Women, Men and Language

Linguistics 343 - Spring 2011

OVERVIEW
This course examines the complex relationships among language, gender and sexuality.
Integrating different perspectives from sociolinguistics as well as gender theory and gender
studies, the goals of this course are to familiarize students with major theoretical approaches on
language and gender and to explore, through data-driven activities, how the different approaches
can shed light on everyday linguistic practices. Through lectures, group exercises, weekly
readings, class discussions and data workshops, the course will cover a wide variety of topics
including gender as cultural difference, gender as a social construct, sexist and heterosexist
language, language and gender in interaction (including turn-taking, gossip, access and power),
gender and style, cross-cultural perspectives on language and gender, language and sexuality,
and the linguistic construction of masculinities and femininities. Students will develop the ability
to evaluate and critique research; particular emphasis will be put on performing original research,
utilizing the analytical skills acquired to analyze gendered language in everyday life.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Instructor
Anastasia Nylund
Email
an249@georgetown.edu
Office Hours Monday, 12.30-2pm, ICC519E or by appointment
I am also happy to answer any minor questions about assignments or readings over email
please remember to start your assignments in good time, and identify problems early, as I reserve
the right not to reply to emails received less than 24 hours before an assignment is due.
CLASS MEETING SCHEDULE
Monday, 10:15-11:30am, WALSH 496
Wednesday, 10:15-11:30am, WALSH 496
ACADEMIC HONOR CODE
All students are required to comply with the Georgetown University Academic Honor code. Any
student who fails to comply with the Honor Code and is found guilty of plagiarism or cheating
will automatically receive a final grade of F. I urge you to become familiar with the Honor Code,
a detailed description of which can be found at this website: http://www.georgetown.edu/honor/
A good outside resource for understanding the Honor Code and honest academic practice is:
Lipson, Charles. 2004. Doing Honest Work in College: How to Prepare Citations, Avoid
Plagiarism, and Achieve Real Academic Success. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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REQUIREMENTS
READINGS
There is one required book for this course:
Tannen, Deborah. 2007 [1990]. You Just Dont Understand: Women and Men In Conversation.
New York: Harper.
The book (henceforth YJDU in the syllabus) is available for purchase at the Georgetown
University campus bookstore. All other readings are available as .pdf documents on Blackboard.
They are listed in the same order as on the syllabus, and can be found under the Readings menu
on Blackboard.
Please complete all readings before the class for which they are assigned, as discussion of the
theoretical issues depends on a thorough understanding of the assigned materials.

PARTICIPATION
Active engagement with the literature and participation in the class discussions is a major
component of this course. Therefore, you are required to attend all class meetings. It is
particularly important that you are present on dates when you are presenting, leading a
discussion, or otherwise are partially responsible for the class progressing felicitously.
If you know you will be unable to attend class, please schedule a meeting with me to discuss
your situation as soon as possible.
NOTE: More than one (1) unexcused absence will affect your participation grade and thus your
overall grade in the class. Absences are excused in case of sickness with a doctors note or with a
deans or coachs note explaining the reason for your absence.

ASSIGNMENTS
MEDIA PRESENTATION
This assignment is a 10 minute presentation in which you will discuss an example of gendered
language in the media. Your data can include a photo/photos, an advertisement/logo, a clip from
a movie or TV show, an interview, or a news broadcast. You will present your media example,
discuss what the role of gender is in it, draw links between gender and linguistic practices, and
generate a brief class discussion at the end of your presentation. Where possible, draw links
between your presentation and our class discussions. Also, you may use presentation aids such as
PowerPoint or a handout (though this is not required).
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DATA ANALYSIS PAPER

For the data analysis paper, you will carry out a more structured study of language and gender in
action. For this assignment, you will record and transcribe a conversation, and perform a
discourse analysis of the different linguistic devices and maneuvers at play in the interaction,
highlighting how gender is locally constructed or reflected in the interaction. The assignment
consists of two components. First, you will hand in a draft of your transcript along with a brief
plan for analysis, and receive feedback on the level of detail and your proposed argument. You
should incorporate my feedback as your construct and write up your data analysis paper. Your
paper (4 pages) should have a clear thesis which you argue by linking the discursive practices
you find in the interaction to one or more of the theoretical perspectives discussed in class.
FINAL GROUP PROJECT
For the final project, groups of students will conduct original research in language and gender.
The groups will together construct an original study on any topic relating to the course. The
research may be quantitative or qualitative in nature, depending on the methodology most
suitable for the investigation. Each group will write a project proposal and carry out the study
together. Each group member will produce an individual final paper (8 pages), presenting your
thesis, methodology, findings, and relating your investigation to relevant theories as well as
discussing the implications of your study on the field of language and gender.
NOTE: Citations for all written assignments must follow the guidelines of the most recent
edition of the Citation and Style Guide of the American Psychological Association (APA). If you
are unsure of how to use this citation format, come see me or use the wide variety of tutorials and
guides available online, such as: http://apastyle.apa.org/
GRADE BREAKDOWN AND DUE DATES
Course component

Weight (%) Due dates

Participation
Media Presentation
Data Analysis Paper

10%
10%
25%

Final Group Project

- Proposal
- Group presentation
- Individual paper

55%
10%
15%
30%

Sign-ups Week 2
Transcript due Wednesday, 2/16
Paper due Wednesday, 3/2
Wednesday, 3/30
Wednesday, 4/27 or Monday, 5/2
Tuesday, 5/10

SCHEDULE
NOTE: Changes may occur throughout the semester. Readings for the next class will be
announced at the end of each class.
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WEEK

TOPIC AND READINGS

Week 1

Introduction

W 1/12
Week 2

NOTES

Overview, syllabus (no reading)

Early work in Language and Gender

M 1/17

NO CLASS Martin Luther King Day

W 1/19

Lakoff (1973), Bucholtz and Hall (2006)

Week 3

Language/Gender preliminaries

M 1/24

Ochs (1992)

W 1/26

Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2003)

Week 4

Theoretical Approach 1: Gender as Cultural Difference

M 1/31

Maltz and Borker (1982), YJDU chapter 1-3 and afterword.

