Women’s Language, Socialization and Self-Image 9783110859898, 9783110131437

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Women's Language, Socialization and Self-image

The four volumes of the symposium 'Language, Culture and Female Future' are: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Unravelling Fatherhood. Ed. by Trudie Knijn and Anne-Claire Mulder. Dordrecht, Foris, 1987 188 p. ISBN: 90 6765 278 4 Female Designing in Social Policies. Ed. by Marieke Renou and Janneke van Mens-Verhulst. Dordrecht, Foris, 1987 168 p. ISBN: 90 6765 277 6 Historiography of Women's Cultural Traditions. Ed. by Maaike Meijer and Jetty Schaap. Dordrecht, Foris, 1987 208 p. ISBN: 90 6765 276 8 Women's Language, Socialization and Self-image. Ed. by Dede Brouwer and Dorian de Haan. Dordrecht, Foris, 1987 232 p. ISBN: 90 6765 275 x

Dede Brouwer and Dorian de Haan (eds.)

Women's Language, Socialization and Self-image

1987

FORIS PUBLICATIONS Dordrecht - Holland/Providence - USA

Published by: Foris Publications Holland P.O. Box 509 3300 AM Dordrecht, The Netherlands Sole distributor for the U.S.A. and Canada: Foris Publications USA, Inc. P.O. Box 5904 Providence Rl 02903 U.S.A. OP-DATA

ISBN 90 6765 278 x Text corrections: Women's Translation Collective De Bron, Amsterdam Typists: Corry van den Berg, Lieke de Groot, Maria Polder. Cover design: Hendrik Bouw © 1987 By the authors No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright owner. Printed in the Netherlands by I C G Printing, Dordrecht.

PREFACE

Women's Studies in the Netherlands Is in progress. Utrecht

research

development

and

since

coordinated

all

activities

of

Women's

in an interdisciplinary Department.

Women's Studies,

At the University of

education In Women's Studies has

seen

Studies

a

rapid

have

been

In this Department

of

which was founded in 1982, the Faculties of the Social

Sciences, Art, Theology, Law and Biology participate. In

April

1986 the Department of Women's Studies organized a

called 'Language, to

Symposium

Culture and Female Future', as one of the festivities

celebrate the 350th anniversary of the University of

Utrecht.

This

Symposium offered an opportunity to present the research projects of our staff

members and to Intensify and Invigorate our

research

programme.

Research projects were centered around four subjects: 'women's socialization traditions', policies'.

and

self-Image',

'historiography

'unravelling fatherhood', Each

subject order

of

language,

women's

cultural

and 'female designing

In social

was approached by staff members from

disciplines.

In

participants

were Invited to write papers.

to

prepare a

discussion

on

these

several subjects,

During the Symposium

these

papers were presented and thoroughly discussed. The

enthusiasm

symposium guests

and

dedication

very succesful.

of foreign and Dutch

women

The papers and the lectures by

have been collected in four symposium volumes.

the

made

the

foreign

You now have one

of these volumes before you.

We

would like to thank everyone for her contribution to

'Language,

Culture

and

the

Symposium

Female Culture' and to the publication of

the

Symposium volumes. In particular we would like to mention the efforts of Gusta Drenthe,

Lieke de Groot,

Ineke Hogema,

Maria Hijman and Mar¡eke

RenoCi. They took a tremendous part in the transformation of ideas into a symposium and finally from a symposium Into the four symposium volumes.

VI

We are also grateful for the organizational and financial support of: - Foundation 350th anniversary University of Utrecht - Bureau Studium Generale (General - Faculty of Social

Studies)

Sciences

- Faculty of Law - Faculty of Theology - ZWO: Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Pure Research - De Centrale LevensverzekerIng N.V. Den Haag -

IBM Nederland

Interfaculty Department of Women's Studies Utrecht, November 1986

CONTENTS

Preface

V

Contents

VII

I ntroductIon 06d6 Brouwer

and Dorian

de Haan

1

About, to and by women Susan Ervin-Tripp PART

1. LANGUAGE

AND

17 SOCIALIZATION:

LANGUAGE

ACQUISITION AND INTERACTION IN THE CLASSROOM

1

Self-concept,

Self-esteem

and

27

Language:

Sex

Differences In Childhood and Adolescence Matty van der Meulen 2

Differences

In

29

the Early

Communication

between

Mothers and Children Akke de Blauw

3

Sex

and

43

Family

Background

in

Early

Language

Marion

Morel II-

Acqu i s i t ion Llesbeth Kayser

4

Verhulst-SchlIchtIng,

and Maria Peddemors-Boon

Learning

from

your

Peers:

53

The

Acquisition

of

Gender-specific Speech Styles Ingrid van

Alphen

58

VIII 5

Classroom Interaction: Survival of the Fittest? Mar toes ¿.(V. de Bie

6

Learning

76

to 'be' at School:

Authority and Warmth

in the Classroom Klaartje 7

Duijm

Girls

and

Classroom Jeanette PART

2.

89

Science

Education:

Selection

In

Interaction Lubbers and Connie Menting

LANGUAGE AND SELF-IMAGE:

114

SPEECH STYLE

AND

SOCIAL EVALUATION 8

The

127

'Family of Women':

a Linguistic Analysis

of

the Feminist Discourse on Femininity, Equality and D i fference Joke Huisman 9

129

Women, Speech and Presuppositions Agnes Verbiest

10 Sex

139

Differences

Dyadic

in

Language:

Observations

Conversations between Members of the

of Same

Sex Mi eke de Boer

148

11 How to take the Floor without Being Floored Sonja

Appelman,

Pui jenbroek

Anke

Hei Jerman,

Monic

van

and liar in Schreuder

164

12 Hesitancy in Female and Male Speech Ha

Brekweg

13 Speech about

176

Style,

Study and Social

Language Behaviour

Muteness:

Women

in Conversations Related

to College or University Studies C. Margreet

Bouma

188

14 Sex

Differences in Evaluation and Proficiency

Mother Tongue and Second Language Dorian

de Haan

15 Language, Attitudes and Sex Stereotypes Dêdè

Browner

List of Contributors List of Other Participants of the Workshop

INTRODUCTION Dede Brouwer and Dorian de Haan

Feminist

linguistics

'Language,

In the Netherlands

S o z i a I i z a t i o n and S e l f - i m a g e ' was one of four Workshops held

at the 'Language, Interfaculty

C u l t u r e and Female F u t u r e ' Symposium o r g a n i z e d by the

Department of Women's S t u d i e s of the U n i v e r s i t y of Utrecht

in A p r i l 1986 on the o c c a s i o n of the U n i v e r s i t y ' s 350th a n n i v e r s a r y . In t h i s Workshop, D6d6 Brouwer. Apart

papers were d i s c u s s e d in three s e s s i o n s , o r g a n i z e d by

Susan E r v i n - T r i p p attended the meetings as guest

from three s t a f f members and seven s t u d e n t s of the U n i v e r s i t y

Utrecht

eighteen

Utrecht

took

participants

lecturers,

part. and

researchers

Thanks

to

the

and

teachers

enthusiastic

fourth,

It

overview

day

of

the Symposium.

any c o n s i s t e n c y

of

discontinuous the

of three

in more or l e s s r e v i s e d

The other

articles

offer

the an

of women's s t u d i e s and language In the Netherlands rather than

reflecting

in

outside

opens with the c o n t r i b u t i o n by Susan E r v i n - T r i p p from

public

of

mornings.

T h i s volume p r e s e n t s a s e l e c t i o n of the papers, version.

from

contributions

the i n s p i r i n g presence of our guest these were

e n j o y a b l e and f r u i t f u l

object

lecturer.

study.

The

in e i t h e r method, inconsistency

can

theoretical be

approach

traced

back

and d i s p e r s e d development of women's s t u d i e s on

Netherlands.

Only two of the c o n t r i b u t o r s have

temporary p o s t s In f e m i n i s t

report on

research

they

were able to conduct a s i d e from t h e i r other commitments

which

they

had

scope

of

a

and

lecturers

which

a l r e a d y c a r r i e d out w i t h i n the

the

language

part-time

l i n g u i s t i c s . Other a u t h o r s , mostly

at t e a c h e r ' s c o l l e g e s or u n i v e r s i t i e s and s t u d e n t s ,

to

or

or

doctoral

t h e s i s . Consequently, the a r t i c l e s could not p o s s i b l y be s e l e c t e d on the b a s i s of a s i n g l e theme.

They represent q u i t e a range of e x p e r i e n c e and

knowledge w h i l e demonstrating a great d i v e r s i t y of i n t e r e s t as w e l l . is

not

surprising

that

in

most cases

they

deal

with

It

small-scale

2 investigations.

Some

variable,

study

others

some

look

focus

on

sex

as

specific

less detailed overviews of

collection

is

sociolinguistics believe

these

only one or two

'the'

independent

linguistic

at possible theoretical approaches to women's

giving more or The

of

that,

language

by

literature on the subject.

thus a representative picture of

in the Netherlands.

features,

current

It is not unduly

pessimistic

unless the national conditions Improve and

cooperation can be strengthened, an adequate

insight

feminist to

International

Into gender-related

language variation within a solid feminist theory might take another 350 years.

Language, sex and gender Casual

chapters

century

about

women and language at

have grown since the renewed revival

movement

in

the

Seventies,

into

the

beginning

in the women's

a considerable

body

of

this

liberation

of

articles,

introductory texts and collections on the subject (cf. the comprehensive annotated

bibliography

Gender-related

in Thorne,

language

Kramarae

and

Henley

Miller

1978,

Yaguello 1978,

1983).

variation will be summarily dealt with

given the rather extensive overviews available (e.g. 1975,

eds.

and Swift 1977,

Brouwer et al.

Spender 1980,

there,

Thorne and

1978,

Henley

Eakins and Eakins

Klann-Delius 1981,

Kramarae 1981,

Troflel-PlOtz 1982, Thorne, Kramarae and Henley 1983, Cameron 1985, Smith 1985,

Coates

1986).

We do not go into language about women (and men),

but only into language toward and used by women and men, the

contributions

short,

the

in

this volume are concerned with

since the

all

of

latter.

In

following survey highlights the methods used to gather

the

linguistic data and the linguistic levels of the reported gender-related speech differences. A first account of sex-specific

language use was based on Introspect ion.

Intuitive statements about women's and men's speech suggest

differences

on lexical and syntactic level.

Women are supposed to have a relatively

limited

with

vocabulary,

saturated

relatively simple sentence structure; extremely they

sweet and besides,

talkative (Van Ginneken 1913,

would

use

more

linguistic Lakoff

forms

1973).

chaste

words,

and

a

they are supposed to be

Jespersen 1922b). indicating Although

the

In addition

insecurity

politeness

(Key

1972,

judgements

made

at the beginning of this century and those

and

introspective made

more

3 recently

have much in common and both the male and the female

linguists

deal with women's language as a deviation from 'the', guess whose, norm, the explanations put forward for the supposed speech differences between women

and

men

have

been

biological assumptions by social ones. based

changed

fundamentally

of the investigator,

given

the

for

introspective

variation

the

often sex-stereotypical,

in the same way as

remain

replacing

Needless to say, linguistic data

on introspection depend heavily on the,

assumptions

in

speculative.

the

explanations

Nevertheless,

method has proven its usefulness in providing

the

hypotheses

to be tested. By means of questionnaires the

and tests

information has been gathered about

Ideas and feelings women and men have about their own language

about

that of women and men in general.

words

rather seldom,

and

Women reported they used swear

let alone the stronger ones,

and their

attitude

towards the standard variety appeared to be highly positive (e.g. Bailey and Timm 1976, about

Labov 1966 respectively). As to beliefs and expectations

women's and men's speech style,

kind and emotional,

women's speech was described

concerned for listener,

while men's speech was characterized as and

by

the

gathered think

use

polite, gentle and correct

loud,

of both swear words and

as

dominating,

slang

aggressive,

(Kramer

1977).

by questionnaires or tests reveal the linguistic norms

they should meet rather than reflect their

language

Data people

usage.

The

value of research into the linguistic attitudes of women and men lies In its

explanatory

and

predictive power with respect

to

gender-related

speech variation and linguistic change. Finally,

linguistic

some insight There

has

Instigated

data gathered by observation

and el¡citation

give

into the actual speech behaviour of women and men. been an avalanche of by

the

mostly

small

Investigations,

publications of Mary Ritchie Key (1972)

mainly

and

Robin

Lakoff (1973) in order to test the intuitive statements about vocabulary and

sentence structure.

The results demonstrate a far less

consistent

pattern than the existing stereotypes would lead us to believe. cases sex differences related to age,

situation,

sex of speaker (e.g. Nyquist

In some

in speech were not found, in many others they were status or (sex of) addressee rather than to

Gerritsen 1980, Dubois and Crouch 1975, Crosby and

1977,

Brouwer,

Gerritsen

respectively).

Although

little research on the quantity of speech

been

done,

it

Is

and

De

worth mentioning that not

Haan a

1979, single

Brouwer

1982 has

Investigation

4 supported talked

the supposed talkativeness of women;

much,

and

much

more

Research Into conversational

on

and longer than

the

women

contrary, (Swacker

men

1975).

interaction in a way supports this finding.

It offers a rather clear picture of the speech differences between women and men on a pragmatic level and of how the different speech of

strategies

women and men reflect their structured positions of inequality.

Men

dominate women by Interrupting them and by neglecting topics they raise, while

women

show

their supportiveness

by

doing

the

'interactional

shltwork' and by using 'positive' politeness strategies (e.g.

Zimmerman

and West 1975, Fishman 1983, Brown and Levinson 1978 respectively). Many quantitative socioIinguIstic studies, as

just

and

another

age,

have

Independent variable along with socio-economic level.

Regarding their pronunciation,

standard variants more frequently,

(e.g.

Labov 1966,

Trudgill 1972,

this phenomenon are contradictory, descriptive correctly example

nature than

children

and

of

men thus

(Labov

be

that

Women

they are generally

might

In

try

use

speak

charge

Since most women do not have

of

should paid

to derive their status from other

more

raising set

work,

their earning

therefore that they have to be rated on how they

they

women

Explanations given for

grow up with the feeling that they

1972).

the

which Is hardly surprising given the

most of the studies.

since

status on

men the social dialect variants

Ammon 1973).

cannot be rated socially by their occupation, may

Introduced

shown speech differences between women and men

phonetic-phonological the

in which sex was

they

power;

'appear'

signals

of

an It and

status,

Including speech (Trudgill 1972). There are examples found for speech of an interaction between sex and socio-economic status and between sex and employment. women use

Findings

In Britain and the United States show that it was

from the lower middle class who appeared to be most standard

language

forms

(Trudgill

1974,

Inclined

Labov

1972)

contradictory to Trudglll's speculations mentioned earlier, West to

and,

findings In

Germany Indicated that women who are actually employed adapt the standard norm,

position

on

expectations

the at

presumably because of their especially

labour work

market

and

(Ammon 1973).

the

sharply

to

explanatory power. They strongly suggest an indirect causal between

sex

network.

A

sex-role have

of a black population in South Carolina

Influence of the sort of work on speech: women, who work

more

relationship

and speech by means of the intermediary concept of study

more

insecure

defined

Some studies seem

to

social

showed

the

in white-collar

5

occupations

more frequently than

network different from men, forms

have,

faster than men (Nichols 1978).

investigation Austria

consequently,

in a bilingual,

Similarly,

community

i.e.

averse

of participation

aspirations

In Belfast

the

prevailing networks

in

eastern Involved.

used

In a social network affects speech behaviour. group

Identity

that

than men,

group.

by conforming

Women,

an

more

It was also found that the degree

people were enmeshed in a close-knit vernacular network, expressed

In

from becoming peasants or marrying one,

often German than the men.

social

the 'peasantness' of,

network and the linguistic attitudes and

women,

a

the results from

German-Hungarian,

also pointed at the importance of,

social The

men,

and move toward syntactic standard-prestige

to

generally

the more

the

less

The more they

language

embedded

norms

in

adapted more to the standard pronunciation

such

(Milroy

1980). While research on women's and men's language has been done with methods,

the

principally that

data

on

based upon ellcltation and observation.

girls are faster

users

speech differences between girls and In their

The

various boys

early

language acquisition and better

than boys (Preyer 1890,

Stern and Stern 1907,

are

claims language

Jespersen

1922a)

which have stimulated research In this field, could not be substantiated by

the research results (cf. Maccoby

Klann-Delius child

1981).

and Jacklin 1974,

language concern the phonetic-phonological

partly

In

correspondence

articulate

better

from

standard-prestige

De Haan

1978,

The only consistent results on sex differences with those found the

age of three

and pragmatic

for and

adults. they

forms more than boys from this age on.

levels,

Girls

would

In

would

also

use

Research

Into

the development of morphology, syntax and of communicative competence in primary

socialization

differences. report

on

home

offers

no

clear

boys

acquisition

being

Is

of

more

succesful

in getting

course

not

the most fruitful

the

features

one

which sex actually has on language development. relevance

acquisition. studied

the

of

from

Instead

floor

The question of which sex is superior

investigations of isolated linguistic features, about

picture

sex

However, most studies on secondary socialization at school

classroom than girls. Influence

at

they of

have

for

different

looking for deficits,

to

stages

the

learn

the

It leads

without clear-cut of

description,

most (cf.

to

Ideas

language

differences should

a theoretical perspective to identify the

and to go beyond the level of mere

in

In language

be

relevant Klann-

6 Del¡us 1981). and

why

At the moment we still

lack such approaches on when,

particular sex differences In

persist or possibly diminish. early and later

language

acquisition

Partly due to this,

how

develop,

the relation between

linguistic differences between the sexes remains an open

quest ion.

From

this

nutshell description of research results the conclusion

can

easily be drawn that speech differences between women and men cannot

be

fruitfully studied In isolation, as Susan Ervin-Trlpp (1978) has already argued.

Given

the different and mostly unequal positions of women

men in society, relations,

the divergent social norms and values and unequal

the

speech

of

women

and

men,

I.e.

similarities, have to be studied within the social sciences.

concerned,

differences

and

context.

we believe It Important to try to subscribe to theories In

In addition, social

and power

As far as sex differences in language development are

Glsela Klann-Dellus (1981) has discussed some theories about

development and socialization. She outlines the possible contribution of theories on biological differences, which

leads

aspects

of

her to the view that the focus must be directed communicative

systematically Turning

cognitive development and

processes

which

can

be

learning, on

expected

those to

be

linked by the child with sex role features.

to the language of adults,

the social

Inequality between women

and men must be operatlonalized. On a macrolevel, the sexual division of labour

In

society

has far-reaching consequences for

circumstances of women and men.

On a microlevel,

speaker,

the

setting,

participants,

topic

and

social network might be useful as intermediary

conditions various

caused

options

by of

the how to

sexual division of deal

with

purpose Hymes

variable:

labour

family,

life

apart from the sex

conversation determine the course of an Interaction (cf. The

daily

the 'who speaks where

to whom about what to what end' question Is crucial; of

the

leave

friends,

of

the

1974). material room

for

colleagues,

neighbours, etc. The organization of dally life, of relations with other people,

Is

to

an important extent dependent

on

class- and

culture-

specific communication patterns. In

short,

linguistic variation works.

But

a

theory

and

language and women

a social component.

between It

about

a

women and men deepens our knowledge on how

language

the

into

both

language

Into

Insight

Include the

Is through research

Better

must

social

component,

that

7

studies

on women and language could be raised above a descriptive to an

explanatory

level .

A

linguistic theory would serve both socIoIinguistics and

feminist

sexes. Language

the

is the symbolic embodiment of social values (Ervin-Tripp

this volume). Language used about, to and by women and men does not only reflect

cultural

perpetuates

and

societal

people's attitudes.

peculiar people called linguists, the

unmasking

linguistic

of

structures

but

While most people,

also

teaches

apart

and

from

those

take language and speech for granted,

sex-stereotypical

linguistic

behaviour

attitudes may raise consciousness and with it

and

sexist

opportunities

to change both language use and society.

About this volume As

a global theoretical

the

denomination

frame for the work reported In this

'Language,

socialization

collection

and self-image'

has

been

chosen. The language use of women and men is largely determined by their gender close

Identity

which

relation

community.

In

to

is formed during upbringing

social

norms ad

first

education,

prevailing

In

a

In

speech

and through language the biological differences become a

psychological and sociological The

values

and

dichotomy.

part of the volume,

'Language and

socialization:

language

acquisition and interaction in the classroom',

includes seven

articles

on primary socialization at home and secondary socialization at school. Matty the

van

der Ueulen

development

gives a thorough review of empirical research

of self-concept and self-esteem in the

light

of

on sex

differences. Since in most

Investigations sex was not the main object of

study and the influence of

language was hardly

carefully

that sex differences

looked at,

she concludes

in self-concept may develop from

childhood onwards and that language may play a role on several

middle

levels in

this development. The

next

two

contributions

quantitative

data

about

interaction.

Akke

de

on

early

language

acquisition

sex differences in language

Blauw

reports on a

interaction when children were 3,

4 1/2,

project

concern

acquisition

about

and

mother-child

6 and 17 months old. The two

main variables were sex of child and socio-economic class of the family. Social class differences are mentioned but most attention Is paid to sex differences.

Differences between girls and boys were found at the early

8 period

in

fussing and crying of the children and

orientation

of

the

mother:

the behaviour of boys seemed to cause more interaction with the

mother,

while

there

girls

tended more to 'vocalize

around'.

Surprisingly,

appeared to be no continuity with the later period.

Then It

the talk of girls which was more directed toward the mother, talked more in the context of their play. In

which

this

behaviour

De Blauw refers to

Is stated to be

initiated

by

was

while boys literature

the

parents.

Finally,

she

emphasizes the need for research on the contexts In which

children

and

their parents

Uarlon

Morel Il-Kayser

development. of

interact.

and Maria

Llesbeth

Verhulst-SchlIchtIng,

Peddemors-Boon

Investigated

At 14 months they found differences

vocabulary.

But

the educational

lexical

In the size and nature

level of the parents

appeared

to

interact with sex of the child: slower development

In size of vocabulary

was

level

found

for

Extremely minority

boys

from

expressive of

the

or

the low referential

children.

expressive words,

van

peergroup

argues

interaction

language behaviour. lead

her

patterns

parent

only

found

used

to

a

femininity

and

resource

of

have

unjustly

establishing

neglected

sex-specific

that

children

have

acquired

age of 12 and subsequently are masculinity

Into two

different

Her results

sex-appropriate

going

to

speech

exaggerate

styles.

divergence between the sexes joins with patterns of communication social

This in the

domains which are traditionally allocated to women and men.

conclusion

for

level group.

that linguistics

as

a

more

She reports on research into views on language of 9

conclude the

for

slightly

old girls and boys and their actual behaviour.

by

group.

while a more extreme referential style was found

Alphen

to 15 years

styles were

Girls In both groups

more boys from the high educational Ingrld

educational

is that girls and boys to a great extent socialize

and she emphasizes that the period of adolescence

Her

themselves

is a most fertile soil

for this sex-appropriate socialization. The

last

three

socialization and

articles of Part. I deal

in school.

Marloes

evaluation of behaviour

Investigates between

de Ble's

with

language

and

In the first grade of primary foreign

secondary

article is about turn taking school.

whether there are differences between girls and

indigenous

children.

