Language Society and Power - Assignment 2

How do speakers ‘perform’ gender identities in their talk? Is there only one way of
performing gender? Discuss the answers to these questions with reference to the
literature on language and gender.

Plan of the essay:

1. Introduction:

a. definition of gender identity

b. thesis statement: ‘ is there only one way of performing gender?’

2. Body:

a. Gender can be performed in many ways: b. example of performing gender through voice
utterances in men/women and the differences.
b. Examples of performing gender using sources eg. Coates, Homes *in relation to social class.

d. Language and Men and Women/ Language and History

c. 1st example: language and age - how is gender performed by different age groups? What are
the differences between the following age groups: children, middle age people, elderly people?

*e. language class and gender: lower working class, middle class, comparison of performing
gender between those classes

3. Conclusion:

Gender may be performed in many ways as demonstrated in the examples above...

Introduction

Gender identity can be defined as the individuals feelings about themselves concerning their
personality of being male or female; which is established during childhood and puberty and

influenced by society. Smith (1993:4) identifies gender as ‘the term used to describe socially

constructed categories based on sex’, he also states that ‘Most societies operate in terms of

two genders, masculine and feminine’. Performing gender can be a very broad topic although

worth analysing as various societies may attempt to answer the question ‘whether there is

only one way of performing gender identity’. In this essay using the relevant sources including

examples taken from Coate’s, Weatherall’s, Holmes’, Stokoe’s Journal of Sociolinguistics

and Lester’s article; the existence of diverse ways of performing gender in speakers talk and

various environments will be examined as well as the differences of performing gender between

men and women. In addition the relationship between social class and gender variation will be

discussed.

The differences in performing gender between men and women

Gender performance differs between men and women. The differences in ways of performing

gender might be found in the ‘study of language in its social context’ or in other words ‘the

study of linguistic variation’ (4:1993) Coates states this as sociolinguistics. The study of

sociolinguistics examines both men and women speakers who are different from each other,

taking into consideration their gender, age, social class or their speech. This is called social

variation (4:1993). The study of social and linguistic variations have their structure which is

the reason for the analysis of speech differences looking at the utterances of ‘real speakers’ in

society. Those utterances of social variation and the ability to recognise the sex of the speaker

through listening to their speech may be an example of performing gender. As Weatherall (49:

2002) states ‘there are numerous studies that have reported the ability of listeners to correctly

identify the sex of speakers by using only verbal cues’. Identifying the sex through voices

such as, high-pitched in women and a deeper voice in men may also prove the differences in
gender, although it is not dependent only on their differences in anatomy of their bodies but the

frequency as well as the resonators which are responsible for the range of human voice pitch.

Ways of performing gender

One of the ways of performing gender which relates to the differences between males and

females may be the fact that women use more standard forms of language than men. There

is a pattern concerning women who according to Trudgill (1974) ‘regardless of other social

characteristics such as class, age etc. tended to use more standard forms of language than

men’ (101: 2003) The style of speaking was illustrated in the analysis of ‘social class, style

and sex differentiation in Norwich’ where Trudgill showed the percentage of people in the UK

who used non-standard forms of English in 1974. The research indicated that non-standard

forms were used in the lower working social class especially among men who used less formal

English more often than women. On the contrary, women represented the group who used

the more standard form of English especially the middle-class. Therefore, it is women who

use more formal language, even though men have always had more power over female. As

Romaine (104: 2003) states:

‘Thus, women may be using linguistic means as a way to achieve status denied to

them through other outlets. Since women have long been denied equality with men as

far as educational and employment opportunities are concerned, these are not reliable

indicators of a woman’s status or the status she aspires to. Although the marketplace

establishes the value of men in economic terms, the only kind of capital a woman can

accumulate is symbolic. She can be a ‘good’ housewife, a ‘good’ wife, and so on, with

respect to the community’s norms and stereotypes for appropriate female behaviour’.
Ways of performing gender in various environments

It is also important to acknowledge that gender may be performed differently in various

environments including the workplace and various organizations within the community.

As Lester states in his article ‘Gender is partially constructed and reinforced by organizational

processes, including social interactions between workers, salary differences, and the ways

in which work is segregated and divided by paid and unpaid labor’ (Acker, 1990). It may be

assumed that particular professions are prescribed depending on the role of women and

men in society and their gender performance as individuals as well as their own perception of

their identity. However, this can have an impact on both females and males and create social

status imbalance between them. As Lester states:

‘The imbalance between men and women in organizations has been found to

significantly affect the gender identity of female workers, influence the structure and

norms that informally create barriers to the advancement of women, impact the adoption

and use of family leave policies, lead to fewer women seeking advancement, and create

more salary inequality’

In addition, women tend to take up less paid jobs in a more welcoming environment such as,

academic institutions where they perform their identities in a feminine way. Men on the other

hand who characterize themselves with ‘heroic workers’ prefer to seek for more challenging

work opportunities in order to prove their masculine and dominant nature within society.

