-Inspired Theory 2.3.4. Intergroup Relations and Social Change Theory 2.3.5. Community of Practice Approach 2.3.6. Expectation States Theory 2.4. Hypotheses

7 7 7 8 9 10 12 13 14 17 20 22 23

3. Methodology 3.1. Statistical Testing in Previous Research 3.2. The Data 3.2.1. The London-Lund Corpus 3.2.2. Adaptation of the London-Lund Corpus for Sociolinguistic Purposes 3.2.3. Correction of Errors in the Corpus Description 3.2.4. Women's and Men's Contribution to the Data 3.3. Methodological Preliminaries 3.4. Tokens as Common Denominator 3.5. Significance Levels

35 35 36 36 37 38 39 41 42 43

4. Syntactic Variation According to Sex: Tag Questions 4.1. Definition of Tag Questions 4.2. Tag Questions According to Gender 4.2.1. Controversial Views and Contradictory Findings

44 44 47 47

25 26 26 28 28 30

VI

4.2.2. Corpus Analysis: Women's and Men's Overall Use of Tag Questions in the London-Lund Corpus 4.3. Formal Classification of Tag Questions 4.3.1. Tag Questions According to Sex and Formal Type 4.3.2. Tag Questions According to Sex and Tone: Upglides vs Downglides 4.3.3. Tag Questions According to Sex and Continuing vs Final Intonation 4.4. Functional Classifications of Tag Questions 4.4.1. Methodological Considerations in Functional Classifications of Tag Questions 4.4.2. Three-Fold Classification of Tag Questions According to Function: Holmes (1984), Cameron et al. (1988) 4.4.3. Four-Fold Classification of Tag Questions According to Function: Holmes (1990) 4.4.4. Five-Fold Classification of Tag Questions According to Function in the London-Lund Corpus 4.5. Summary 5. Syntactic Variation According to Sex: Finite Adverbial Clauses 5.1. Definition of Finite Adverbial Clauses 5.2. Syntactic Functions of Adverbial Clauses 5.2.1. Adjuncts and Disjuncts 5.2.2. Content and Style Disjuncts 5.3. Semantic Functions of Adverbial Clauses 5.3.1. Defining Finite Adverbial Causal Clauses 5.3.2. Defining Finite Adverbial Conditional Clauses 5.3.3. Defining Finite Adverbial Purpose Clauses 5.3.4. Defining Finite Adverbial Concessive Clauses 5.4. Adverbial Clauses According to Sex 5.4.1. Causal Clauses According to Sex 5.4.2. Conditional Clauses According to Sex 5.4.3. Purpose Clauses According to Sex 5.4.4. Concessive Clauses According to Sex 5.5. Bidirectionality of Adverbial Clauses 5.5.1. Preposed Adverbial Clauses 5.5.2. Postposed Adverbial Clauses 5.5.3. Adverbial Clauses without a Main Clause 5.5.4. Positioning of Finite Adverbial Clauses According to Sex 5.5.5. Positioning of Causal Clauses 5.5.6. Positioning of Conditional Clauses 5.5.7. Positioning of Purpose Clauses 5.5.8. Positioning of Concessive Clauses 5.5.9. Summary 5.6. Continuing and Final Intonation 5.6.1. Continuing Intonation 5.6.2. Final Intonation 5.6.3. Adverbial Clauses According to Intonation and Sex 5.6.4. Causal Clauses with Continuing and Final Intonation

49 51 51 54 57 58 58 62 66 68 75 76 76 77 77 77 78 79 79 80 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 88 89 90 91 94 96 99 99 100 100 103 104 107 111

VII 5.6.5. Conditional Clauses with Continuing and Final Intonation 5.6.6. Purpose Clauses with Continuing and Final Intonation 5.6.7. Concessive Clauses with Continuing and Final Intonation 5.6.8. Summary 5.7. Functional Differentiation of Adverbial Clauses 5.7.1. Delimiting Borderline Cases 5.7.2. Propositional, Conclusive and Speech-Act Domain in X-Bar Theory 5.7.3. The Relation between Final Intonation and Function 5.7.4. Causal Clauses According to Function 5.7.5. Conditional Clauses According to Function 5.7.6. Purpose Clauses According to Function 5.7.7. Concessive Clauses According to Function 5.7.8. Discussion

114 115 116 118 119 121 124 128 130 132 133 134 136

6. External Determinants Co-Extensive with Sex 6.1. Style 6.1.1. Style-Shift and Gender: Previous Research 6.1.2. Definition of Style 6.1.3. Style as Audience Design 6.1.4. Categorization of Styles 6.1.5. Finite Adverbial Clauses According to Sex and Style 6.1.6. Causal Clauses According to Sex and Style 6.1.7. Conditional Clauses According to Sex and Style 6.1.8. Purpose Clauses According to Sex and Style 6.1.9. Concessive Clauses According to Sex and Style 6.1.10.Tag Questions According to Style 6.2. Power 6.2.1. Finite Adverbial Clauses According to Sex and Power 6.2.2. Application Interviews 6.2.3. Tag Questions According to Sex and Power 6.2.4. Tag Questions According to Sex and Interactional Role 6.3. Group Composition 6.3.1. Previous Research Finding More Pronounced Sex Differences in Cross-Sex than in Same-Sex Interaction 6.3.2. Previous Research Finding More Pronounced Sex Differences in Same-Sex than in Cross-Sex Interaction 6.3.3. Adverbial Clauses in Same-Sex and Cross-Sex Conversations 6.3.4. Adverbial Clause Types in Same-Sex and Cross-Sex Conversations 6.3.5. Tag Questions in Same-Sex and Cross-Sex Conversations 6.4. Surreptitiousness 6.4.1. Adverbial Clauses According to Surreptitiousness 6.4.2. Causal Clauses According to Surreptitiousness 6.4.3. Conditional Clauses According to Surreptitiousness 6.4.4. Purpose Clauses According to Surreptitiousness 6.4.5. Concessive Clauses According to Surreptitiousness 6.4.6. Tag Questions According to Surreptitiousness 6.4.7. Summary 6.5. Other Factors

139 140 141 142 142 144 145 147 150 151 152 153 156 157 161 163 165 167 168 169 170 171 173 174 175 176 177 179 180 180 180 181

VIII

7. Explaining the Findings: Why Women and Men Talk Differently 7.1. Semantic Aspects Underlying the Gendered Distribution of Finite Adverbial Clauses 7.1.1. Women's Preference for Causal and Purpose Clauses 7.1.2. Men's Preference for Concessive Clauses 7.2. Positional Aspects Underlying the Gendered Distribution of Finite Adverbial Clauses 7.2.1. Women's Preference for Postposed Adverbial Clauses 7.2.2. Men's Preference for Preposed Adverbial Clauses 7.3. Gender and Tum-Allocation 7.4. Functional Aspects Underlying the Gendered Distribution of Tag Questions and Finite Adverbial Clauses 7.5. The Relation between Gender and other External Factors 7.5.1. Gender and Style 7.5.2. Gender and Power 7.5.3. Gender and Group Composition 7.5.4. Gender and Surreptitiousness 7.6. Implications of a Status Explanation of Gender Differences

183

8. Conclusion

197

References

199

183 184 185 186 186 187 188 189 192 192 193 194 195 195

1. Introduction1

While the past three decades have witnessed an upsurge in research on gender and language, empirical investigations of gender differences in the area of syntax are still at a premium. The objective of this book is to combine corpus-linguistic methodology with the theoretical framework of functional grammar in order to explore two areas of marked gender differences in syntax: tag questions and finite adverbial clauses. The quantitative and qualitative in-depth study of syntactic variation in the London-Lund Corpus (LLC) presented in this book not only introduces verifiable data on statistically significant gender differences, but also reconciles apparently contradictory results of studies on gender-differentiated language use conducted so far. The formal and functional analysis of tag questions and finite adverbial clauses in terms of pragmatic, semantic and cognitive aspects reveals a range of statistically significant gender differences as well as their interrelatedness with other external factors constituting the social or interactional context. A careful breakdown of the data according to a range of internal (semantic type, position, intonation, pragmatic function) and external (style, power, group composition and surreptitiousness) factors allows us to discern the underlying motivation for the observed sexdifferentiation in the use of symtactic devices. These differences concern • epistemic grounding strategies to convey the speakers' commitment towards the truth of the proposition expressed and - related to this - interpersonal meaning; and • turn allocation Crucially, for both sentential modalities (tag questions and adverbial clauses) women turn out to be prolific users of those syntactic constructions that signal a low degree of commitment towards the proposition expressed. By contrast, men favour those constructions that convey a higher degree of commitment. These different behaviours in taking up space for one's own subjective certainty are paralleled in the negotiation of floor-apportionment: women use more clausal completion signals than men, who in turn use more continuance signals. These results will be analysed from the perspective of the central tenets postulated in Expectation States Theory.

1.1. Subject of Investigation Formal and functional in-depth analyses of syntactic devices as they are used by the sexes2 are still at a premium. Although sex differences in syntax have been postulated for a wide 1 2

I wish to thank the series editor Ingo Plag for his veiy helpful comments on an earlier draft of the present book. "Sex refers to biological males and females distinguished by reproductive organs. Gender refers to feminine and masculine attributes and social roles" (Mann 1984). Gender, which is generally used for social categories based on sex and thus more appropriate, has the disadvantage of being employed as a technical term for a grammatical category in linguistics. In the present study both terms will be used where no ambiguity between the grammatical and social category can arise.

2 range of linguistic constructions,3 the evidence provided frequently suffers from being based on samples which on closer inspection turn out to be far too sketchy to be regarded as representative. A major shortcoming in research done so far resides in the insufficient functional differentiation of the constructions with respect to their semantic and pragmatic function. In addition, the samples themselves are often not sufficiently differentiated in terms of external factors which are closely interwoven with gender, so that results cannot unequivocally be attributed to the gender factor. In order to move beyond the mere postulation of results towards adequate explanations of gender differences in syntax both language-internal and external factors as well as their interrelatedness will be accounted for in the present volume. This assumes a thorough discussion of the epistemological requirements of the study of syntactic variation4 in terms of the data, the methodology and the theoretical preoccupation with the form-function polyvalence. It also requires a non-static conception of syntax as a locally managed and dynamic process, which is highly constrained by factors arising during the situated interactional event. The present empirical study investigates the gender-differentiated use of two syntactic constructions: tag questions and finite adverbial clauses. Both constructions are well traceable in a computerized database in that their formal indicators involve items of closed word classes. Additionally, both constructions are analysable in terms of the negotiation of floorapportionment by women and men. The various meaning relations expressed by tag questions and adverbial clauses provide a basis for extensive semantic and pragmatic analyses with respect to their ability to convey differential degrees of subjectivity, i.e. the representation of speakers' perspectives or points of view.

1.2. Four Principles of Gender Differences in Language

Within the disciplines of sociolinguistics and gender research there have been numerous studies with sometimes contradictory and disputable results.5 Nevertheless there are four general (and possibly related) tendencies discernible: While the first of these tendencies is well-established, the second still hosts numerable exceptions. The present book adds a third 3

E.g. tag questions, imperatives, interrogative sentences, grammatical case, subject verb concord, passive constructions and negative sentences (cf. Barron 1971, Lakoff 1975, Dubois and Crouch 1975, Cheshire 1982a, Thorne et al. 1983: 239f., Holmes 1990, Preisler 1986, Eisikovits 1987) 4 The question of whether it is theoretically and methodologically justified to extend the concept of variation to syntax has been widely debated (cf. Lavandera 1978; Dines 1980; Jacobson 1982; Romaine 1984; Winford 1984; Cheshire 1987). In the present analysis, I follow Lavandera (1978: 181), who holds that a syntactic variable should only be termed as such if the following conditions are met: first, it must carry some nonreferential information, manifested in social, stylistic or other (e.g. pragmatic) significance; second, it must be definable in terms of quantifiable covariation reflected in frequency relationships. 5 Cf. Phonological variation: Fischer (1958), Labov (1966), Trudgill (1974), Macaulay (1977), L. Milroy (1980) and Newbrook (1983). Morphological variation: Cheshire (1982a), Feagin (1980) and Schneider (1987). Lexical Variation: Herzler (1965), Perkins (1983), Sankoffet al. (1989). Syntactic variation: Cheshire (1982a), Silva-Corvalän (1986), Tagliamonte (2003: 547)

3 and fourth principle both of which will be crucial in paving the ground for the explanation of sex differences in language. The four principles are: 1) Linguistic Conformity of Women Principle: "For stable sociolinguistic variables, women show a lower rate of stigmatised variants and a higher rate of prestigious variants than men." (Labov 2001: 266)6 2)

Vanguard of Change Principle: "Women deviate less than men from linguistic norms when the deviations are overtly proscribed, but more than men when the deviations are not proscribed." (Labov 2001: 367)

3) Epistemic Modality Principle: Women are more prolific users of epistemic downtoners than men. 4)

Turn-Allocation Principle: In the negotiation of floor-apportionment women use more completion signals than men, who in turn use more continuance signals. The Linguistic Conformity of Women Principle is well-established in phonology, but its relevance is also occasionally documented for the morphological, lexical and syntactic level of linguistic analysis.7 As the present book is exclusively based on synchronic data, it makes no contribution to assessing the validity of the Vanguard of Change Principle. It ought, however, be mentioned that this principle appears slightly more controversial than, for instance, the Linguistic Conformity of Women Principle. Contradictory findings have led to frequent modifications and restrictions of this principle (cf. Labov 2001: 366f.).8 The Epistemic Modality Principle introduced in the present book draws on pioneering work on tag questions and lexical hedges by Cheshire (1982b), Holmes (1984) and Coates (1987). These studies have uncovered the importance of a functional diversification of constructions that are all too often lumped together on formal grounds. An early version of the principle suggested here is represented by Coates' (1988b: 114) claim that "women exploit the polypragmatic nature of epistemic modal forms". This claim will be specifically investigated with a view to finding out whether women's use of sentential modalities in terms of epistemic downtoning is paralleled by men's use of syntactic devices which lend themselves to the expression of high commitment levels. The investigation of the Epistemic Modality Principle forms the core area of research introduced in the present book. The Turn-Allocation Principle arises from the analysis of grammatical and intonational properties of adverbial clauses which demonstrate that the sexes make differential use of floor-holding devices. While Labov (1991) still holds that the "[...] two distinct patterns of behaviour [Principles 1 and 2, B.M.] are difficult to reconcile with each other [...]" (Labov 1991: 206), Deuchar (1988: 3Iff.) relates women's greater adherence to the standard to the notion of face. She argues that the use of standard forms

6

Corroborative evidence is found in Fischer (1958), Labov (1966), (2001), Levine/Crockett (1966), Shuy et al. (1967), Anshen (1969), Wolfram (1969), Garvey/Dickstein (1972), Trudgill (1972), Macaulay (1977), Hanssen (1978), Romaine (1978), Feagin (1980), Mattheier (1980), Milroy (1980), Newbrook (1983) and Brouwer (1988). Exceptional cases have been found by Keenan (1974), Milroy (1980), Russell (1982), Nichols (1983) and B. Thomas (1988). 7 The very few studies there are in the area of syntax also appear to corroborate this tendency (cf. e.g. Cheshire 1982a and Silva-Corvalän (1986) s Cf. also Labov (1966), Milroy/Milroy (1985).

4 [...] with its connotations of prestige, appears suitable for protecting the face of a relatively powerless speaker without attacking that of the addressee. It could only be conceived of as threatening the addressee's face if it involved what Giles (1973) calls 'accent divergence' from the less standard speech of the addressee. But this kind of strategy would be typical of the powerful rather than the powerless. [...] So when women use standard speech, they are protecting their own faces, and are sometimes paying attention to the face of the addressee at the same time, but would rarely be threatening it.

Whereas Labov (1991: 206) emphasizes that the findings on linguistic conformity and on gender and language change do not fit into a larger framework, the present book provides tentative indications that we should not prematurely discard the possibility that all four principles combine in one underlying strategy which especially status-lower speakers recur to. It makes perfect sense for status-lower speakers • to use standard variants that are widely accepted by the wide majority as 'correct' usage, • to deviate less from the linguistic norm if such deviations are overtly proscribed, • to use epistemic devices that hedge against the "possibility that the higher status authority might hold a contrary belief' (Givön (1990: 822), and • to use turn-allocation techniques that enable other - possibly higher-status - speakers to take the floor, in order not to be challenged for taking up too much space for oneself in the negotiation of floor-apportionment. The present book does not purport to solve the long-standing quest of whether sex differences in language go back to biological or social differences. Drawing on syntactic data it is, however, able to demonstrate the importance of epistemic meaning and turn-allocation to the language and gender debate, aspects that do not become prominent in Labov's research on phonological variation. Eckert (1989) has called for an intervening variable that needs to be formulated in terms of cultural differences existing for female and male members of our society. At the present stage, there are merely tentative indications reported in the present volume which point towards a status-based explanation of the observed gender differences in syntax: In application interviews, which form a small subsection of the London-Lund Corpus, male applicants start to use syntactic constructions that are otherwise a marked domain of women. This might be indicative of a shared strategy adopted by statuslower speakers.