Her

boys

findings

differences

all point

with

The differences are most apparent with the

boys.

In

in the direction of more Interaction of foreign

on

She and sex

teachers pupils

among whom the girls are least heard and the boys are most dominant,

of

9 all pupils.

However, foreign girls do not always make an equally modest

contribution. classroom

While

they

conversations

engagement

is

Evaluations specific

higher

indigenous

when

indigenous

experiences,

educational conversations

It seems that the differences

and foreign girls,

and

girls

their are

at

and In behaviour of the teacher

towards

Klaartje

indicate that Du IJm takes

of positive and negative politeness

describes

behaviour

the

attempts

to fit theoretical

is

theoretical

In Interaction (Brown and

with authority and warmth In classroom her

sex-

between

context-specific.

dealing

stake.

show

Levinson 1978) as an entry to investigate sex differences in of

in

verbal

In behaviour

indigenous girls and boys all

culture- and framework

out-of-schooI

by the teacher of children's contributions also

patterns.

foreign

participate less than on

strategies

communication.

notions

to

She

institutional

interaction characterized by different teacher and pupil roles. She also formulates

expectations about sex-speclflc behaviour

In terms

of

this

theory.

Subsequently she has carried out a quantitative analysis in two

schools

with

girls On

to

treat

and boys differently with respect to negative and positive

face.

the

more

different teaching methods.

Teachers appeared

dimension of authority teachers protected girls' negative

and boys were coerced more

language

used

by

pupils

to

forcefully. keep

However,

relations

warm

were

ambiguous.

Different teaching styles seemed to influence the

method

in

which more attention is paid to children's

rather

than

merely

following

the prescriptions

stimulate girls to be more assertive. study these

would

own

of

when

teachers

girls:

books

sex-specific

patterns. The study of Jeannette

Lubbers

Interaction of teacher and pupil

in science lessons.

and Connie

a

experiences

According to DuiJm a show

in

sometimes

seems

to

longitudinal

be needed to find out whether girls can make the

possibilities

face

differences

most

of

communication

Renting

concerns the

They focus on

the

interaction

with girls in view of their often lower self-confidence and

performance

in these subjects. The study gives evidence to conclude that

the teacher-pupil by

which

confidence

Interaction may be part of gender-spec IfIc

the vicious circle of less knowledge, and

analysis shows,

poorer performance of girls Is in addition,

lower hard

to

mechanisms

demands,

lower

break.

Their

how a differentiated curriculum for girls

ad boys may be hidden. All

these studies on language used to and by girls and boys

the

need

to

look

beyond sex

differences

emphasize

alone. Interprétât ions

of

10 interaction

of

sex with social class,

context and nature of

interaction,

cultural

background,

communication might work. From the perspective of social theory be

very interesting to look at the data on expressive

styles

and at differences

towards the mother

the

In

how

and

It would

referential

in orientation of talking towards playing and

in the light of the identification processes in early

childhood put forward by Nancy Chodorow (1978). youth

and

all bring about more Insight

Theoretical concepts of

cultures which involve peergroup communication strategies

give Insight while

into differences In speech styles which girls and boys use,

linguistic data may contribute to knowledge about the

of girls and boys In adolescence. contribute

to

divergence

The articles on classroom

interaction

the exploration of theoretical notions in the

communicative inequality

should

behaviour,

by

schools

and In

about

the

theory

terms of labeling

of

by

field

of

reproduction

of

teachers

and

by

a

differentiated curriculum. The second part of the volume, and

social

about

evaluation',

'Language and self-image:

consists of eight rather

speech

different

articles

variation between women and men and linguistic

speech

style

attitudes

towards women's and men's speech. The

first

two

philosophical 'feminine', from

the

contributions

perspective. 'masculine',

are

Joke 'woman',

written Huisman

She

states

women'

cannot

be

in

reduced

to one

theoretical,

meaning

that general terms like 'women' or characteristic

phenomena described by the term have in common. have the same,

a

terms

'man', 'inequality' and

perspective of family resemblances

1953).

from

approaches

like

'oppresion'

(Wittgenstein 'oppression

feature

which

of all

They do not necessarily

Invariable meaning regardless of place and time. But the

conclusion that there are various images of women differing according to period,

social

category

class and situation does definitely not imply that

'woman' has no longer reality.

no less significance than that they direct and justify a certain way thinking.

Agnes

application

of the cooperation principle of conversation as a

explanation

for the (presuppositions about) Insecure,

polite to

presents her ideas about

the

lacking in jokes and swear words as well.

about a cooperation principle of conversation on the

cooperation

principle

possible

simple, She

of Grice (1967) and the Interactive

of

asymmetrical

and supportive speech behaviour of women which Is also

be rather

ideas

Verbiest

the

General terms have no more and

modest, supposed

bases

her

informative cooperation

11

principle of Franck (1978). She argues that the asymmetrical of

the

application

cooperation principle makes the unequal distribution

between women and men more transparent may facilitate challenging

in conversation.

following three articles go into verbal

and

men.

are

thought of as being typical for the language of

supposed

to

power

Eventually this

it.

The

Mieke

of

interactions between

women

de Boer deals with the interrelation of features

which

show

more

engagement

and

less

women.

Women

competition

in

are their

interaction and are assumed to be orientated toward the person they talking

with.

features. about the

Each

category

is opérâtionaIized by different

Appelman,

language

However, while there are tendencies which support assumptions

sex-specific communication, same

are

category Anke

the hypothesis that the features

are interrelated could not

HeiJerman,

be

Monic van Puijenbroek

confirmed. and

Karin

of

Sonja Schreuder

analyzed two discussion programmes on television inspired by the work of Senta Troiïie l-P lûtz (1984). speaking

turns

made

a

by

They paid attention to the speaking time and

of women and men and references to

remarks

female or male participant while comparing

the

previously linguistic

behaviour of the two moderators, one female and one male, as well. Their hypotheses

that the female participants would have less

speaking

time

and speaking turns than the male participants were only partly confirmed by

the results.

appeared

to

be

One of the women,

active in politics for a long time,

extremely capable of holding

the

floor.

As

to

the

moderators, the female moderator appeared to control the discussion more strictly turns

resulting

in a more equal distribution of speaking

time

speaking.

Lia

Brekweg

has carried out a pilot study

into hesitancy

female and male speech to test the intuitive statements about a hesitancy

hedges,

a formal and informal situation. the

interviewer

The hypothesis that women use more

speech forms was not confirmed by the results.

addressee, the

greater

qualifiers and fillers in the speech of three women

and three men, each being interviewed by a female and a male hesitant

In

in women of Robin Lakoff (1975). She looked at the use of tag-

questions, in

and

and she supported and encouraged the participants more often when

As to

sex

of

women used more hesitant speech forms when speaking

to

male interviewer and similarly the men when speaking to the

interviewer. interviewer

Least

hesitant

were

women when talking

in the informal situation.

express insecurity before men.

to

the

female female

This result suggests that women

12 The

last

three papers deal with speech style

Margreet

Bouma's

contribution

and

social

conversations about college or university studies. men's

Women described

style as using jargon and as long-winded speech and

style as using simpler words and briefer utterances. to

talk

comparison future

rarely

with

men.

research,

focussing

about

to

their

own

speciality

Into women's and

men's

in

interesting,

in

speech

styles

by

Haan

reports

an

'the

silence'

investigation

into

attitudes towards and proficiency of mother

and

second

Dorian

profession

on

Although

of women.

language of Surinam children there

languages,

were

there

were

almost

no

from

negative

sex differences

same

and

attitudes, D6d6

differing

However,

proficiency

Brouwer

pronunciation the

girls towards standard Dutch.

direction.

there

and

Hindustani

attitudes

speech

and

of

language

appeared to be

appreciation, ethnic

no

relation

the

between

the results from an ethnic identity

more

in relation

test.

to

have

their a

more

The results

from

less conscious judgements could be revealed and

In

Women appeared to use the variants from frequently than men and to

functions both as an important

feminine

pronunciation

either

Proficiency varied In

between women and men In Amsterdam

through which

that

background.

toward

the language of the

positive attitude towards standard language than men. tests

tongue

reports on a research project about speech differences

linguistic attitudes.

standard

de

In the degree of

boys seeming more positive towards Sarnami, minority

the

women's

in negative terms or

She concludes that it would be look

the

They also reported

a tendency of women to speak about their own knowledge and

evaluation.

Is concentrated on women's experiences In

masculine

showed

indicator of social

characteristics,

the

status standard

being associated with high social status and

femininity,

dialect with low status and masculinity. Such stereotypical

expectations

were,

as usual,

shared by different social groups,

that is, women and

men.

Note

1. We are indebted to Murray Pearson for polishing our English.

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eine

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de la

In Thorne,

ABOUT, TO AND BY WOMEN Susan Ervin-Tripp

Women's

studies

fields

of

thinking

have made great strides in recent

research,

years.

In

entirely new perspectives have opened

especially of changes in the study of literature,

certain

up.

I

am

of history,

and of anthropology. I

believe that most of the Interesting new knowledge about

come

from

this kind of comparltive research.

Studies In these

allow us to reach outside of our own experience, to

test the assumptions we grew up with.

enlarges

our view of the possible,

awareness

of

women

to distance

will fields

ourselves

The exposure to these changes

and gives results that

change

the person and the society more than Just adding

our

another

variable. (1) In

these fields,

ethnicity. the

like class

or

These are fields where point of view Is accepted as part

gender

of

epistemology,

is not Just one more variable,

where the physical science model

prestige paradigm to emulate. central

to

the

Is not taken as the

Taking the point of view of the actor

method of understanding employed,

or

at

least

is such

empathy is used to initiate data searches. Anthropologists

have shown us that in all societies age and gender

are

used as the armatures for sculpting social organization. Often there are separate

men's

and

women's social

separate

daily activities.

and

religious

In some societies,

associations,

and

men do the weaving,

in

others women. The assumption that gender where

gender

buttons,

who

continues

to

Is important continues today in the

dec i des who will fix the I amp sw i tch or who will fix will be

shovel important

the snow and who

will

in a fruit canning

make

factory,

decides who will sort pears and who will seal the cans. that

women

families

will

the where Gender

serve customers in the East restaurant and

serve customers in the West restaurant next door.

bed.

the It

gender decides

men

will

18

I

chose

these examples because they Illustrate cases of what

role ascription

and In some cases gender segregation.

we

call

They have nothing

to do directly with power. (2) They cannot be explained by an assertion that

women are oppressed.

But they are Important and they

do

require

explanatIon. Anthropologists

have

also

been

the ones who have shown

us

that

In

primate societies alliances and loyalties to females are as Important as male

physical power and authority.

They have shown us that

there

are

other dimensions to society than muscle. They

have

looked at a range of societies and found that In most

It

is

true that males have greater public and political prestige. Peggy Sanday has found out why. territory,

In societies of scarcity, where there is warfare over

male prestige

Increases because in all warring societies the

warrior

is valued. The plow also was associated with a decline In female

power.

In

this approach,

public power comes from the dynamics In

the

larger public society. On the other hand, that

there are theorists such as Nancy Chodorow who claim

the widespread difference in public prestige and power

has a different source within the family. because

from

their

status. If this theory

gender

According to this view, it is

women take care of children more than men.

themselves

by

Sons,

mothers and from childhood,

to

give

separate

women

lower

is correct, there could be a major rebalancing of

prestige by complete equality

In childcare from the moment of birth. But

It would take many generations. These

discussions of power are always about public power and

prestige,

outside of the family.

Anthropologists have also shown us that

societies

significant

women

modernization

have

In

developing

importance of families, them prestige outside.

power

within

families.

countries has in many cases

and with it the power of women,

in

some

So-called

reduced

the

without giving

The women in these societies may feel the poorer

for such changes. The

economic parallel

nations, cash

is the agricultural aid programmes to

developing

which remove women's power to feed their families by moving to

export

crops

controlled by men and by the

fluctuations

of

the

commodIty market. Ideologists closely

the

from

the outside,

Internal

societies, could err

even feminists,

organization

of power

who and

in imposing their own notions.

fall prestige

to

examine in

these

19 Have our results In studying language been as important as these? I want to show you today that the study of language tells us a great deal about society.

Language is the symbolic embodiment of social values.

languages,

or

changes

through

language,

can change

Whether

society

is

an

important issue for us. What do we study when we study women and language? In my view, there are four major research themes: a. How women are talked about. b. The features of women's speech. c. How women and girls are talked to. d. How

women and girls Interact,

how they converse,

how they

present

themselves in talk. Women as referents In our societies,

women are not talked about much. They are left out of

general talk by the use of generic nouns and pronouns, males

do

doubt

this omission,

than

though typically

not notice this omission as much as women.

If

your

friends

just tell them 'Early man breastfed babies longer

modern man.' If they laugh,

It Is because man Just does not refer

to women. The

lower

public

prestige

or ridicule of

women

societies shows up symbolically in many ways. tend

to

in

wizard/witch,

Western

Words that refer to women

get lower prestige meanings or have lower

than their male cognates.

modern

secondary

meanings

You can have fun finding these pairs, such as

master/mistress,

governor/governess (Lakoff 1973; Miller

and Swift 1976). And of course we a I I have seen that television stories,

textbooks

contrast

In

commercials,

children's

and other contemporary representations show

images of male and

female

responsibilities,

highly

power,

and

persona I 11les. If Some

you doubt that these displays matter, psychologists,

Jennings,

Gels

and

Brown

(1980)

television

advertisements.

sharing

cocktail while listening to men's expert

a

experimenters

They

think about this

experiment. started

represented women serving dinner

constructed a second,

matched set of

advice.

Then

advertisements

with and the in

which gender roles in each advertisement were reversed. Then they showed the commercials to women students, and tested them in a

20 variety that

of ways before and after with appropriate controls.

the students were more independent

speeches

that

reversal

commercials.

They found

in their Judgements,

were much more self-confident and successful How girls and women see other women

and

gave

after may

the

affect

their own self-confidence.

Women's speech

When

we

come to look at face-to-face talk,

we find that the two

main

dimensions we may have to think about are power and solidarity. We could call

these

the up/down and the

inclusion/exclusion

or

close/distant

dimensions (Brown 1965). One

of

the

speech

most

Interesting results we have In the study

is that women move faster than men towards prestige

of

women's

speech.

dialect speaking societies they learn the standard language faster, choose it more (Nichols 1980). language

In Immigrant groups,

they learn

faster and choose to speak It more (Gal 1978).

is only true If they have access to learning,

In and

second

Of course that

and are not home,

inside

the house a I I day. In Amsterdam,

D6d6 Brouwer has found in the same way that women use the

higher prestige pronunciation during interviews more than their husbands and brothers, and that people Judge men who use higher prestige forms as effemInate. Under

what

dynamics

interactional circumstances does this happen?

of

this difference?

teachers are female?

Do we only find these

In contrast,

What are

differences

we might not have such a finding

the when in

Islamic societies, where the prestige variety

Is male.

The

Is the upper working class

most prestige-sensitive

(Labov 1972).

At this level,

and sisters are in work work, oldest

level of society

do men do manual

labour while their wives

involving symbols and language, like secretarial

selling, or teaching? Bernstein (1972) has proposed also that the daughters In working class families act as negotiators with

outside and thus learn middle class Sociologists

say that these women are docile because they are

higher class speech;

We could see in this a kind of

against their families.

from doc lie.

adopting

at the same time, they are innovative with respect

to their parents and husbands. rebellion

the

'codes.'

In that sense this behaviour

symbolic is

far

21

But notice that these terms, different docility trying

(1983),

Is

to move up,

marry

docile arid innovative,

social dimensions.

up,

marriage.

as

Bourdieu,

are taken from two

a sociologist who talks

concerned with the up/down dimension. relative to their brothers?

he says,

Are

women

If they are trying

then this behaviour should

If he is right,

about

peak

just

to

before

women should try to give the Impression,

speech, clothes, and demeanor, of a higher social

In

level, for purposes of

soc i a I mob iIi ty. The

other

dimension

closeness/distance. unlike

we have talked about These

your addressee,

partners

with

you.

dimensions

Is

inclusion/exclusion

have to do with talking

like

and carrying the speech features of your

Psychologists

call

this

or or

usual

accomodation/divergence

(Giles and Smi th 1979). A

major

like

theme In the sociology of language is what makes

each other.

If people are separated by any kind

divergence takes place. Speech similarity identification. If

It

can live with masters and not talk like them. Increases with

interaction under conditions of social equality,

marriage,

talk

segregation,

is a sensitive index of social

Is the case that speech similarity

social few

Servants

people

of

and In unlIke-sex twins?

frequency

or

what happens In

Sex differences provide one of

the

cases where people talk a lot with one another but may still differ

in their speech features (Ervin-Trlpp 1978). If in Amsterdam high prestige accents are associated with femininity, as Brouwer feminine contrasts husband,

found, or

are there situations In which women want to sound

men more masculine?

to

find

this out.

Perhaps you can look

If a woman talks

at

differently

more

situational than

her

does she do this more at work than at home? When feeling angry

more than when feeling warmly?

Divergence can become a tool for showing

how you fee I. I

don't

excellent

know

the

results.

But the study of

sex

difference

Is

an

laboratory for understanding these subtle processes of social

change.

Women as addressees

Most

of

the

research

reflected the prestige boys

on speech addressed issue.

attract more attention,

For example,

to

girls

and

women

has

in schools it is found that

are more often helped to correct answers,

22 given more probes,

and get more praise for similar work.

Parents

give

more cognitive support to boys (Block 1979). In my observations In California families, and In research on children's playing

of family roles,

fathers make more demands on mothers than the

reverse, children give more demands to mothers than to fathers, and they talk

to

fathers

families,

we

as politely as to

get

the

symbolic prestige,

visitors.

impression that the

Within

mothers

these have

American

the

even lower than the children (Ervin-Tripp,

lowest O'Connor

and Rosenberg 1984). Studies

of mixed group interaction show men as Interrupting more

(West

and Zimmerman 1982), taking up women's topic proposals less, and even In power

asymmetric

doctor

is

situations such as doctors and patients,

interrupted

by

male

patients

subordinates are Joked about more, verbal ly whole,

what

subordinate

1984).

first-named more,

touched more (Gardner 1980).

remember that age,

(West

the

female

Women

and

verbally and non-

If you can think of

exceptions,

expertise, and personality also have effects. On the

we see In Interaction then Is a pretty nice mirror of prestige

of women In these modern Western societies

the where

the studies are done.

Interact ion

Finally,

let us look at what we can make of women as Interactants. Some

Important

recent

work

interactional dynamics. of

thinking

meanings.

about

Studies

on

Here again,

both issues of

and

gender

has

to

I want to emphasize the up/down

and

do

with

importance

close/distant

social

of children's playgroups have suggested that already

by six there are differences boys

language

in many cultures In the types of activities

and girls are engaged in,

with boys involved in more

competitive

play (Whiting and Whiting 1975). Children

segregate

Western societies. outside, of

themselves

a good deal

In the elementary school,

win. play,

and

studies

in

modern

boys more often engage in

large group gross motor play, competition, and public displays

verbal and non-verbal skills.

back,

in the

compete for attention.

They learn to

survive

attack,

Joke

The main issue for them is who

will

Girls tend to form smaller, face-to-face groups with more symbolic more concern with equality and with inclusion or exclusion.

do not get as much training

in subtle negotiation.

They

What we would expect

23 as

a

result

is

a

male preoccupation with

hierarchy

and

a

female

preoccupation with acceptance (Maltz and Borker 1982). There has been a lot made of women's willingness to be the

classroom and in the courtroom,

hedge more,

subordinate.

In

women of the same expertise as men

and sound more uncertain.

If an actor reads the same text,

he is also judged to be less credible,

so women are using speech

forms

that undermine them (O'Barr and Atkins 1980). It is possible to turn this around. most

In the families In my research, the

polite requests were the least successful pragmatically.

In adult

studies too, it has been found that more assertiveness works —

If one's

goal

is

practical

rather than social.

participated actively,

In a seminar

where

only

could see each other but blocked the men's view of each other, floor to each other,

men

the women got together to plan. They sat so they gave the

and kept referring to each other's opinions.

They

took over the seminar. This was applied sociolIngulstics which worked! I

would

like

research.

to turn to what has been the

Hierarchy

Is

neglected

the dominant male issue.

primarily at hierarchy and prestige.

What about

Some studies show that women give more feedback, for

issue

We too

in

have

language for

this looked

Inclusion?

often non-verbal,

this reason are preferred as clinicans and get more information

and as

physicians (Fishman 1983). In face-to-face female friend's groups,

women join in to 'duet', to co-

produce speech rather than compete for the floor (Edelsky 1981),

but in

mixed groups this risks being seen as competition. Studies in the United States show that women have more close friends, are more self-revealing, and

value

women kind

intimacy more than do men,

than to other men (Rubin 1983; of

solidarity

graffiti

showed

who are more Wodak 1981).

even to strangers,

(Davies

1985).

self-revealing Women provide

as a recent study

Women gave support

and

of

to this

women's

advice

when

graffiti reported problems, but men made jokes or cutting attacks. We

know very little about how solidarity and friendship

are

verbally

by either men or women (but see Brown 1980).

that

is time that the women take back the agenda and look

it

dimension of One study

of

suggest at

the joys of this kind of work is that many of the variables can

become

this

Interaction, in both work and home situations. be seen or heard by any of us.

At this

learned of many excellent studies carried out all

I would

signalled

researchers about everyday life.

conference

I

we have

In the Netherlands. We can I hope that at

our

next

24 meeting

we

will know much more because of your contributions

to

this

work.

Notes 1. Barrie Thorne and Judy Stacey developed a detailed analysis at the Berkeley Feminist Seminar, later published in Social Forces, of arguments about the reasons for the more radical effects of feminist research on literature, anthropology, and history than on sociology, psychology, and economics. 2. Ascription will ultimately turn out to be related to power, in that the responsibilities assigned men may be given more value by the society as a result, or vice versa. My argument Is that the segregation goes beyond the issue of power, and is more related to symbolic distance. The results of segregation at work may have had especially pernicious effects.

References BERNSTEIN, BASIL 1972 A sociolinguistIc approach to socialization: with some reference to educability. In Gumperz, John and Dell Hymes (eds.), Directions in socioli nguist ics: the ethnography of communI cation. Holt, New York. BLOCK, JEANNE 1979 Personality development in males and females: the Influence of differential socialization. APA Master Lectures. American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C. BOURDIEU, PIERRE 1983 Le changement I InguIstique: entretlen avec William Labov. Actes la Recherche et Sciences Sociales, (March), 67-71.

de

BROUWER, DEDE 1986 Gender-specific attitudes towards Amsterdam vernacular. In Hout, Roe I and van, Uus Knops and Yves Persoons (eds.), Language attitudes in the Dutch language area. For Is, Dordrecht/Cinnaminson. BROWN, PENELOPE 1980 How and why are women more polite: some evidence from a Mayan community. In McConnel-Ginet, Sally, Ruth Borker and Nel I y Furman (eds.), 1980, Women and language in literature and society. Praeger, New York, 111-136. BROWN, ROGER 1965 Social psychology.

Free Press , Glencoe.

CH0D0R0W, NANCY 1978 The reproductIon of mothering: psychoanalysis and the sociology gender. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.

of

25

DAVIES, CATHERINE 1985 The anonymous collectIve graffiti of women's conversat Ions: an of supportIve advice-giving. Proceedings of the First analysis Berkeley Women and Language Conference. University of California, Linguistic Department, Berkeley, CA. EDELSKY, CAROLE 1981 Who's got the floor. Language

In Society

10, 383-422.