It suffices to say that, both men and women use symbols in order to perform

gender in different environments. The example of such behaviour would be various dress code,

appropriate language use as well as ‘expression of emotions’ which ‘reinforce representations of

what is masculine and feminine, widening further the divisions of gender within the organization’

as stated in Lester’s article. It may also be assumed that women are supposed to act both

feminine and masculine in order to be equal with men at work and at all levels including the
social status. Although, this would mean that the gender performance is presupposed which has

been observed by Holmes and Meyerhoff in their sociolinguistic research as Stoke states in her

Journal of Sociolinguistics:

‘There is no notion in such work that people are not performing ‘gender’: if the data do

not look like standard femininity or masculinity the ‘finding’ will be that gender identity is

not what we thought it was, or that it is multiple, fragmentary, or post-modern (Edwards

and Stokoe in press; Stoke 2000, 2004). Thus the fundamental question of ‘how best

to represent and even talk about gender and language’(p. 8) remains, in that the

very process of writing about the ‘subtle’, ‘nuanced’, ‘complex’, etc. performances of

masculinities and femininities can work to reproduce and maintain the gender order’

(Stoke 2004).

Performing gender according to culture and social class

Furthermore, gender may be performed in relation to culture and social class. The identity

of man or woman may be demonstrated in various ways depending on culture they live

in or a social group which they belong to. As Coates (1993:8) states: ‘according to social

psychologists people derive their social identity from their membership of various social groups,

but it has been pointed out that these groups only have meaning when they are compared with

other groups’. The example of such case is illustrated by the same author mentioned above who

describes both men and women in different social groups. As Weatherall (2002:4) states, ‘Lakoff

(1973, 1975) strongly endorsed the idea that language reflected women’s secondary status in

society’. Although women belong to the marked group and ‘are considered to be overtly inferior

to men and thus have lower status’ ‘their awareness of themselves as a group seems to be

growing’ (1993:8). Men on the other hand are dominant, belong to unmarked group and often
view themselves as the leaders of the groups who are more interested in the social class status

than gender performance. According to Tajfel women have a choice of accepting their inferior

status and living as individuals or attempting to join the superior group. However, there may also

be a case of a group of women who do not accept their social status and may try to improve

themselves by various strategies such as, assimilation or developing a positive image of their

group.

Moreover, women also attempt to become equal with men by specific language

use. The examples of such strategy may include usage of a swear and taboo language, deeper

voice, engaging themselves in typically male style conversations on politics or economy as well

as the use of non-standard accent (1993:8). This strategy may be successful although it does

not contribute to women’s development of their own identity in society. Another strategy used

by women may be their own style of interaction in speech for instance, their ‘cooperative mode’

which is used as they communicate with other people in particular other women and support

each other rather than using competitive strategies as men do in their conversations.

As Coates (1993:11) states: ‘With re-evaluation has come the notion that the ability to talk

cooperatively is a dimension which can be used for comparing speakers - and, for a change,

a dimension where comparisons will tend to favour female speakers’. Therefore, the way

women perform gender through their speech may be meaningful as it can make a difference in

their own identity and what is more significant it can contribute to achieving their equality with

men.

The relationship between social class and gender variation

As demonstrated above women and men differ from each other as far as the gender

performance is concerned. It suffices to say that there is a strong relationship between social

class and gender variation. As Weatherall (2002:81) states, ‘Since around 1960’s an important
distinction has been drawn between sex as biological and gender as social; This distinction

was, and continues to be, important in challenging arguments that use biology to rationalise and

police people’s lives’. The examples of men’s and women’s characteristic traits such as, ‘men’s

natural rationality’ and ‘women’s natural emotionality’ relate to their role in the society and

their gender variation. Therefore, the roles of men and women may be equal and as the same

professions can be done by both of them. Weatherall (2002:81) states that: ‘Women can be

engineers, doctors and politicians; men can be nurses, secretaries and homemakers’ and also

makes

an important assumption that ‘It is not biology but social learning that limits what women and

men think they can do’.

Furthermore, it is significant to establish some of the linguistic patterns while

talking about the relationship between social class and gender variation. One of the interesting

findings which was presented by Holmes (2003: 100) concerns the feature called ‘social and

stylistic continua’ which established the rule: ‘If a feature occurs more frequently in a working-

class speech, then it will occur more frequently in the informal speech of all speakers’. Another

important finding indicated that women use non-standard form of English as mentioned before.

Its rule established that, the lower one’s status the less formal the style of speaking and the

use of non-standard English which proved to be more common between men. The use of non-

standard English is regarded as ‘a well known marker of social status over most of the English-

speaking world, found in varieties of American English too’ as Holmes ( 2003: 101) states.

Therefore the results of the findings indicated that non-standard form of English is mostly used

by a working class men, whereas women who belong to middle-class are the group which ‘is

closest to standard’.

Conclusion
In conclusion, this essay has presented the existence of more than one way of performing

gender by both men and women as well as the differences between men and women while

performing gender in their talk and a workplace. In addition, using the relevant examples

taken from the literature, the relationship between social class and gender variation has been

described. It has been demonstrated therefore that ‘gender is increasingly analysed in terms of

the performance of identities’ as Stoke states in her Journal of Sociolinguistics and proved that

depending on the way of performance both men and women create their own self-image within

the community and decide on their own identity in their lives which determines their status and

role in society.

Bibliography

Coates, J. (1993), 'Women, men and language - a sociolinguistic account of gender differences

in language', London: Longman

Weatherall, A. (2002), ‘Gender, language and discourse’, London: Routledge

Homles, J. Meyerhoff, M. (2003) ‘The Handbook of Language and Gender’, Blackwell

Publishing

Stokoe, E. H. (2005), 'Analysing gender and language'. Journal of Sociolinguistics, Volume 9:

Issue 1, 118–133. doi: 10.1111/j.1360-6441.2005.00285.x

Lester, J. (2008) ‘Performing gender in the workplace: gender socialization, power, and
identity among women faculty members.(Report)’, Community College Review http://
www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-181814567.html