1.3. Tag Questions Women, in general, have been reported to use considerably more questions than men.9 Mulac et al. (1988: 330) interprets women's use of questions as an indirect control strategy. Coates (1986: 106) holds that women might feel more free to ask questions since it is less in conflict with their sex-role prescribed by society and she concludes that women use more interrogative forms than men, particularly in order to keep conversation going.10 This argument is based on the stronger illocutionary force of questions as opposed to statements. 9 Cf. Fishman (1980), Brouwer et al. (1979), Mulac et al. (1988) and Schmidt (1992) 10 Empirical support for women's comparative preference for tag question in this function will be provided in chapter 4.

5 Similarly, James/Drakich (1993: 306fh.) remark that women, being lower-status speakers, are expected to make more abundant use of positive socioemotional talk than higher-status speakers. Tag questions have already been controversially discussed with respect to sex-differentiated usage. Although the majority of studies provide corroborative evidence for LakofFs (1975) claim that women, on the whole, use more tag questions than men, there are also contradictory findings which still require explanation. Some of the contradictoriness of the matter will be solved by demonstrating how the interpretation of research done so far can benefit from detailed functional differentiation. The five-fold categorization introduced in the present study shows that only certain types of tag questions are gender-differentiated and that the occurrence of tag questions is extremely dependent on external factors, such as style, power, group composition and surreptitiousness.

1.4. Adverbial Clauses

By contrast, the analysis of adverbial clauses and gender is a novel area of research, although speculation about the issue dates back as far as the beginning of the 20th century. Eighty years ago Jespersen (1922: 251) argued that "we may say that men are fond of hypotaxis and women of parataxis." (Jespersen 1922: 251)11 For four reasons the factors expected to be operative in gender-differentiated syntax are assumed to be well observable for finite adverbial clauses: Firstly, finite adverbial clauses can be used as spatial, temporal and epistemic grounding strategies. They lend themselves to hedging on the syntactic level (cf. Aijmer 1986; Brown/Levinson 1987: 146f.). After all, those prosodic, lexical and syntactic expressions which have been observed to correlate with gender appear to share the characteristic of being able to convey epistemic modal meaning (cf. Coates 1988b). Thus, the main reason why I assume adverbial clauses to form an interesting field of research on sex differences in syntax resides in their ability to serve as epistemic grounding strategies, thereby allowing the expression of different degrees of commitment towards a proposition. Traugott (1995: 39) points to the phenomenon that the meaning of virtually all clausal connectives that lend themselves to the expression of speaker's perspective have developed from expressions of mainly propositional meaning. If increased subjectification in the form of expressing epistemic status is a characteristic women are specifically sensitive to, this should be reflected in sex-differentiated usage of finite adverbial clauses. In her study on adverbial clause usage Ford (1993: 22) explicitly acknowledges the influence of gender as within the bounds of probability. Secondly, adverbial clauses also provide a testing ground for gendered syntax because they provide new insights into the organisation of the turn-taking system. It has frequently been claimed that the mechanism of turn-taking mirrors power relations between interactants (cf. e.g. Preisler 1986, James/Drakich 1993). Preisler (1986: 84) explicitly included adverbial clauses in his study because he assumed that they indicate that a speaker's tum 11

The gendered use of adverbial clauses has also been discussed with respect to girls' and boys' acquisition of syntax, but research was mainly motivated by the aim to uncover differences in the acquisitional stages for hypotaxis and parataxis (cf. Rickheit 1975).

6 comprises more than one communicative act. He argued that speakers are more likely to be permitted to complete their turn if they organize it into one structural unit, i.e. hypotactically. The third and fourth arguments for basing the present study on finite adverbial clauses are methodological ones. This clause type has the advantage of lending itself to computerbased quantitative analyses since its surface form contains recognizable clues in the form of subordinating conjunctions. Such computer counts do, of course, require manual post-editing since the lexemes serving as subordinators are multifunctional. Moreover, finite adverbial clauses contain a subject and finite verb which allows their analysis in terms of tense, aspect and mood, factors which have proved to play a part in the sex-differentiated behaviour of women and men (cf. Preisler 1986). And finally, adverbial clauses are relatively frequent in spoken English, which is crucial to the analysis of syntactic variables. Thus, Thompson (1984: 93) found that 82% of the dependent clauses in spoken English were adverbial clauses.

1.5. Structure of the Book

Chapter 2 provides an outline of the theoretical preliminaries from which the hypotheses are derived. From the large body of literature on language and gender this chapter singles out those that relate to the conveyance of epistemic and/or interpersonal meaning, as these two aspects become crucially important in the empirical part of the book. The methodology of the study is explained in chapter 3. The empirical research is presented in chapters 4, 5 and 6: The results emanating from a formal and functional differentiation of tag questions are presented in chapter 4 and related to previous research. Chapter 5 presents the analysis of an entirely novel research paradigm in language and gender: the gendered use of four types of finite adverbial clauses in terms of position, intonation, semantic type and pragmatic function. In order to be able to distinguish between phenomena that constitute gender differences and those which can be attributed to other factors constituting the social and interactional context, chapter 6 empirically investigates a range of external factors, such as style, power, group composition and surreptitiousness. The analysis of intragender differences according to power will provide the basis for the explanation of the sex differences introduced in this book. Chapter 7 presents a discussion of the results of the present study from the perspective of existing theories on gender differences and their explanatory potential. A central issue in the interpretation will be the discussion of the expression of modality, its communicative intent, and the way it is conveyed syntactically in spoken discourse. As the present book is not confined to the collection and analysis of data on syntactic variation, but aims to uncover how the interactional strategies used by women and men reflect social structure, chapter 7 also provides explanations for the encountered distribution of tag questions and adverbial clauses and it explores whether the conventional tentative explanations given in the diverse sociolinguistic and feminist approaches stand up to scrutiny. Finally, the conclusion is formulated in chapter 8.

2. Theoretical Preliminaries and Hypotheses

Rather than assuming a rule-based deterministic conception of grammar, the present volume is based on a grammar model that allows for grammatical variation according to a wide range of language-internal and external determinants. Syntactic variation is not regarded as random but as highly systematic. The pattern of variation is assumed to be governed by a network of largely universal and highly interrelated determinants that can have synergetic or antagonistic effects. Thus, the present book assumes a dynamic conception of syntax, in which "[...] interactional factors continuously shape the forms which actual utterances may take." (Ono/Thompson 1995: 247) The theoretical approach taken is by necessity an eclectic one. It combines frameworks developed in Functional Syntax, Variation Theory, Cognitive Semantics and Expectation States Theory in order to be able to explain the forces at work in the differential use women and men make of syntax. I will argue that women's use of adverbial clauses and tag questions reflects their intention to signal low commitment to the truth of the proposition expressed. By contrast, men employ these sentential modalities to the opposite effect. The non-committal uses predominantly used by women are reflected in their choice of adverbial clause types in terms of semantic type, position, intonation and pragmatic function. They are also reflected in a higher occurrence of those tag question types that convey low commitment towards a proposition and which signal interpersonal meaning. It is crucial for the present argumentation that non-committal uses do not necessarily imply uncertainty as to the truth of a proposition. Instead, understatement can be used to create personal relationships and hence to signal interpersonal meaning. The sections to follow will present theoretical frameworks that are able to account for the epistemic and interpersonal 'load' of syntactic items.

2.1. Functional Syntax

If we assume that women and men differ on the parameter of signalling epistemic and interpersonal meaning, we need to move beyond the analysis of formal properties of adverbial clauses and tag questions towards functional properties. Sex differences in syntax are likely to be differences in quantity (sex-preferential) rather than differences in kind (sexexclusive). When trying to unravel the aspects that govern gender preferences, new insights are likely to arise from functional analyses which pose the question why two formally identical constructions qualify for frequent usage by one gender but not by the other.

2.1.1. Interpersonal Meaning When dealing with gender differences in syntax, it is crucial to distinguish between propositional and non-propositional meaning. The present study follows Lyons' (1977: 51)

8

trichotomy of meanings consisting of propositional, expressive and social meaning.1 Propositional meaning can be asserted or denied and, in general, objectively verified (cf. Lyons 1977: 51). Expressive meaning is defined as that aspect of meaning that covaries with speaker characteristics while social meaning refers to that aspect of meaning which serves to establish and maintain social relations. The latter two meanings are interrelated and have frequently been subsumed under the single headings 'emotive', 'attitudinaF, 'interpersonal' or 'expressive' (cf. Lyons 1977: 51). The present book invokes the notion of interpersonal meaning to refer to both expressive and social meaning.

2.1.2. Epistemic Meaning Both syntactic constructions investigated in this book are sentential modalities, i.e. they share the ability to convey epistemic meaning. Modality has been divided into root and epistemic modality, 2 the latter of which is crucial for the present analysis of gender differences in syntax. While root modality comprises meaning aspects concerning permission, obligation, possibility and necessity, epistemic modality encompasses the speaker's commitment towards the truth of a proposition expressed (cf. also Coates 1995: 55). The crucial distinction between linguistic items that serve to express both root and epistemic possibility is that the latter conveys subjectivity. The use of the epistemic modal entails that the speaker is making a judgment about the likelihood of the truth of the proposition, rather than presupposing its truth [...]. (Lakoff 1977: 143) Epistemic modal meaning reflects the speaker's "commitment to the truth of the proposition expressed" (Lyons 1977: 797). Thus, it has a bearing both on the expressive and the interpersonal domain in that it covaries with speaker characteristics, i.e. individual certainty, and it can serve to establish and maintain social relations, i.e. expressing "epistemic deference" (Giv6n 1990: 822). These definitions lead to the question of what speakers do by signalling high or low confidence in the truth of a proposition. Even while being wholly committed to the truth of a proposition, a speaker might nevertheless consider it appropriate to express low commitment, e.g. for reasons of politeness. The motivation underlying the expression of different degrees of commitment can itself be attributed to at least two more specific dimensions, i.e. the speaker's attitude towards propositions and towards addressees. Attitude towards Proposition Epistemic Meaning Attitude towards Addressee Thus, the expression of epistemic meaning is intrinsically linked to the achievement of interpersonal ends. Speakers who employ epistemic downtoners, i.e. expressions of low 1

2

He himself used the term 'descriptive' (Lyons 1977). Others have termed this meaning component, 'cognitive' (Jacobson 1986: 7), 'referential' (cf. Lavandera 1978: 175), 'conceptual', 'denotational' (J.L. Fischer 1958: 52), 'ideational' (Halliday/Hasan 1976) and 'designative'. Root and epistemic modality have also been referred to as modality vs modulation (Halliday 1970), non-complex vs complex (Anderson 1971), epistemic vs discourse-oriented (Palmer 1974) epistemic vs deontic modality (Preisler 1986) and epistemic vs agent-oriented modality (Lichtenberk 1995).

9 commitment to the proposition, do not necessarily lack the relevant information which would enable them to employ more assertive strategies. Rather, it will be argued below 2.1.7. that lower status speakers are expected not to claim that they are committed to the truth of the proposition, since certainty is a property that is conventionally associated with higher status speakers. Thus, instead of claiming certainty, speakers often employ disclaimers and certain (though not all) tag questions and adverbial clauses serve exactly this function. A crucial requirement for interpreting research in the area of gender-differentiated language behaviour lies in keeping apart the two dimensions in order not to confuse, for instance, uncertainty and politeness. This methodological problem will be discussed in more detail in a subsequent part of the present study (cf. sections 4.4.1. and 5.7.).

2.1.3. The Development of Epistemic Meaning The extension of meaning to signal modality of the epistemic rather than of the root kind is reflected diachronically in the transition of epistemic meaning of modals via the root meaning from expressions of non-modal meaning. non-modal Old English magan

> >

root modality may (permission)

> >

epistemic modality may (possibility)3

Interestingly, the same continuum of epistemification can be observed on the ontogenetic level of language acquisition (cf. Stephany 1986): Epistemic modality relations are acquired later than root modality. Moreover, Creole languages are documented to develop expressions of root modality before extending them to the epistemic domain (cf. Shepherd 1981 cited in Sweetser 1990: 50). Drawing on cognitive semantics Sweetser (1990: 50) views the relation between root and epistemic modality in terms of a metaphorical mapping: root modal meanings are extended to the epistemic domain because our internal mental world is metaphorically structured as parallel to the external world. Similarly, Givön (1990: 821) stresses that the [...] systematic pattern of shared irrealis forms is found in many languages, and often reveals the footprints of diachronic analogical extension, through which old forms assume new functions.

Of particular interest in this context is Traugott's (1995: 36f.) discussion of hortative let's which has developed out of the imperative let us in a diachronic process involving increased subjedification. And indeed Goodwin (1980) reports that boys use more explicit commands than girls, while girls more often couched their directives in constructions with let's. Here again females appear to be particularly prone to employ let's in its historically later and subjectified interpersonal function. 3

Cf. Bybee/Pagliuca (1985: 66) and Sweetser (1990: 30). Coates (1995: 63f.) describes a similar ongoing change for can which is developing an epistemic possibility meaning in American English: "I would predict that initially examples of epistemic can will co-occur with syntactic features such as inanimate subject and stative verb, and in contexts where accompanying words support an epistemic reading. [...] However, it is difficult to imagine can becoming a serious contender in the expression of epistemic possibility unless it can develop a stressed alternative to the usual [kan]; until that happens, utterances like I can come will be processed as root"

10

Meaning shifts from the propositional to the expressive or interpersonal domains also appear to be related to position. Aijmer (1986: 4) describes the historic trajectory of the hedge sort of which was desemanticized while at the same time being subjected to syntactic reduction. During this process, it also became phonologically reduced. a sort of dinner /sD:tav/

> >

sort of dinner /so-.to/

> >

a dinner sort of /sore/

>

/sra/

Thus, the original nominal head was grammaticalized into the adverbial sort of. Aijmer (1986: 5) lists the implications of the meaning-shift in sort of as follows. • Phonology: reduced form • Grammar: less syntactic integration, position after the word it modifies, occurrence before nearly all parts of speech • Semantics: little or no meaning • Intonation: never carries the tone What Aijmer (1986: 5) implies by assigning "little or no meaning" to sort of is better grasped by the grammaticalization process outlined by Traugott (1982). The development can be viewed in terms of the meaning-shift from conveying mainly propositional meaning to that of conveying textual and expressive meaning. Interesting in this context is the syntactic change towards less syntactic integration. There is a clear parallel in the meaning-shift of sort of with the accompanying syntactic changes (less integration and postposing) and the historical development of adverbial clauses which provide epistemic grounding. Postposed adverbial clauses, it will be argued in section 5.5., lend themselves particularly well to the expression of epistemic meaning. In addition, they are more frequently uttered under a separate intonation contour than preposed adverbial clauses in the London-Lund Corpus (see section 5.6.). Thus, there might have been a parallel strategy at work in their transition from a primarily preposed syntactic construction conveying primarily propositional meaning to one which favours postposing and expresses epistemic or interpersonal meaning. As chapter 5 will reveal, women appear to be prolific users of metaphorical extensions to relativize commitment towards the truth of a proposition. Therefore, assuming the diachronic development from propositional towards epistemic and interpersonal meaning, the claim of women's linguistic conservatism4 can - at least in this area of syntax - not be upheld. If the frequency of using syntactic devices to signal epistemic and interpersonal meaning is anything to go by, women can be shown to be in the vanguard of this change.

2.1.4. Epistemic Modality and Hedging Hedges have been discussed for some time as one of the characteristics differentiating female and male speech. An early definition describes hedges as metalinguistic operators which "[...] function as instruction for the loose interpretation of designata." (Weinreich 1966: 162). In a detailed functional analysis of different hedges, Aijmer (1986: 1) subsumes 4

For a discussion of the changing esteem of conservatism vs innovation see also Cameron/Coates (1985: 143f.) and Labov (2001).