ERVIN-TRIPP, SUSAN 1978 'What do women sociolInguists want?' Propects for a research field. Journal of the Sociology of Language 17, 17-28. International ERVIN-TRIPP, SUSAN, MARY C. O'CONNOR and JARRETT ROSENBERG 1984 Language and power in the family. In Kramarae, Cher Is, Schulz and William M. O'Barr (eds.), Language and Power. Mar, Californla, 116-135.

Muriel Sage, Del

FISHMAN, PAMELA M. 1983 Interaction: the work women do. In Thorne, Barrle, Cher Is Kramarae and Nancy Henley (eds.), Language, gender and society. Newbury House, Rowley, Mass., 89-101. GAL, SUE 1978 Peasant men can't get wives: language change and sex roles bilingual community. Language In Society 7, 1-16.

in

a

GARDNER, CAROL BROOKS 1980 Passing by: street remarks, address rights, and the urban female. Sociological Inquiry 50, 328-356. GILES, HOWARD and PHILIP SMITH 1979 Accomodation theory: optimal levels of convergence. In Howard and Robert N. St. Clair (eds.), Language and Psychology, Blackwell, Oxford, 45-65.

Giles, Social

JENNINGS (WALSTEDT) JOYCE, FLORENCE L. GEIS and VIRGINIA BROWN 1980 Influence of television c community. Language In Society 7, 1-16. GARDNER, CAROL BROOKS 1980 Passing by: street remarks, address rights, and the urban female. Sociological Inquiry 50, 328-356. GILES, HOWARD and PHILIP SMITH 1979 Accomodation theory: optimal levels of convergence. In Howard and Robert N. St. Clair (eds.), Language and Psychology, Blackwell, Oxford, 45-65.

Giles, Social

JENNINGS (WALSTEDT) JOYCE, FLORENCE L. GEIS and VIRGINIA BROWN 1980 Influence of television clversity Press, Cambridge, 196-216. MILLER, CASEY and KATE SWIFT 1976 Words and women. Anchor Press, Doubleday. NICHOLS, PATRICIA C. 1980 Women in their speech communities.

In McConnell-Ginet, Sally, Ruth

26 Borker and Nelly Furman (eds.), Women and language and society. Praeger, New York, 140-149.

in

literature

O'BARR, WILLIAM M. and BOWNAM K. ATKINS 1980 Women's language or powerless language? In McConnelI-GI net, Sally Ruth Borker and Nelly Furman (eds.), Women and language in IIterature and society. Praeger, New York, 93-110. RUBIN, LILLIAN 1983 Intimate strangers.

Harper and Row, New York.

SANDAY, PEGGY power and male dominance: on 1981 Female Inequality. University Press, Cambridge. WEST, CANDACE 1984 Routine complIcatIons.

the

origins

of

sexual

Indiana University Press, Bloomington.

WEST, CANDACE and DON H. ZIMMERMAN 1982 Small insults: a study of interruptions in cross-sex conversations between unacquainted persons. In Thorne, Barrie, Cher Is Kramarae and Nancy Henley (eds.), Language, gender and society. Newbury House, Rowley, Mass., 102-117. WHITING, BEATRICE and JOHN WHITING 1975 Children of six cultures: a University Press, Cambridge.

psychocultural

analysis.

Harvard

WODAK, RUTH 1981 Women relate, men report: sex differences In language behaviour a therapeutic group. Journal of PragmatIcs 5, 261-285.

in

1.

LANGUAGE AND SOCIALIZATION: Language Acquisition and Interaction in the Classroom

1 SELF-CONCEPT, SELF-ESTEEM AND LANGUAGE: Sex Differences in Childhood and Adolescence Matty van der Meulert I n t r o d u c i ion T h i s paper p r o v i d e s an overview of e m p i r i c a l research on the development of s e l f - c o n c e p t and s e l f - e s t e e m up to and i n c l u d i n g adolescence,

in the

l i g h t of sex d i f f e r e n c e s . To my knowledge, the p o s s i b l e r e l a t i o n of development been

with

language - the theme of t h i s workshop - has

investigated

empirically.

The

influence

of

language

this

not

yet

and

the

consequences of t h i s I n f l u e n c e for sex d i f f e r e n c e s i s t h e r e f o r e based on theoretical giving

considerations

rather than on e m p i r i c a l

an overview of the r e s e a r c h ,

research.

Before

I wiI I give a description

v a r i a b l e s which are the main o b j e c t s of t h i s paper,

of

the

namely s e l f - c o n c e p t

and s e l f - e s t e e m . The s e l f - c o n c e p t may in a very general sense be d e s c r i b e d as a

person's

view

elements

of

herself.

individuals self-concept person

The

as

follows:

conceives

internalized action.'

self-concept

i s composed of

consider to be part of themselves.

'The s e l f - c o n c e p t comprises

of as part of h e r s e l f :

outer

the

everything

appearance,

the

feelings,

v a l u e s and r u l e s and the experience of being an

agent

of

r e f e r s to an i n d i v i d u a l ' s e v a l u a t i o n of the elements of the

self-concept,

or

to

a

general

evaluation

e v a l u a t i o n can be e i t h e r p o s i t i v e or n e g a t i v e . '...the

evaluative

surrounding used

the

(1979: 154; my t r a n s l a t i o n from the German)

Self-esteem

(p.54)

all

WIcklund d e s c r i b e s

significance

culture

of

one's

person.

Burns (1979) s t a t e s that

of most concepts i s

in that many e v a l u a t i o n s have

taken

become

from

interchangeably.

As

these

two terms c a r r y

the

normative.'

In the ' s e I f ' I I t e r a t u r e s e l f - c o n c e p t and s e l f - e s t e e m

meanings ( c f .

This

are

basically

often

different

Calhoun and Morse 1977) i t i s more p r e c i s e to hold to the

above d i s t inct ion. The

bulk

of e m p i r i c a l research concerns s e l f - e s t e e m

(for

a

thorough

30 overview see Wylle 1979). fruitful

explanatory

between

Self-esteem, however, turned out to be a less

factor.

Wylle reports null or weak

self-esteem and a variety of other variables.

this,

investigators show a renewed Interest

correlations

As a

result

of

In developmental changes in

the self-concept (Damon and Hart 1982). The

following

overview

of empirical research on

children and adolescents Is divided into

sex

differences

two sections:

in

sex differences

related to the self-concept and to self-esteem respectively. With regard to

the

self-concept,

the

aim

Is to look for the

emergence

of

differences

In the elements used by children and adolescents to

themselves.

My

children

will

extensively possible

own be

research on spontaneous self-references Included in this section and described

than the other studies.

differences

between

and boys

separate elements of the self-concept, or

In

the

In overall

young

bit

Concerning self-esteem

girls

define

In

a

sex

more

I focus

on

evaluation

of

self-evaluation.

Sex differences In self-concept development

Prerequisite

to the acquisition of a self-concept

self-awareness the

ability

(Kagan

In the first two years of life, which can be described as '...to regard self as an entity

1981:

primarily

Is the development of

2)

The

emergence of

in this early age-period.

different

self-recognition

from Is

others.'

Investigated

At the end of the second year self-

recognition

Is part of the achievements of most children (see Lewis and

Brooks-Gunn

1979

characteristics

for an overview). age

and sex,

Young children appear to

as represented

In

facial

use

features,

the to

distinguish the Image of themselves from that of others. When children start to talk, become the

an Item of study.

utterances

themselves.

The

of

self-references

According to Kagan (1981,

children at the end of the

contents

references to

children's SiIber

language

1982) about 35% of

second

of these utterances are

verbalizations of the children's activities. year

in their natural year

refer

almost

to

exclusively

In the course of the third

nternal states and mental processes also appear

language (Bretherton and Beeghly 1982;

Shatz,

Wellman,

In and

1983).

Of the studies mentioned so far only Bretherton and Beeghly

investigated

sex differences, but they found none. In

my own research I analyzed samples of natural

language of

preschool

31

children,

aged two to six years, for the occurrence of self-references.

Thirty-five

percent

of

the utterances was identified as

being

self-

referent, a similar percentage to that found by Kagan in children of two years old.

The youngest children In my study,

however,

produced

less

than this mean percentage, the older children slightly more. The content of

the

self-references was concerned predominantly with the 'here

now.' Children verbalized what they were going to do and their wants and wishes. used

moderate

possessions social these

sex

respectively, personal

Only three out of nineteen

differences.

more often than boys.

relations samples.

immediate

They were possessive with respect to the things

or with which they played.

showed

and

Girls

for

instance

A small part of the utterances, were

positive

capacities.

On

or

the

mentioned

Self-referent utterances

or psychological characteristics hardly negative

whole girls

expressing occurred

three and two

evaluative made

they

categories

percent

remarks

more

In

about

self-evaluative

remarks, especially positive statements, than boys. Finally, cross-sexed role-playing (farmer, father, physician) was only observed in girls (Van der Meulen 1983; In prep.) When

children

interviewing most

have

acquired a fair command

of

productive

is used as a method to Investigate their self-concepts. The

applied open method Is the 'Who-are-you' Interview.

asked

to give as many responses as possible to the

you?'

language,

These

responses

are

subsequently

Subjects

question

classified

In

are

'Who-arecategories

referring to elements of the self-concept. For

three

children mainly

studies In which this method was employed, between

to outer,

three

the

and six years can be summarized

physical aspects - like personal date

age, sex), appearance and possessions - and to activities Kreltler 1967; analysis

L'Ecuyer 1975;

of variance Keller,

name,

(Kreltler and

and Meacham 1978). In an

and Meacham found no sex (nor age)

for

I'Ecuyer describes only minor differences between girls and signals

category

(proper

activities. He

only

Ford,

Ford,

of

referring

differences boys.

the

Keller,

answers as

a tendency

of

Importance

In girls of five for

in

their

answers

study,

expressing

adaptive and social aspects of themselves. SchooI-chI Idren and adolescents are often requested to write an essay on 'Myself'. The general conclusion In this type of study is that objective information about one's own person, decreases

with

growing

age,

such as appearance and possessions,

while

information

about

Internal,

32 psychological

characteristics - like personality attributes,

and hobbies, beliefs, attitudes, and values -

Interests

Increases.

Taken into consideration that large amounts of categories are used

to content-analyze self-descriptions,

relatively few instances. girls

mentioned

thirteen people

and more

Van der Werff (1969^reports that ten year old

appearance somewhat more

sixteen

frequently

year old girls mentioned

often than

sometimes

sex differences occurred in

boys.

than

boys,

relations

with

In Llvesley and Bromley's study

sex

differences

categories.

For

girls reference to relations with the opposite sex and

occurred

frequencies

more

from

often.

boys.

found for

Interests and

three

hobbles

Peevers (1974) appearance was especially

out

of

received

Fifteen year old girls produced

large amount of statements about appearance. nine years old.

only

(1973)

significant family

were

and other

a

33

higher

relatively

In the study of Secord and

Important to girls of eight and

Twelve and thirteen year old girls were concerned

with

their social behaviour much more than boys, by trying to be friendly and nice

to

people.

relationships

Adolescent

more

than

girls

boys.

In

also an

stressed

open

Interpersonal

interview

and

in

a

questionnaire Bosma (1985) asked adolescents which areas they considered to

be

relevant

interpersonal

to

areas

schooI/occupatIon, (1979),

them personally.

however,

to

be

hobbles, found

no

Females

Important,

more

males

often

more

considered

often

mentioned

and politics/society. Montemayor and Elsen reliable

sex

differences

in

the

descriptions of subjects of nine to eighteen years old. L'Ecuyer finally,

writes that,

structures

of

the

self(1978),

with the exception of twelve-year-olds, the main

self-concept of females and males up

to

21

years

resemble each other very much.

To

sum

up,

a shift

In content elements of

visible with growing age. of

concrete,

self-concept

becomes

Younger children describe themselves

in terms

observable elements,

the

older children and adolescents

use

more abstract, Internal categories. The terms which are used also become more differentiated, are

greater

occurred concerned

more precise. The similarities

than the differences for the two

incidentally,

In

middle

childhood

in this development

sexes. and

Sex

adolescence.

greater affinity of girls with relationships and

and of boys with school, hobbies, and

differences They

appearance,

interests.

In the next section sex differences in self-esteem are described.

Self-

33

evaluations

do

descriptions. evaluation three

not

appear

Evidence

with

about

great

frequency

development

In

free

in the occurrence

self-

of

self-

Is confusing. L'Ecuyer (1975) reports a decrease between ages

and

eight.

Livesley

and Bromley

(1973)

describe

that

self-

evaluations occurred In three percent of the responses at age seven, twelve

percent of the cases at age eight,

In

and decreased to one percent

at fifteen.

According to Secord and Peevers (1974), however, evaluative

terms

to

used

describe one's own person begin

to

appear

with

some

frequency at the age of twelve and are very prominent at age fourteen.

Sex differences

Maccoby

in self-esteem

and Jacklin (1975),

and Fransella and Frost (1977) both

start

their chapter on self-esteem with the often heard expectation that women have lower self-esteem than men, because women take the lower evaluation of

female

characteristics

self-esteem

is

individual's

dally

Into account

considered

to

be

an

in their

self-evaluations.

important

variable

for

experience - it is thought to be related to

As an

mental

health and academic achievement for instance - this expectation deserves serious

investigation.

Two thorough overviews of research on this subject, (1975),

and

esteem,

as

until

Wylle (1979),

Maccoby and Jacklin

almost no sex differences

measured by traditional self-esteem scales,

early adulthood.

general conclusion much. studies

found

in

self-

from childhood

A survey of recent studies does not alter

this

An unequivocal picture of the results of these

Is difficult to draw,

however,

because of the

different

age

groups examined and instruments employed. For the preschool period the results present no difficulties. They point almost

unanimously

self-esteem

scores

in

the direction of no sex differences

(Samuels and Griffore 1979;

Henderson

1983; Jensen 1983, 1985) Jensen states that some individual sensitive

to

strongly

to

dealing

with

sex differences. Items

Girls,

for

related to being liked by

physical

skill.

The studies

adolescents are more difficult to interpret. scales

- the

Piers-Harris

Coopersmith Self-esteem elementary

Children's

instance, others, with

In

global

and

Abrams

items may be

responded boys

to

school-children

more items and

On two of the better known

Self-concept

Scale

and

the

Inventory - no sex differences were found during

school years (Crase,

Foss,

and Colbert 1981;

Jaqulsh

and

34

Ripple

1980).

girls

Jaqulsh and Ripple report higher s c o r e s

o n the C o o p e r s m l t h

that m a l e s ,

Instruments

results

sometimes

Mclntire

(1981)

and

measuring differ found

for g i r l s

higher

particular

boys.

Soule,

and

higher

total

score.

eight-year-old

scores

Chapman,

nine

abilities. This was caused

year

on

for

M a r s h et al.

than g i r l s .

in particular

Rellch,

B a r n e s 1985). their

by their

and

than

In the

boys

in

mathematics

the

whole

computational

s k i l l s (Meece et al.

Dusek and Flaherty contained

the

quantitatively

d i fferences.

boys.

than

(In

significant general

sex better

girls

In

tests

on

in

tests

on

1982).)

a c o m b i n a t i o n of a

cross-sectional

and

years

a

old,

(1981) c o n c l u d e that s e l f - e s t e e m of f e m a l e s and m a l e s

same d i m e n s i o n s

(factors),

In these d i m e n s i o n s .

more

than

of

girls

abilities - boys performing

w i t h s u b j e c t s from e l e v e n to e i g h t e e n

lity more highly than boys, masculinity

thirteen

lower e v a l u a t i o n s

but g i r l s o c c a s i o n a l l y are better

large s c a l e p r o j e c t , design

The

do somewhat better

reasoning

longitudinal

score

from the tenth g r a d e o n w a r d s . Prior to that

mathematical

a

In overall

a b i l i t i e s c o n t r a s t e d w i t h their

In tests o n mathematical

on

boys

latter study b o y s a l s o gave higher e v a l u a t i o n s

than girls - b e g i n to appear age

sex d i f f e r e n c e s

a b i l i t i e s than girls.

achievements

differences

of

physical

included children a g e d from nine to

of their mathematical

higher

scores

and Smith 1983) and c h i l d r e n of ten (Marsh, S m i t h , and

mathematical

gave

on

These findings agree w i t h two other s t u d i e s of

and c o w o r k e r s w h i c h

(Marsh,

and

girls

(1984) also found that g i r l s - of s e v e n to

T h e r e w e r e no

this q u e s t i o n n a i r e .

Marsh

self-

Silva,

old

B o y s , o n the other hand, gave higher e v a l u a t i o n s of their

abilities

and

Instrument, a s e l f -

b o y s had higher

scores for

Drummond,

to

Inventory. On a s e c o n d

abilities,

years of age - e v a l u a t e d their reading a b i l i t i e s higher

did.

than

Employing a self-description questionnaire consisting

seven factors,

In

of

e v a l u a t i o n s of their reading and spelling a b i l i t i e s ,

neatness.

ten

and

Inventory,

report

p e r c e p t i o n of personal

on

describe

s c o r e d higher

sex d i f f e r e n c e s for six

role-expectancy,

(1984)

years,

the p e r c e p t i o n

no

motivation

acceptance, Williams

adolescent

though.

c h i l d r e n , o n a self-appraisal concept

for

M a r r o n and K a y s o n (1984)

b e t w e e n e i g h t e e n and twenty-four

females o n this s c a l e , With

Inventory.

Important.

but that the sexes

differed

Girls valued c o n g e n i a l i t y

/sociabi-

boys c o n s i d e r e d a c h i e v e m e n t / l e a d e r s h I p , The d i m e n s i o n adjustment

showed

no

and sex

35 With regard to sex differences

In self-esteem more recent studies do not

challenge general conclusions of earlier research. On global measures,

self-esteem

the scores of females and males are very similar,

in preschool and elementary school-children. adolescent

especially

The number of studies with

subjects Is small and results are contradictory.

statements (1979,

1982) that adolescents' self-esteem

But Burns'

Is higher

In boys

than In girls, cannot be supported. The usefulness of global measures of self-esteem Is questionable. section In

on self-concept development

seIf-defInItIon

childhood do.

One

esteem

onwards of

middle

girls include somewhat different elements than which

provided

to be rather they

were

used,

contained

academic

items

boys

the

or

self-

subscales

in

do,

whereas

achievement.

Further

by the authors when sex differences

Incidentally applied arguments.

did

occur,

When girls

scored

profited from the 'female climate' In education,

were supposed to mature earlier than boys. esteem

from

value relationships with others more than males

explanations higher,

that

the reasons for divergent findings may be that

emphasize physical abilities and

seemed

and

used

In relevance for the self-esteem of females and males. Females

evidently males

shift with Increasing age,

instruments

differing

In the

I have said that the elements

males,

this

traits by both sexes.

or they

In the case of higher

was attributed to higher evaluations

self-

of

male

Females also were supposed to be more willing

to

disclose their weaknesses than males. There is no opportunity to explore theoretical Maccoby

or

and

Jacklln

argumentations. the

empirical

variables

In

explanations further (1975)

and

Wylie

In

this

(1979)

paper.

give

extensive

the next section only the role of language,

of influence on self-concept and

Both

self-esteem,

one of will

be

brlefly considered.

The relation of language to self-concept and self-esteem

Language concept here:

plays

a role on several

and self-esteem. the

levels In the

development

of

Three different aspects will be touched

Influence of language acquisition on the development of

selfupon the

self-concept, the effect of verbal feedback from significant others, and finally

the

role of verbal ability

and self-esteem.

In the measurement of

self-concept

Possible consequences of the role of language for

sex

36 differences

in self-concept and self-esteem will be suggested for

each

aspect. Several authors (Samuels 1977; 1982)

Lewis and Brooks-Gunn 1979;

claim that the acquisition of

tool

to

expand

detail

Is left unexplained.

the use of the proper name,

which

children with

How this Influence works

Is

essential that

a in and

of the correct use of 'I' and 'You', and of in children's language.

According

and Eccles (1981) the acquisition of language Is an

conjecture

out

Examples are given of the reaction to

the appearance of self-references Popper

language provides

their self-concept.

Burns 1979,

for the development

of

the

to

achievement

self-concept:

'...I

only a human being capable of speech can reflect

upon

himself.' (p.144) Language Is not only of Importance for the development of the self-concept

In the early years,

with a tool for organizing experiences related

to the person herself.

individuals 1971).

are

but It provides the

Individual

in general, Including experiences

In the conceptualization of experiences

dependent upon the language of their

culture

(Gergen

This language Is not only a tool, but It possibly sets limits to

perception as well. The limits of the verbal community set limits to the discrimination limits

to

of stimuli,

says Bern (1972),

and this may

well

Imply

If

there

the perception of elements of the person herself.

are, for instance, two varieties within a language - a female and a male style

(Thorne and Henley 1975) - this might have consequences

self-concepts

of females and males.

Thorne and Henley

for

fear,

the

however,

that more differentiation might be assumed than Is actually present. An

important

particular

Influence on the development of the self-concept

on self-esteem,

significant

others

is feedback from other

(Neubauer 1976;

Burns 1982).

parents are Judged as significant others, teachers

may

be considered as such.

In the

what

Especially remarks

they

In

especially first

place

but also siblings, peers, and

Other people provide

with a 'looking-glass' as Cooley (1902) calls It. reflects

people,

and

People's

individuals self-esteem

perceive to be other people's Judgement

of

them.

In early childhood, Individuals receive continuous evaluative

about

their

behaviour.

It

Is

surprising

that

so

little

systematic research has been done on a phenomenon which theoretically considered

to

be

of

controlled

feedback,

such but

compared to verbal feedback Wylle

importance.

There

are

the effect of this must In real

experiments be

is

with

Inconsequential

life.

(1984) investigated the 'child attributions' of

mothers

towards

37

their

children of two-and-a-half,

amazingly hour

high amount of maternal

(one

utterance

attributions character. with second

contain

multiple

She found an about 350

the

place

the

high

self-descriptive

frequency of

positive

accounts for the stability of high self-esteem on self-esteem

These

evaluative

first place maternal attributions provide

opportunity to acquire

per

attributions).

were predominantly favourable when they had an In

the

could

In mother-child dyads. 'child attributions',

children

language.

In

attributions

the

probably

later on In life

(scores

instruments are almost always negatively skewed).

On the general question of differential socialization of girls and boys, Maccoby

and

(clothing, Evidence

Jacklln

(1975)

toy-preferences), about

Inconsistent.

different From

conclude,

that

verbal

stimulation,

directed

more

attention

Whether

this

remains to be answered.

for

towards

boys,

boys. both

In

Instance,

positive

which

teachers

and

may have effects for the self-esteem

was

Instance

school,

negative of

boys

At this age the already established self-esteem

Is mostly positive) causes a 'biased scanning'

Information

sex-typing

preschool age onwards more discipline (for

punishment) was directed towards

(which

for

there Is little evidence to support this.

physical feedback.

except

of

Information.

