Discourse and gender
Early work in the analysis of gender and discourse looked at the relationship between the use of language and the biological category of sex. Gender as a social category has come to be seen as highly fluid, or less well defined than in once appeared. In line with gender theory more generally, researchers interested in language and gender have focused increasingly on plurality and diversity among female and male language users, and on gender as performativity (something that is ‘done’ in context, rather than a fixed attribute).
According to lakoff (1975) in her book language and women’s place, she proposed that what she called ‘ woman’s language’ is a use of language that is different from ‘men’s language’ or rather, what she termed’ neutral language’. This language included features such as the use of overly polite forms, the use of question tags, rising intonation in declaratives, the avoidance of expletives, a greater use of diminutives and euphemisms. An example of using particular items are “adorable, charming, and sweet” (woman’s language) versus “terrific, great, and cool (neutral language).
According to mean’s (2001) she shows a similar example from the use of language with men’s and women’s football teams to’ do gender’ and to confirm masculine identity. She talks about sporting as a male category where values such as power and aggressiveness are highly valued. She found speed, loud talk and shouting to be ways in which these values were expressed in the male referee’s language, she also found the male referees used fast continuous talk in ways that never occurred in women’s football matches. In this extract louder talk is in italics and shouting is in capitals, (.) represents a pause of less than a second. Example: go on lads (.) keep going keep going OH keep going lads keep going lads just inside carry on (.) inside (.) keep