11 expressions which "restrict the borderlines of a category" e.g. strictly speaking, or select a prototypical member of a category, e.g. actually, really under the heading of hedges, e.g. (1)

This is sort of between the two of us. (LLC 1.1 TU 1140)5

Brown/Yule (1983: 132) describe certain adverbials as hedges, i.e. expressions commenting on the speaker's commitment to belief in what s/he is saying. Similarly, Coates (1986: 102) stresses that hedges cause a given statement to be less assertive and Holmes (1990: 186) defines hedges as "attenuators or mitigators of the strength of a speech act". Whereas some researchers assume a narrow definition of hedges applying only to lexical forms, the present study will follow Aijmer (1986: 2) who provides the following classification of lexical and grammatical hedges: Table 1: Classification of Hedges (based on Aijmer 1986: 2ff.) Hedge

Example

Constructions with sort, kind, type Clauses Constructions with way Other Adverbial Constructions or PPs Constructions with like Elements appended as tags introduced by and or or Formally similar elements without and or or Constructions with say Constructions with call Other constructions

sort of as it were/if you know what I mean in a way in a sense/more or less/somehow/so to speak anything like and that sort of thing/or so something like that/sort of thing let's say so-called/as you call it/what's it called quotes in written English (-ish) etc.

For present purposes hedges will be defined as follows: Hedges = linguistic units which, in certain contexts, can signal epistemic modal meaning by expressing speakers' limited commitment to the truth of the proposition expressed. Since adverbial clauses and tag questions can serve as hedging devices, we should expect the sexes to make differential use of these sentential modalities. This claim will be explicitly tested in chapters 4 and 5. 5

Examples thus indicated are taken from the London-Lund Corpus. References include the corpus section from which the extract is taken and the tone unit number (TU). As much prosodic and contextual information as is judged relevant will be provided. Examples are either taken over in their original form with prosodic marking, repetitions, stutters, pauses, pitch, etc. or for ease of reading in a simplified form without prosodic marking but sometimes added punctuation, such as commas and stops. If relevant, it will be indicated whether speakers have been recorded surreptitiously (signalled by capitals letters) or non-surreptitiously (small letters) in front of the example sentence. A complete description of the corpus can be found in Svartvik and Quirk (1980). A manual for the computerized version is provided in Svartvik (1992). Transcription conventions are outlined in Quirk et al. (1985) and Crystal/Davy (1975).

12 2.1.5. Position of Hedges With respect to the functioning of hedges Aijmer (1986: 4) remarks that sort of fulfils functions that are as diverse as questioning the propriety of the head noun, indicating metaphorical or idiomatic use, signalling a foreign, dialectal, substandard, technical or learned expression. A hedge can thus help the speaker to dissociate him-/herself from a word, thereby appearing less pretentious if a word is technical or learned, or more educated if a word is substandard or vulgar. Crucially, for the present research, the process whereby sort of becomes a hedging device goes hand in hand with a positional shift, i.e. from preposing to postposing. Holmes (1984: 58) points out that positioning is relevant to the meaning signalled by downtoners.6 She argues that I believe in final position expresses less certainty than in initial position: (2)

I believe the students are responsible for this. The students are responsible for this I believe. (Holmes 1984: 52)

intensifying downtoning

Thus, final position appears to be the default location for hedging devices, and this will be shown to be reflected in women's use of postposed vs preposed adverbial clauses in chapter 5. Even the position of the hedge (end position) and phonological features (reduction to weak forms) can be associated with the expression of interpersonal relations. (Aijmer 1986: 15)

Aijmer (1986: 6f.) also discusses the function and position of the clausal hedge as it were. In her data this hedge can be attached in post-head position or between VP and NP. (3)

((2 sylls)). Awhy do you 'think !th\is 'ought to be 'put in# . a Alittle _b\ox as it 'were# with Shakespeare's w\ork# (LLC 3.5 TU 332900) ((A[@m] and)) pre!t\ending# . as it A wVere# that ((Ahe d !always !h\eld them#)) (LLC 1.6 TU 454350ff.)7

In post-head position, the clausal hedge is taken to add an extra segment before the constituent boundary rather than changing the constituent structure. Aijmer (1986: 7) and Coates (1987: 120) suggest that sort of can also be used as a floor-holding device here. Dik (1983: 190) comments on the function of elements which are placed outside the propositional content at the end of utterances. These have been referred to as presenting "as an afterthought in the predication information meant to clarify or modify it". Afterthoughts on the clausal level have been described as being characterized by occurring under a separate intonation contour (cf. Chafe 1984: 448). Aijmer (1986: 10) postulates a gradient relationship between afterthoughts and hedges which are placed outside the propositional content but under the same intonation contour as the carrier of propositional meaning. separate intonation contour

>

same intonation contour but nuclear tone

>

same intonation contour without any tone

According to Aijmer (1986: lOf.) longer hedges, e.g. and things like that, usually occur under a separate intonation contour, whereas shorter tags are mostly under the same intona6

7

Downtoners are "lexical items which attenuate the force of the speech act in which they occur" (Holmes 1986: 58). For the prosodic notation conventions employed in the London-Lund Corpus see section 3.2.1.

13 tion contour as the material they modify. Hedges can be used to avoid appearing too knowledgeable. By creating a distance to the proposition expressed, they can convey an attitude of irony or scepticism. and and Awent 'out in some : ghastly 'regiment of f/oot# . ARoyal 'Warwickshire :foot and m/outh or 'something# - (LLC 1.10 TU 541 Off.)

(4)

Aijmer (1986: 12) holds that hedges must not only be described in terms of their pragmatic function, but also in terms of phonology, syntax, semantics and prosody. With respect to intonation of hedges she holds that a hedge which frequently carries a rising tone or fall-rise intonation has primarily the function of signalling interpersonal meaning. Purely interactional meaning, in her view, is conveyed by you know. However, there are also instances of you know with a falling tone in my data, so that her claim of a one-to-one relation between rising tone and interpersonal meaning appears to have been overgeneralized. (5)

A

and the the Aparish 'church is be'ginning to 'go :boing b/oing# and Apeople are ! !just beginning to rVouse them'selves# Astr/etch# Ayou kn\ow# the Aday 'stretches ah\ead# --(LLC 1.12 TU 70661 Off.)

The relation between epistemic meaning and questions has been commented on by Lyons (1977: 753ff.) who according to Givön (1990: 815fii.) is one of the rare researchers who acknowledge the connection between epistemic doubt (i.e. irrealis) and interrogative speech-acts and who conceives of questions as grammaticalized features of doubt. Expressive meaning can be conveyed by hedges [...] as the result of an overriding strategy of introducing a distance to the hearer or to the message itself. The hedge makes it possible for the speaker to efface himself and to avoid confrontation. (Aijmer 1986: 15) By contrast, expressive meaning can also be signalled to stress interpersonal involvement.

2.1.6. Positive and Negative Politeness Politeness has been defined as satisfying the face needs of others (cf. e.g. Brown/Levinson 1978: 62). The notion of face originally introduced by Goffrnan (1967) refers to "the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself' (Brown/Levinson 1978: 66). We can distinguish between negative and positive face. Negative face is associated with people's need not to be imposed on. Positive face refers to people's desire for approval. Politeness relates to power in that the degree to which attention is paid to face depends among other things on the relative power between interlocutors (cf. Deuchar 1988: 30). Politeness is often effected by figuratively taking less space for oneself and leaving this space to others. The linguistic realisation of politeness depends on the respective culture. In many Western cultures negative face needs are satisfied by couching requests in apologies as is exemplified by the following answerphone recording. (6)

This is Lessin speaking I'm sorry to impose yet a further task on Malinda in the way of book scrounging but I would be extremely grateful if either today or Monday you

14 would be able to find for me preferably at Foyle's cut price and failing that at Dillon's where they have any sort of cut price the following volumes of Plutarch's Moralia (LLC 9.3 TU 768200ff.) Such a request is considered polite since it gives the impression that it enables the addressee to avoid cooperation. Similarly, the positive face needs of others can be satisfied by greeting, asking how people are, expressing admiration and approval, etc. Markers of positive politeness strengthen the force of an utterance satisfying people's positive face needs, while markers of negative politeness might, for instance, weaken the force of a request or directive. Modal auxiliaries and adverbs, such as perhaps, possibly, maybe can hedge the force of a speech-act thus functioning as negative politeness strategy. Holmes (1984: 49), for instance, stresses the function of modals as politeness markers when they convey interpersonal meaning. The politeness effect of a pragmatic particle crucially depends on the speech act it modifies. Thus, attenuating a directive is a polite strategy while boosting an offensive remark is not (cf. also Holmes 1990: 191). An important aspect of face which is particularly relevant to the discussion of gender and language is the concomitant trade-off between one's own face needs and those of others. [...] a promise to perform a service pays attention to the addressee's positive face, but threatens the negative face of the speaker in so far as it is an imposition on his or her freedom of action. [...] While an apology pays attention to the negative face of the addressee by acknowledging a potential imposition, it threatens the speaker's own positive face by admitting a transgression. (Deuchar 1988: 30f.)

The argumentation pursued in the present book strongly relies on acknowledging the relation between the use of epistemic devices and the trade-off of interlocutors' face needs.

2.1.7. The Epistemic Contract Givön (1984: 252f.) views sentential modalities in relation to what he refers to as the epistemic contract or communicative contract between speakers and hearers. He postulates a transition in linguistic tradition from logic-bound concepts with the notions of necessary, factual and possible truth, via logic-bound pragmatics dealing with presupposition and assertion to discourse-pragmatics, where uncontested knowledge exists next to realisasserted knowledge and irrealis-asserted knowledge. Table 2 illustrates what communication partners agree on when uttering a proposition as uncontested knowledge, realis assertion or irrealis assertion. The advantage of this model for the analysis of gender-differentiated language use lies in the fact that attitudes rather than truth is the central concept. As will be pointed out, the expression of epistemic modal meaning as it seemingly at issue in sex differences in syntax can be viewed in terms of variation according to attitude, i.e. the speaker's commitment to the truth of a proposition or the speaker's expectations of the likelihood of the proposition to be challenged by others. This, in turn, depends on the power or status a speaker holds with respect to his/her interlocutor. For present purposes power will be defined as [...] the social and material resources a person can command, the ability (and social right) to make decisions and influence events. (Guy 1988: 37)

By contrast, status refers to

15 [...] whether people are respected and deferred to by others in their society (or, conversely, looked down on or ignored) [...] (Guy 1988: 37)

Table 2:

Propositional Modalities and the Epistemic Contract (based on Givön 1984: 25)

Contract Clause

Presupposition

(1) Speaker's assumption about hearer's knowledge of the proposition (2) Strength of speaker's belief in the proposition (3) Need for speaker to support the proposition with evidence (4) Strength of speaker's evidence for the proposition (5) Speaker's willingness to tolerate challenge to the proposition (6) Probability of hearer to challenge the proposition

familiar with/or believes in proposition

Assertion Realis Assertion Irrealis Assertion unfamiliar with unfamiliar with proposition proposition

strongest

strong

weak

not necessary

necessary

not possible

not an issue

stronger

weaker

least willing

more willing

most willing

low

intermediate

high

Givön (1990: 821) postulates an indirect inference relation between truth and power. He draws on the epistemic contract, the set of conventions presented in Table 2, which govern human communication. This contract links epistemic dimensions, such as knowledge or subjective certainty to more socio-personal dimensions, such as status or power. Hedges are a case in point, where speakers downtone the assertion expressed to indicate epistemic deference. Such downtoning can serve as a "hedge against the possibility that the higher authority might hold a contrary belief' (Givön 1990: 822). The inference relation from truth to power is not logically necessary, according to Givön (1990: 821). Rather the inferences are pragmatic norms associated with the epistemic contract which governs human communication. Truth

=)

Knowledge

=>

Certainty

3

Status

3

Power

Truth and knowledge: The typical expectation if a speaker claims to express the truth of a proposition is that the speaker has the relevant knowledge about the proposition. If this is not true, speakers are expected to signal this, for instance, by means of a non-declarative speech-act, or downtoning modifiers, etc. Thus, when uttering (7)

The train arrives at eight.

the speaker is expected to be more knowledgeable about arrival times than when uttering (8)

Does the train arrive at eight?

or

1 suppose the train arrives at eight.

I want to argue that speakers who are not claiming to express the truth usually indicate this 'deficit' by means of certain disclaimers, i.e. expressions which bear epistemic significance, and that among such disclaimers are certain (though not all) tag question types and finite adverbial clauses expressing epistemic grounding. This does not mean that speakers cannot

16 flout this principle by only claiming something to be true, for instance for rhetorical purposes. Conversely, speakers can use disclaimers even though they do know what they say is true in order to appear less knowledgeable and more polite. The present study sets out to show empirically that it is specifically women, who use these expressions of epistemic modality in order to signal that they do not claim what they are saying is the absolute truth. Whether these women really believe their propositions to be true or not is secondary in the present context because what is at stake is their intention of not appearing too knowledgeable. Knowledge and Certainty: A speaker is only expected to express certainty about a proposition if s/he knows about it. Of course, there are also exceptions, e.g. the use of expressions of certainty as a rhetoric device in persuading others. Certainty and Status: The expression of certainty can be a privilege of high-status speakers. The expression of uncertainty about a proposition can be a means of signalling modesty or deference. Thus, the modesty principle formulated by Syder/Pawley (1974) states that speakers sometimes pretend to know less than they actually do, when their knowledge might positively reflect on their personal stature. This relates to a power maxim which states that one's own subjective certainty is downgraded in communicating to a higher status speaker (cf. Givön 1990: 823). This factor is likely to contribute to the expression of politeness since crosslinguistically, epistemic downtoning is a feature of polite speech (cf. Lichtenberk 1995: 318). Politeness is often effected by figuratively taking less space for oneself and leaving this space to others. Using disclaimers reduces the space for one's own certainty or knowledge and increases that of others. This is where epistemic and interpersonal meaning are related. Epistemic meaning, in the form of mitigated expressions of commitment, can be signalled to achieve interpersonal ends. Another strategy of negative politeness is to soften disagreement. There is often a connection between downtoners and negation in that "[...] deference value might derive from the overlap between negation and irrealis, along the psychological dimension of subjective certainty" (Givön 1990: 823). Status and Power. If a speaker is in a powerful position, this is often derived from the speaker's status in society. Power is most frequently associated with socio-economic status but it need not be. The factors contributing to a person's status are multifarious, and what conveys status on a person in one situation need not do so in another. The relation between status and expectations discussed under the heading of Expectation States Theory will play a crucial part in the explanation of sex differences reported in the present study. Expectation States Theory accounts for the fact that what is at stake in the relation between certainty and knowledge in the above continuum is not necessarily the association of objective certainty or knowledge with status or power but expectations about speakers' certainty or knowledge. Thus, a speaker in a high status position might be expected to be more knowledgeable to deferent interlocutors. Conversely, a speaker in a comparatively low status situation will probably have made the experience that lack of power is frequently associated with expectations of uncertainty, lack of knowledge or even stating what is not true. Whether the relation between truth and power is based on actual differences in knowledgeability is secondary in this context, because the expectations themselves can result in different behaviours without ever being questioned or verified. This is where Expectation States Theory relates to the observed sex differences in syntax: "[...] the grammar of verbal manipulation shades into the grammar of deference, honorification and even the epistemics of certainty" (Givön 1990: 807). Related to these aspects is the hazardous information principle formulated by Givön (1990: 824). It postulates:

17 • • • •

Knowledge is power, but power is responsibility. Information may be coveted, it may also be hazardous and socially destabilizing Transmitting new information may yield a clear social advantage, but also incurs risks. Being identified explicitly as the author of information may be unwise, and must be avoided. The linguistic strategies used in order to account for this principle are, according to Givön (1990: 824), disclaimers, oblique attribution, impersonalization, coding assertions as yes/no questions, negatives or irrealis. Meeker/Weitzel-O'Neill (1985: 389) remark that low status persons trying to contribute to a task run the risk of being thought as attempting to competitively enhance their status unless they manage to prove that they are competent at the task and that their behaviour is task-motivated. This has been termed the burden of proof principle (cf. Meeker/WeitzelO'Neill 1985: 386).