Is Inconsistent with existent self-esteem Is

easily

rejected (Samuels 1977; Burns 1982). Finally,

language

self-esteem methods.

plays

should, Several

a role on the output side.

by defIn 11Ion, of

the

be Investigated

employed

techniques like analyses of spontaneous - rely on the subjects' verbal ability. this

is

methods

with

and

self-report

- especially

language,

the

open

Interviews and essays

In the opinion of Combs

one of the arguments against the use of

Subjects

Self-concept

self-report

(1981) methods.

probably

lack adequate language to express their self-concept.

L'Ecuyer

(1981),

on the contrary,

prevents

researchers from actually exploring this.

even

children

states that such an

Interpretation

According

to

as young as three were quite capable of verbalizing

him, how

they perceived themselves. The

use of language In the measurement of self-concept and

could viewed

be a factor as

specified

being

In sex differences. superior

self-esteem

Females have traditionally

In verbal ability.

This

opinion

more exactly by Maccoby and Jacklin (1975) and

Dale

has

been been

(1976).

There appear to be no differences until the ages of ten or eleven. Young girls

are

perhaps more talkative than young boys,

but this

does

not

38 affect

the

onwards To

eleven

years

females perform better than males on a variety of verbal

quality of their verbal output.

From ten or

tasks.

what extent this finding might favour females In their responses

self-concept literature

and self-esteem methods has not been Investigated discussed

In

this paper.

In some studies girls

In

on the

did

give

higher evaluations of their reading and spelling abilities, though.

Concluding remarks Sex

differences

childhood must

be

In self-concept and self-esteem may occur

onwards.

No great differences with regard to global

expected,

differently

by

from

but

the

particular

sexes.

In

elements

are

most cases the

more

or

less

a

by-product,

as is often

measures

sometimes

valued

Investigation

differences was not the primary aim of the research mentioned was

middle

the

case

of

sex

here. with

It

other

organlsmlc variables like age and social class. This means that no sharp hypotheses with regard to sex differences were formulated and tested. In this

respect

self-esteem Jacklln

future research on sex differences might

profit

In

self-concept

from overviews as provided

(1975) and Wylle (1979).

by

Maccoby

Special care should be given In

and and such

research to the selection of measurement methods. Language esteem been

may

development. worked

differences. language In

play a role on several

their

out

In detail,

It

would

natural

let alone its Influence

on

however,

possible

sex the

language beyond preschool age.

differences

self-

be Interesting to explore the Influence of I

self-references

would

to occur before middle childhood

influence of verbal feedback self-concept

and

How it affects this development has not,

of the surrounding culture on female and male

substantial

with

levels In self-concept

In real

not

expect

though.

The

life situations on the formation of

and self-esteem Is practically unexplored.

maternal attributions to children seems a very

which could be extended to attributing

Wylie's

promising

In several other

start method,

situations.

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2 DIFFERENCES IN THE EARLY COMMUNICATION BETWEEN MOTHERS AND CHILDREN Akke de Blauw IntroductIon

Since the early 1970s two disciplines, been

working to clarify the relationship between social

language acquisition. has

psychology and linguistics, have interaction and

In the field of developmental psychology research

been done on the attachment relation between mother

and

child.

A

typology of attachment relations has been constructed to detect positive and

negative

influences

on

later

development (for an overview see: the

1970s

soclal-emotlonal

and

RIksen-WaI raven 1983:

cognitive

23-45).

child language research focussed on the development

linguistic system of the child,

on its growing syntactic,

Until of

the

semantic and

phonological abilities, without considering the input factors working on this

development.

incorporation language. language what

of

Snow

and

Ferguson

(1977) set the

stage

for

speech addressed to the child in the study

They asked to pay more attention to the environment acquisition

occurs and to the social-Interactional

the

of

child

in

which

nature

of

is acquired.

What factors in the environment of the child influence the rate or style of language acquisition? Wells (1985: on

342) proposes a model of the Influence of certain

variation In language development.

factors

He divides these factors into

4

main groups: 1. child Inherent attributes:

sex.

Intelligence, personality,

learning

sty Ie; 2. social

background:

family

structure,

social

group,

cultural

envIronment; 3. situation

in

which

the

children's

linguistic

behaviour

occurs:

setting, activity, number and status of participants; 4. style of

linguistic interaction:

inter-personal

relations,

parental

44 child rearing methods. For

Wells

variation

Interaction

of

style of development

is

the

outcome

between all of these groups of attributes.

In

of

this

an

paper

attention Is directed to some of these factors: sex of the child, social group,

number

of

participants

and style of

linguistic

Interaction.

Although 'sex of the child' and 'social background' are the most studied variables these

In language acquisition,

factors

the opinions on the

Importance

Influencing the course of language acquisition

are

of not

unanimous. Up

to the 1950s It was claimed that there is a real sex

language

development

resulting

from

between

inherited

girls

and

factors associated

differences between males and females. still

supported this position,

research girls'

verbal

abilities

there

are

a

age

the 11

with

the

of

of

recent

physiological 351)

In their overview of

'It Is probably studies

In

true

that

early

which

During the period from preschool

sexes begin to

life, no

to

sex early

In their verbal abilities.

diverge,

with

female

345),

In his longitudinal study on language development of children aged 1 concludes

that there is no evidence of a consistent and

least

until 5 years of age, are

to

significant

difference between the sexes In either route or rate of development, developers

At

superiority

Increasing through high school and possibly beyond.' Wells (1985: 5

In

girls,

Maccoby and Jacklln (1974:

sexes are very similar

the

difference

favour

mature somewhat more rapidly In number

differences have been found. adolescence,

In

though not fully.

on sex differences they conclude:

although

about

boys

although he found that the extremely

significantly more likely to be found In the

at fast

homes

of

families at the upper end of the Scale of Family Background and that the extremely

slow developers are significantly more likely to be found

In

the homes of minimally educated parents. Most

studies on child language In relation to social

with

children in their second year of

life.

between parents and children starts at birth, below, to

Because the

in the research

reported

insights in the communication before language emerges and

language has emerged.

start

communication

we wanted to study the communication in an early period,

get

after

interaction

trying just

45 Differences in early communication (1) We

investigated mother-child Interaction in two different

the

first period the children were 3,

questions we - In

what

4 1/2,

and 6

periods.

months

old.

In The

wanted to answer were: way do mothers and babies communicate with each other in the

first six months of life? -

In what way does communication develop?

- Are there sex and social class differences in communication? In

the second period the children were 17 months old.

We then searched

for answers to the following questions: -

In

what way

do

mothers and their 17-month-old children

communicate

with each other? -

Is

there

a relation

with communication patterns in

the

first

six

months of Ii fe? - Are there sex and social class differences In communication? In are

this paper presented

results:

I discuss these two periods separately. on

sex and social class

de Blauw et al.

1979;

Quantative

differences.

Snow et al.

(See

data

for

other

1979; Dubber and de Blauw

1978; Snow et al. 1982) Methods The first six Sixteen 3,

months

mother-Infant pairs were observed at home when the babies

were

4 1/2 and 6 months old. Eight of the children were girls; eight were

boys. Eight of the families studied were identified as middle class (MC) and

eight

as

lower class (LC) on the basis of the

fathers' schooling and occupation.

mothers'

and

All the babies observed were

the

second

children. The older child was present during the observation session. The observation sessions were tape-recorded and two observers made notes of

what was going on with the help of scoring lists,

occurrence

of

minute.Infant

certain

baby

and maternal behaviour

behaviour noted on the list included:

arm/leg movements,

checking off

the

eight

per

gaze

times

direction,

play with object, smile and vocalizations (positive,

neutral

or negative).

talking

to baby,

holding

baby,

Maternal behaviour noted on the

talking to other, touching

baby,

smiling at baby,

playing

with

baby

list

Included:

looking at baby, and

caretaklng

46 act ivitles. Per session 40 minutes of social social

class

differences

Interaction were analysed.

were

tested

with

a

The sex and

two-way-analysis

of

var i ance. At the age of 17 months Ten

of

these sixteen mother-child pairs were observed at home for

hour during free Interaction when the children were 17 months old.

one Four

of the children were girls; six were boys. Five of the families belonged to the middle class (MC) and five to the lower class (LC).

In six cases

the older sibling was present, In four cases he/she was not. The observation sessions were tape-recorded and two observers made notes of

what was going on.

The description of the communication of

mothers

and their 17-month-old children Included nonverbal communication such as babbling, body language, gaze direction, communicative acts and gestures (like offering objects, observation language number

an

pointing,

pulling the mother etc.).

After the

open-ended Interview was held with the mothers

development

of their children.

We made a list of

of words that the children had acquired.

on

the

the total

The mothers were

also

asked about their beliefs on differences between girls and boys. Because of the inconsistency

In the presence of the older sibling - LC 2

with older sibling, MC 4 with older sibling - we did not look for social class

differences.

The presence of an older sibling was spread equally

over boys and girls. The

analysis

has been done on the basis of the

hour's interaction, and

situational

transcription

Including the notes made on nonverbal aspects.

Differences

were

tested

of

one

communication

with

t-tests,

correlations with the pearson correlation coefficient. Results The first six

months

Sex differences: - At

all ages (3,

vocalizations

4 1/2 and 6 months) the boys produced more

(crying

and fussing).

The difference was

negative

significant

only at 6 months (p < .05). - Although

the difference was not significant,

smlles than the girls.

the boys produced

more

47

- There

was a strong tendency for boys to vocalize positively and smile

more toward their mothers than girls did. - Girls

on the other

hand vocalized positively and smiled more

toward

the older sibling (significant for 4 1/2 and 6 months, p < .05). -At

all

ages

oriented

there was

toward

boys'

a strong tendency for

mothers

vocalizations and smiles

to

(evoking

be

more

them

and

responding to them) than toward girls' vocalizations and smiles. -At

all

ages boys were touched more during vocalizations and

smiling

(only significant at 3 months (p < .05). Social class differences: - LC

babies

vocalized more than MC babies (only significant at

4

1/2

4

1/2

months (p < .01). - MC

mothers talked significantly more to their babies at 3 and

months than LC mothers did. But at 6 months the LC mothers talked more to their babies (not significant). - Although

there

were neither sex nor social class differences

In

the

number of episodes of the mother talking to the babies, at 6 months MC girls

received more but shorter episodes of maternal talking than

LC

girls, whereas MC boys received fewer but longer episodes than LC boys (significant p < .05).

At 17 At

months

17

months

all

ten children had just begun

to

talk

in

utterances. The vocabulary of the children ranged from 2 - 2 1

one-word

words with

a mean of 10,8 words. - Girls used more utterances than boys, and boys used more vocalizations (babbling) than girls did. - There Is a significant difference in the orientation (gaze of

the

child

significantly

during 'talking' (utterances + more

babbling).

direction) Girls

mother oriented while boys 'talked' more

in

are the

context of playing (p < 0.05). - There

is a high correlation between the frequency

of

mother-talking

and child-'talking' (r - 0.78, p < 0.004). - There

Is

babbling

a high correlation between the frequency of utterances of

the child and the responsiveness of the

mother

and

to

the

mothers who were most responsive to the communicative acts

and

talking (r - 0.93, p < 0.001). - Those

gestures,

the utterances and the babbling,

had children who used the

48 highest number of different words. - The

presence of an older sister of brother resulted in a

difference

significant

In the frequency of children's 'talking', and a significant

difference

In

the

frequency of mothers' talking to

child

In

the

degree of

and

responsiveness

to

their

the

youngest

babbling

and

utterances of their children (p < 0.05). - No

positive correlations were found between the frequency of mothers'

talking at 3, 4 1/2 and 6 months and at 17 months. - No

positive correlations were found between the vocalizations of

the

child at 3, 4 1/2 and 6 months and at 17 months. - A

negative correlation existed between looking at the

vocalizing at 6 months and at 17 months (r - -0.78, means

that

mother

p < 0.004).

those children who looked around them most at

looked most at the mother at 17 months (r = 0.67,

during

6

This

months,

p < 0.02), and vice

versa.

Discussion In

the

months and

study of mother-baby of

interaction with babies between

age we have found sex differences

girls'

negative

vocalizations orientation

vocalizations

and

smiling

toward

this

on

the

behaviour.

on

the

other

3

and

in the frequency of one hand,

hand and

and in

There was a strong

boys'

positive the

mother

tendency

mothers

to be more oriented toward boys' vocalizations and smiles

toward

girls'

differences? overall

The

result

fussing,

vocalizations boys

cried

and

smiles.

How

to

directed

these

girls.

their

for than

explain

and fussed more than the

we found that all babies

6

As

gaze,

an

while

increasingly at the mother. This might explain why the mothers

of boys were more oriented toward their children. Girls, however, fussed and

cried

less.

They

looked around more and spent more time

looking,

vocalizing, and smiling at their brothers and sisters. We

found

social class differences in the frequency of

vocalizing

(LC

babies vocalized more than MC babies). At 3 and 4 1/2 months this result can be explained by the finding that MC mothers talk significantly to

their

children,

communication,

and

which

means

they

are

more

dominant

give their children less opportunity

to

In

more the

vocalize.

However, at 6 months LC mothers talk more than MC mothers. Moreover both MC and LC mothers talked in a different style to their girls and boys at

49 6

months.

talking

MC

than

episodes

LC

than

quantitative

received more but shorter

girls;

MC

whereas

boys.

analysis

qualitative semantic

girls

aspects

of

LC boys received

to be supplemented

the

communication,

with such

of

more

These and other findings make

has

characteristics

episodes

maternal

but

shorter

clear

the as

that

analysis

a of

functional

and

of maternal speech and other features of

the

baby's behaviour. In

the

study

relation mother

on

17-month-old babies It was found

between

the

that

level of language acquisition and

interacts with the child.

there the

Is

way

a the

Those mothers who were most responsive

to the utterances, the babbling and the communicative acts, had children who used the highest number of different words. Other researchers, Cross (1978) for example, if

have also found that children learn to talk

their mothers provide a large proportion of conversational

that are semantically contingent on the childrens' own study

on

mother

17-month-old

babies also shows that

faster

responses

utterances.

responsiveness

to the preverbal communicative signals of the child

of

The the

facilitates

the production of words. Concerning

the differences we found,

we have seen that the presence of

an older child influenced the language use of the younger child and

the

frequency of mothers' talking to the child. The

most

interesting finding is the sex difference between

girls

and

boys in the context of 'talking',

girls being more oriented towards the

mother

We have found few correlations of the

and boys towards playing.

17 months period with the 3 - 6 the Inconsistency However,

months

period.

An explanation might be

in the presence of the older sibling.

the finding that girls use more words at 17 months,

looking

around and vocalizing at 6 months is correlated with

to

mother at 17 months,

the

towards

the

communicative extensive

and

mother

at

ability.

suggests that a

decreasing

6 months may be seen as This

hypothesis

a

sign

and

that

'talking' orientation

of

has to be tested

advanced

in

longitudinal study of children In their first

a

more

years

of

I i fe. In

the study presented in this article,

of

some

social group, suppport

we searched for the

factors influencing language acquisition:

sex of

importance the

family structure and style of linguistic Interaction.

Wells' ideas that all of these factors may Influence

acquisition.

child,

But

what about the relative importance of these

We

language factors?

50 Wells

(1985:

differences better

349)

stresses the Importance of

the

explanation of the variation In rate of development than

background or sex of the child.

contexts In which children tend to speak most.

our

finding

proportion playing,

at 17 months,

helping

or

he found (Wells 1985:

345) that a

general

activity.

He found that

greater for conversations

greater they

is

emphasized

this

are

difference

Initiated by adults than

conversations Initiated by children.

difference

with

a greater proportion with girls when they are engaged In

considerably

family

In accordance

of sequences of conversation with boys occur when and

of as a

He asks that more attention be given to

the

for

identification

in styles of interaction in adult-child conversations,

Thus,

by adults In

their

it

In Is Is

he concludes that this Interactions

with

the

chlIdren. When

we discuss 'context' and 'style of Interaction' we have to realize

that

most studies on language acquisition and social

to

mothers

raising their children.

socializing

or participation of other caretakers.

et al.

(1983) who studied Interaction

parents who both work outside the home, found

available

on

refer other

situations such as equal mother and father participation In

child raising, McLaughlin

Few data are

Interaction

besides

differences

a

In

'differential

lot

of

their

speech

with

I.e.

differences

between

and young children (1.6 - 3.6),

similarities,

hypothesis',

Rondal (1980) and

also

their that

several

significant

children.

fathers

and

McLaughlins mothers

play

complementary roles in the language development of children, needs to be explored further. The

conclusion may be drawn that If we wish to study sex differences in

language acquisition, background,

they have to be studied in the context of

social

taking Into account the style of linguistic interaction and

the contexts In which children talk. I should like to end this paper on sex differences with an indication of a very different entrance Into the study of language and sex: sex typing fn

language.

Is

to

find

One of the tasks a child learning language is faced with, out

the rules for the distribution

of

male

and

female

features of words. I should like to illustrate this with an example from my own life as a mother. I

was

driving

In

town

demonstrated a particular

with

my

interest

not

quite

two-year-old

In the streetlights.

son.

He

51

He asked-. Akke

lights now?

From whom

(Akke lantaarns nou?)

lights Akke?

(Van wie lantaarns Akke?)

I answered: belong

Lights

to everybody,

to ¿ill people

(lantaarns

zljn

van ledereen, van ¿lie mensen) Then he asked: To women

too?

(Van vrouwen ook?)

Note

1. The study has been done In cooperation with Ghislaine van Roosmalen and Clara Dubber under the guidance of Catherine Snow at the Institute of General Linguistics at the University of Amsterdam.

References BLAUW, AKKE DE, CLARA DUBBER, GHISLAINE VAN ROOSMALEN and CATER INE E. SNOW 1979 Sex and social class differences In early mother-child Interaction. In Garnlca, Olga K. and Martha L. King (eds.), Language, Children and Society. Pergamon Press, Oxford, New York, 53-65. CROSS, TONY G. 1978 Mother's speech and Its association with rate of linguistic development In young children. In Waterson, Nathalie and Catherine John Wiley & Sons, Snow (eds.), The development of communI cat I on. Chichester, New York etc., 199-216. DUBBER,

CLARA e n

AKKE

DE BLAUW

1978 VroegtalIge perlode en taalverwervlng: 17 maanden. Instltuut voor Algemene Pub Iikat ie nr. 19. MACCOBY, E.E. and C.N. JACKLIN 1974 The psychology of sex differences. Stanford. MCLAUGHLIN,

BARRY,

DAVID

WHITE,

moeder-klnd Interaktle blj TaaIwetenschap, Amsterdam.

Stanford

THERESA M C D E V I T T

and

University

ROBERT

1983 Mothers' and fathers' speech to their young children: different? Journal of Child Language 10, 245-252. RIKSEN-WALRAVEN,

JACOBA

Press,

RASKIN

similar

or

M.A.

1983 Mogelijke oorzaken en gevolgen van een (on)velllge gehechtheidsrelatle: een overzlcht aan de hand van een model.Kind en Adolescent, TIJdschrlft voor Pedagoglek, Psychlatrle en Psychol ogle 4, 23-45.

52 RONDAL, J. A. 1980 Fathers' and mothers' speech in early language development. of Child Language 7, 353-369. SNOW, CATHERINE E. and CHARLES A. FERGUSON (eds.) 1977 Talking to children: language Input and acquisition. University Press, London.

Journal

Cambridge

SNOW, CATHERINE E., AKKE DE BLAUW and GHISLAINE VAN ROOSMALEN 1979 Talking and playing with babies: the role of Ideologies of child rearing. In Bui Iowa, Margaret (ed.),Before speech. Cambridge University Press, New York, 269-289. SNOW, CATHERINE E., CLARA DUBBER and AKKE DE BLAUW 1982 Routines in mother-child Interaction. In Feagans, L. and D.C. Farran (eds.), The language of children reared In poverty: Impl¡cations for evaluation and i ntervent ion. Academic Press, New York etc., 53-75. WELLS, GORDON language at home and 1985 Language development In the pre-school years: at school. Volume 2. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge etc.

3 SEX A N D FAMILY B A C K G R O U N D IN EARLY LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Liesbeth Verhulst-Schlichting, Marion Morelli-Kayser and Maria Peddemors-Boon Abstract

A

descriptive

children

study

yielded

of

the early

Interesting in

lexical

results

relation

development

regarding to the

the

of

37

Dutch

rate

of

their

linguistic

development

children's

educational

level of their parents. A possible e x p l a n a t i o n

sex

and

the

Is discussed.

M e t h o d and procedure

The early p r o d u c t i v e vocabulary of 37 Dutch c h i l d r e n w a s s t u d i e d as part of

a project focused on the d e s c r i p t i o n of the grammatical

of

Dutch

children

from

the ages of 1 to 4.

(1)

The

s e l e c t e d by drawing a sample from the Dutch c h i l d r e n born one particular m o n t h . and

allocated

educational reports

to

They were d i v i d e d

three

monthly

Instructions at home. The produced

50

different

by

subjects in Utrecht

the

basis

In

of

the

The data w e r e c o l l e c t e d by m e a n s of

the m o t h e r s

who

had

received

investigation w a s c o n t i n u e d until words.

were

into six cells a c c o r d i n g to sex

socio-economic groups on

level of their parents.

written

development

The v o c a b u l a r i e s of the

s u b j e c t e d to q u a n t i t a t i v e and qualitative analysis.

detailed

the c h i l d r e n

children

were

(2)

Q u a Ii tat i ve resuIts

The of

v o c a b u l a r i e s of the children were analyzed according to the functional

yielded (though ours). children

results

analysis u s e d by Nelson (1973) and Benedict that closely resembled the results

their subjects attained the 50 w o r d Nelson

claims

characterized

of

their

language

two

and

studies

level a little earlier

that w i t h i n her group there w e r e by their styles of

method

(1979)

types

acquisition:

than of the

54 referential

style and the expressive style:

'...one child seems to

learning about things and the other about self and other people-, learning an object 1973:

21)

subjects

We of

'expressive' used

extremely

a

Interaction language.' (Nelson

the same criteria to the

and found that ca.

extremes girls

language, one a social

applied

subgroup

vocabularies

of

our

70% occupied a middle position between the of

subgroup (14%).

'referential'

children

Within each educational

slightly more 'expressive' words than the 'expressive'

be

one is

children

all belonged to the

(16%) level

and

an

group

the

boys. low

The

five

educational

level group, the five extremely 'referential' children were all from the high

educational

level group (four of them boys).

These

results

show

some agreement with the study of Bretherton et al. (1983) who also found two

styles

of

language

acquisition

at

20

months

resembling

the

expressive and referential styles. They did not find a relation to sex.

Quantitative results At

14 months the average number of words produced is eight. the

number of words produced by boys

There Is a

difference

between

the

low

educational

level group and the average number of words produced by

In

the

subjects In the other five groups (see Table 1).

TABLE 1.

The average number of words produced at 14 months.

Educational

level

Boys

Girls

high

8,2

9,7

medium

8

8,8

low

6

8

of parents

The

divergence of the boys In the low educational

level group

steadily and at the 50 word level we see a clear retardation of

development of the boys in the low educational

to the other five groups. little

slower

increases

In the rate

families as

compared

The girls in the low educational group are

In their vocabulary growth than the four medium and

groups (see Table 2).

a

high

55 TABLE 2.

The average age,

in months,

of the attainment of the 50 word

level within the six groups.

Educational

level

Boys

Girls

of parents high

19,8

20

medium

20,2

20,8

low

24,6

21,7

The

picture that emerges is this:

homes

boys from the low educational

acquire their early vocabularies

level

later as compared to girls

from

the same sort of home and as compared to boys and girls from homes

with

a medium or high educational of

the

level. This suggests that It is not the sex

child which influences the pace at which It acquires its

vocabulary

but

educational

level of the parents.

the interaction between the sex of the

child

first

and

the

Conclusion

Dutch

literature

development

In

this

field

suggests

of boys In the low educational

that

the

slow

language

level group Is not

confined

to vocabulary and early development. Van der Geest et al. (1973) found a difference

in language ability between boys from a middle class and boys

from a lower class background, general higher score

conclusion of our research is that the MC-group clearly on all the traditional measures and on the syntactic than

either LC-group.'

differences are

between the ages of three and four: 'The

often

(Van der Geest et

al.

1973:

In this all-male study were not taken Into described

development

than boys.

as

having a slightly

faster

102)

account.

rate

In our study the boys from the

scores

complexity Sex Girls

of

language

lower

economic

background show a slower development than all our other subgroups, while In the medium and high socio-economic groups the difference acquisition for boys and girls Is not great. results

in

interesting finding

of

We find support for these

American studies (McCarthy 1954). to note that both Davis (1937)

in rates

McCarthy states 'It

and Young (1941)

agree

sex differences more marked among children of the lower

economic levels than among those from superior (sic!

L.

V.-S.

Is in

socioet al.)

56 homes.' effect

McCarthy of

attributes this phenomenon to an

early

the environment of the two sexes as revealed

development

(p.

577).

hypothesis In the maternal

Wells

(1986)

finds

some

interviews of his study.

differential in

linguistic

support He,

for

however, finds

little evidence for a correlation between family background and development, though the slow developer

this

language

is more likely to be found in the

homes

of

the minimally educated parents and the fast developer

homes

of

the highly educated (1985:

349).

He also finds

boys and girls and these are again

in

only

differences

between

differences

in child-rearing rather than to innate differences

the small

attributed

to

between

the sexes (see de Blauw in this volume). Wells does not give the results of the interaction of sex and family background with regard to the

rate

of development.

Our

results

McCarthy's sex

support the studies of Davis and Young and we

agree

with

and Wells' view that the explanation for this phenomenon

differences

In children from a specific background will mainly

found

in differences

boys.

These

In the child-rearing practices towards

differences would be more marked In the lower

level groups than In the higher educational

girls

of be and

educational

level groups.

Notes 1. This research was supported with a grant from the 'Nederlandse Comité voor Klnderpostzegels'. 2. A full report of this study will be published

later.

References BENEDICT, HELEN. 1979 Early lexical development: comprehension and production. Journal Child Language 6, 183-200.

of

BRETHERTON, INGE, SANDRA McNEW, LYNN SNYDER and ELIZABETH BATES 1983 Individual differences at 20 months: analytic and holistic strategies in language acquisition. Journal of Child Language 10, 293-320. GEEST, T. VAN DER, R. GERSTEL, R. APPEL and B. TERV00RT 1973 The child's communlcatIve competence. Mouton, Den Haag.

57

MCCARTHY, DOROTHEA 1954 Language development in children. In Carmichael, Leonard (ed.), Manual of child psychology. John Wiley & Sons, New York etc. M O R E L L I - K A Y S E R , MARION 1985 De eerste 50 woorden van het Nederlandse kind. DoktoraalskrIptle Algemene TaaIwetenschap, RIjksuniversiteit Utrecht. NELSON, KATHERINE 1973 Structure and strategy In learning to talk. Monograph of the Society for Research In Child Development, no. 38. 1981 Individual differences In language development: Implications for development and language. Developmental Psychology 17, 170-187. WELLS, GORDON 1985 Language development In the pre-school years. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 1986 Variations in child language. In Fletcher, Paul and Michael Garman (eds.), Language acqulsltIon. Cambridge University Press, Cambr i dge.

4 LEARNING FROM YOUR PEERS: The Acquisition of Gender-specific Speech Styles Ingrid van Alphen 'All the things I've done in my youth! No! It's UNbeIievable!

I even played rugby!' Janlne (16)

Abstract

In this article within

I wlI I argue that the differential organization patterns

same-sex

socialization interaction insight

peer

for

groups

language

are

the

the

nature

powerful

behaviour of girls and

should therefore be further

into

most

and

causes

source

boys.

Peer

investigated in order of

of group

to

gender-specific

gain

language

behavlour. I wiI I first give an indication of the differences between the speech of women and men, not men.

other)

which leads to the question of why It is that these (and

linguistic phenomena differ between the speech of women

and

I wiI I then discuss the Importance of peer groups In general,

and

describe

the different words of girls and boys and the

linguistic features which, In

these

insights

different with

some

gender-spec IfIc

Maltz and Borker (1982) suggest, are

'worlds'. empirical

I wiI I test data

these

concerning

stereotypical attitudes of girls and boys of 9,

mainly the

learned

theoretical

acquisition

of

12 and 15 years of age,

and I will give some results of a pilot study on the verbal

Interaction

of same-sex peers of 9 and 12 years of age. In have

order to let the subjects of this article speak

for

themselves,

I

Illuminated my text with tape-recorded 'snap-shots' of 15- and 16-

year-old terms. (1)

girls who report on their childhood (sic) in rather

nostalgic

59 Introduct ion

The

increasing

more

amount of research on 'language and sex'

Is

providing

and more evidence about the specific differences between

language

use and language behaviour of women and men. These (gradual) differences are

located

syntactical are

on

the

the

semantIc/lex lea I

and

the

levels, but the majority of socially significant differences

found In verbal

women

phonological,

and

men.

particular

Interaction,

Without

discussions

In the conversational

pretending

to

be

strategies

complete,

about some features,

I will

and,

of

Ignoring

Indicate a few

of

these differences. Women are supposed to be more Involved In maintaining routine In

social

interaction and to be more actively engaged In insuring interaction than men (Flshman 1978); they show a greater tendency to make use of positive minimal

responses,

protest' minimal of

after

and are more likely to adopt a strategy of

they have been Interrupted or have received

response (Zimmerman & West 1975);

not

opposing:

I.e.

they

1984:

300);

they

are

also

a

delayed

women tend to have a strategy

first 'Join' the last speaker

propose a contradictory statement ('Ja,

'silent

aber' (Yes,

and

then

but): TrOmel-PItttz

supposed to use a lot of

hedges

or

tag

questions (McMillan 1977; Lakoff 1975; Werner 1983). This type of verbal behaviour

is often called 'cooperative' (Jenkins 1984;

For men,

there is a more 'competitive' (2) style of speaking:

more

likely

to Interrupt the speech of their

Kramarae

1981). they are

conversational

partners

(Zimmerman and West 1975; West and Zimmerman 1983); they are more

likely

to challenge or dispute their partner's utterances, they are more

likely

to

Ignore

response direct

the

comments of the other speaker,

Is,

or acknowledgement at all (Hirschmann 1973); declarations

to

offer

they

make

of fact and opinion than women do (Flshman

and they are capable of producing amazingly hold

that

more 1978);

long sentences in order

their floor' ('Das Wurmsatzsyndrom' - 'The wurmsentence

no

'to

syndrom',

Zumbtlh I 1984: 237). The

question

language the

arises

behaviour

of how and when

exclusion of others.

focused

on

learn

gender-specific

Until now the majority of research

has

'discourse reproducing agencies' (Bernstein 1981)

parent-child children's

children

and why this Involves certain specific features

interaction, and

teacher/class

interaction,

youth literature and schoolbooks.

In this

the

to been

such

as

media,

enumeration

60 peers

are

not

mentioned.

Sociologists and

linguists

have

recently

recognized the enormous influence of peers in the

sozialisatlonprocess,

but

is

empirical

research

on

female peer

empirical research into their actual a

close

look

The importance in

assumption

rare,

and

language behaviour even rarer. Yet, deal

about

language behaviour.

of peer youth

Is

groups

culture

means

group

activity.

The

sociological

that young people develop their tastes for

music In groups,

clothes

and

that they watch football matches and go dancing,

around and 'do nothing' In groups. to

still

at same-sex peer groups will reveal a great

gender-specific

Activity

groups

In adolescent society people

very clearly defined social networks:

hang belong

they organize their behaviour

according to the rigid systems of value and prestige of these networks. A peer group Is characterized by friendship and loyalty,

by

commitment

to each other, because of who they are, rather than because of what they represent, between

in social-psychological

the

family

terms, the peer group lies somewhere

(with its ties of emotional

commitment)

and

the

economic system (with its formal contracts, Its organization of roles oil the basis of achieved skills and qualifications). The peer group manages the

move

social

from

world

authority

and

must

be

Peer

groups,

family

'particularistic' to 'universal 1stic' In which decisions are made with family tradition,

reference

treating

the

comparison Karen's

In short,

from

to

rational

decisions principles.

support girls' and boys' Initial steps out

and give them their first Introduction to other social

(which

mother

world.

At first this may simply be a

leads children to argue with

lets her go to the disco's').

their

activities become the centre of young people's social

of

matter

of

- 'But

as peer

life,

of

ways

parents

However,

a

parental

to a social world in which

made on the basis of universally agreed life,

values,

group

they become

the chief reference point for their behaviour. A peer group matters as a source of a new way of placing The

functlonal1stIc

mentioned

above,

summarized process

as

from

point

has

come

follows: growing

oneself

In the world

of view In

theories

(Frith 1984). about

youth

In for a lot of criticism,

which

growing up middle class is still up

working class,

and growing

up

a

culture can

be

different male

Is

a

different process from growing up female. We find not only sharply contrasting consumers' tastes and choices,

but

61

also,

more Importantly,

constrastlng constraints on people's

cultural

activities. These constraints reflect class and gender positions as well as age. to

Leisure activities in short, are not really 'free', they relate

people's

patterns people time

position

reflect have

different opportunities.

differently,

Girls, even

partly

for example, as

in the family and

leisure opportunities,

children,

Institutions

labour

market.

Leisure young

Girls and boys use their

because they are 'free' in

'free'

different

ways.

have greater domestic obligations than boys. Thus, girls

because

the

and different groups of

and boys are placed

differently

of the projected division of their

in

social

adult

roles:

boys as breadwinners, girls as wives and mothers. Peer

groups,

therefore,

gender behaviour. period,

are

very important for

acquiring

appropriate

This seems to be explicitly the case In the adolescence

but the influence of peers on behaviour

in general and

therefore

on language behaviour as well, begins much sooner.

In

a

schematic representation of the acquisition of

(1979:

sex

162) considers same-sex peers to be the most

Influence

roles,

Katz

important source of

during the elementary school period (6 - 12 years)

(followed

by television, books, teachers and parents, in that order). According to Katz,

(adjusting

years) late are

to) biological

factors in early adolescence (12

takes a dominating position in the sequence

of

- 15

influences.

adolescence (15 - 19 years) peers of the same and the opposite most

social

Influential

class

basis of their

(followed by media and

and ethnicity are not mentioned

a

minor

Differences

in Katz' scheme.

inventory Maccoby and Jacklin conclude that the

of parents - In terms of plays

parents).

On

In sex In the

influence

Imitative behaviour towards a 'model parent'

role in the acquisition

of

gender-specific

behaviour

(Maccoby & Jacklin 1974: 300). With reference to speech acquisition, the findings

of Labov are as follows:

'The child's first experience

in the

use of English, at 2 to 3 years old, is usually dominated by the example of his parents,

but from about 4 to 13 years old, his speech pattern is

dominated and regulated by that of the preadolescent group with which he plays.

These are peers who are able,

by their sanctions,

any deviations from the dialect pattern of the group.

to eliminate

In the first year

of high school the child becomes sensitive to the social significance of his own form of speech, norms

of

the

and other forms;

complete familiarity with the

community seems to be attained at the age of

17

to

18

62 years.' (Labov 1972: 138) The

formulation

that

only

of Labov (the child and his speech) reveals

boys have been studied.

Furthermore,

the

his analysis

fact

of

the

acquisition of community norms Is made on the basis of dialect patterns. Nevertheless, the

since gender-specific speech can be conceived as part

acquisition

socially

of

soclolIngulstIc

significant categories),

norms ('women'

and

of

'men'

being

In my view It is permitted to

apply

Labov's view to the acquisition of gender-specific speech styles.

Research

Into girls'

Analyzing

culture

the research on the culture of girls (as done mainly

Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (e.g. Garber

1982;

McRobbie

all

language

behaviour

behaviour.

social

(3) Aside from 'sex slang' or

Intercourse,

and

I was surprised to find

of girls is studied and described

speech patterns are not mentioned. to

the

and Nava 1984) but also In Germany (Savler

WiIdt 1980) and Netherlands (Naber 1985), almost

In

Mc Robbie and

except

'sexual

that their

language',

'Interaction' In these studies refers

while 'discourse' refers to the language of the

social workers in this field (e.g. De Mare & Spoel

1984).

Summarizing, we may safely conclude that research on language behaviour peer groups has hardly considered girls, ever

in

and that studies of girls hardly

Include analysis of language behaviour'.

I wiI I now go on to discuss the insights of Maltz and Borker (1982) who, by way of exception,

explicitly attempt to make the connection and

who

investigate the speech styles of girls (and boys) In peer groups.

A

cultural

approach

to male-female

mIscommunlcat

Ion:

Maltz

and

Borker

(1982)

'In elementary school, when balI, when we played footbalI school, we never get the ball. half an hour, and I never got

Maltz

and

different

Borker

we were little girls, we did get the with the boys but now, In secondary The other day, I played footbalI for the ball once I Not even ONCE I' Danielle (15)

argue that girls and boys learn to use

ways because of the different social contexts in

learn how to carry on friendly conversation: of

boys

Indoors;

Interact

which

in they

groups of girls and groups

and play In different ways:

boys tend to play In larger groups;

language

girls more

often

play

boys' play groups tend to

63 Include a wider range of participants; games

more

often than vice versa;

girls play in predominantly male

boys more

often

play

competitive

games, and girls' games tend not to last as long as boys' games. The Edinburgh study of Suzanne Romaine (1984) confirms the above: tended

to

while

name

one or two close friends they played

with

boys tended to name a larger network - usually boys

football with.

girls

regularly, they

played

Furthermore, the age range tends to be smaller for girls

(9 - 13) compared to a range of 11 to 17 for the boys. Romaine adds that to

some extent the size of groups may be related to the different types

of

games and activities played by the boys and the girls

at

different

ages; e.g. It only takes three girls to skip rope, but usually more boys are

needed to play a game of football.

all-boy

or all-girl.'

differentiate

A major characteristic of

peer groups seems to be homogeneity:

middle-childhood

their

Self-consciously, behaviour

from

most

'they are either

members of each sex learn

that of

the

other

sex

and

to to

exaggerate the differences. By examining the differences in the social organization of play (which I Interpret

broadly

to

Include

'doing

differences In the patterns of social Borker

believe

differences

that

we

nothing')

can learn about the

In patterns of language use.

patterns

Maltz

in cross-sex

follows:

'Girls'

in terms of power,

male-female

patterns,

that

are

potential

girls

processes

of

alliance

party.' equal always.

provides

(Goodwin 1980:

structure A

everyone girl

are

usually

Differentiation between girls Is not To

girls,

Relationships are

often

Goodwin notes that 'The hierarchical

a fertile ground

formation between

for

equals

rather

against

Intricate some

172) But there is a basic contradiction

of girls' social relationships.

and

activities

equality, mutual commitment and loyalty. The

formed at the expense of old ones. of

language

They describe the world of girls

of a 'best friend' is central for girls.

framework

they

interaction.

but in terns of relative closeness.

friendship means intimacy, idea

of

these

into adulthood as the bases

play is cooperative and

organized in noncompetitive ways.' made

associated

and Borker outline a number of ways in which the uses of

differ between female and male groups. as

sources

It is

of single-sex friendship relations,

sources of miscommunlcation

the

interaction they entail, Maltz and

argue, learned in childhood and carried over for

and

Friends are supposed

is supposed to get along,

but

In fact

cannot resolve conflict by means of

they

asserting

other in

the

to

be

don't social

64 power or superiority What

girls

created by an which

as an

Individual.

learn to do with speech

Is to cope with

the

contradiction

Ideology of equality and c o o p e r a t i o n , and a social

includes d i f f e r e n c e s and conflict.

A s they g r o w up they

b a l a n c e the conflicting p r e s s u r e s created by a female social female friendship

ideology with

increaslg

Maltz and Borker s t a t e that girls 1)

equality;

2 ) to criticize o t h e r s

accurately

the speech of other girls.

large

to

extent

speech they

create

formed

and maintain

through

rights of o t h e r s , say

in order

to establish

Boys

on

the

other

groups

than

(1972)

states

hand,

girls,

and m a i n t a i n

to

interpet

and to a c k o w l e d g e

relationships

hierarchically

in the hierarchy

Is

organized

paramount.

status than o t h e r s ,

although m e m b e r s of the group may o v e r t l y deny

that

there

M a l t z and Borker cite three w a y s

used

In boys' g r o u p s :

attract

boys

is

Joke-telling

cultivated.

speech

pattern

In boys' peer g r o u p s .

events

Labov

of

like

'sounding' or

and Borker e m p h a s i z e

speaking

'playing the dozens'

mainly

others.

elements another

and they also tend to

Story-telling,

rather

express

the

among power. valued

competitive

In which

verbal

and

Insults

adult

Women's conversation look for signs of

link what

they say to the

posturing and

in the speech style of men and boys.

hand, do not

success

duelling'.

interaction,

They send out and

arguing,

to) value

to

agreement discourse

are

common

M e n tend to c h a l l e n g e

aggressiveness.

ways

gendertends

than give s t a t e m e n t s of support. W o m e n , on the other

(or are not allowed

to

others

the continuity b e t w e e n these adolescent

language behaviour.

interactional.

and engagement of

'verbal

and management of social

specific p a t t e r n s of be

Social

(1972) describes a number of

2)

is

straightforward

and other n a r r a t i v e feats are highly

are e x c h a n g e d , all m a n i f e s t a t i o n s of Maltz

is the most

based on knowing how and when to use w o r d s to

Story-telling, and

and 3 ) to assert oneself when

The e x p r e s s i o n of dominance

and best documented

in w h i c h speech

1) to assert o n e ' s p o s i t i o n of d o m i n a n c e ;

and m a i n t a i n an a u d i e n c e ,

have the floor.

and

Labov

and

leader.

Jets

equality speech.

with some m e m b e r s having m o r e p r e s t i g e

Is a

the

what

are

structured,

such as

of

through

a the

Thunderblrds

hierarchically

groups

and

learn to recognize

to create c o o p e r a t i o n

tend to have m o r e

and status

that

with

closeness

F r i e n d s h i p s among g i r l s are to

Girls need

let o t h e r s s p e a k ,

and c l o s e n e s s . They are required

three things

r e l a t i o n s h i p s of

in acceptible w a y s , and 3 ) to

talk.

to

learn to

world and a

subtillty.

learn to accomplish

language:

reality

one

65 Some empirical evidence In

this paragraph I shall present some empirical evidence which Is

outcome

of

the

socialization'

girls

project

'Language

and

gender-specific

on which students and myself have been working

last few years. Earlier

research

the

for

the

This project focuses on children of 9, 12 and 15 years.

research tended to indicate a 'breaking point' In the speech of between 9 and 12 years (Van Alphen 1982),

and Is

In

accordance

with the preadolescent period of Katz (1979); between ages 12 and 15, It Is hypothesized, of

girls and boys acquire their final and basic knowledge

appropriate gender-specific language behaviour.

the mainly theoretical data

First,

I wi11 test

Insights of Maltz and Borker with some

empirical

concerning the acquisition of stereotypical attitudes of girls and

boys of 9, 12 and 15 years of age. Second, I wlI I give some results of a pilot study on the verbal behaviour of same-sex peers of 9 and 12

years

of age.

The Images of girls and boys about the speech

of self and

others

'Look, we have a friend, Fllpje, and he thinks Marcel I a Is a real GIRL, 'cause she doesn't spit on the floor, she doesn't smoke, she doesn't swear (she Is as coarse as can be, but okay: she doesn't swear), she comes home In time, she does the shopping for her mother: REAL GIRLI That's what Fllpje thinks Is a REAL glrll W6 are not real girls, 'cause we are bad sometimes: we drink, we smoke, we swear, we spit on the floor, we do not shop for our mothers (Yesl we dol) Well, but NOT If she asks me. (Don't exaggerate huhl)' Janine and Elize (16, In unison) Stereotypes reflect, maintain and reinforce cultural norms and attitudes and

are

of

great

(language) behaviour.

Importance

for

the

acquisition

results

12,

as

subjects

appropriate

The study of Constandse and Schepers (1985) about

the acquisition of stereotypes of Dutch (white, boys of 9,

of

upper-class) girls

and

15 years and adults, revealed in broad outline the same

other research (e.g.

towards

Edelsky 1977).

40 stereotypes/features of

The attitudes of

gender-specific

196

language

behaviour were rated on a 4-polnt scale and statistically analyzed.

All

results mentioned here are significant (p.< 0.001). At age 12, of

women

therefore

the traditional stereotypical views about language behaviour and men are attributed to girls/women and be

considered as socially

acquired.

boys/men

9-year-olds,

and

can

however,

66 attributed

some items In the opposite direction;

people',

'talk

with excitement' were attributed to boys instead of

the

Item

'skip

'like to

other

form one subject to another',

'self-disclosure'

is considered

'neutral'

talk

about

'talk a lot' girls.

by

and Also

9-year-olds,

Instead of feature stereotypIcaI Iy connected with women. (4) Reanalysis the

of the results reveals Interesting exaggeration

Items by the children. 12,

some

of

Compared to adult Judgement they had higher

scores on boys' noisiness' (15, of commands' (9,

of

12, 9 years, In that order); 'use a lot

15 years);

'like to have the last word' (9,

12,

15); 'challenge others' opinions' (15, 12); and 'control topic' (15). Of the 'feminine' Items, only 'talk softly' was exaggerated by the 15-yearolds of both sexes. It

is

very Interesting that the 15-year-olds account for most

exaggeration,

since

Edelsky (1977:

of

242) found this exaggeration

children in the sixth form (12 years old).

Edelsky,

however,

the with

did

not

study children of 15 years of age. Based on the results mentioned above, we

can

now conclude that children Indeed exaggerate

especially

when they are between 12 and 15 years.

the

differences,

(The 'either ail-boy

or all-girI' per lod?) For

our

evidence

purpose

it Is also Interesting to look

of Constandse & Schepers:

girls and boys speak differently,

at

the

nonnumerical

In answering an open question please give examples') the

('Do

following

Images of self and other's language were found (5): 12

years

Girls

report that they laugh a lot, giggle, are cheerful, speak quietly,

talk

properly.

higher pitch,

Boys

say about girls that they giggle,

like to have the floor,

speak

with

a

have longer conversations, speak

properly, talk faster. Boys

report

swank, lord

about themselves that they swear,

are bold and aggressive, It over someone.

talk vulgarly,

interrupt,

talk

rough,

brag

and

talk seriously and like to

Girls write about boys that they

swear,

boast,

are coarse, rough, Impolite and 'act tough', and like to

exaggerate and use words that they (boys) do not understand. 15

years

Girls of this age report that they gossip,

chat,

are open-hearted, and

honest, talk seriously and softly; some also giggle or laugh. Boys write about girls that they gossip, talk open-hear ted Iy and with feeling, they giggle, are cheerful and full of Smalltalk.