2.1.8. Presupposed and Asserted Material Epistemic meaning is also crucially linked to the information structure in sentential modalities. Degrees of commitment towards the truth of a proposition can be expressed by what is phrased as given or as new information. Crucial to the argumentation with respect to finite adverbial clauses is the given/new dichotomy, which distinguishes between information that the speaker assumes to be situationally, inferably or contextually given, i.e. shared by the addressee, and new information, which is believed by the speaker to be outside the knowledge of the addressee (cf. Abraham 1991: 330f.). Chafe (1987: 29) discusses the given/new status of information with respect to a three-fold division of inactive (new), semi-active and active (given) information. Related to this is the one new concept at a time constraint formulated by Chafe (1987: 32) drawing on Givön (1975). This constraint results naturally from what I take to be the cognitive basis of an intonation unit: the expression of a single focus of consciousness. Such a focus can evidently contain no more than one previously inactive concept. (Chafe 1987: 32)

Presupposition pertains to propositions or their fragments. According to Givön (1984: 324) asserted material is open to challenge, while presupposed information is generally not. Therefore, negation in natural language generally implies that the asserted portion of a sentence is denied, while the presupposed portion remains outside the scope of negation. According to Huebler (1983: 97) any categorical assertion is basically modal though the modality need not be explicitly expressed. Rather the implicit modality can be inferred from the negatability of an assertion. Presupposed material, in turn, is not normally negatable and hence not commonly subject to ratification by the addressee. Lyons (1977: 749ff.) has grouped illocutions into the tropic and the neustic. The tropic conveys the speaker's attitude to the propositional content, while the neustic, that is the modal component, expresses the attitude of the speaker to the addressee regarding the proposition. Thus, the tropic can be termed speaker-oriented and the neustic addresseeoriented. Huebler (1983: 155) bases his study of understatements and hedges on the assumption that an assertory sentence

18 [...] represents a hypothesis about a propositional state of affairs, and it is this projective character of the sentence which produces its negatability. Linked to this has been the acknowledgement of the necessity for ratification of the propositional content, ratification being considered to have been effected when the propositional content has not been rejected by the hearer or hearers. This necessity for ratification of sentences, brought about by their inherent negatability, has been found to be the reason why the many linguistic modifying devices are used, since it is their function to reduce the risk of negation. In addition to having the function of reducing the risk of negation on objective grounds, some of these modifying devices have been shown also to perform the function of reducing the risk of negation on subjective grounds.

A similar phenomenon can be attested for one of the syntactic constructions investigated in the present study, i.e. finite adverbial clauses (cf. also Keller 1995: 20). In negating a sentence, presupposed material is not affected by the negation, whereas asserted material is. The following example illustrates this point. (9)

This is very easy to do because we have an enlarger xerox machine (LLC 3.2c TU 29700ff.)

The negated sentence, given in (10), has two readings. (10) This is not very easy to do because we have an enlarger xerox machine. Either only the causal relation is negated, i.e. both propositions are presupposed and only the causal relation is asserted as would be reflected in the following sentence. (11) This is not very easy to do because we have an enlarger xerox machine but because we have a photocopier. Or, only the first proposition is negated and hence asserted while the second proposition and the causal relation are presupposed. (12) This is not very easy to do because we have an enlarger xerox machine. It still remains difficult. In both cases the proposition expressed in the adverbial clause is not asserted but presupposed and hence not affected by the negation. Givön (1984: 321) points out that within propositional semantics, negation can be placed at an extreme point on a scale of truth. Presupposition taken for granted as true

Realis Assertion strongly asserted as true

Irrealis Assertion weakly asserted as true

Negative Assertion asserted as false

>

However, in terms of strength of belief or commitment to the truth of the proposition expressed, i.e. epistemic modality, he considers the following scale more appropriate, (cf. Givön 1984: 32If.) Presupposition Negative Assertion

Realis Assertion

Irrealis Assertion >

This discourse-pragmatics scale is meant to illustrate that presupposed material expresses the highest commitment towards the proposition expressed in that the proposition is

19 assumed to be shared knowledge of both speaker and addressee. Presupposed material is put on a par with negative assertions as regards their ability to express subjective certainty or speaker's commitment. Next on the scale are realis assertions which do not require "evidentiary support" (Givön 1984: 322) but convey lower commitment on the part of the speaker than presuppositions and negative assertions. Irrealis assertions are again considered to be open to challenge. The reason why negative assertion is placed on a par with presuppositions is that affirmative utterances are commonly used to inform the addressee of something new. By contrast negative declaratives deny a proposition against the background of the addressee's presumed belief in the proposition or familiarity with it (cf. Givön 1984: 324). (13)

What's new? a) Oh, my wife is pregnant. b) Oh, my wife is not pregnant.

affirmative negative

A likely answer to the negated sentence might be: (14) Wait a minute, I didn't know she was supposed to be pregnant, (based on Givön 1984: 323) Thus, the negation can be regarded as denying a presupposed belief. As Givön (1984: 324) puts it: Affirmative Declarative Negative Declarative

The hearer does not know and the speaker knows. The hearer knows wrong and the speaker knows better.

One of the functions of a negative declarative can therefore be to signal the addressee that the speaker does not share the belief in the corresponding affirmative. This is why [...] negatives are considered less polite, contentious, unpleasant or downright threatening. It is one thing to tacitly add to a person's knowledge on the implicit background of non-knowledge. It is another thing altogether to challenge a person's already existing, strongly held (and oft strongly asserted) belief. (Givön 1984: 324fn.)

These considerations will become relevant in the discussion of a certain tag question type, i.e. softeners and in particular in the discussion of concessive clauses. Taking a propositional semantics approach to adverbial clauses, Harris (1988: 71) groups causality relations expressed by adverbial clauses into those implying an assertion, a hypothesis and a denial. This analysis will become crucially important to the explanation of gender differences in the use of adverbial clauses. He introduces a semantic continuum which ranges from causal clauses via conditional clauses to concessives. Whereas in causal clauses a causal link between subordinate and main clause is asserted, this causal link is hypothesized in conditional clauses and denied in concessive clauses. Figure 1: Semantic Continuum of Adverbial Clauses (Harris 1988: 71)


= 7.96**

120-

10080-

•

AV(F)

^

EV(F)

|

AV(M)

S3 EV(M)

60-

4020-

0-

!

Powerless

Mi Powerful

Powerless

Powerful

We can summarize that whereas comparatively powerless speakers of both sexes exhibit a preference for causal clauses, powerless males appear to disprefer conditional clauses, so

161

that the correlation between power and adverbial clause usage points in opposite directions for causal and conditional clauses. This is hardly surprising in view of the fact that they serve very different functions. It is worth recalling, however, that causal clauses appear to be a marked domain of powerless rather than powerful speakers.

6.2.2. Application Interviews The strongest evidence for a status/power-based explanation of gender differences in syntax comes from application interviews. Figure 20: Adverbial Clauses in Application Interviews According to Power (N = 110) Adverbial Clauses 45η

a? = 28.71* * * I I AV Applicants

40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

§§

ΕV Applicants

I

AV Interviewers EV Interviewers

I

Causal

I 11 Conditional

X1 = 6.79**

PI

Concessive

Purpose

The investigation of the factors power and sex requires keeping other major factors constituting the situational context constant. This is done by comparing the syntactic strategies applied in six application interviews (corpus sections 3.1a, 3.1b, 3.1c, 3.5a, 3.5b and 3.6), in five of which prospective undergraduates apply for an English Honours Degree at university. In the sixth a male academic is in a job interview with six interviewers. In this interview there is a female interviewer, in all other situations the interviewers are male. In the asymmetrical interview situation the interviewees are considered to be in an inferior position as the interviewers have the institutional power to refuse the former's application. The histogram below shows a marked correlation of causal and concessive clauses with respect to power. Though for all four types, applicants exhibit at least a slight tendency to use more finite adverbial clauses than would be expected if their ratio of clauses were proportionate to their contribution to the conversations measured in words, the power effect for conditional and purpose clauses is not statistically significant. By contrast, the power difference reaches a statistically very highly significant level for causal clauses and a highly significant level for concessives. The latter finding requires explanation in view of the prior analysis of concessives as clauses signalling high commitment of the speaker. Their occurrence in application interviews is unfortunately too small to allow statistical analysis by

162 means of further differentiation according to function. However, it appears to be those concessives which serve an epistemic rather than propositional function that are favoured by applicants. In fact six out of eleven concessives uttered by applicants signal conclusive or speech-act meaning, as e.g. (2)

*and . I Hike /Eliot# . Aand . perlhaps 'Dylan Th/omas a 'little# . though I Ahaven t r\ead . {all Athat m\uch#}# . (LLC 3.5a TU 2130)

This concessive does not deny presupposed belief (cf. Givön 1984: 324) but relativizes the main clause assertion. An interesting phenomenon revealed by the above histogram is that the pattern observed for application interviews is more consistent than that observed for power in the aggregate corpus. This can either indicate that the power differences are more marked in these application interviews or that other interfering factors are eliminated by keeping the setting, purpose of interaction, style, etc. constant. The findings clearly illustrate that powerlessness is associated with the frequent use of finite adverbial clauses. It is worth considering that for all female applicants the conversations are cross-sex conversations, whereas for males they are same-sex interactions, except for one interview in which one of six interviewers was female. This might affect the findings since - as will be shown in section 6.3.3. - group composition has a bearing on the occurrence of causal clauses: Cross-sex conversations tend to increase already existing sex differences in the use of causal clauses. However, females use more causal clauses when in cross-sex situations and males use more of these clauses when in same-sex conversations. Since all female interviewees are in cross-sex conversations in the above samples, they could be expected to use relatively many causal clauses. Likewise, since the vast majority of male interviewees in the above sample are in same-sex situations, we can expect their use of causal clauses to be comparatively higher than in cross-sex interaction. Hence, for both sexes group composition in the sample is likely to increase differences. The pattern for interviewees and interviewers not differentiated by sex shows a statistically highly significant proclivity by applicants to causal clauses (cf. Figure 21). This confirms that lack of power triggers an increased amount of causal clauses in the LLC. Figure 21: Finite Adverbial Causal Clauses According to Power (N = 49) Causal Clauses 45-i •

AV

40EV 3530-

3^= 18.82***

2520-

15105-

0 Applicants

Interviewers

163 The next factor to be set aside is the possibility that this result is an artefact arising from the fact that the interviewers were predominantly male, i.e. of the sex that disfavours causal clauses, while the applicants are of both sexes. In order to ascertain whether power as such has a bearing on the use of causal clauses it will be necessary to view this factor in isolation. Crucially, holding sex constant, the following figure presents statistically very highly significant power differences for males with respect to causal clauses.9 Figure 22: Men's Finite Adverbial Causal Clauses According to Power (N = 30) Causal Clauses

25η •

AV

m

20-

15-

χ

ev

= 11.75**

10-

5-

0 Applicants

Interviewers

Therefore, the claim that the differences according to sex and power are primarily sexrelated can be refuted. At least for men, power is demonstrated to be a statistically very highly significant correlate of causal clause usage in that men in powerless positions favour this clause type while those in powerful positions disfavour it. This puts the finding of women's preference for causal clauses into perspective. Their preference is likely to reflect their comparatively powerless status in society. Still, it cannot be ruled out that the proclivity towards causals by applicants is an artefact of the question and answer pattern typical of interview situations. This question would clearly deserve further treatment which cannot be accommodated within the confines of the present volume.

6.2.3. Tag Questions According to Sex and Power As has become obvious, the multifunctionality of tag questions does not allow associating them with deference or lack of power on a one-to-one basis. While females are observed to 9

As already mentioned, due to the scarcity of female interviewers in the LLC, the analogous results cannot be obtained for females. Likewise, instances for the remaining clause types are too limited to allow a meaningful comparison.

164 use overall more tag questions, a functional differentiation has demonstrated that only tags which convey epistemic and interpersonal meaning are favoured by women. However, there are also tag questions which can be described as intensifiers. Such tags cannot be assumed to signal deference. The present study shows that given a sufficient functional differentiation of tag questions it is possible, after all, to relate tag question usage to power. Consider Figure 23: Figure 23: Tag Questions According to Power and Sex (N = 74) x?= 11.08***

Tag Questions 60-i

5a 4a

•

AV(F)

^

EV(F)

Β

AV (M) EV(M)

3a

2a ία o--

Jsssi Powerless

Powerful

Powerless

Powerful

In the LLC the distribution of tag questions among 'powerless' and 'powerful' speakers exhibits statistically very highly significant differences according to power for males: It is particularly those males who find themselves in a comparatively superior position who use tag questions. For females the data which can be unequivocally differentiated according to power is too scarce to allow meaningful analyses. This finding ties in with Cameron et al.'s (1988: 87) proposal that asking questions in unequal encounters is the privilege of the powerful: [...] some types of interrogative by virtue of the grammaticalised and lexicalised expectations they encode, are more constraining than others. For instance, if a question contains a completed proposition, this takes more interactive work to challenge than it does to assent to; the consequence is that respondents tend to produce confirmations of the embedded proposition. (Cameron et al. 1988:87)

The authors illustrate their claim with the following example. The first utterance would not normally be answered in the negative while the second is open in that it permits either a yes or no answer. (3)

It's a nice day, isn't it Is it a nice day (Cameron et al. 1988: 87)

In a study of data from broadcasts, Cameron et al. (1988) have reported all 68 facilitative tag questions analysed to be uttered by speakers who held a powerful role. By contrast,

165 powerless speakers used 25 tag questions signalling epistemic modal meaning as opposed to 13 uttered by powerful speakers. In addition, the 10 softening tags in the data were also exclusively used by powerful speakers. If we stick to the preconception so prevalent in sex-difference research, that facilitative tags are used by powerless speakers whose subordinate position forces them into 'interactional shitwork', then this pattern is surely rather unexpected. (Cameron et al. 1988: 89) Cameron et al. (1988: 90) conclude that addressee-oriented tags (i.e. facilitating and softening tags) are associated with powerful speakers. They relate this observation to the fact that softening tags frequently mitigate criticism which is a privilege of the powerful. With respect to speaker-oriented tags, the authors observed that the powerful frequently use tags that establish and summarize the facts, whereas the powerless use more tags that request reassurance. These two categories have been analysed in the present study under the headings of agreement and verification seeking.

6.2.4. Tag Questions According to Sex and Interactional Role One of the contextual factors influencing the function of tag questions is the interactional role of the speaker. Analysing the factors interactional role and power in the LLC produces the following results, depicted in Figure 24. Figure 24: Tag Questions Used by Males In Application Interviews (N = 48)

Applicants

Interviewers

A clear-cut picture for males can be obtained from that selection of conversations in which the factor power is extremely pronounced, i.e. application interviews. Regarding tag questions in application interviews, the analysis of findings can benefit from the observation that tag question usage is related to interactional role. It has been postulated that "[...] tag questions tend to occur more frequently in the speech of those who have some kind of responsibility for the success of an interaction" (Holmes 1990: 193).10 In the six application 10

Cf. also Johnson (1980) and Cameron et al. (1988)

166 interviews men in the LLC exhibit statistically highly significant correlations between power or interactional role and tag question density. It is those men who are responsible for the interaction, i.e. the interviewers, who use the majority of tags. Most of these tags have a clearly facilitating function, which indicates that it is the interactional role rather than power which is the decisive correlate here, though of course in this conversation these two factors can hardly be kept apart. Unfortunately, there is no data for women in interviewer positions. The findings for the LLC buttress several analyses on tag question use and power reported in the literature: Johnson (1980) has analysed the questions uttered in a professional meeting and reports that the leader of the meeting use 70% of all facilitative questions. Preisler (1986: 165) finds that interactants who assume a socio-emotional rather than a task-oriented role use more tag questions. In Holmes' (1984) data speakers can be grouped into those assuming a leadership or facilitator role, i.e. "those responsible for ensuring that the interaction proceeds smoothly" (Holmes 1984: 56) and those who assume a non-leadership role. Facilitators can be teachers, interviewers, chairpersons, hosts, etc. It is worth stressing that the role of facilitators need not correlate with social status, e.g. an interview between a reporter and a Prime Minister. Holmes (1984: 57) presents her data as absolute figures and percentages. She does not compute statistical significance. I have added the chi-square values for her data in the following table: none of the attested sex differences turns out to be statistically significant. The existing tendencies point towards a preference of women to use more tag questions than men when being facilitators and fewer than men when being in a non-leadership role. Table 1: Tag Questions According to Sex and Interactional Role (based on Holmes 1984: 57, χ2 score added) Interactional role

F

F%

Μ

M%

χ 2 value

Leadership role/Facilitator Non-leadership role

38 13

75% 25%

23 16

59% 41%

2.37 0.19

TOTAL

51

39

1.01

Statistically significant are, however, the differences between tag occurrence in leadership vs non-leadership roles computed for each sex separately (cf. Table 2). Conversants serving the interactional role of facilitators use significantly more tag questions than those in a nonleadership role. When differentiated by sex this result is only significant for women. Table 2: Tag Questions According to Interactional Role and Sex (based on Holmes 1984: 57, χ 2 score added) Sex

Leadership role

Non-leadership role

Female

38

62%

13

59%

8,16**

Male

23

38%

16

41%

0,80

Total

61

39

χ value

11,38***

Holmes (1984) concludes that her data challenges claims that tags are indicative of powerless language since they are sometimes favoured by those in power and since interactional

167 role is a stronger correlate than power. "Tag questions can quite validly be perceived not as 'hedges' or barriers to communication but as conversational support structures." (Holmes 1984: 59). Coates (1988a: 68f.) takes issue with O'Barr/Atkins (1980) for claiming that powerful participants are more forceful linguistically regardless of their sex. She draws on research done by Woods (1988) who reports that between female and male bosses and subordinates sex was a stronger correlate of holding the floor than status. Male speakers held longer turns and received more minimal responses than female speakers. When females were in a superior position, this did not lead to women holding the floor more than men. Coates (1988a: 69) concludes that these observations can only be interpreted from the perspective of a dominance model though she stresses that the dominance approach is not always the most appropriate. An important problem lies in the inference chain postulated by Woods (1988: 141). Commenting on power-based approaches which assume the factor sex to be secondary to power, she tests the appropriateness of the claim that [...] it is not simply gender which causes men to dominate and women to defer. If this is true it should also follow that: (a) where women are in positions of power they will dominate conversation in ways similar to men: and (b) that where men are in subordinate position their dominant behaviour will diminish or disappear.