67 Soys

report about themselves that they act tough,

coarsely

and

coarsely

with a loud voice.

and

utter

piercing

Girls say yells;

boys

They

boast,

swank,

talk

swank,

boast,

talk

they

are

exaggerate,

indifferent, they are careless and they swear. The images of self and others do not differ much: girls are said to talk cheerfully,

candidly

and

softly,

with

lots of

giggles

at

12

and

gosslpping at 15. Boys' interaction is 'rough, tough and loud'. It Is very Interesting that neither of the sexes report any laughing for the

boys...

Perhaps

boys

do not want to look

like

those

giggling,

laughing girls, perhaps girls think that boys are not funny.

Language To

behaviour

of girls

and boys aged 9 and 12

what extent are the qualifications (Images and self-images)

children

and

preceding preliminary out

with

the

Insights

paragraphs, answer

of Maltz

actually

and

supported

Borker, by

the

In

the

presented

empirical

evidence?

Is given by the results of a pilot study I

a group of students on the language behaviour of

year-old

of

girls'

and

boys'

peer

groups

A

carried

9 - and

12-

(Onderzoeksgroep

ATW/Vrouwenstudles 1984). (6)

Method The

4 groups we analyzed consisted of 3 children each,

all

from

the same social background:

academic milieu In Amsterdam.

close

friends,

their parents were from a

white

The children were asked to 'test' a

game

which we had Invented especially for this study. The 'game' consisted of solving

'problems'

written

instructions

(adventures) on cards.

approximately 10 minutes to play.

by Joint agreement on

the

It was divided in two parts In the first part,

basis and

of took

the children were

told that, after a shipwreck, they had been washed ashore on a beautiful Island, blue

along with many pieces of luggage.

These were symbolized by 25

cards Inscribed with items like 'sleeping bags',

'little dog'

or

'peanut butter sandwiches'. First the children had to decide on 15 items they

would

bring along on their Journey across the Island

airport from which they could fly home. 'game'),

problems

towards

an

In the second part, (the actual

were presented on 11 red cards which could - more or

less - be solved by the blue cards, (e.g. 'It is night, It is very cold, you are not able to go any further, what do you do?')

The children were

explicitly told that they had to complete the game by mutual

agreement.

68 If they could not find a solution, they had to give away two blue cards. For the airport they had to save 3 blue cards.

That would be the end of

the game. The

children were tape-recorded In the home of one of the group.

explaining the game,

After

two female researchers sat apart and observed. The

recordings were transcribed and analysed later.

Some of the results are

presented here. Results A first description of the conversations gave the following

Impressions

of the Interaction of the girls and the boys. Girls 9 One

girl

soft

leads In the first part (choosing Items) of the game.

protest by the other groupmembers,

the

other

during

quarrels,

they

unanimous: other

a

the actual game.

listen

they

There Is a

lot

to each other very well.

decide

After a

they read the cards one of

They

laughing, are

often In a collective 'Yes!' and

lot In agreement (sort of echoing).

Their tone

after no

strikingly repeat

of

each

voice

Is

norma I . Boys 9 In

the first part,

one Is the leader;

without

listening to each other

they

keep shouting Items;

During the adventures they

they

decide very quickly,

without discussion.

unnecessary.

They are very serious;

Interrupt

less,

Mutual agreement

seems

sometimes there Is laughter, their

voices are loud. Negative statements like 'No pall!' or 'dummy' occur. Girls

12

During

the

first

leading role. very

(We ddn't use this,

quickly.

'okay',

They

'yes').

sometimes

and second part,

they

one of the girls

takes

a

subtle

do we?') The others follow and agree

seldom disagree,

and approve

explicitly

('yes',

They giggle a lot together. They speak very softly and even whisper.

They smoothly take turns at reading

the

cards. Boys 12 The

first part is very unsystematic and indifferent:

things out. 'quarreling'

They start all over again. and

having a lot of fun.

read aloud ('then I'll have nr.

they

Just

shout

The second part Is a mixture of They explicitly claim turns

to

8'). They call each other by nicknames.

They Joke a lot, even with black humour. There is competition to get the

69 'solution'

first:

after

answer, they p r e - e m p t i v e l y aloud.

learning

that the o t h e r s

interject

the answer

They punish each other on earlier

do not

listen very w e l l ,

they

interrupt

them g i g g l e s . The w h o l e c o n v e r s a t i o n These

descriptions

of

following q u a n t i t i v e

TABLE

1.

Total

the

reading

remarks (I told you so!). They (shout) a lot. S o m e t i m e s one of

is in a very

verbal

know

loud tone of

interaction

are

voice.

supported

by

the

data:

number

differentiated

into

accompanied

a

by

the

already

themselves w h i l e

of

propositions

non-serious

hedge,

'eh'

during

2nd

propositions or

'force'.

part

and

of

game

propositions

(Absolute

numbers

and

percentages)

A Age/sex

B

P r o p o s it-

non-

ions

serious

9 girls

21=100%

9 boys

24=100%

2

12 g i r l s

32=100%

5 15.6%

12 boys

54=100%

12 22.2%

Table

1

C

D

+ hedge

time

5 23.8%

7 33.

6.50

1

4.2%

-

9 37.5%

6.50

9

9.0%

5 15.6%

2

6.2%

5.30

+6+30.0%

7.30

2 3.7%

illustration of the verbal

interaction of

'adventure game' cards.

In c o l u m n A

see that 9 - y e a r - o l d s have an average of 2 p r o p o s i t i o n s per card

3.2 and 3.6 per m i n u t e respectively).

C o l u m n B g i v e s the p e r c e n t a g e s of

minute).

'funny' n o n - s e r i o u s p r o p o s i t i o n s

'crossing the river on the back of the

(or

Girls of 12 give 3 per card (or 6

per m i n u t e ) , and boys 5 per card (7.3 per

do

force

3 14.3%

the g i r l s and boys w h i l e solving 11 we

+ 'eh'

m i n.

8.33%

gives a q u a n t i t a t i v e

E

(e.g.

little dog'). The 9 - y e a r - o l d boys

this twice (girls do not) and at 12 the b o y s exceed the

girls.

The

boys joke m o r e and of an earlier age than the g i r l s . Column

C represents the number of times a p r o p o s i t i o n w a s a t t e n d e d by a

hedge:

(e.g.

'I think',

'maybe',

'according to me'). The g i r l s do use

them slightly more o f t e n than the boys. The b o y s hardly use them at all.

70 Column

E gives the percentages of what we've called

'force',

the relative loudness with which a proposition Is uttered. use

some force,

striking;

the

and boys a little more. girls

But at 12 the

covering

At 9,

girls

difference

hardly raise their voices (in fact,

they

is

almost

whisper), whereas the 12-year-old boys score 100% on the loudness scale. Everything

is said at shouting

level. In addition, there are 6

Instances

of VERY VERY LOUD propositions which is indicated by +6 and +30% in

the

table.

Cone I us I on The

results

conception

of

this

as presented earlier The

pilot study seem to be

in

verbal

year-olds

of

girls of 9 and 12

with few Interruptions,

Is

they do not

there

Is a lot of laughter and giggling together.

speak

In

normal tone of voice and

the

girls

can

acceptable.

be

sometimes

the

taken

smooth,

argue,

(9and

The 9-year-old girls loudly.

speak very softly and even whisper.

harmonizing speech style, opinion

apparently

and the focus is on agreement

even exaggerate this by 'echoing'); a

with

literature,

In this article.

Interaction

harmonious,

however,

agreement

of girls' and boys' speech which we find In the

At

age

Part of

12, this

the use of hedges and 'eh' when presenting an as strategies of

control

which

are

socially

Boys raise their voices or keep repeating themselves to get

their way. Competitive elements In boys' speech emerge especially at age

12:

they

Interrupt the speech of others, they challenge or dispute the utterances of their partners, and

indulge

seriously,

In

they Ignore comments by the other speaker, they joke black humour.

The younger boys took their

whereas the older boys laughed a lot.

task

very

And when they giggle,

they giggle alone, whereas girls giggle together. The

results

are also in accordance with the

girls and boys, was

reported.

stereotypical

Images

of

with one exception, however: boys are not as serious as They

attention by joking

laugh

a lot and do giggle.

But

perhaps

getting

is a very serious business.

D i scussIon 'At elementary school, I icas a total boy. Pulling bells, stealing apples, streetfootbalI, hanging on the garbage-truck. I still see myself strolling... sweater, Jeans, sneakers, (sigh) ohl lovely!' Marie Antoinette (15)

71

In

this article

to

the

I have aimed to give theoretical and empirical

hypothesis

that the acquisition

of

support

gender-specific

language

behaviour takes place mainly under the Influence of group norms In samesex

peer

between speech 12,

groups. 9

I

have presented a closer analysis

and 15 years of age,

styles of girls and boys occur.

children

appropriate

do

not

behaviour.

social

knowledge

Consequently,

they

non-appropriate behaviour.

acquire

most of the social norms and attitudes Inherent

of

At approximately age

Based on this knowledge,

their free time 'hanging around' or 'sitting

peers,

they

15

years old.

gender-appropriate

After this

behaviour

gendersometimes children language

and spending most

of

Is fully established,

with

same-sex

until they are

divergence,

approximately

organizations

12

and

15,

the

when

convergence between

the (language) behaviour of girls and boys Is likely to occur. between

of

12,

Inside'

period

the

In the

exaggerate 'femininity' and 'masculinity',

approximately

period

of

will

exhibit

behaviour of their own sex.

the

Until approximately the age

possess complete

language

of

in which the principle changes in

differential

However,

norms

and

In girls' and boys' peer groups have constituted different

speech styles.

The consequences of these gender-specific speech

styles

are twofold. First,

women

apparently

for the domestic sphere; 'cooperative'. the

domain

(unacceptable) women

It Is supportive,

Men apparently

In,

These

harmonizing,

open-hearted,

learn a speech style more appropriate for

of public discussion:

'competitive'. visible

learn a speech style which Is more appropriate

it

differences

is

In

dominant,

speech

fast,

styles

and

reinforce

the

men are

more

division of labour between women and men: and Ideologically defined by,

loud,

the public sphere,

are relegated (either actually or ideologically) to the

whereas domestic

sphere. Second,

when

conversation,

people

do

it

likely that mIscommunicat Ion and Irritation

is

not

share

norms

about

and

strategies

in will

occur. 'It is in the nature of interaction that when devices are not the same,

one

style takes over.

Those who expect shorter

pauses

between

utterances will necessarily speak first; having spoken, they effectively block

the

tolerate their

contributions of others, much

overlap.

interlocutors

but just those others

who

The voices of those who talk more loudly

in a given interaction will necessarily

ring

cannot than out,

72

and the voices of those who talk more softly,

will, thereby, be drowned

oat or overshadowed.'(Tannen 1984: 148) I should like to stress that of course these different speech styles are not mutually exclusive. in

which

certain

They indicate, rather, the poles of a continuum

linguistic features tend to be used

by

women,

and

peer

groups

at

extremes

of

arises of whether the peer group should

be

certain others more by men. would

I

hypothesize

approximately

the

that

the

speech

styles

in

ages of 12 to 15 can be located at the

this cont inuum. Furthermore,

the

question

seen as the base of gender-specific behaviour. The fact that children In our western society play or associate mainly with same-sex peers Is a

result of which

peer

is chosen.

sex-peer

is available

This choice Is In Itself a result

interests rather than a cause. sufficient starting language

to point

to interact with,

As a linguist,

of

but of which

gender-specific

however, I consider this

justify the choice of taking same-sex peer groups for

the analysis and

not

explanation

of

as

a

gender-specific

behaviour.

'At elementary school, / always played with the boys, but then there were girls who said to me: Do you always play with them? Are you boy-crazy? Boy-crazy I / didn't understand what they meant. when you go to secondary school, well, you get other But well, Interests, you know. I saw beautiful boys, I saw nice boys, I saw handsome boys...THEN you dress like a girl huh? I dress like a boy, but then, I HAVE to behave like a Sometimes girl. When I wear my sneakers, I feel like a boy, 'cause I can do everything! When I wear my boots, then I'm much more careful, eh neat, about everything, just about EVERYTHING you know.' Elize (16) Notes 1.

These 'snap-shots' were tape-recorded on November 28, 1985 at 'De Meldenclub', Buurthuis De Komeet, Molenwljk, Amsterdam North. (In due time I hope to present an analysis of the speech patterns in this 'girls club') (see also: note 3).

2.

Attributes of femininity/masculinity are generally seen as dichotomized, either/or conceptions. In linguistic literature, a dichotomous description of the language of women and men Is often given: cooperative/competitive. One should take precautions when influencing theory with already labelled concepts. Stereotypes not only influence people in their attitudes towards (language) behaviour, but scientific theories as well.

3.

One year of participant observation of a peer group of 15/16-yearold-girls, however, - unfortunately - gave me 'some' insight in the

73 methodological problems of this type of research: how to record speech If Disco music Is always LOUD? How to record speech If girls hide In the cupboard to share secrets? 4.

I am very grateful to Karln Constandse and Rob Schepers, who carried out their profound study In the framework of the research project 'Language and gender-spec IfIc socialization'.

5.

Only the results of girls and boys of age 12 and 15 are given. The 9-year-old children did not answer this question because of lack of time. The adults gave only 'It depends-answers' (see also Edelsky 1977: 241).

6.

I hereby thank Karln Constandse, Monique van der Haagen, Jeanette Lubbers, Marjan Meyboom, Marja Pruls, Jacqueline Rouers, Antonet Schep, and Fanny Spijker for their hard work and enthusiasm.

References ALPHEN, INGRID VAN 1982 The ImplIcatIons of the claim 'girls are better, but women ain't' for IIngulstIc research. Paper presented at the Tenth World Congress of Sociology, Mexico City, August 16-21. BERNSTEIN, BASIL 1981 Codes, modalities, and the process of cultural model. Language In Society 10, 327-365.

reproduction:

a

CONSTANDSE, KARIN and ROB SCHEPERS 1985 StereotIepen van vrouwen en mannen over het taalgedrag van mannen en vrouwen. Doctoral thesis. Institute for General Linguistics, University of Amsterdam. EDELSKY, CAROLE 1977 Acquisition of an aspect of communicative competence: learning what it means to talk I ike a lady. In Ervin-Trlpp, Susan and Claudia Mltchell-Kernan (eds.),Child Discourse. Academic Press, New York, 225-243. FRITH, SIMON 1984 The sociology

of youth.

Causeway Press Ltd, Ormsklrk.

GOODWIN, MARJORIE H. 1980 Directive-response speech sequences in girls' and boys' task activities. In McConnell-Ginet, Sally, Ruth Borker and Nelly Furman (eds.), Women and language In literature and society. Praeger Publishers, New York, 157-174. HIRSCHMAN, LYNETTE 1973 Female-male differences In conversatlonal Interact Ion: paper presented at the annual Linguistic Society of America meeting, San Diego, Dec. JENKINS, MERC I LEE 1984 Die Geschichte Konversationsstil

liegt Im unter Frauen.

Erzählen: ein kooperativer In Trömel-Plötz, Senta (Hrsg.),

74 1984, 333-353. KATZ, P.A. 1979 The development of female Identity. Sex Roles KRAMARAE, CHER IS 1981 Women and men speaking. LABOV, WILLIAM 1972 SoclolIngulstIc Philadelphla.

Newbury House Pubi., Rowley.

patterns.

LAKOFF, ROBIN 1975 Language and women's

5, 2, 155-177.

place.

University

of

Pennsylvania

Press,

Harper and Row, New York.

MACCOBY, ELEANOR E. and KAREN N. JACKLIN 1974 The psychology of sex differences. Stanford.

Stanford

University

Press,

MALTZ, DANIEL N. and RUTH A. BORKER 1982 A cultural approach to male-female mIscommunI cat Ion. In Gumperz, J.J. (ed.), Language and social Identity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 196-231. MARE, JOSE DE and BARBARA SPOEL 1984 Feministische waarheld en macht 18, 2, 197-219. Vrouwenstudles

In het meidenwerk. TIJdschrI ft Voor

MCMILLAN, J.R. et al. 1977 Women's language: uncertainty or interpersonal emotionality? Sex Roles 3, 6, 545-559.

sensitivity

and

NABER, PAULINE 1985 Vr I end Innen.- een explorerend onderzoek naar de betekenls van vrlendlnnen voor melsjes van veertlen tot achttlen Jaar . Vrlje Un I versi te 11, Amsterdam. Pedagoglsche publlkatles, nr. 1. McROBBIE, ANGELA and JENNY GARBER 1982 Girls and subcultures. In Hall, Stuart and Tony Jefferson (eds.), Resistance through rituals. Hutchinson University Lib., London. Original edition CCCS 1976, 209-222. McROBBIE, ANGELA and MICA NI VA (eds.) 1981 Gender and generatIon. McMillan Publishers Ltd., London. ONDERZOEKSGROEP ATW/VROUWENSTUDI ES 1984 Taalgedrag van melsjes en Jongens van 9 en 12 Jaar. Research paper, Institute for General Linguistics/Department Women's Studies, University of Amsterdam. SAVI ER, MONIKA and CAROLA WILDT 1980 Melsjes tussen sllkken en vert Ikken. SARA, Amsterdam, (original Mädchen zwischen Anpassung und Widerstand, München 1978; transl. José R i Jnaarts). TANNEN, DEBORAH 1984 Conversaiional style: analyzing talk among Publishing Corporation, Norwood, New Jersey.

friends.

Ablex

75

TROMEL-PLOTZ , SENTA (Hrsg.) 1984 Gewalt durch Sprache. Main.

Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag,

Frankfurt

am

TROMEL-PLOTZ, SENTA 1984 Die Konstruktion konversatloneIler Unterschiede in der Sprache von Frauen und Männern. In TrömeI-Plötz, Senta (Hrsg.), 1984, 288-319. WERNER, FRITJOF 1983 Gesprächsverhai Main.

ten von Frauen

und Männern.

Peter Lang, Frankfurt am

WEST, CANDACE and DON H. ZIMMERMAN 1983 Small insults: a study of Interruptions in cross-sex conversations between unacquainted persons. In Thorne, Barrie, Cher Is Kramarae and Nancy Henley (eds.), Language, gender and society. Newbury House Publishers Inc., Rowley, 102-112. ZIMMERMAN, DON H. and CANDACE WEST 1975 Sex roles, Interruptions and silences in conversation. In Thorne, Barrie and Nancy Henley (eds.), Language and sex: difference and dominance. Newbury House Publishers Inc., Massachussetts, 105-129. ZUMBUHL, URSULA 1984 Ich darf noch ganz kurz...: die männliche Geschwätzigkeit am Beispiel von Zwei TV-Diskussionssendungen. In TrömeI-Plötz, Senta (Hrsg.) 1984, 233-245.

5 CLASSROOM INTERACTION: Survival of the Fittest? Marloes L. W. de Bie Introduct ion In

this article

teachers

I wiI I d i s c u s s a study on the a t t i t u d e and behaviour of

towards

boys

and g i r l s and towards

native

and

non-native

speakers of Dutch. T h i s study i s part of a larger r e s e a r c h p r o j e c t which was

developed at the U n i v e r s i t y of Groningen in cooperation

with

the

SLO, an i n s t i t u t e for c u r r i c u l u m development. During in

the l a s t f i f t e e n y e a r s the a n a l y s i s of c l a s s r o o m - I n t e r a c t i o n and

particular

important. In

the

teacher-pupil

relations

has

become

more

In 1968 Rosenthal and Jacobson p u b l i s h e d a study

classroom' which caused a great commotion.

and

more

'Pygmalion

In t h i s study

they

show that p u p i l s who are expected to be good a c h i e v e r s have indeed

more

success

at school than p u p i l s who are considered to be bad ones.

result,

the a n a l y s i s of classroom i n t e r a c t i o n has focused more and more

on

problem of the d i r e c t

the

achievement

of

(supposed)

pupils

either

Influence of t e a c h e r s ' a t t i t u d e s in a n e g a t i v e

or

positive

on

the

sense.

The

article.

The

other

day I watched an E n g l i s h documentary f i l m in which a

boy

said:

'We don't l i k e g i r l s ,

that

a

d i f f e r e n c e in a t t i t u d e towards male and female p u p i l s i s the

main theme of t h i s

dolls

As

they always want to p l a y

when the boys want to f i g h t ' .

little

with

their

T h i s statement shows in a n u t s h e l l

there i s a d i f f e r e n c e between boys and g i r l s with regard to

their

primary s o c i a l i z a t i o n . G i r l s are supposed to be dependent, p a s s i v e , noncompetitive

and

independent, this should

be

liable.

Boys are s a i d

to

be

assertive,

unsentimental and courageous. When c h i l d r e n attend s c h o o l ,

so-called

teachers:

emotionally

by

their

a l s o at school they learn to behave in d i f f e r e n t ways.

' s e x - s p e c i f i c behaviour'

Girls

cooperative,

Is o f t e n r e i n f o r c e d

modest and p o l i t e ,

boys are expected

to

be

a s s e r t i v e and c r e a t i v e . Boys are allowed to t a l k to each other more than

77

girls

or

towards with

even to interrupt the teacher. boys

regard

lessons. they

This difference

in

attitude

and girls is also found In the expectations

of

teachers

to the achievements of male and female pupils

certain

Boys are supposed to be good at figures on the assumption that

are

more

capable

of analytic thinking

than

women,

supposed

to be better at expressing themselves (Brophy and

Van

Geest 1978).

der

in

This leads to a vicious

circle:

girls Good

pupils

are 1974;

attend

school with a certain self-image and they behave according to this selfimage, own

teachers

punish or encourage this behaviour on account of their

expectations

and

in

this way

often

reinforce

male

or

female

behaviour (De Haan 1979). The study which

I am going to discuss now (1) has tried to trace some of

the factors that play an important part school. did

The

not

which

in this socialization process at

main question of our study was whether the teacher did

treat all (groups of) pupils In the same way and

(groups

concentrated

of) on

pupils

the

she

turn-taking

behaved

differently.

system

and

on

the

if

The

not, study

or to was

evaluation

of

behaviour and contributions of pupils.

Method The

subjects were 39 pupils in the first forms of two primary

schools.

School A can be characterized as 'cursorlc' which means that the teacher sticks

to a more or less traditional curriculum planning and works only

now and then theme-centered. which

means

School B calls itself

'thematIc-cursorIc'

that the lessons are centered around various themes

'Autumn'). Active participation of the pupils is seen as very The subjects were divided into four groups as follows:

school A

school B

male native speaker

5

7

female native speaker

7

8

male non-native spealer

3

5

female non-native speaker

4

FIGURE 1. Number of pupils

(e.g.

Important.

78

At

both schools we observed the classroom interaction during two weeks,

of

which 19 hours were videotaped and 10 hours were eventually

down.

Our

educational spread

over

observation

written

was concentrated on group discussions

conversations.

Per school 2000 utterances

these conversations.

We developed a

were

(2)

and

analyzed,

coding-system

which

consisted of the following categories:

TURN-TAKING SYSTEM Teacher 1.

categorles

EIi cI tat Ion

Individuals:

the

teacher

addresses herself

to

one

partIcular puplI 2.

Elicltation Class:

the teacher addresses herself to the class as

a

whole 3.

Continuing reaction:

neutral feedback by which the teacher tries to

stimulate the pupil to tell some more. Pupil 1.

categorles

Response: follows an elicltation of an individua I or of the class as

a whole 2.

Non-eI IcItated utterance:

is not preceded by an e11cI tat Ion of this

pupil, another pupil or the class as a whole. EVALUATIONS (.teacher categor les only) 1. Negative evaluation of behaviour 2. Evaluation of lesson-centered behaviour 3. Pos i t i veexp I icit evaluat ion of answers or contrI but Ions 4. Pos i 11ve imp IIcit evaluat ion of answers or contr ibut ions 5. NegatIve exp I Icit evaluatIon of answers or contr ibut ions 6. Negat i ve imp IIcit evaluat ion of answers or contr ibut ions In the next section I wiI I discuss the most striking results. Results I wlI I discuss the results in the following order: first we will

look at

the

A

results of the analysis of the turn-taking system at school

for

79 the

group

discussions and the educational conversations

respectively.

This will be followed by the same analysis for school B. I wlI I end this section

by discussing the results of the analysis of

the

evaluations,

separately for school A and B.

The Turn-taking Table

1

System

and

2 show the results for the analysis

of

the

turn-taking

system (3) at school A. The rates are corrected rates. (4)

TABLE 1. The turn-taking system at school A during group discussions. Teacher

Pupil

El¡citation

Continuing

Individuals

Reaction

Response

Non-EI IcItated Utterance

male native speakers

93

30

106

female natIve

88

36

100

6

"

126

44

103

21

female non-native "

52

24

86

"

male non-native

TABLE 2.

The

turn-taking

system

at

school

B

24

during

educational

conversat ions. Teacher

Pupil

ElIcI tat I on Individuals

male native speakers

91

Continuing

Response

Reaction 7

Non-EI Icitated Utterance

74

24

1

24

5

"

110

7

53

21

female non-native "

51

9

47

16

female nat i ve male non-native

Table

"

39

1 shows that during the group discussions boys get more attention

than girls in terms of el(citations and continuing reactions. also

give

more responses and behave more assertively than

they

have

a higher rate of

that

they,

much

non-eIicitated utterances which

more than the girls,

try to

attract

the

The the

boys girls:

indicates teacher's

80 attention. pupils

With

have

reactions.

regard to e t h n i c b a c k g r o u n d w e found that the

lower

rates

W e must keep

g i r l s are relatively so contribution

of

el¡citations and their The

girls, that

foreign

continuing

influence the overall

is greatest

in the

category

(which m e a n s that they get most of the t e a c h e r ' s is almost equal

foreign

picture.

to that of the Dutch

of

so not all g i r l s are treated

their group gives

the

attention)

foreign

In the same way. W e found,

In the other c a t e g o r i e s the rates of the foreign low,

The

pupils.

also shows that Dutch girls get m o r e a t t e n t i o n than

also

relatively

the

in mind, however, that the rates of the low that they

the foreign boys

response rate

table

in all c a t e g o r i e s except for

however,

girls

less responses than the other

are

groups

and e v e n d o e s not m a k e any u n e l i c i t a t e d u t t e r a n c e s . T h i s m e a n s that

they

behave very m o d e s t l y and only speak w h e n they are asked to. During and

the educational

the teacher

unelicitated during

interaction

is m o r e

structured

tries to give all pupils the same amount of

In spite of this, (eIicitat Ions,

c o n v e r s a t i o n s the

as table 2 shows,

attention.

the b o y s still get most

attention

c o n t i n u i n g reactions), give m o r e r e s p o n s e s and m a k e m o r e u t t e r a n c e s than the girls.

the a r i t h m e t i c

A very striking result

lesson the rate of e l l c i t a t l o n s of the

is that

boys

was

s u r p r i s i n g l y high c o m p a r e d to that of the g i r l s (4) (corrected rates 147 and 48 respect ively). W i t h regard to e t h n i c b a c k g r o u n d the s i t u a t i o n the

group

discussions

Dutch p u p i l s more

the foreign p u p i l s have higher

in all c a t e g o r i e s .

actively

in the

is d i f f e r e n t : c o m p a r e d to rates

A l s o the foreign g i r l s now

interaction:

than

the

participate

not only does the teacher give

them

m o r e a t t e n t i o n (ellcitatlons, continuing reactions) but they b e h a v e m o r e assertively

themselves:

even

non-eI Icitated

make

difference

with

their response rate utterances.

is relatively high and they

A striking result

the Dutch girls has c o m p l e t e l y

been

Is

that

Inverted:

the their

rates on all c a t e g o r i e s are higher than those of the Dutch

girls.

Indicates

educational)

plays an During

that

the

Interaction-form

important part w i t h regard to the p a r t i c i p a t i o n of these g i r l s . group

categories,

discussions

the Dutch g i r l s score higher

but during educational

We have not found a similar forms

the

Dutch

boys

foreign b o y s score higher In

(group d i s c u s s i o n or

This

rates

on

all

c o n v e r s a t i o n s the f o r e i g n g i r l s

do.

result for the boys: during both

score higher

in the pupil

in the teacher

interaction

categories

and

the

categories.

summary w e can say that at school A the more s t r u c t u r e d

interaction

81

form

makes no difference with regard to sex:

forms

the

during

both

rates of the boys are higher than those of the

Interaction girls.

With

regard to ethnic background there is an important difference: during the group discussions the rates of the Dutch pupils are higher, educational mainly

but

conversations the rates of the foreign pupils are.

caused

considerably

by

the fact that a

more

structured

during This is

Interaction

form

Increases the participation of the foreign girls.

Before discussing the results of school B, I want to make clear that the category

male/female on the one hand and the category natIve/non-natIve

on the other hand can not be compared so well at school B as at school A because school B has no female non-native speakers. kept

This fact has to be

in mind while Interpreting the results. Therefore the rates for the

three groups of pupils at school B have been corrected twice:

the first

correction

has

been

a

correction

the

rates

made as described In note 3 of the group 'boys' and

and

'native

with

second

speakers'

are

divided by 2 In order to make a comparison possible (6).

TABLE 3. The turn taking system at school B during group discussions.

Teacher Continuing

Individuals

Reaction

male native speakers female native

"

male non-native

"

TABLE

4.

The

turn

Pupil

Elicltation

46

taking

system

Non Ellcltated Utterance

10

224

18

2

33

13

56

150

40

6 114

Response

at

school

B

during

educational

conversât ions.

Teacher

Pupil

Elicltation

Continuing

Individuals

Reaction

Response

Non Ellcltated Utterance

male native speakers

73

12

73

34

female native

"

52

9

77

25

male non-native

"

82

10

54

43

82 Table in

3 shows that during group discussions boys get a lot of attention

terms

foreign

of boys.

participate pupil

el¡citations and

to

continuing

reactions,

especially

This is partly caused by the fact that the

in the structuring of turn taking: tell

pupils

the also

they can invite another

something by passing a teddybear.

In

such

cases

the

teacher does not interfere and gives the floor to the chosen pupil.

The

peer group pressure among the boys Is apparently very strong, are

not allowed to take part.

hardly

try

regard

speakers

accepted

the girls this,

to attract the attention of the teacher and their

rate is also relatively With

They seem to have

they

response

low.

to ethnic background the table shows that

the

non-native

score higher rates than the native speakers in all

categories

except for the category responses. During

the educational conversations the

because shows, than

situation

changes,

the Interaction Is more structured by the teacher. the

boys

still get more elle I tat Ions and continuing

the girls but the difference is less striking.

was

that

during

elicitatlons which more

than

much

as the boys (corrected rates 18 and 27 respectively)

(7),

increased

actively

result as

that this teacher behaves less

the teacher

almost

sex-specific

In school A (see above).

in

this

The girls also

give

responses than the boys and their rate of unelicltated

has

4

reactions

A striking

the arithmetic lesson the girls get

Indicates

matter

probably

As table

and

which is also an indication that they are

less

willing

to accept

that

utterances

participate

the

boys

more

get

more

attentIon. With

regard to ethnic background it seems at first sight that

rates

of

the native speakers are higher than those of

the

now

the

non-native

speakers. After the second correction (8) it appears, however, that this Is have

only a

the case for the category responses. strong

compensate and

position

in the

classroom.

These pupils The

Dutch

apparently

boys

try

this by giving more responses during both Interaction

to

forms

also the Dutch girls have a higher response rate during educational

conversai Ions. In

summary

we found that a more structured

difference with regard to the variable sex:

Interaction form

makes

the boys have higher

no

rates

in the teacher categories which means that during both Interaction forms

83 they get m o r e attention. difference girls

In

even

However,

during educational

the category continuing reactions

have

the highest

conversations

Is very small

response rate w h i c h

Indicates

form at

least

speakers

conversations response

so a m o r e s t r u c t u r e d

get

the

Dutch

of the pupils

attention

but

try to c o m p e n s a t e

this

regard

the n o n -

educational by

a

higher

rate.

Evaluations following four tables c o n t a i n only the c a t e g o r i e s :

behaviour

and (explicit or

a n s w e r s or c o n t r i b u t i o n s .

The rates for the other

low and therefore of not enough

speakers

native

non-native

female n o n - n a t i v e "

T A B L E 6. Evaluai ions

maie native

speakers

evaluations

categories

were

(9).

discussions

Neg. Eva 1.

Pos.

of

Exp I . Imp I .

Behaviour

of

Interest for this a r t i c l e .

T A B L E 5. E v a l u a t i o n s at school A during group

m a i e native

evaluations

implicit) p o s i t i v e and n e g a t i v e

The rates are again the corrected rates

maie

also

Interaction

during

The

female

the

interaction form m a k e s no d i f f e r e n c e ,

most

The

rather

that

increases the participation of the g i r l s . A l s o w i t h

to e t h n i c b a c k g r o u n d the native

of

the

tries to stimulate them as m u c h as the boys and that they

teacher

p a r t i c i p a t e m o r e actively themselves,

the

and

Eva I . Total Neg.

Eva I. Total

Exp I . Imp I .

14

11

8

19

1

8

9

2

10

4

14

-

6

6

49

12

-

12

-

12

12

10

17

9

26

-

-

at school

-

A durIng educat iona I conversât Ions.

Eva I. Total

Neg. Eva I.

Pos.

Eva I . Total

Neg.

of Behaviour

Exp I

Imp I

Exp I . I mp I .

17

21

24

45

3

14

17

8

18

I0

28

-

3

3

ma le non-nat i ve

16

12

26

34

2

12

14

female n o n - n a t i v e "

16

16

19

35

-

10

10

female

native

84 At school A the boys get more n e g a t i v e e v a l u a t i o n s of behaviour than the girls,

probably

utterances. way

as

Most

a

result

their

high

rate

of

unellcitated

of the n e g a t i v e e v a l u a t i o n s are g i v e n in an

and when they are e x p l i c i t t h i s i s o n l y to the boys.

more p o s i t i v e e v a l u a t i o n s , discussions;

the

conversations. than The

of

the

The

g i r l s a l s o get more e x p l i c i t

positive

evaluations more

openly.

they are p r a i s e d more openly

in an i m p l i c i t way.

The n o n - n a t i v e s p e a k e r s , evaluations

group

boys get more p o s i t i v e e v a l u a t i o n s d u r i n g e d u c a t i o n a l

teacher appears to be n i c e r to g i r l s :

during

The g i r l s get

so they are p r a i s e d more o f t e n during

boys which means that the teacher p r a i s e s them

and c r i t i c i z e d

implicit

in p a r t i c u l a r the boys get most of the n e g a t i v e

of behaviour.

The n a t i v e speakers are more

educational c o n v e r s a t i o n s ,

often

praised

the f o r e i g n p u p i l s more d u r i n g group

d i s c u s s i o n s , although the d i f f e r e n c e Is r e l a t i v e l y s m a l l . The n o n - n a t i v e speakers get more n e g a t i v e e v a l u a t i o n s than the n a t i v e s p e a k e r s . TABLE 7. E v a l u a t i o n s at school B during group d i s c u s s i o n s . Neg.Eval.

Pos.

Eval.

of Behaviour E x p l . male n a t i v e speakers

15

Impl.

1

6 3

female n a t i v e

"

3

1

male non n a t i v e

"

21

6

T o t a l Neg. Expl. 7

5

Neg.Eval.

Pos.

male n a t i v e speakers

21

24

Eval.

-

4

1 -

5

29

5 1 3

3

conversations

Total

Impl.

Total

Impl. 5

11

TABLE 8. E v a l u a t i o n s at school B during educational

of Behaviour E x p l .

Eval.

Neg.

Eval.

Expl.

Impl.

1

-

Total

1

female n a t i v e

"

9

22

7

29

5

1

6

male non n a t i v e

"

42

8

11

19

13

14

27

85 At school

B w e also find that the boys have the highest rate of

e v a l u a t i o n s of b e h a v i o u r ,

especially the m a l e foreign pupils.

and

get m o r e p o s i t i v e

non-native

speakers

evaluations

educational

results

we

explicit

have

than

conversations,

a result w h i c h

found at school A.

is o p p p o s l t e

to

not m o r e o f t e n openly p r a i s e d than the boys.

the

girls

the

get

more

so at school B the

are

less negative e v a l u a t i o n s ,

group

evaluations

The boys and the girls

implicit positive e v a l u a t i o n s ,

get

The boys

during

d i s c u s s i o n s , the g i r l s and native speakers get m o r e p o s i t i v e during

negative

girls

C o m p a r e d to the

but they

are

usually

e x p l i c i t . The non-native s p e a k e r s all get m o r e negative e v a l u a t i o n s the native s p e a k e r s , especially during educational

boys more than

conversations.

Cone I us ions

At

both

schools

towards

groups

we have found that the of

pupils.

o b v i o u s : the boys have m o r e and

during

educational

teachers'

attitudes

girls.

with

differently

which

are

towards

the

In general Dutch a n d

the d i f f e r e n c e

foreign

regard to the theme of this article.

myself to the difference

very

than the g i r l s ,

c o n v e r s a t i o n s the n o n - n a t i v e s p e a k e r s get

than the native speakers.

important

behave

interaction w i t h the teacher

attention

restrict

teachers

There are two t e n d e n c i e s

pupils

is

I wiI I

more

In

the less

therefore

in a t t i t u d e towards the b o y s and

B o t h teachers o b v i o u s l y behave sex s p e c i f i c a l l y :

the

they give m o r e

a t t e n t i o n to the b o y s and (seem to) accept that the girls are modest sometimes

hardly

take part

In the

Interaction.

They

also

give

negative

e v a l u a t i o n s to the girls.

teachers

Is partly c a u s e d by the fact that the p u p i l s behave

and less

T h i s s e x - s p e c i f i c behaviour of In a

the sex-

s p e c i f l c way themselves: the boys are a s s e r t i v e and protest w h e n they do not

get

leading

enough roles

attention,

the girls accept that the

in the classroom.

T h i s result

research projects (Van der Geest 1978; De H a a n At

school A we have found that during both

boys

play

the

Is c o n f i r m e d by many other 1978).

interaction forms

the

boys

get m o r e a t t e n t i o n than the girls. We did not expect to find this result for

the

structured tries still the

to

educational

because the lessons.

s t i m u l a t e the girls to take part

succeed floor

conversations

by the teacher during these

the

is

more

teacher

interaction the

boys

In their attempts to attract a t t e n t i o n and o n c e they

have

they make the most of

It.

In the

interaction Although

A remarkable result at school A

is

86 that there Is a difference between the two groups of girls which we have not

found

behave

for the boys.

very

During group discussions

the

foreign

girls

modestly and as a result also get less attention than

the

Dutch girls. During educational conversations, however, they participate more ask

actively and also get more attention from the teacher. for attention with unelicitated utterances,

during

the

background

group discussions.

They

even

which Is not the

case

It Is probably due

to

their

cultural

that they keep themselves aloof during the group discussions

where you have to call attention to yourself to get the floor.

It seems

that these girls therefore benefit by more structured Interaction forms. At school B the results are roughly the same. group

discussions

themselves, and,

In particular during

when the pupils sometimes structure the

the

Interaction

the girls hardly take part. The boys behave very dominant Iy

probably

as

a

result of peer group pressure,

do

not

want

to

humiliate themselves by choosing a girl. The girls Just sit and wait and the

teacher

does

conversations

nothing

however,

to

change

this.

During

educational

the girls less often accept that the

boys

get

more attention. They behave more assertively and also try to attract the teacher's attention and try to compensate for the fact that the boys get more attention by a response rate which Is higher than that of the boys. With

regard

assertive

to

the

evaluations we

have

found

that,

although

the

behaviour of the boys seems to be rewarded by the teachers in

terms of more attention, the boys are more often than the girls punished for

assertive

behaviour.

Both teachers are nicer to girls

when

they

evaluate their contributions: the girls get less negative evaluations at both schools and the teacher of school A also criticizes the girls in an Implicit way only and praises them more openly than the boys. This might Influence

their

Impression

self-image

in

a

negative

way

and

give

them

the

that they are underachlevers compared to the boys (see

also

Van Oudenhoven 1983). Both

teachers

reinforce sex-specific behaviour of the pupils,

must

keep

mind that the observations were made

period results

of

in

during

the schoolyear so we cannot blame the teachers for

we have found.

very effective

The primary socialization has

but

the all

apparently

we

first the been

in 'teaching' male and female behaviour, and this fact is

rather alarming.

87

Notes 1. For more detailed Information see de Bie & Van der Meer 1983. See also the article by Klaartje Duljm in this volume. Her study is also part of the above mentioned larger research project at the University of Gronlngen. 2. In these group discussions children are called on to tell about some out-of-schooI experience to the rest of the class. In American 'show and tell' or literature it is sometimes called 'sharing time', 'news'. 3. In the analysis of the turn-taking system the category 'Ellcitatlon to Class' has been left out of consideration because It tells us nothing about the amount of attention that is given by the teacher to Individual pupils. This explains the Incongruity between the categories Ellcitatlon by the teacher and Response by the pupils. 4. Because of the different numbers of children In the groups In the classroom the rates have been corrected as follows: absolute rate on category X highest amount of pupils in one group. amount of pupils in group At school A the group of female native speakers is the largest group (N-7) so the rates of the other groups are corrected as follows: male native (N-5)

absolute rate 5

x

7

male non native (N=3)

absolute rate 3

x

7

female non native (N-4)

absolute rate x 7 4 At school B the group of female native speakers Is also the largest group, the rates of the other two groups are corrected as described above. 5. For absolute rates see de Ble & Van der Meer 1983. 6. School B has two groups of boys and one group of girls, two groups of native speakers and one group of non-native speakers. Therefore the corrected rates of the groups of boys and of the groups of native speakers are added first and then divided by 2. 7. For absolute rates see De Bie & Van der Meer 1983. 8. See note 6. 9. See notes 4 and 6. References BIE, MARLOES DE en TIT IA VAN DER MEER 1983 Ilie hoor ik daar nou nog? Over het verband tussen beurtwlsseling, évaluaiie en gelijke kansen in het onderwiJs. Doctoral thesis University of Groningen.

88 BROPHY, J.W. and T.L. GOOD 1974 Teacher student relationships: causes Rlnehart and Winston, New York etc.

and

BROUWER, DEDE et a I . 1978 Vrouwentaal en mannenpraat: verseht I ten taalgedrag In relatle tot de maatschappelIjke Gennep, Amsterdam. GEEST, TON VAN DER 1978 Entwicklung der KommunlkatIon.

en

Holt,

In taalgebrulk rolverdelIng.

en Van

Kamp Verlag, Bochum.

HAAN, DORIAN DE 1978 SekseverschI Ilen In klndertaal. In 1978, 69-104. 1979 Met school meer mans? Woer 3, 15-21. OUDENHOVEN, JOANNES VAN 1983 OnderwiJsongelIJkheld Ape I d o o m .

consequences.

evaluat¡eve

Brouwer,

feedback.

D6d6

Van

et

al.

Walraven,

ROSENTHAL, R. and L. JACOBSON 1968 Pygmalion In the classroom: teacher expectation and pupils' Intellectual development . Holt, Rlnehart and Winston, New York.

6 LEARNING TO 'BE' AT SCHOOL: Authority and Warmth in the Classroom Klaartje Duijm Introduction (1) An

important

part

of the development of communicative

l e a r n i n g how to attune o n e ' s u t t e r a n c e s to a s i t u a t i o n . t h e i r f u t u r e p a r t i c i p a t i o n In s o c i e t y It I s e s p e c i a l l y In

what

way

competence

is

With regard

to

important to know

c h i l d r e n learn to attune t h e i r u t t e r a n c e s to

a

'higher'

i n t e r a c t i o n p a r t n e r . The f i r s t context in which c h i l d r e n have to take an attitude

towards

primary s c h o o l . time

on

the

authority take

a r e l a t i v e l y distanced authority

i s at the

In t h i s context they a l s o have to decide for the way they handle t h e i r school l e a r n i n g under

and

peer-group.

the

first eye

of to

and a u t h o r i t y In r e l a t i o n to school l e a r n i n g . have

of

In t o d a y ' s s o c i e t y men and women appear

r e l a t i v e l y d i v e r g e n t p o s i t i o n s with respect to the use

differences

start

of

warmth

It seems l i k e l y that these

t h e i r o r i g i n s at least p a r t l y In the

achievement

of

d i f f e r e n t communicative a b i l i t i e s at an e a r l y age. In t h i s a r t i c l e I wlI I g i v e a report of a s m a l l - s c a l e the

Investigation

way In which a u t h o r i t y and warmth are being handled In

into

interaction

In the classroom, e s p e c i a l l y with respect to sex d i f f e r e n c e s . What

k i n d of r e l a t i o n s do boys and g i r l s

learn to i n i t i a t e and maintain

with someone placed above them? What communicative a b i l i t i e s do boys and girls

learn

investigation

in

order

shows

guided more than boys. themselves.

to

that

deal

with

authority

g i r l s are d i r e c t e d more

and

warmth?

carefully

and

The are

Boys must look a f t e r themselves more and promote

In a d d i t i o n they r e c e i v e more compliments.

90 Theoretical Relations Code

framework

and

language

acts

This

Investigation

focuses

on the expression

in

utterances

of

the

relation between speaker and hearer. For that purpose It Is necessary to distinguish Angevaare performs speaker

between speech acts and code acts (terminology derived from 1980).

a code act. wishes

concerns

the

a speech

act

one

simultaneously

to achieve by performing the utterance,

One

acts:

performing

Whereas the speech act concerns the

social

formulation. code

While

meaning

conveyed

by

It

owing

purpose the

to

code the

the act

chosen

and the same speech act can be performed with varying

'Keep your hands off!' conveys a social meaning

completely

different from 'would you please not touch that? It is very fragile'. The

code act must be chosen In such a way that It gives the speech

optimal opportunity to succeed. derive

the

speaker's

From the chosen code act the hearer can

estimation

of

their

relationship.

therefore must be composed In such a manner that in the given they

convey

the

act

speaker's purpose as well as establish

the

Utterances situation kind

of

relation to the hearer which the speaker desires. Speakers must consider this choice. A continuously mutual search for an equlI I brum between one's own desires and the desires one supposes In others takes place In Interaction. Owing to

this balancing,

the level of code acts often varies somewhat during

Interact ion. Ret ationships Obviously there are many ways to characterize human the Thun

relationships.