This discussion leads to the possible pitfalls in incorporating the factor power into linguistic analysis: Powerful speakers are generally not powerful all the time. Power is situation-specific and power relations can manifest themselves on different dimensions at the same time, i.e. an English teacher giving lessons to a top manager can be in a more powerful position during class but in a comparatively powerless position during a dinner party at the manager's house. Moreover, power relations can change within a single conversation. This is why most studies on power differences rely on the investigation of institutional power as it is taken to exist between teacher and pupil, boss and subordinate, judge and witness, doctor and patient, etc. Analyses such as Woods' (1988) do not take into account how long the female bosses have held their powerful positions, i.e. their anciennity. If sex is a status-characteristic as will be argued below, women and men cannot be expected to change long-established expectations once the roles are reversed. The process of building-up, shaping and modifying their roles is likely to take time. We can summarize that male interviewers in the LLC used statistically highly significantly more tag questions than male applicants and that these findings are likely to reflect their responsibility for the conversational flow in these interviews. This, together with the above-mentioned findings by Johnson (1980), Holmes (1984) and Preisler (1986), again demonstrates the importance of distinguishing between different tag question functions and of accounting for the interactional roles assumed by interlocutors.

6.3. Group Composition

Speech Accommodation Theory (cf. Giles 1980, 1984) is highly relevant to the analysis of sex-differentiated linguistic behaviour in terms of group composition because it allows for

168 the fact that individuals continually adapt their styles either in the direction towards or away from other speakers in order to express social identity and distinctness from others. The former movement is referred to as convergence and the latter as divergence. People will attempt to converge linguistically toward the speech patterns believed to be characteristic of their recipients when they (a) desire their social approval and the perceived costs of so acting are proportionally lower than the rewards anticipated; (b) desire a high level of communicational efficiency, and (c) social norms are not perceived to dictate alternative speech strategies. (Street/Giles 1982: 213)

Speech Accommodation Theory can thus be used to account for sex differences in general as well as for variation in the magnitude of style-shifting and for differences in same-sex vs cross-sex settings. There are ongoing controversies on the effect of same-sex vs cross-sex interaction which are characterized by largely contradictory results. The factor sex of the addressee has been found to play a crucial part in the analysis of sex differences in language (cf. Hirschman 1973, Crosby/ Nyquist 1977, McMillan et al. 1977, Brouwer 1982, Brown 1980, Bell 1984, Preisler 1986, Bilous/Krauss 1988 and Mulac et al. 1988: 317). The exact direction and extent of this effect, however, is far from clear (cf. Holmes 1990: 191). The results arrived at by studies on group composition follow two opposing strands • those finding more pronounced sex differences in cross-sex as than in same-sex interaction and • those finding more pronounced sex differences in same-sex than in cross-sex interaction.

6.3.1. Previous Research Finding More Pronounced Sex Differences in Cross-Sex than in Same-Sex Interaction In his 1986 study, Preisler expected sex differences to become more pronounced in crosssex groups. This tendency is, however, only observable for one of the constructions analysed by Preisler, i.e. for hedges or internal modalities together with 1 think." This raises the question of whether some variables underlie stronger social norms dictating non-convergent speech behaviour than others. Other studies which have observed more marked sex differences in cross-sex communication are mentioned in Mulac et al. (1988: 317). • Strodtbeck/Mann (1956) claim to find greater differences in cross-sex settings. • Hammen/Peplau (1978) report women in a waiting room to express more traditional attitudes towards sex-roles when in mixed-sex conversation than when in same-sex conversation. Men's behaviour did not vary with the sex of their communication partner. • Golub/Canty (1982) observe females to be less prone to assuming a leadership role when in cross-sex dyads. Men's behaviour did not vary on that score. • McMillan et al. (1977) observes females to use more modal constructions, tag questions and imperatives in question form when in mixed settings. Males' behaviour did not vary according to their interlocutors' sex. Mulac et al. (1988: 317) conclude that there is support for the hypothesis that women adhere more closely to their sex-role stereotype when they interact with men than when they interact with women. 11

As Jaworski (1987: 203) criticizes, Preisler (1986) offers no explanation for this phenomenon.

169 6.3.2. Previous Research Finding More Pronounced Sex Differences in Same-Sex than in Cross-Sex Interaction Mulac et al. (1988) provide statistically significant results in support for the hypothesis that language behaviour in same-sex rather than cross-sex dyads permits more accurate differentiation of interactant gender. Unfortunately, the fact that Mulac et al. (1988) analyses clusters of linguistic constructions does not provide information about the degree of sexdifferentiation for each single construction. As it stands, we cannot decide whether the effects of some variable are overridden by other variables in the cluster. Hirschman (1973) reports that sex differences with respect to mm, hmm, etc. decrease in cross-sex conversations. Crosby/Nyquist (1977) observed that women use slightly more hedges when speaking to members of their own sex. By contrast, males used fewer hedges in all-male conversations than in mixed ones. Assuming that females are generally associated with using hedges, this indicates convergent behaviour by both sexes. Convergent behaviour for males is also reported for hedges by Brown (1980), who finds that men in cross-sex interaction use more hedges than in same-sex interaction. By contrast, women employed more hedges in all-female than in mixed conversation. The opposite pattern is reported by McMillan et al. (1977) who observes women's use of hedges to increase in cross-sex vs all-female conversations. What do we make of such contradictory evidence? Holmes (1990: 192) ascribes the contradictory results to the [...] tendency to lump all pragmatic particles together and label them hedges, regardless of their function in the context of utterance. Some may be serving as negative politeness devices, others as epistemic signals of uncertainty, and others still as solidarity signals or positive politeness devices.

Holmes (1990: 192) also stresses the interaction of style and sex of the addressee. Thus, females have been observed to use more instances of you know, sort of and tag questions when in casual conversation with members of their own sex (cf. Hiller 1985, Holmes 1986 and Coates 1988b). In a more formal context sort of occurred more frequently while addressing female interviewers than when addressing males. Another experiment designed to uncover the effect of gender composition on group interaction was carried out by Machung (1992): Students were split into groups of two to four to carry out water temperature experiments. The author assumes that in this experimental task female students are expected to have less competence. The experimenter differentiated four group categories, two same-sex and three mixed-sex groups. The mixed-sex groups were further differentiated according to which sex had the majority of speakers. In addition, on-task comments. Machung (1992) reports that females contribute less than males both in mixed groups where they were the majority and in those where they were the minority sex. Her results were not subjected to statistical testing. The pattern for majority female groups was that boys, on average, contributed twice as many turns as girls and thrice as many status-seeking comments than girls. In majority male groups where there was one girl with three boys the girl's contributions decreased to almost zero. All-female groups led to equal contributions by each girl but sharply decreased the average number of on-task comments. Machung (1992) holds that the girls required outside help because the experimental task involved an experiment in an area where females are expected to have less competence. Equal male and female groups produced an equal share of contribution of the sexes. All-male groups exhibited relatively strong variations in contribution within the groups. Machung (1992: 383) concludes that for females and males the best group

170

composition for promoting on-task discussion were those groups in which girls and boys were equally represented. However, boys in Machung's study also fared well in the majority male groups. Preisler (1986: 133) expected that sex differences would be more pronounced in crosssex than in same-sex conversations, a hypothesis which was not confirmed by his data. However, as Preisler (1986: 49) himself points out, the conversation groups in the experiments had the task "to reach agreement in the form of a group conclusion", which is likely to cause a desire to communicate efficiently. This is one of the three factors leading to convergence. Preisler (1986: 133) holds that female/male speech differences appear to reflect social status and age rather than group composition in terms of sex. With respect to interactional roles assumed by the subjects the female lead in socio-emotive role-behaviour scores is statistically highly significant in both same-sex and cross-sex groups but sex differences are smaller in same-sex settings. For men in particular the socio-emotive role-behaviour score rises significantly in all-male groups (cf. Preisler 1986: 198). Countering Lakoff (1975), Preisler (1986) concludes that his results show that if women use tentativeness features "[...] it is not generally because they are cowed by male chauvinists who force them into a defensive position. It is rather that men and women have developed sex-specific speech patterns [...]". However, Lakoff does not argue that men's dominating behaviour in the actual interaction leads to the sexes' diverging speech patterns. It may well be that such differences have emanated much earlier in the socialization process. More importantly, the sexspecific patterns are not just different but also correlate with status and power differences.

6.3.3. Adverbial Clauses in Same-Sex and Cross-Sex Conversations In order to test the effect of group composition all the conversations that cannot be unequivocally assigned either to the same-sex or cross-sex category were excluded. These include radio commentaries where one would be hard put to grade the importance of the factor sex of the audience. In commentaries on football matches or royal weddings audience design is likely to be affected by the stereotypical recipients of such broadcasts. The same problem arises for parliament debates and church sermons. Therefore, all conversations involving an unspecified public have been omitted from the count. This procedure led to a total of 3567 finite adverbial clauses which produced the pattern in Figure 25. The pattern actually observed is in apparent opposition to Preisler's (1986) findings. Rather than leading to a levelling out of sex differences, cross-sex conversations produce more pronounced sex differences in the LLC. As Figure 25 illustrates, women's actual use of the four types of finite adverbial clauses analysed in the present study is comparatively higher than that of men in cross-sex settings. This gender-effect is statistically very highly significant. If these results are compared to the already-mentioned overall preference by females for the four types of adverbial clauses, it becomes obvious that especially the crosssex settings account for the existing sex differences. In same-sex interactions no marked gender differences emerge though a tendency towards a female preponderance is discernible. Keeping the factor sex constant in order to isolate the effects for group composition for women and men separately did not produce statistically significant results for the LLC data. This absence of statistically significant group composition differences is striking in view of the relatively large sample of 3734 adverbial clauses analysed. It can by no means be

171 attributed to the weak statistical power of small samples. Rather, it indicates that both sexes must have contributed to the diverging tendencies in cross-sex settings, i.e. women increase their already high adverbial clause usage while men lower theirs, so that these opposing tendencies produce a marked sex difference in cross-sex interaction. This also indicates that group composition is a noticeable but not very strong constraint on adverbial clause usage. Figure 25: Adverbial Clauses According to Sex and Group Composition (N = 3567) Adverbial Clauses

140th

1200-1

Same-Sex

•

AV(F)

Β

EV (F)

•

AV (M)

III

EV (M)

Cross-Sex

A differentiation by semantic type shall further illuminate the distribution of the aggregate figure for adverbial clause usage and help to clarify the influence of group composition.

6.3.4. Adverbial Clause Types in Same-Sex and Cross-Sex Conversations As depicted in the histogram below, the direction of the sex differences is identical in samesex and cross-sex conversations with women employing comparatively more causal clauses than men. Figure 26: Causal Clauses According to Sex and Group Composition (N = 1491)

• • in

Same-Sex

Cross-Sex

AV(F) EV ( F ) AV ( M ) EV ( M )

172 The extent of these differences is strikingly different: For mixed-sex conversations sex differences are statistically very highly significant whereas in same-sex interaction they are merely trends. Again, as for the adverbial clause aggregate, cross-sex settings increase rather than level out sex differences in the use of causal clauses. The use of the 1314 finite adverbial conditional clauses analysable for group composition does not present pronounced gender differences. Consider the distribution of purpose clauses in Figure 27. Figure 27: Purpose Clauses According to Sex and Group Composition (N = 86)

•

AV(F)

Ξ

EV(F)

Β

AV (M)

(Π) ΕV (Μ)

Same-Sex

Cross-Sex

Sex-differentiation for purpose clauses in mixed-sex settings is statistically significant in the LLC. The pattern emerging is the same as for causal, and as we will see below in Figure 28 for concessive clauses and the adverbial clause total: Sex differences are more pronounced in mixed than in same-sex conversations. Figure 28: Concessive Clauses According to Sex and Group Composition (N = 234)

•

AV(F) EV (F) AV (M)

ID EV (M)

Same-Sex

Cross-Sex

173 The figures for concessive clauses given in Figure 28 present statistically significant results in cross-sex conversations. Mixed conversations again broaden sex differences rather than levelling them out. The male lead in the use of concessives only becomes statistically significant in cross-sex settings. In summary, the pattern for three clause types, viz. causal, concessive and purpose clauses, shows a clear correlation between sex differences and group composition in that differences become more pronounced in mixed-sex conversations.

6.3.5. Tag Questions in Same-Sex and Cross-Sex Conversations Considering same-sex and mixed-sex interaction separately does not present significant sex differences for the London-Lund Corpus. In both situations there is merely a slight female lead discernible. This is in apparent contrast to Preisler (1986: 200), who observes women's preponderance for certain constructions involving tag questions to be more pronounced in same-sex than in cross-sex settings. However, if we recall that such an analysis lumps together very different types of tag questions disregarding their function, such results can hardly be revealing. Figure 29 contrasts women's use of tag questions in all-female with mixed conversations on the one hand and male's use in all-male with mixed conversations on the other. It can be observed that for males group composition plays an important part. When speaking with members of their own sex, they use considerably fewer tag questions than when interacting with women in the London-Lund Corpus. Their differential usage is statistically highly significant. For women being in all-female or mixed groups does not affect their tag question usage. Figure 29: Tag Questions According to Group Composition and Sex (N = 651) x2 = 5.34* Tag Questions 250-. 20σ

•

AV (F)

S

EV

I

(p)

AV(M)

DE EV(M)

15σ 100-

50-

Same-Sex

Cross-Sex

Same-Sex

Cross-Sex

174

The pattern for men is exactly the opposite ofthat observed by Preisler (1986: 197). In his data, males increased their tag usage significantly when in all-male interaction. Preisler (1986: 197) also reports that the female preponderance in the use of tag questions does not decrease in all-female interaction. A differentiation of tag question types according to the five functions established in section 4.4.4. would be required, before any claims concerning their use can be based on solid foundations. Summarizing the findings, three types of adverbial clauses display more marked sex differences in mixed than in same-sex settings. The fourth type is indifferent to the group composition factor. For tag questions this variable does not produce differences. A further differentiation according to function was not feasible in the present investigation because it would render the sample too small to provide meaningful results. All in all, group composition appears to be an altogether less salient constraint than, for instance, style or speaker sex. Many tendencies do not become statistically significant though the general pattern shows that sex differences for causal, purpose and concessive clauses become more pronounced in cross-sex interaction.

6.4. Surreptitiousness

There appears to be a tendency in the literature to prematurely reject the influence of the surreptitiousness factor. For instance, Preisler (1986: 32f.) seems rather rash in his judgement with respect to the non-surreptitiousness of the data by anticipating that due to the elaborate structure of the experiment design, his non-surreptitiously recorded data "can be generalized to natural interaction". He discards the influence of speakers' self-monitoring by pointing out that "[...] modal expressions are not prestige markers subject to special attention, in fact their use is usually outside speakers' awareness and is demonstrated willy nilly if they use language at all [...]". Preisler (1986) further claims that since the data are designed to reflect relative differences rather than absolute ones between women and men interacting under the same conditions, the factor surreptitiousness can be neglected. Huebler (1983: 25) in his analysis of understatements and hedges considers the surreptitiousness factor "irrelevant for this particular study". And Wiemann (1981: 304) suggests that the self-consciousness caused by being recorded ceases after one minute. However, it has been suggested that the language system overwhelmingly used in the areas of public life is modelled on male perception.12 If this were the case, we should expect women to be affected to a greater extent than men by the awareness of being recorded. Wolfson (1976: 199) points out that it has been proposed that the advantage of recording [...] group sessions rather than individuals is that the constraints inherent in a one-to-one interview are avoided and the normal patterns of group interaction will, it is hoped, overcome the constraints produced by the subjects' knowledge that they are being observed and recorded. (Wolfson 1976: 199)

He is, however, sceptical of whether the interaction with communication partners in conversational settings really overrides the effect of observation. "That the subject is well 12

Cf. Ardener's (cited in Preisler 1986: 7) Muted Group Theory

175 aware of the presence of the tape recorder, even in the most casual of interviews, is evidenced by the references made to it." (Wolfson 1976: 199). The following analysis will show that in fact the surreptitiousness factor strongly affects gender differences in syntax.