For

purpose of this survey a model has been used (following Schultz von 1980:47;

independent

Griffioen 1982:69,

dimensions:

148) that sets out relations In

authority and warmth.

The line

of

two

authority

Indicates the extent of affecting the acts of others, the line of warmth indicates between

the

extent

people

dimensions,

e.g.

of approach or attention

to

others.

can be characterized by nominating them

in

Relations these

two

indifference as 'non-coercing and cold', mothering as

'coercing and warm', severeness as 'coercing and cold'.

91

coerc i ng

cold-.

warmth

i-

»-warm

3

10

non-coerc i ng FIGURE 1. Human r e l a t i o n s . In

the

course

depending

of I n t e r a c t i o n the r e l a t i o n

far

continually

redefined

on the presence of the combination of a u t h o r i t y and warmth in

any stage of the As

is

interaction.

as i n t e r a c t i o n is concerned,

relations

It I s by code a c t s

between people are achieved

and

that

accomplished.

Interactants

have at t h e i r d i s p o s a l an - in p r i n c i p l e - I n f i n i t e amount of means

to

perform

code a c t s .

When you want to d e s c r i b e

desired linguistic

the

relation

between I n t e r a c t a n t s It is necessary to know what l i n g u i s t i c means have at t h e i r d i s p o s a l . be

sufficient

means ways

in I t s e l f ,

as the meaning and e f f e c t of

depend on p e r s o n a l , In

which

these

c l a r i f i e d as w e l l . possible

the

linguistic

s i t u a t i o n a l and s o c i a l context f a c t o r s .

f a c t o r s Influence

(possible)

choices

The

must

be

To my knowledge such an i n v e s t i g a t i o n was undertaken

for the f i r s t time by Brown and Levlnson (1978). of

they

An inventory of these means, however, would not

formulations

and

investigated

They made an Inventory the

effect

of

these

formulations and the ( f a c t o r s i n f l u e n c i n g the) c h o i c e s . My i n v e s t i g a t i o n Is

mainly

an

application

of t h e i r r e s u l t s ,

and

as

these

are

not

g e n e r a l l y known I wiI I here reproduce the main l i n e s of t h e i r argument. Politeness Brown

and Levinson (1978) s t a r t from the assumption that a l l

competent

adult members of a s o c i e t y have at least the q u a l i t i e s ' r a t i o n a l i t y ' and 'face'.

By

particular will

rationality consistent

they mean

'certain

rational

modes of reasoning from ends to the

achieve those e n d s . ' (Brown and Levinson 1978:66)

'face',

capacities, The

derived from Goffman (1967) and from the f o l k term,

means notion

In that of

stands for

92 'the

public

self-image that every member wants to claim for

(Brown and Levlnson:

66)

This self-image consists of the

himself.'

fundamental

needs (cf. also the characterization of relations above): - 'negative face:

the want of every "competent,

adult member" that his

actions be unimpeded by others. - positive face: the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some others.' (Brown and Levlnson:67) Someone's face Is something vulnerable. themselves 'lose their face'.

Interactants can make others or

However, this vulnerability being mutual,

people generally will cooperate (and assume each other's cooperation) to maintain their own and one another's faces during the interaction. This

view

Implies that many (all) speech acts

face-wants.

Speakers

threaten

intrinsically

negative face-wants for

laying an obligation upon themselves or others (e.g. commanding). that

by admissions of guilt resp. however,

formulation can

expressing

least

someone

criticisms). The threat of a speech

can (and should often be) mitigated by the use of a code Speakers can indicate by means of their

that they yet do care for (some) face-wants of the aim

when

face-wants are threatened when speakers Indicate

act that softens the grievance. They

Instance

by promising resp.

their own or other's wants are not desirable to at

(e.g. act,

Positive

threaten

their code act either at H's positive

face

their approval of at least some of H's positive

hearer.

by

overtly

face-wants.

Or they can direct their code act towards H's negative face-wants, they

Indicate

that

they don't want to interfere with H's

action.

These

kinds

positive

and

negative

contain

of redresslve code acts are polIteness.

a very heavy face threat,

called

When a speech act

Is

when

freedom

of

respectively assumed

a speaker can also choose to

completely 'off record': thus covering up that the threatening

do

to It

intention

cannot unambiguously be subscribed to it (e.g. irony, understatements In certain contexts). Brown each it,

and Levlnson distinguish a whole series of strategies to of these kinds of redressive acts.

perform

Examples are 'I know you

hate

but can you please do the dishes today?' (positive politeness: Show

concern for H's wants), 'I don't suppose there'd be any possibility that you will do the dishes today?' (negative politeness: impose

on H),

show reluctance to

'mature people do the dishes of their own accord',

record:

overgeneraI Ize).

Only

in

very few

situations

perform

a face-threatening speech act 'baldly on record',

can

(off

speakers

without

any

93 redress,

e.g.

when

It is obvious that maximal efficiency

is necessary

('Help'). These redresslve code acts affect the relation between being

their willingness to do so. using

in classroom

Teacher-pupil:

Classroom

are

Institutional determined teacher

roles

takes

place

The

Individual

pupil. but

in an

Institutional

also

role they play,

interaction

as well as less explicit

to talk about The teacher

i.e.

as

teacher. with

whether they are

to

acquire

to

Within

ideas

their

And

Is required

language

language. There interaction

language

in meaningful

(v.d.

interaction

Is

Geest

with

the

the Institutional context the teacher colours her role touch.

In the first place with respect to the

of her contact with the pupils.

Teachers

tend

about and expectations of their pupils (Brophy

quality to

have

and

Good

interaction. Rosenthal

and

(1968) proved that these expectations can strongly affect what

pupils acquire (self-fulfilling prophecies).

respect to not only school (v.d.

The

too?').

learn the language that

1974), which determine the kind and amount of Jacobson

abilities.

('Don't shout', 'Raise your

the quality of the pupil's

pupils acquire

a personal

strong

school

In the institution school.

Is the one who has to teach them this school

quantity

the

indIvIduaIs are

('Are your names Sandra

learning, they

All

of

it ('That's not a sentence, that's a word').

related

1978),

context.

framework

is evidence that the amount and quality of teacher-pupil closely

into account.

to further develop their communicative

turn-taking rules are taught very explicitly

along with the school

the

Pupils attend school not only

They are taught the rules of

hand'!),

colours

linguistic (lm)possiblI itles of

by the Institutional

learning,

and

produced and understood within

laws.

or

respect to the hearer.

interaction needs to take the context

Interaction

utterances

By

Interaction

institutional

Investigation of

and

By show

Negative politeness creates a distance.

It the speaker pays formal

Sex dIfferences

The

Interactants.

positive polite speakers make the relation warm - or anyhow

Geest

1978).

A

happens

with

learning, but also to the language they

learn

second personal

ideas about educational methods. freedom pupils should be permitted

This

touch stems from the

teacher's

Teachers have different views on in the classroom.

what

In the Netherlands

the actual discussion concerns the extent to which either pupils or

'the

94 book' should prescribe the choice of the subject-matter of teaching. the

extreme

the first position ('thematic method') claims that

have a prominent voice In establishing subjects. affiliation to the experiences of the pupils, knowledge about.

about

pupils

The school should seek

because it should

the things which the pupils themselves want

supply

to

learn

At the other extreme ('cursorlc method') we find those who think

it best to follow a duly considered, It

prescribed course of

instruction.

will be clear that the first method is very difficult to realize

daily

In

school practice,

in

so that its supporters almost always compromise

to a 'thematic-cursoric' teaching method.

Sex-speclflc Also

Interact ion

within

influential language

factor

In

Important

institutional In

contexts the sex of an

Interactive

meaningful

behaviour.

Interactant As

Is

children

Interaction with the people

achieve

surrounding

factors In this achievement process are the kind of

an

them,

relation

they have with the people they are Interacting with, the amount and kind of

Interaction

they

are

Involved

appropriateness of language use. recent

In

and

the

Information

about

It is commonly assumed on the base of

psychoanalytic theories that boys and girls stand In a different

relation with the parent of the opposite sex from approximately the of

three (Chodorow 1980).

specific

Parents tend to encounter children from sex-

expectation patterns (Blerhoff 1977).

sufficiently

age

Moreover,

it has

been

proved that the interaction of parents with boys and girls

differs In quantity and quality (De Haan 1978; Van der Geest 1978). This also goes for teachers (Van der Geest, as

well

Geldof and Sluls 1978). Teachers

as parents have sex-speclflc expectations

(v.d.

These expectations can also work out as self-fulfilling we

Kley

1983).

prophecies.

So

see that the Interactional behaviour of children on entering primary

school will already be sex-biased,

and that there Is a good chance that

this bias will grow in the course of their school career.

The

investigation

Theoretleal

exploratIons

Code acts and teacher-puplI As

Brown

and

Levinson

Interact Ion: InstI tutlonal (1978) want to

trace

roles

universal

features

of

95 language which

usage, social

their model factors

e s t i m a t i o n at any m o m e n t . caused have

by the

broadly

vary

The structural

institutional

q u i t e radical

concerns m a i n l y

can

dally along

difference

character of the school

communication, with

the

In

speaker's

in p o w e r ,

however,

context a p p e a r s

c o n s e q u e n c e s for the p e r f o r m a n c e and

to

interpretation

of code acts. -

In

Institutions the c o n t e n t s of p o s i t i v e face

institutional In

order

sure

to reduce the vulnerability of their

to stick to 'safe' features

unfamiliar one

derive from the goals of the

p r o b a b l y safe. T h u s p u p i l s will which

they

self-image

think the teacher

in the the

each

face,

Interactants

make

In Institutional

Institution

which

light of the

Institutional

Important for them.

They

unanimous Important

goals of the s c h o o l , I wiI I call

c o m p o n e n t s of these p o s i t i v e

together

'pupil

face'.

face-wants.

teacher

pup i 1

well,

i nte111 gent

independent,

-motivating,

cooperative,

-

nice,pleasant

teacher, not n a u g h t y , not claiming a t t e n t i o n , not putting oneself

forward

interesting,

or igina1

FIGURE 2. Positive face-wants

stlmulat ng

achievement and original ty

self-conscious

listening to the

- creative,

interesting

- clear, helpful,

helpful - quiet,

a

properties.

T h e want to be regarded as

- nice, open,

build

their p u p i l s from rather

pup I I-1dendity which

- m o t i v a t e d , achieving

are

built out of the p r o p e r t i e s that are

Institutional

2 r e p r e s e n t s the m a i n

contexts

features

(as a pupil) for themselves consisting of those

of e x p e c t a t i o n s ,

relatively

adjust their positive face to p r o p e r t i e s finds

T e a c h e r s have been known to encounter frames

for

in contexts w h e r e they are

w i t h each o t h e r ' s personal w a n t s .

can

is s p e c i f i e d

role.

in school.

forming Figure

96 The

main

contents of it are derived from several

Investigations

Into

teachers' expectations frames (for a review see Van der Kley 1983). the

teacher

derived

role there Is also an institutional

from the goals of the Institution.

self-image towards both -

In

institutions

acts

the class and

For

identity which can

This 'teacher face' Is

be the

colleagues, friends etc.

Interactants have unequal rights to

perform

speech

in relation to positive and negative face.

Due

to

the Institutional difference of power the

stronger

impositions

around.

teacher

Is

on the pupils' negative face than the

allowed

other

way

There Is also less obligation for the teacher to look after the

positive face of the pupils.

Theirs will

Indeed be frequently at stake,

viz. In each question testing a pupil's knowledge and each evaluation of the answer. Speech

acts further

different

way,

Impose on the face-wants of teacher and pup I I In

because their face-wants differ,

tasks are subscribed to them.

a

and because different

An Inventory of speech acts that threaten

face contains divergent possibilities for teacher and pupils. -

In

Institutions

Interactants have unequal

rights and obligations

to

perform code acts In relation to positive and negative face. Pupils are supposed to act respectfully,

I.e.

they are expected to use

negative

politeness.

wish

act face-threateningly baldly on record,

to

without can

On the other hand teachers can afford It If

any redress. of power),

personal wants. considered

to

be

they direct

Brown and Levlnson state that positive politeness

be used only by the interactant

difference

I.e.

In the higher position (in case

but then they regard positive face as a

As I claimed,

however,

set

of of

that positive face can also be

a set of Institutionally determined wants,

Interactants can

probably aim positive politeness at each other's institutional

positive

face.

positive

Thus

I

suppose

pupils as well as teachers

will

use

politeness, but for each role different strategies are required, because the

faces

they

aim at are different.

This is one of the

issues

the

Investigation is concerned with. -

In Institutions code acts are Interpreted by Interactants according to

different rules, depending on the role of the speaker/hearer. Interactants in the higher position are supposed to be positively polite or

baldly

on record.

negative politeness,

Nevertheless one can often e.g.

observe

them

using

'This Is not done what you're doing now. You

97 cannot

all

shout

conventional power

at

the

same

which

makes

the lower Interactant

utterance as a request/command, this

kind

Intrinsic

time',

where

the

teacher

Indirectness. They can use it thanks to their

of

code

pay-off:

obliged

to

Interprete

and not as mere information.

act Is often used

by

teachers,

uses

institutional the

I suppose

because

of

the

coerce

the

interaction will the choice

for

the speaker shows to be willing not to

hearer.

Code acts and teacher-pup 11 interaction: What consequences for the teacher-pupil a

thematic

or cursorIc teaching method have?

curriculum and

Individual In a

groups.

followed, the

thematic

oriented

pupils can propose subjects or forms of activities.

pupils can decide on those things together.

small

colours

In

a

Pupils often

class In which a cursoric method of

Teacher work

In

teaching

Is

the teacher alone is held responsible for the achievement

by

pupils of more fixed educational goals.

On these grounds it may be

expected that within a thematic teaching method pupils get more room for freedom wants

of action (less coercing) and more attention to positive (more

positive

politeness).

There

Infringement on the pupils' negative face, more be

respect (more negative politeness), less

respectful towards the teacher.

teacher As

will

probably

is

more room for individuality

be

less

and the pupils will be

paid

while the pupils will have to The

positive

politeness

and pupil will be less often aimed at institutional

there

face-

I expect

less

of

face-wants.

Influence

of

patterns of expectation, and therefore smaller sex differences. Within a cursoric

teaching method one may expect the

reversal:

more

coercing,

less positive politeness, etc.

Code acts and sex of

pupils

Taking the survey of parent-child/teacher-pupil sex-specific hypothesize with

patterns about

of

expectation as

code acts and face-wants. Van

der

appropriateness language

use,

Interaction and that starting-point,

one

the way in which the sex of a pupil might be

frames (Brophy and Good 1974, 1982,

a

Kley

1983),

Research into sex-speclflc Blerhoff 1977, and

of can

linked

expectation

Stanworth 1981, Jungbluth

Investigations

Into

Ideas

about

and probability of differences between male and

female

and of actual differences In language use (Lakoff

1973;

Thorne and Henley 1975;

Kramer 1977,

Brouwer e.a.

1978; van der Geest

98 e.a.

1978)

has led me to the following assumptions concerning the ways

In which teachers and boys/girls handle face-wants In their

interaction.

Boys

upon

can

be

people's more

to impose stronger or

face-wants than girls.

and

girls,

expected

more

often

Therefore they will coerce the teacher

they will use less (negative and

positive)

politeness

than

who will care more about other people's face-wants. Girls may be

expected

to

be more positively and negatively

polite.

Teachers

expect boys to have a stronger need for freedom of action, will

other

think girls need to be protected more.

will

whereas they

Therefore they will coerce

boys more than girls to whom they will use more negative politeness. girls may be expected to need to be treated kindly,

they might

As

receive

more positive politeness as well.

Questions The

specified

original

questions

the

communicative

abilities

do

authority? maintain

What with

kinds someone

different abilities?

of

investigation children relations

started

learn

In

order

do they learn

placed above them?

Do

with

boys

are:

to

to

What

deal

with

Initiate

and

girls

and learn

The foregoing explorations enable us to concretize

these questions In terms of code acts and face-wants: 1. What code acts do teacher and pupil use in classroom

interaction?

- Do teachers use different code acts than pupils? - Do teachers use negative politeness towards pupils? - Do pupils use positive politeness towards the teacher? - Do teachers and pupils use different kinds of positive politeness? 2. What

quantitative

differences can be observed in the use of

speech

acts and code acts - between teachers using cursorIc and thematic teaching methods? - between pupils towards cursor Ic and thematic teaching teachers? - between teachers towards boys and girls? - between boys and girls towards teachers? Method The inquiry was done as part of a larger project, Indication language pupil

set up to acquire

an

of the effect that innovating teaching methods might have on development.

Data were transcriptions of videotaped

interaction in two classrooms (1st year

primary

teacher-

school),

where

99

different

teaching methods were being used:

the other more cursorIc.

the one more thematic

Of these data I merely analyzed four

and

fragments

of educational discourse. Because of the small number of data (total ca. 1200 utterances) the survey could only have an exploratory character. The

Investigation consisted of two parts.

question

the data were qualitatively analyzed.

utterance

with

strategies

distinguished, are

To find answers to the first

used

resulting

for

politeness

I tried to

that

and

every

Levlnson

in an Inventory of the linguistic means

to perform code acts in the classroom.

restructured

Brown

name

These

that

findings

were

into a model that made It possible to carry out the second,

quantitative part of the Investigation to answer the second question.

Results

QualItatIve

It

analysis

turned out that all the sub-questions of question 1 can be

affirmatively.

Teachers

teachers

use

several

positive

politeness.

and

pupils

kinds

use partly divergent

of negative

Only the teacher

politeness

use

five.

and

acts,

pupils

is bald on record.

uses ten different ways of being positively polite,

answered

code The

use

teacher

of those the pupils

Six different negative politeness strategies are

used,

two

only by the teachers,

one only by the pupils and three by both teachers

and

strategies

pupils.

different

Several from

Brown

and

are carried out

Levlnson's

according

description,

to

due

rules

to

the

A detailed discussion of the findings would go beyond the scope of

this

Institutional context (e.g. referring to turn-taking rules). article.

I

quantitative

have

restructured

analysis.

I

my findings into a model

will

present

the

main

suitable

results

for

of

the

qualitative analysis along the outlines of that model. It turned out that the speech acts that are performed within educational interaction can be reduced to two main categories for each role when one takes the kind of face-want a speech act afflicts as a criterion. categories Imposing perform

are on

for

pupils

directives

the

teacher

directives

negative and positive

and face).

evaluations The

(imposing on teacher's negative face)

pupils and

These (resp. mainly answers

(imposing on pupil's positive face). The

directives

are

intended

to get

the

interaction partner

to

do

100 something (pay attention, give a response etc.). Evaluations and answers are basically

Informative:

Intended to let the interaction partner know

somethIng. These

categories of speech acts correspond closely with those

described in classroom Interaction as the 'teaching-cycle':

commonly

give a turn

(directive teacher) or ask for a turn (directive pupil) - answer

(answer

pupil) - evaluation (evaluation teacher).

The dimension The

of

authority

strategies

appeared

to

used by pupil and teacher for being

be

mainly manipulations of the grade

exp I Ic I tness. these

of

polite

directness

and

In addition several modifications are used. In my opinion

manipulations

completely

negatively

on

can

be

regarded

record unto completely

as

a

continuum

indirect.

ranging

from

(See figure 3 on

next

page). In an utterance three basic elements are expressed: (H)

and

speech

Independently vague

about

act (SA). Any of these

for to

responsible

speaker (S), hearer

elements

can

reasons of negative politeness: whom the speech act

be

is directed,

who Is

to

for It and what threat It precisely contains.

Is seldom stated completely direct.

manipulated

the speaker can be

be held

An utterance

Usually one or more of the elements

S, H and SA are formulated more or less vague, e.g. 'You may put a three there

for

the

teacher'

- (H-direct,

S-lndirect,

SA(conventlonal)

Indirect). The

modifications

hesitations,

can

hedges,

have

a weakening

or

a

strenghtenIng

interjections such as 'sometime',

'but',

force: 'once';

boasting, additions like '.., say'. When the teacher uses direct forms she is more coercing. she of

It means

that

decides to use a forceful form In order to create enough difference trusts

her

authority to be sufficiently established to get things done anyway.

She

then

power.

When

she

uses indirect forms

she

apparently

prefers the pay-off that she is seemingly not coercing,

but

that

she treats the pupil with care. In

evaluations being direct means being clear about whether the

is

right

or

wrong,

immediately at stake. the

responsibility

thereby putting the positive face By being indirect the teacher for

of

pupil

in some way diverts

the correctness of the answer from

involved, thus sparing his or her positive face.

the

answer

the

pupil

101

c _

Q. ILI •C

c O)

a¿

13

o •o

X t:

«

.c

ra c -C ^ I- —

Q .. I-

J? " i < 01

O

Q. =

raO) s o O ra •- c u X — 5 t/i 5' 3

O

1/1

ai

1

JZ

S 'w

O >-

V)

IN..

DÒ ^ c £

Q. Q-

? O c ^ ï-

s

¿ r - c

X

Q. vi

«

¡ e r a E o; g

C 0 01 01

Ol

«-

~

'ï-itr 2 * 2

- Qs

; S s • 2

» Qj ™ /a.< >/a.< >

ai/a.( )

s s

—

aei

5.

—

Note. The scores standard varI ant)

range from

All

visited at home and

couples

s

0

were

low (« standard variant) to high ( -

each

partner

was

Interviewed

separately for an hour and a half. The Interviews were divided parts:

informal part (casual speech),

list),

test part (attltudlnal

and living situation). after

which

containing style

Into four

formal part (reading style, word

component),

Information part

(background

The Interview started as Informally as possible,

the Informants were asked to read a text and a w o r d the phonetic-phonological

shift.

attitudes

and

During way

non-

the last part of

list,

variables under study to elicit Information about

life was obtained on the

the

basis

of

a

informant's tests

and

transcribed

and

guest ionnalres. A

part

of the

informal section of each

interview was

about fifty occurences of each of the linguistic variables were

scored.

The reading text contained 51, 27, 26, 12, 39 and 38 occurences of (ee), 10 all

(oo), (au), (el) and (z) respectively and the word

of each variable.

The language scores,

the other variables,

(aa),

list contained

together with the codes for

were processed by computer

using

procedures

217

from the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).

Language use and language attitudes A first comparison of the female and male scores for the seven phoneticphonological reveals women

variables for casual speech,

significant

reading style and word

differences in eighteen of the

use the standard variants more often than men.

ratlos

and

correspond Germany.

levels of significance are to

Not

those

found

given.

In the United

twenty-one

cases:

In Table 2 the F -

These

States,

list

results England

closely and

West

entirely to my surprise the Dutch women also appeared

to

speak more correctly than Dutch men. TABLE 2.

Mean differences between female and male groups for the

linguistic

variables

in

three styles.

In all cases male

seven

scores

are

higher and therefore closer to the Amsterdam vernacular.

F-ratlo

casual speech

reading style

word I 1st

(aa)

45. 77*

48..29*

49.,03*

(ee)

37. 38*

32..68*

22.,13*

(oo)

22. 24*

42..58*

21 ,20* .

(au)

11. 65*

8,.01*

3..38

(el-h)

3. 55

14..01*

9..34*

(el-m)

24. 07*

8 .35*

1 .70 ,

(2)

10. 13*

6 .98*

9..19*

* p