6.4.1. Adverbial Clauses According to Surreptitiousness As will become clear in the analysis of the surreptitiousness factor, we can obtain extremely revealing insights from accounting for the awareness of being recorded in the gendered use of syntax. In order to investigate the question whether self-monitoring causes differences in language use in surreptitious vs non-surreptitious recordings, the LLC data has been grouped into conversations in which speakers were aware of being recorded and those in which recordings were made surreptitiously. Self-monitoring is, of course, not the only factor likely to covary with changes according to surreptitiousness. For instance, non-surreptitiously recorded material can also be expected to be more formal since many of these conversations in the LLC are radio or TV discussions, public oration, etc. However, it is assumed that the difference correlating with surreptitiousness can be largely attributed to self-monitoring rather than, e.g. style: The extensive size of the sample for each category suggests that the range of contextual and speaker characteristics is relatively representative and well-balanced. A total of 162 conversations in the LLC involve surreptitiously recorded speakers and those involving non-surreptitiously recorded speakers amount to 125. Among the non-surreptitiously recorded material are private informal conversations as well as very formal public lectures, so that a wide range of contextual factors are covered. Therefore, differences correlating with surreptitiousness are assumed to be largely attributable to differences in self-monitoring. The histogram below illustrates the actual and expected values of adverbial clause usage in 162 conversations containing surreptitiously recorded material. Figure 30: Adverbial Clauses in Surreptitiously Recorded Conversations (N = 1980) Adverbial Clauses 600η τ?= 29.75*** •

AV(F)

@ EV(F) •

AV(M)

IB EV(M)

Causal

Conditional

Concessive

Purpose

176 Only for causal clauses do the results reveal statistically very highly significant sex differences. However, the direction of the trends for the other clauses points in the same direction as in the corpus total, i.e. a female preponderance for all clause types except concessives. The distribution of finite adverbial clauses in the 125 conversations involving non-surreptitiously recorded material is depicted in Figure 31. A striking difference between the two diagrammes is a statistically highly significant lead for women with respect to conditional clauses. This is the first time that sex differences for conditional clauses reach the level of statistical significance. It appears to be the case that awareness of being recorded either immensely increases women's conditional usage or decreases that of males. Which of the two sexes is responsible for the marked gender differences will be investigated in section 6.4.3.. In both kinds of recordings the male lead for concessive clauses does not reach a statistically significant level. The quantitative differences for purpose clauses are quite interesting: Whereas the female preponderance is not statically significant when speakers are unaware of being recorded, it becomes very highly significant in non-surreptitious recordings. That is, either women use more purpose clauses when being recorded or men use fewer. Section 6.4.4. will show that it is indeed women who shift their purpose clause usage and hence bring about the marked monitoring-effect. Keeping the factor sex constant and comparing the sexes' use of all four clause types in surreptitious vs non-surreptitious conversations did not produce any significant differences. Thus, the aggregate figures would suggest that surreptitiousness does not constrain the usage of finite adverbial clauses in the LLC. However, the observed patterns obtained by splitting the results into clause type indicates a levelling out of conflicting tendencies, which is concealed in the aggregate. We therefore consider each clause type separately. Figure 31: Adverbial Clauses in Non-Surreptitiously Recorded Conversations (N = 2491) x 2 = 8.66**

• Β • m

Causa]

Conditional

Concessive

AV (F) EV (F) AV ( M ) EV ( M )

Purpose

6.4.2. Causal Clauses According to Surreptitiousness Looking at the effect of surreptitiousness on the 1792 causal clauses in the corpus presents the pattern that female speakers use far more subordinate clauses than men whether being aware of being recorded or not. This is illustrated in Figure 32:

177 Figure 32: Causal Clauses According to Sex and Surreptitiousness (N = 1792)

Causal C l a u s e s 7 0 0 600-1

Surreptitious

•

AV (F)

g

EV(F)

I

AV (M)

Π

EV(M)

Non-surreptitious

Keeping sex constant in order to assess the strength of the surreptitiousness effect (Figure 33) produces the result that both sexes shift to a statistically significant degree by reducing their causal clause usage when they are aware of being recorded. Figure 33: Causal Clauses According to Surreptitiousness and Sex (N = 1792) = 6.49*

Causal Clauses 70(L 600-

500-

^ = 5.05*

400-

•

AV(F)

Β

EV(F)

I

AV (M)

IIJ

EV(M)

300200-

100-

0 Surreptitious Non-surreptitious

Surreptitious

Females

Non-surreptitious

Males

6.4.3. Conditional Clauses According to Surreptitiousness The pattern for conditional clauses also reveals interesting aspects with respect to surreptitiousness.

178 Figure 34: Conditional Clauses According to Sex and Surreptitiousness (N = 2231) j? =8.66**

Surreptitious

•

AV(F)

§

EV (F)

^

AV (M)

m

EV (M)

Non-Surreptitious

Figure 35 shows the surreptitiousness-effect for females and males separately. Figure 35: Conditional Clauses According to Surreptitiousness and Sex (N = 2231) Conditional Clauses lOOOi 900-

•

AV(F)

800-

2

EV (F)

700-

•

AV(M.

||j

EV(M;

600-

tf = 7.10**

50a 400300-

2001000 Surreptitious Non-surreptitious Females

Surreptitious Non-surreptitious Males

It becomes obvious that it is the female speakers who cause the sex differences in non-surreptitious recordings. Women shift to a statistically highly significant extent when they realize they are being observed. They strongly increase their rate of conditional clause production. This pattern is mirrored as a minute trend in men's data. For women selfmonitoring appears to result in uttering more conditional clauses and this behaviour is opposite to that demonstrated for causal clauses. These opposing effects have conditioned the levelling out of the surreptitiousness-effect for the LLC total.

179 6.4.4. Purpose Clauses According to Surreptitiousness Though purpose clauses are comparatively scarce in the data, they display a marked preponderance by women as opposed to men in non-surreptitiously recorded material. Genderdifferentiation is very highly significant when people are aware of being recorded. Figure 36: Purpose Clauses According to Sex and Surreptitiousness (N = 126) Purpose C l a u s e s 7 On

6(X

Surreptitious

•

AV(F)

g

E V (F)

•

AV (M)

IE

ev(M)

Non-Surreptitious

A closer look at the surreptitiousness-effect for each sex separately shows that only women shift to a statistically highly significant extent. They use more purpose clauses when they know they are being observed than when they do not. A trend in the same direction is observable for men. Figure 37: Purpose Clauses According to Surreptitiousness and Sex (N = 126) Purpose Clauses 45 η f = 9.24** 40

•

AV(F)

g

EV(F)

•

AV (M)

•

EV(M)

35302520-

1510 5

0 Surreptitious

Non-surreptitious

Females

Surreptitious

Non-surreptitious

Males

180

6.4.5. Concessive Clauses According to Surreptitiousness The use of concessive clauses did not produce marked sex differences. Neither are the shifts according to surreptitiousness by each sex marked enough to be significant. There are merely tendencies discernible that women reduce overall usage when they are aware of being observed while men do the opposite. Summarizing the results for the four semantic adverbial clause types, we find that causal clauses are disfavoured when speakers are aware of being recorded. By contrast, both sexes increase conditional and purpose clause usage when monitoring takes place.

6.4.6. Tag Questions According to Surreptitiousness Contrasting the surreptitiousness-effect for each sex separately produces statistically very highly significant differences. Both sexes dramatically decrease their tag question usage when they know they are being recorded. Thus, tag questions appear to be very sensitive to contextual factors. Note that the effect is exactly parallel to that for causal clauses. Both sexes use fewer tags when being observed, and this effect is statistically very highly significant. Figure 38: Tag Questions According to Surreptitiousness and Sex (N = 699) Tag Questions

300η

250-

x2= 21.61***

200

150

•

AV(F)

S

EV(F)

•

AV(M)

H

EV(M)

100 50

Surreptitious

Non-surreptitious

Females

Surreptitious

Non-surreptitious

Males

6.4.7. Summary The present analysis of surreptitiousness sheds some new light on the discussion of the monitoring effect. It has been shown that awareness of being recorded has extremely pronounced consequences for the use of syntactic devices. Wiemann's (1981: 304) claim that the monitoring-effect is negligible because awareness of being recorded ceases after a few minutes must clearly been refuted.

181

Particularly, Preisler's (1986: 45) postulate that monitoring has no effect on the use of modal verbs because these are not "prestige markers subject to special attention" and that their use is "outside speakers' awareness" stands out in stark contrast to the results reported in this book. Modal verbs, more than any other construction, have been discussed in terms of their ability to convey epistemic meaning. This feature, as has been shown in chapters 4 and 5, is exactly the one shared by certain tag question types and adverbial clause types. The sexes have been demonstrated to be extremely sensitive to epistemic meaning in chapters 4 and 5. Epistemic meaning forms an underlying characteristic distinguishing women's and men's language use. Thus, there are persuasive indications that signalling commitment or non-commitment towards the truth of a proposition, i.e. epistemic meaning, is extremely liable to become a prestige marker in that toning down certainty can serve as politeness or deference strategy. That this meaning is indeed "subject to special attention" is self-evident. It is one of the most pronounced correlates of variation according to attitude. If the conveyance of epistemic meaning was "outside speakers' awareness", they could not use it so effectively to establish and express interpersonal relations.13 Moreover, there is not one single instance among the syntactic constructions analysed where a surreptitious recording produced significant sex differences while the non-surreptitious recording does not, while the reverse can be observed. Furthermore, in most cases where sex differences are more pronounced in non-surreptitiously recorded conversations, it is either females who have shifted their usage, or both sexes, but never only males. Thus, women prove to be more sensitive than men to being observed.

6.5. Other Factors

Apart from the four external factors analysed above, there is a range of further and in part strongly interrelated factors which are also likely to be correlated with sex. Among the factors discussed with respect to gender in the literature are • age (cf. e.g. Trudgill 1972, Nelson 1973, Heuwagen 1974, Macaulay 1978, Romaine 1978, Mattheier 1980, Kemp 1981, Chaika 1982, Coates 1986, Preisler 1986, Greenwood/Freed 1992, Hamilton 1992, Okamoto/Sato 1992) • setting (cf. e.g. Kotthoff 1992) • discourse type (cf. e.g. Wolfson 1976, Holmes 1986, Meyerhoff 1986, Aijmer 1987, Coates 1987, 1988b, Greenwood/Freed 1992, Edelsky 1993) • topic (cf. e.g. Swacker 1975, Chaika 1982, Shimanoff 1983, Wodak 1985, Coates 1987, 1988b, Dovidio et al. 1988, Lutz 1990, Kotthoff 1992, Hartog 1992) • anciennity (cf. e.g. Gomard 1994) • historical age (cf. e.g. James/Clarke 1993) • attitude towards feminism (cf. e.g. Hershey/Werner 1975) • social class (cf. e.g. Trudgill 1972, Nuflez-Wormack 1978, Perkins 1983, Wodak 1985, Preisler 1986, Meyerhoff 1992) 13

Whether this awareness is signalled consciously or subconsciously is of secondary importance.

182 • ethnicity (cf. e.g. Nuflez-Wormack 1978, Meyerhoff 1992) • profession (cf. e.g. Ammon 1973, Maranth/Mansfield 1977, Nichols 1983, Wodak 1985) • medium (cf. e.g. Lakoff 1975, Romaine 1981, Coates 1986, Aijmer 1986, Holmes 1990) An empirical investigation of these factors is neither feasible within the confines of the present book nor possible because the data do not provide sufficient information.

7. Explaining the Findings: Why Women and Men Talk Differently

The preceding chapters reveal strikingly consistent patterns in women's and men's differential use of tag questions and adverbial clauses. Statistically significant gender differences are documented for a range of language internal factors (semantic type, position, intonation and pragmatic function). Additionally, we have witnessed the impact of four language external factors, that are strongly interrelated with gender and to which the sexes have been shown to be remarkably sensitive: These are style, power, group composition and surreptitiousness. We are now in a position to address the crucial question in detail: How can the results be explained in the broader perspective of what ultimately causes the observed gender differences? This implies relating the findings to the Epistemic Modality Principle and the Turn-Allocation Principle (both formulated in chapter 1) and to discuss them in the theoretical framework of functional grammar. In the following sections the findings for each language internal and each language external factor will be addressed in turn and related to the eight hypotheses formulated in section 2.4.

7.1. Semantic Aspects Underlying the Gendered Distribution of Finite Adverbial Clauses

As outlined in chapter 5, Harris (1988: 71) suggests the existence of a semantic continuum of causal relations holding for causal, conditional and concessive clauses. Adding purpose clauses to the spectrum, where the relation between the subordinate and the main clause also asserts causality rather than hypothesizing or denying it, the semantic continuum can be represented as follows. Causal

Conditional

Purpose

causality asserted

causality hypothesized

Concessive causality denied

The present study has established that women in the London-Lund-Corpus use strikingly more causal and purpose clauses and significantly fewer concessive clauses than men. By contrast, no statistically significant gender differences emerged for conditional clauses. Thus, extending the continuum by a female and male pole presents the following distribution. Causal Women


causality asserted causality hypothesized causality denied We are now in a position to turn to the explanation of these gender preferences.

Men

184 7.1.1. Women's Preference for Causal and Purpose Clauses It will be argued in the present discussion that women's comparatively higher frequency of causal and purpose clauses results from a desire to express the motivation for stating the main clause proposition. The functional differentiation of adverbial clauses into those conveying propositional, conclusive and speech-act meaning has shown that it is particularly the epistemic downtoners that are highly favoured by women and disfavoured by men. However, the fact that there was also a significant female lead for causal and purpose clauses in the content domain indicates that there is something inherently connected to the semantics of these clauses which makes them attractive for women rather than men. An observation by Huebler (1983: 155) might provide some explanation for this phenomenon. He stresses that an assertory sentence forms a hypothesis about a propositional state of affairs and is hence negatable. Such a sentence can then be subject to ratification which is taken to have been effected if the interlocutor does not challenge the speaker. According to Huebler, modifying devices are used to reduce the risk of negation. Thus, by providing a motivation for the assertion made in the main clause by means of a postposed causal or purpose clause, women can be said to hedge their statements and to signal low commitment to what they are saying. If possible, support for the proposition is adduced, e.g. in form of a causal or purpose clause, but this support need not be very strong or convincing. This is consonant with clause (4) of the epistemic contract (discussed in section 2.1.7.), which I repeat here for convenience. Table 3 : Propositional Modalities and the Epistemic Contract (based on Givön 1984: 25) Contract Clause

(1) Speaker's assumption about hearer's knowledge of the proposition (2) Strength of speaker's belief in the proposition (3) Need for speaker to support the proposition with evidence (4) Strength of speaker's evidence for the proposition (5) Speaker's willingness to tolerate challenge to the proposition (6) Probability of hearer to challenge the proposition

Presupposition

Assertion Realis Assertion

Irrealis Assertion

familiar with/or believes in proposition strongest

unfamiliar with proposition

unfamiliar with proposition

strong

weak

not necessary

necessary

not possible

not an issue

stronger

weaker

least willing

more willing

most willing

low

intermediate

high

Thus, female speakers, in general, feel a stronger need to support the proposition with evidence. As clause (5) predicts for asserted material, the speaker almost anticipates being challenged and prepares for this by not appearing too committed. All these expectations make it much easier for the addressee to actually challenge the speaker's proposition, so that the likelihood of being challenged increases, cf. clause (6). It might, however, also contribute to not being challenged when the addressee accepts the offered tokens of noncommitment. As has already been emphasized, what is at stake in the expression of low

185 commitment is not whether the speaker actually believes in the truth of the proposition but rather how strongly a belief is postulated, since the expression of low commitment can be motivated by concerns of politeness, etc. The findings are well in line with Expectation States Theory. This theory predicts that the attribution of knowledge or expertise depends on the status hierarchy. Hence, a low-status speaker will feel a greater need to supplement a proposition uttered in a main clauses by a causal clause which provides additional reason or motivation for uttering the main clause. Such causal clauses score low on the epistemic scale. A speaker who provides a motivation for why he or she is claiming something does not incur die socially destabilizing risk of challenging the status hierarchy. The results introduced in the present analysis thus provide support for the Epistemic Modality Principle laid down in chapter 1 and Hypothesis 1A formulated in section 2.4. Women score higher on those semantic clause types that are particularly suited to signal low commitment towards the proposition expressed. Further support for this interpretation comes from a discussion of the findings on positioning of finite adverbial clauses in the present investigation. Before turning to an explanation of the positional differences, however, the perhaps most interesting phenomenon requires explanation, i.e. the only case of a statistically significant male lead for a syntactic construction investigated in the data.

7.1.2. Men's Preference for Concessive Clauses One of the most intriguing questions raised by the present study as regards the semantics of finite adverbial clauses is why concessive clauses pattern so unlike the other three clause types by being favoured to a statistically highly significant extent by males in the LondonLund-Corpus. This phenomenon can be explained in terms of Givön's (1984) continuum ranging from the expression of high commitment to low commitment to the truth of a proposition. Recalling the continuum presented in section 2.1.8., which I repeat here for convenience, negated material has been placed on a par with presupposed material as regards the expression of speakers' commitment (Givön 1984: 322). Presupposition Negative Assertion

Realis Assertion

Irrealis Assertion >

If negated assertions are equivalent to presupposed material as regards the expression of commitment, it becomes obvious why concessive clauses should be disfavoured by females and correspondingly favoured by males. Concessive clauses function like negated assertions in that they deny a causality link between the subordinate and the main clause. Such strong denial implies just as much commitment to the proposition expressed as, for instance, presupposed information. Both strategies of treating something as presupposed or negated imply strong commitment on the part of the speaker. Both denied and presupposed material is treated as self-evident and hence not open to challenge. Therefore, the use of presupposed material and negative assertions must be considered an assertive rather than tentative or cooperative strategy and is apt to be the privilege of higher status speakers, i.e. men. These results are also well in line with the Epistemic Modality Principle formulated in chapter 1. The principle states that women are more prolific users of epistemic downtoners

186 than men. Conversely, men are more prolific users of epistemic strengtheners, in this case concessive clauses that signal strong commitment towards the proposition expressed. The results also confirm hypothesis IB, which claimed that men score higher on concessive clauses than women. Expectation States Theory predicts that higher status speakers are assumed to be more knowledgeable than lower status speakers. Hence, a proposition uttered by a high-status speaker is less likely to be challenged by interlocutors. High-status speakers therefore fulfil expectations rather than being socially destabilizing if they use concessive clauses, which score high on the epistemic scale. An assertive way of speaking is easily granted to highstatus speakers, and even expected of them. The argumentation can easily be related to the communicative contract. When uttering presupposed material or negative assertions, a speaker assumes the addressee to share the belief in the proposition. In addition, the speaker her-/himself is highly committed to the proposition. Support for the proposition is hardly needed since the proposition is treated as uncontroversial and the speaker is most unwilling to tolerate challenge to the proposition. All these expectations then cumulate in the phenomenon that the speaker is unlikely to be challenged. Assuming that sex is a status characteristic it ought to be male speakers who pursue the linguistic strategies that are least likely to be challenged. This prediction is clearly borne out by the results ascertained in the present volume.

7.2. Positional Aspects Underlying the Gendered Distribution of Finite Adverbial Clauses

The pragmatic aspects that turned out to be relevant in the investigation of the syntactic constructions analysed in chapter 5 mainly revolve around the relation between positioning of finite adverbial clauses and information structure.

7.2.1. Women's Preference for Postposed Adverbial Clauses As far as women's adverbial clause usage is concerned, the present investigation has established that it is particularly those semantic clause types which are predominantly postposed rather than preposed that are favoured by women. These findings provide empirical support for hypotheses 2A and Β formulated in section 2.4. This finding could most impressively be illustrated for conditional clauses, which are generally indiscriminate with respect to gender in the corpus total. However, when differentiated according to position, the seemingly gender-neutral pattern exhibits opposing preferences for women and men, that are concealed in the aggregate figures. Again, females favour postposed conditionals while men favour preposed ones. In the aggregate for all conditional clauses, these diverging tendencies lead to a levelling out of distinct underlying sex differences.

187 The positional preference can be explained in terms of the information structure of finite adverbial clauses. The postposed clauses favoured by women are mainly asserted rather than presupposed. Women score particularly high on postposed clauses produced under a separate intonation contour. According to the above continuum, such clauses express lower commitment than presupposed and negated information. Final position has also been shown to be the typical location for clausal hedges. Thus, one of the reasons why women apparently use these final clauses is to epistemically modify the proposition expressed in the main clause. Final position appears to be the default location for signalling limited commitment towards the truth of the proposition expressed in the main clause. A female lead in the use of postposed adverbial clauses is also consonant with Expectation States Theory: Women as the lower-status group feel a greater need to epistemically downtone their proposition by addition of a clausal hedge. Couching a proposition into an utterance that scores low on the epistemic scale fulfils expectations and does not incur the socially destabilizing risk of challenging the status hierarchy.

7.2.2. Men's Preference for Preposed Adverbial Clauses By contrast, it has been found that men's finite adverbial clauses are far more often of the kind conveying presupposed information, thereby expressing high commitment towards the truth of the proposition expressed. The different information status of women's and men's subordinate clauses is reflected in the distribution of clauses as regards positioning. Presupposed information usually appears in the canonical given information slot, i.e. in preposed position. Conversely, asserted information typically appears in final position. This is well in line with the finding that women are comparatively more prone to use postposed adverbial clauses, while men use mainly preposed clauses. Males, in general, can be observed to use finite adverbial clauses to convey a high degree of commitment to the truth of the proposition expressed, whereas women tend to use them to the opposite effect (cf. section 5.6.). In addition, the discourse function of preposed clauses has been described by Ford (1993) to be of a text-structuring rather than main clause modifying kind. Preposed clauses generally have a less localized scope and often serve to introduce new topics (cf. Ramsay 1987). This feature can also be related to status differences between the sexes since topic control is likely to be a privilege of those in higher status positions. Another finding emerging in the analysis of positional differences of finite adverbial clauses led to the refusal of Ford's (1993) claim that adverbial clauses without main clause pattern analogously to preposed clauses. In view of the parallels of subordinate clauses without main clause with postposed rather than preposed clauses it has instead been argued in section 5.5.4. that the element which is omitted in adverbial clauses without main clause is that conveying given information and hence maximally accessible to the interlocutor. According to the given/new strategy, this is the main clause preceding an adverbial clause. Consequently, the adverbial clause without main clause must be postposed at some underlying level of representation rather than preposed. It would indeed be odd as regards information management if the new information part was omitted in favour of restating the given information portion.

188 7.3. Gender and Turn-Allocation

The next category of findings relates to the intonational and positional aspects of the syntactic constructions investigated in the present study. The analysis of the turn-taking mechanism supports the hypothesis that women and men's differences in social status contribute to the gender-differentiated use of finite adverbial clauses. Recalling the continuum of constructions signalling continuance or completion at transition-relevance-places by means of positional and intonational cues established in section 5.6.3., we are now in a position to relate the determinants position, intonation and gender to each other. Figure 1: Continuum of Finite Adverbial Constructions Signalling Continuance

Continuance

continuing final continuing

Completion

] ]

preposed

postposed

t final

After establishing a scale ranging from those clauses signalling that a current speaker seeks to extend her/his turn to those clauses signalling turn-completion after the next transitionrelevance-place, the present study has demonstrated that it is those clauses which score high on continuance that are favoured by males, whereas those clauses that score high on completion are favoured by females in the London-Lund-Corpus (cf. section 5.6.). Figure 2: Continuance Scale Model for Women's and Men's Use of Finite Adverbial Clauses in the LLC

e.g. preposed concessive clauses with continuing intonation

Men Continuance ^ ^ continuing -ι preposed final continuing Completion

final

J

]

postposed

Women postposed causal, conditional and purpose clauses with final intonation

189 Considering again the continuance scale model (Figure 2 is repeated here for convenience), it is obvious that men's domain are preposed clauses which score higher on continuance. This observation is based on men's statistically significant lead in the use of preposed and women's statistically very highly significant lead in the use of postposed clauses. After accounting for positional and intonational differences, it has been demonstrated in section 5.6. that in each case it is the men who score higher on preposed clauses and on clauses pronounced with continuing intonation, thereby indicating that there is more to come. By contrast, throughout all clause types women score comparatively higher on postposed clauses and on clauses that are uttered with final intonation, thus indicating turn completion. What is most revealing is that it is exactly the peaks of the continuum that have produced the most pronounced gender differences, i.e. the preposed concessive clause with continuing intonation is the uncontested male domain, whereas postposed causal, purpose and conditional clauses with final intonation are the domain of female speakers in the LondonLund-Corpus. At this end of the continuum, semantic, positional and intonational signals point in the same direction, i.e. completion. And it is here that sex differences are most distinct. These are pervasive indications that the status difference between women and men distinctly mirrors their differential use of floor-holding devices. The observed statistically significant preferences buttress the Turn-Allocation Principle introduced in chapter 1. They also clearly support hypotheses 3 (cf. section 2.4.) stating that women use fewer floor-holding devices than men. And the turn-allocation patterns for women and men are also well in line with the predictions made by Expectation States Theory (cf. 2.3.6.): People who are expected to do better at a given task receive more opportunities to make contributions. Since generally women hold lower status than men (in the absence of other status-characteristics), female speakers are allotted less opportunity to talk in order to give room to higher-status speakers. Challenging this position in order to have an extended hold of the floor would be socially destabilizing and possibly sanctioned. Lockheed (1985: 410) points out that those holding higher expectation advantages will automatically be given more opportunities to contribute, while at the same time their contributions are more positively evaluated. Such - presumably - unconscious deference effects lead to a power and prestige order within the group.

7.4. Functional Aspects Underlying the Gendered Distribution of Tag Questions and Finite Adverbial Clauses

The present volume has established that the sexes differ with respect to the primary meanings expressed by the syntactic constructions under investigation. Both tag questions and finite adverbial clauses are preferred by women when they encode epistemic and interpersonal rather than propositional meaning. These findings provide strong support for the Epistemic Modality Principle (cf. chapter 1) and they confirm hypotheses 4 A and Β (laid down in section 2.4.). The functional differentiation taking metaphorical mapping into account by categorizing the relations between subordinate and main clauses in terms of the content, conclusive and

190 speech-act domain has demonstrated that those clauses conveying epistemic meaning, i.e. the speaker's commitment towards the truth of the proposition expressed, are strongly favoured by females and comparatively disfavoured by males. These clauses either provide epistemic grounding by expressing internal inferences on the part of the speaker or by signalling the speaker's stance or attitude towards the act of uttering that speech-act. As regards the propositional function, the clauses pattern exactly as in the aggregate results for each semantic clause type. Women prefer causal and purpose clauses conveying propositional meaning, whereas men prefer concessive clauses. Conditional clauses from the content domain do not produce a significant gender-effect.1 Lyons (1977: 51) has pointed out that propositional meaning is factual in that it can be "objectively verified" and "explicitly asserted or denied". The uses the majority of women in the London-Lund-Corpus make of the syntactic devices explored resides in the function of these devices to signal interpersonal and epistemic meaning rather than propositional meaning. Expectation States Theory would predict that lower status speakers, i.e. women, are expected to defer linguistically to higher status speakers, i.e. men. This prediction is generally borne out by the London-Lund-Corpus data. While a differentiation of tag questions according to formal criteria such as rising or falling tone and continuing vs final intonation failed to produce pronounced gender differences, the five-fold functional categorization proposed in the present volume has revealed neatly stratified results. Tag questions are only favoured by women if they convey epistemic meaning (ask for verification) or interpersonal meaning (positive and negative politeness). The uses which are unmarked on the interpersonal/epistemic scale do not produce gender-differentiation. For adverbial clauses it is those uses which convey epistemic conclusive and epistemic speech-act meaning that are significantly favoured by females rather than males and this phenomenon is consistent throughout all the four semantic types analysed. Modalisation of the epistemic kind has a bearing on enacting, establishing and maintaining social relations, e.g. in the sense of expressing epistemic deference and epistemic grounding. Signalling low commitment to the truth of a proposition expressed can serve as politeness strategy. Huebler (1983: 27) stresses that indetermination reduces the risk of negatability. It serves the added function of not imposing on the addressee and thus signals negative politeness. Hence, epistemically modifying an utterance can indicate deference, which might ultimately pursue the aim of conveying politeness. It is no coincidence that the linguistic devices which serve an epistemic function, e.g. encoding limited commitment to the truth of the proposition expressed, are ultimately also the ones used to express interpersonal meaning, e.g. negative politeness. As the discussion of Syder/Pawley's (1974) Modesty Principle in section 2.1.7. has shown, politeness can be effected by taking up less space for one's own certainty or knowledge thereby increasing the epistemic space of others. Related to this is the claim postulated by LakofF (1977: 147, 149) stating that deference is often interpreted as uncertainty, which makes it "difficult for women to be taken seriously in the fields dominated by men". Lakoff (1977: 149) holds that: [...] the deference of women's style is an attempt to achieve and maintain non-responsibility, an unwillingness to take responsibility for one's actions and for the events of one's life. I don't mean irresponsibility - a callous disregard for the effects of one's actions on others; I think of non-

1

This phenomenon is explained below with reference to the semantic and pragmatic properties of these clauses.

191 responsibility as an attempt to maintain an internal composure, and as neutral with regard to the outside world.

This view, however, disregards the components of politeness, cooperativeness and paying attention to interlocutors' face needs that are also involved when speakers use epistemic downtoners. After all, speakers can use disclaimers while perfectly knowing what they say to be true in order to appear less knowledgeable and hence more polite. The present book has shown that it is particularly women who use expressions of epistemic modality in order to signal that what they are saying is not claimed to be the absolute truth and that men exhibit a preference towards using them to the opposite effect. But it would be short-sighted to interpret this female preference as a lack of knowledge. What seems to be at stake is their intention of not appearing too knowledgeable. Huebler (1983) comments on the relation between assertory function and inference. He gives the following example of an inference derived from the external context expressed by a tag question. (1)

A: I /thought I säw Φ some out there Φ Β: /these aren't English cherries Φ no they / can't be Φ / cän they Φ (Huebler 1983: 104)

As Huebler (1983) points out: Inference cannot assume an assertory function because the condition necessary for this function, i.e. the quasi-factive degree of certainty, is lacking. This makes it impossible from the outset for there to be a paraphrastic relationship between declarative questions and assertory sentences, which is necessaiy for forming hedges. (Huebler 1983: 104)

This phenomenon applies equally well to tag questions and to adverbial clauses signalling epistemic conclusive meaning. Another related aspect of epistemic meaning is explained in terms of the Hazardous Information Principle (Givön 1990: 824) according to which the overt display of too much knowledge can be socially destabilizing (cf. section 2.1.7.). Expectation States Theory predicts that the attribution of knowledge or expertise depends on the status hierarchy. Hence, a low-status speaker couching a proposition into an utterance scoring low on the epistemic scale simply fulfils expectations and hence does not incur the socially destabilizing risk of challenging the status hierarchy. Tag questions which ask for verification and adverbial clauses signalling non-propositional meaning are well-suited candidates to serve such a disclaiming function. By contrast, expressions which score high on the epistemic commitment scale are the privilege of high-status speakers. Since only the asserted portion of sentences is typically open to negation, the presupposed part, being outside the scope of negation, is unlikely to be challenged. The presupposed part is assumed to be shared by the discourse participants. This aspect can be easily related to men's comparatively higher use of preposed adverbial clauses since initial position is the default location for presupposed information. Similarly, we have attributed the phenomenon that males rather than females in the London-LundCorpus strongly favour concessive clauses to the view that negated assertions are on a par with presupposed material as regards the degree of commitment since negative declaratives deny a proposition against the addressee's presumed belief in the proposition (cf. section 2.1.8.).

192

7.5. The Relation between Gender and other External Factors

Any analysis of sex differences must be evaluated in terms of how in far it succeeds in unwinding the multifariously interrelated external factors which are directly or indirectly correlated with gender. For tag questions and finite adverbial clauses we find that particularly four external factors have a marked impact on the sexes' use of sentential modalities: Style, group composition, power and surreptitiousness. Whereas chapters 4 and 5 have shown the merits of a functional differentiation of tag questions and adverbial clauses, such a differentiation was not feasible for the analysis of the four external determinants investigated, because it would render the samples too small to provide meaningful results. Nevertheless, the analyses of the four external variables provide suggestive evidence which buttresses the explanation of gender differences in terms of a status-based approach.

7.5.1. Gender and Style The sexes' use of the syntactic constructions analysed in the present study proved to be extremely sensitive to the four formality levels distinguished in section 6.1.4. For causal clauses no sex-differentiation was observable in the most formal style while in all other styles the differences became more pronounced as formality decreased. Thus, while in the most formal style women and men used roughly equivalent numbers of causal clauses, a significant female preponderance emerged in the less formal styles, which even reached a statistically very highly significant lead in the informal and highly informal styles. Conditional clauses also displayed a constant increase of women's use of this clause-type as formality decreased and a concomitant relative decrease of men's conditionals. However, the pattern for conditionals, though pointing in the same direction, is less neatly stratified. For concessive clauses a very pronounced male preponderance emerged in the informal style and the overall distribution across the four styles proved less systematic than for causal and conditional clauses. This has been attributed to their comparative scarcity since only 315 concessive clauses qualified for the analysis with respect to style as opposed to 1768 causal clauses. For purpose clauses sex differences only emerged in the two formal styles where they were highly significant. Another observation which had been expected in view of the many similar results in the literature was that women's magnitude of style-shift equals or exceeds that of men while the reverse pattern was not found for any of the syntactic devices explored in the present study. Causal clauses and tag questions even turns out to be hyperstyle variable in that style is a stronger correlate than sex. This phenomenon has been related to the function of extreme style-shifts as politeness and deference strategies. Bell's (1984: 152) claim that intraspeaker variation always mirrors interspeaker variation (cf. section 6.1.) cannot be confirmed with respect to finite adverbial clauses in the London-Lund Corpus. Nor do the findings support the view (discussed in section 6.1.6.) that formality in general triggers an increased use of subordinate clauses. The relation between adverbial clause usage and style is more complicated and it appears to be semantic type specific and to depend on the function of these clauses.

193 Remarkably, there was a discontinuity effect observable for the informal style in that the gradual increase of sex differences as style became less formal reached a maximum in the informal style, in order to be reduced again in the highly formal style. This effect is even more pronounced for conditional clauses where the informal style is the only style producing very highly significant sex differences in the form of a female lead. It might be the case just as these intermediate styles are more difficult to categorize unambiguously for the researcher, the appropriate language behaviour is less clearly defined for the speaker. Tag question usage by the sexes is extremely constrained by style. In all but the highly informal style sex differences exceeded the level of statistical significance. This finding might be attributed to the speakers' attitude that it is not necessary to build up a good relationship by expressing politeness with intimates and that speakers actually feel more comfortable and certain in the presence of intimates. What turned out particularly revealing is the direction of the sex differences. In the highyl formal style men use comparatively more tags than women while male usage then continually decreases with formality. The most formal style includes, for instance, application interviews with male interviewers so that the male lead in tag question usage has been attributed to the use of facilitative tags in these conversations. This sheds new light on studies contributing to the controversial discussion about the gender-effect on tag questions, such as Dubois/Crouch (1975). The authors observed that all 33 tag questions were used by males, a finding which in the light of the present research might plausibly be attributed to the formality of the setting. In terms of Expectation States Theory, we can expect conversation partners in formal settings to rely more strongly on external status characteristics than in informal settings where interactants are better acquainted with each other. Expectation States Theory predicts that raising one's status is legitimate for higher-status speakers, i.e. men. This implies that lower-status speakers, i.e. women, need to be particularly sensitive to style. In formal conversations, where social status is based on external status characteristics such as gender, women need to be particularly careful to offer the required tokens of non-commitment, not to give the impression of claiming to be too knowledgeable, or to try to raise their status by having an extended hold of the floor. This is well in line with women's greater awareness to style differences suggested in hypothesis 5 (section 2.4.) and empirically validated in section 6.1.

7.5.2. Gender and Power The most clear-cut differences in terms of institutional power are derived from six application interviews in the London-Lund-Corpus in which male applicants used significantly more causal clauses than male interviewers. This finding is particularly interesting in the light of the fact that causal clauses have been observed to be a marked female domain in the corpus total. This is strongly indicative of a parallel between females and powerless males. In the all-male application interviews the external status characteristic gender did not play a part. The status hierarchy relied on the factor institutional power. In such a setting, the male interviewers rank higher than the male applicants. And not surprisingly we find the lowerstatus male applicants to use a higher proportion of causal clauses, a preference which is parallel to that observed for women throughout the corpus total in section 5.4.1. We have explained the proclivity of women (or powerless speakers) to use causal clauses in terms of Harris' semantic continuum stating that causal clauses assert a causality relation between

194 the main clause and a corresponding causal clause and are hence more open to challenge than, for instance, concessive clauses, in which the causality relation is denied (cf. section 7.1.)· This argumentation also applies to powerless speakers. The results confirm hypothesis 6 (outlined in 2.4.) which stated that powerless speakers will be more prolific users of expressions which rank relatively low on the epistemic scale. In general, applicants used more adverbial clauses of all types than interviewers but the results were only significant for causal and concessive clauses. The latter finding for concessive clauses is surprising in view of the fact that the majority of concessives have been discussed in terms of assertiveness since they imply denial (cf. section 5.3.). We have adduced this phenomenon to the fact that the concessives used by powerless males were to a large extent those which expressed epistemic meanings, thereby conveying limited commitment to the truth of the proposition expressed. For tag questions powerful males exhibit a statistically very highly significant proclivity, whereas the overall occurrence for women in application interviews was too small to allow a meaningful analysis. The male preponderance for tag questions by interviewers has been ascribed to their role as facilitators. It can be related to a phenomenon also noticed by Preisler (1986), i.e. that forms which serve to signal tentativeness in one situation convey assertiveness in another. Preisler had observed that several constructions which were generally taken to be tentativeness devices were frequently used by the managerial stratum in his study. This again buttresses the claim that forms expressing epistemic modal and interpersonal meaning can work both ways, i.e. as signalling low commitment of the speaker towards the truth of the proposition expressed on the one hand and as signalling high commitment on the other. Functional differentiations are required to account for this ambiguity in expressions of non-propositional meaning. The findings for the power factor are well in line with Expectation States Theory. Lower-ranking interlocutors use more epistemic devices, thereby downtoning subjective certainty. They couch their propositions in, for instance, compound sentences containing causal clauses in order not to challenge the status hierarchy. Settings such as application interviews can, however, result in a situation where the gender factor is overridden by institutional power. The status hierarchy then demands that status-lower speakers defer to status-higher speakers by not giving the impression that they are trying to raise their status.

7.5.3. Gender and Group Composition For causal, purpose and concessive clauses, sex differences are more marked in cross-sex than in same-sex interaction. However, a direct comparison of each sex's usage of syntactic devices in same-sex vs cross-sex conversations does not render the group composition effect significant. The only syntactic construction where statistically significant variation according to group composition is effected in a direct comparison of one sex in a same-sex vs cross-sex setting. Men increase their tag question usage considerably in cross-sex as opposed to same-sex conversations. Since the group composition effect is in general much less salient than, for instance, speaker sex or style, the male pattern has been explained as being attributable to other stronger factors, such as men's interactional role as facilitators in the mixed conversations. All in all, group composition appears to be an altogether less salient constraint than, for instance, style or speaker sex, which is why hypothesis 7 (formulated in section 2.4.) stating

195 that in same-sex interaction women use fewer expressions of low epistemic commitment than in cross-sex interaction can neither be confirmed nor refuted. Many tendencies do not become statistically significant though the general pattern shows that sex differences for causal, purpose and concessive clauses become more pronounced in cross-sex interaction. The increase in gender-differentiation in mixed-sex interaction is well in line with Expectation States Theory in that the status differences become more salient when people of different status directly interact with each other.

7.5.4. Gender and Surreptitiousness Extremely marked patterns have emerged for the analysis of awareness of being recorded. It has been found that claims stating that the monitoring-effect is negligible because awareness of being recorded ceases after a few minutes must clearly be refuted. Particularly, Preisler's (1986: 45) postulate that monitoring has no effect on the use of modal verbs because these are not "prestige markers subject to special attention" and that their use is "outside speakers' awareness" stands out in stark contrast to the results reported in the present study. Women are even more sensitive to the surreptitiousness factor than men, thus confirming hypothesis 8 (formulated in section 2.4.). There are persuasive indications that signalling commitment or non-commitment towards the truth of a proposition, i.e. epistemic meaning, is highly liable to become a prestige marker in that toning down certainty can serve as politeness or deference strategy. That the encoding of this meaning is indeed "subject to special attention" is self-evident. The findings are easily explained by Expectation States Theory since lower-status speakers must be particularly sensitive to the fact that their audience in a recorded situation comprises auditors whose authority they cannot easily assess with reference to their own status. Thus, in order not to give the impression that they are challenging the status hierarchy, they need to be particularly cautious by using epistemic tokens of non-commitment in non-surreptitious interaction.

7.6. Implications of a Status Explanation of Gender Differences

According to Coates (1988a: 72), research findings so far indicate that neither a powerbased nor a two-culture-based approach can explain all gender differences observed so far. An analysis of classroom or workplace interaction which ignored the dimension of dominance and subordination would have little explanatory power. On the other hand, to insist that the conversational patterns typical of all-women groups can be explained by calling women an oppressed group is to do them less than justice. Coates' (1988a) claim appears to imply that attributing sex differences to status means denying the interactional merits of women's conversational patterns. What might lie at the basis of an occasionally observable desperate strive for a non-status explanation of gender differences is the erroneously assumed consequence that if status hierarchies contribute to the formation of solidarity and cooperativeness, the inequalities have to be maintained in order to strengthen these highly desirable social behaviours.

196 Yet the fact that status differences produce gender-differentiated language behaviour does not mean that once sex ceases to be a status-characteristic the linguistic means of expressing epistemic and interpersonal meaning cease to be encoded. On the contrary, they might be encoded more equally by both sexes rather than remaining the predominant domain of women. If women's social status as a group increases, this does not mean that both sexes assume a more 'competitive style'. Viewing women's relatively frequent use of expressions conveying epistemic and interpersonal meaning as a deference strategy implies that they defer to someone else who is correspondingly higher in status. Acquiring an equal share in status reduces the inequality and the salience of sex as a status characteristic. This can culminate in a situation where both parties feel equally responsible for the success of the communication and might therefore feel more induced to signal politeness, use epistemic modifiers and to offer an equal share in the negotiation of floor-apportionment. The argument that a cooperative style in all-female groups gives the lie to a status-based explanation is not entirely convincing. It is possible that status lies at the basis of the cooperative style even in all-female interaction because females' and males' respective gender identities are not only relevant when interacting with the opposite sex. Why should it not be the case that oppressed groups develop a feeling of solidarity and why should this experience of needing others to gain strength be left at the entrance as soon as they enter a samesex group? A minority group that has made the experience that solidarity is a helpful or even essential strategy for survival might develop interactional strategies which match this experience. Whether solidarity in minorities is a romantic myth or not, we have to at least consider the possibility that cooperative language behaviour might become a personality trait which is not easily abandoned in situations where it is not required. What approaches rejecting a status explanation often overlook is that status is a concept which derives its existence from a comparison with others. Just as politeness which is effected by expressing consideration for an interlocutor's face needs implies less concern about one's own face, linguistic signals toning down the commitment towards the truth of a proposition give more space for criticism to others. Thus, when making an epistemically modified assertion which expresses low commitment to the truth of a proposition, this reduces the space claimed for one's own certainty and increases the space for contradiction. The two sides of the coin are to make the assertion more polite but also less assertive. Adherents of the cooperativeness approach might argue that the space left vacant is not filled in all-female groups. Such an argument cannot be easily discarded but as yet it has also not been verified. It does certainly not suffice to observe all-female cooperative interaction to conclude that women are, in general, more cooperative. The appropriate control group would be a society in which sex is a status-characteristic but with the female sex being the higher status group. The apparent non-existence of such a society, however, is in itself suggestive. Holding on to the notion of women's cooperativeness vs men's competitiveness appears to reflect an important and justified desire to revaluate the formerly devalued social status of women. It is reminiscent of the 'black is beautiful' slogan of the African-American movement. "People continually locate and relocate themselves in different sectors of their social worlds, continually defining and redefining themselves and their relationships with others." (Schiffrin 1992: 515). The dynamism of this self-location process suggests that once the female sex gains more status, e.g. in terms of an equal share in high status posts, the male sex, as a group, necessarily has to lose in all areas where resources associated with status are limited.

8. Conclusion

The present quantitative and qualitative study has demonstrated the existence of genderdifferentiated syntactic behaviour in the London-Lund-Corpus of spoken British English. The formal and functional in-depth analysis of tag questions and finite adverbial clauses in terms of pragmatic, semantic and cognitive aspects has revealed a range of statistically significant gender differences as well as their interrelatedness with other external factors constituting the social or interactional context. The interpretation of results from the perspective of Expectation States Theory has uncovered ways in which the interactional strategies used by women and men reflect social structure. We have argued that a status-based approach can be considered most powerful in terms of explanatory potential. While a formal differentiation of tag questions fails to contribute explanatory value to the pattern underlying the observed female preponderance in the use of these devices, the five-fold functional categorization proposed in the present study reveals distinct and neatly stratified results. Tag questions are only favoured by women if they convey primarily epistemic meaning in the form of low commitment to the proposition expressed (ask for verification) or interpersonal meaning (positive and negative politeness). The functions which are less marked on the interpersonal/epistemic scale do not produce marked gender-differentiation. The expression of epistemic and interpersonal meaning as well as the mechanism of turn-allocation is the underlying mutual characteristic of the syntactic devices subjected to analysis in the present investigation. Regarding finite adverbial clauses all results investigated along the four dimensions of semantic type, positioning, intonation and pragmatic function can be shown to point in the same direction. In the semantic dimension it is those clause types which signal the lowest commitment to the truth of the proposition expressed that are favoured by women to a statistically significant extent, i.e. causal and purpose clauses. Conversely, the semantic clause type commonly expressing the highest speaker commitment by means of denied assertions, i.e. concessive clauses, yields high frequencies among men. The sexes have also been shown to differ with respect to positioning of adverbial clauses in that preposed adverbial clauses are generally preferred by men, whereas postposed ones are the marked domain of women. The claim that adverbial clauses without main clause pattern analogously to preposed ones has been refuted on the ground of the given/new strategy and the observation that just like their postposed equivalents they are more restricted in scope and mainly modify their associated, though not explicitly expressed, main clause. The positional preferences have been explained in terms of information management and hedging. Intonational and positional aspects are demonstrated to be operative for finite adverbial clauses in the mechanism of turn-allocation. The combination most suited to signal continuance at transition-relevance-places are preposed clauses with continuing intonation since syntactic and intonational clues point in the same direction by signalling that there is more to follow. The weakest continuance signal is conveyed by postposed clauses following final intonation. Here both syntactic and intonational clues point in the direction of turn completion. A breakdown according to position and intonation has revealed a positive correlation between completion and female gender in that the stronger a clause signals com-

198 pletion, the more it is likely to be used by female speakers. Conversely, the higher a clause scores on the expression of continuance, the more likely it is to be used by male speakers. The incorporation of pragmatic functions uncovers the pattern that females are apt to use those adverbial clauses which convey predominantly non-propositional meaning in the form of epistemic conclusive and epistemic speech-act meaning, whereas males, in general, exhibit a marked proclivity towards using comparatively few clauses operating in the epistemic domain. The shared underlying characteristic of the syntactic constructions explored in the present volume is their ability to encode epistemic and correspondingly interpersonal meaning. It is this ability which is exploited in multifarious ways by both women and men in order to convey their commitment towards the truth of propositions expressed, to efficiently manage the turn-taking system and to establish and maintain social relations with which the present investigation has been centrally concerned. Without disregarding the fact than neither women nor men are monolithic groups, it is argued that women, as a group, and men, as a group, differ in the social status assigned to them and the encountered language behaviour is presented as explicable in terms of Expectation States Theory. Remarkable correlations exist as regards the extent and direction of the interrelatedness of gender with other external factors constraining tag question and adverbial clause usage. The sexes, and in particular women, prove to be extremely sensitive to style and surreptitiousness. On both measures women's magnitude of shifting equals or exceeds that of men. With respect to institutional power, the general findings uncover that speakers in a comparatively powerless position are more likely than powerful speakers to use those syntactic devices which present themselves analysable in terms of epistemic modality and interpersonal meaning though aspects such as institutional role, e.g. as facilitators, can override the power-effect. Awareness of being recorded has been shown to have a marked impact on the use of both tag questions and finite adverbial clauses, which starkly contrasts to those claiming that the monitoring-effect is negligible. The group composition effect was found to be comparatively weak though the general pattern exhibits a tendency of gender differences to be more pronounced in cross-sex than in same-sex interaction. The multifarious functions served by syntactic devices such as tag questions and adverbial clauses emphasize the importance of incorporating the intricate semantic, pragmatic and cognitive aspects involved in sex-differentiation in syntax. The long-standing debate of whether gender differences ultimately go back exclusively to status or whether politeness and cooperativeness are intrinsically female properties cannot yet be solved. We lack sufficiently-large data samples in which males are found in a lower status position. But at least the analysis of the language used in application interviews suggests that - with respect to one otherwise marked domain of women, i.e. causal clauses - 'inferior' men behave as women do throughout the entire London-Lund Corpus by starting to use high numbers of causal clauses. The Labovian Vanguard of Change and Linguistic Conformity of Women Principles (Labov 2001) have been supplemented by an Epistemic Modality Principle - stating that women are more prolific users of epistemic downtoners than men - and a Turn-Allocation Principle - assessing that women use more completion signals than men in the negotiation of floor-apportionment. These principles have proved crucial for an explanation of gender differences in language. They form part of the broadly functional framework that by providing the theoretical basis for the present volume illustrates how functionalism can be brought to bear in illuminating language structure and use.

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