W 2/2

Guest Speaker: Professor Deborah Tannen

Week 5

Theoretical Approach 2: Gender as Dominance/Power

M 2/7

OBarr and Atkins (1980), Hall (1995)

W 2/9

Fishman (1983), YJDU chapter 7

Week 6

Theoretical Approach 3: Gender as a Social Construct

M 2/14

Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (1992), Livia and Hall (1997)

W 2/16

Review Communities of Practice

Week 7

Language, gender, and ethnicity

M 2/21

NO CLASS Presidents Day

W 2/23

Bucholtz 1995, Bucholtz 1996

Week 8

TRANSCRIPT DUE

Gender ideologies: Emotion and expressiveness

M 2/28

Holmes (1995), Brown and Levinson (1978)

W 3/2

Lutz (1994), Sattel (1983)

DATA ANALYSIS PAPER DUE

** SPRING BREAK March 5th-13th **

Week 9

Language and masculinities

M 3/14

Kiesling (1997), Pujolar i Cos (1997)

W 3/16

Cameron (1998)

Week 10

Language and sexuality

M 3/21

Cameron and Kulick (2003), ch. 1 & 4

W 3/23

Guest Speaker: Professor Robert Podesva

Podesva (2007)

Week 11

Cross-cultural perspectives on language and gender

M 3/28

Okamoto (2002), Kulick (1998)

W 3/30

Guest Speaker: Sakiko Kajino

Week 12

PROPOSAL DUE

Gender and sociolinguistic variation

M 4/4

Eckert (1989), Schilling-Estes (2002a)

PROJECT MTGS

W 4/6

James (1996)

PROJECT MTGS

Week 13

Language, gender and style

M 4/11

Schilling-Estes (2002b), Coupland (2007)

W 4/13

Rickford and McNair-Knox (1994)

Week 14

Sexist language, taboo and feminist innovations

M 4/18

Ehrlich and King (1994), Armstrong (1997)

W 4/20

Sutton (1995), Miller (2004)

Week 15

Wrapping up

M 4/25

NO CLASS Easter Monday

W 4/27

GROUP PRESENTATIONS

Week 16
M 5/2

Wrapping up
GROUP PRESENTATIONS
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FINAL PAPER due May 10th, 12 noon, by email (an249@georgetown.edu) and a hardcopy in
my department mailbox (ICC 479)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Armstrong, James D. 1997. Homophobic slang as coercive discourse among college students.
In Anna Livia and Kira Hall (eds.), Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender, and Sexuality.
New York: Oxford University Press. p. 326-34.
Brown, Penelope and Steven C. Levinson. 1999. Politeness: Some universals in language usage.
In Adam Jaworski and Nikolas Coupland (eds.) The Discourse Reader. London/New
York: Routledge.
Bucholtz, Mary. 1995. From Mulatta to Mestiza: Language and the Reshaping of Ethnic Identity.
In Kira Hall and Mary Bucholtz (eds.), Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially
Constructed Self. London/New York: Routledge, pp. 351-374
Bucholtz, Mary. 1996. Black Feminist Theory and African American Women's Linguistic
Practice. In Victoria Bergvall, Janet Bing, and Alice Freed (eds.), Rethinking Language
and Gender Research: Theory and Practice. Longman, pp. 267-290
Bucholtz, Mary and Kira Hall. 2006. Gender, Sexuality, and Language. In Keith Brown (ed.)
Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, vol. 2. Oxford: Elsevier.
Cameron, Deborah. 1998. Performing Gender Identity: Young Mens Talk and the Construction
of Heterosexual Masculinity. In Jennifer Coates (ed.) Language and Gender: A Reader.
Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 270-284.
Cameron, Deborah and Don Kulick. 2003. Language and Sexuality. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, selected chapters.
Coupland, Nikolas. 2007. High Performance and Identity Stylisation. In Nikolas Coupland,
Style: Language Variation and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.
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Eckert, Penelope. 1989. The Whole Woman: Sex and Gender Differences in Variation.
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Eckert, Penelope and Sally McConnell-Ginet. 2003. Constructing, deconstructing, and
reconstructing gender. Language and Gender. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press. 9-51.
Eckert, Penelope and Sally McConnell-Ginet. 1992. Think Practically and Look Locally:
Language and Gender as Community-Based Practice. Annual Review of Anthropology
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Ehrlich, Susan and Ruth King. 1994. Feminist Meanings and the (De)politicization of the
Lexicon. Language in Society 23: 59-76.
Fishman, Pamela. 1983. Interaction: The Work Women Do. In Barrie Thorne, Cheris Kramarae,
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Hall, Kira. 1995. Lip Service on the Fantasy Lines. In Kira Hall and Mary Bucholtz (eds.)
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Holmes, Janet. 1995. What a Lovely Tie! Compliments and Positive Politeness Strategies. In
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James, Deborah. 1996. Women, Men, and Prestige Speech Forms: A Critical Review. In Victoria
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Kiesling, Scott. 1997. Power and the Language of Men. In Sally Johnson and Ulrike Hanna
Meinhof (eds.) Language and Masculinity. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 65-85.
Kulick, Don. 1998. Anger, gender, language shift, and the politics of revelation in a Papua
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Practice and Theory, pp. 83-102. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lakoff, Robin. 1973. Language and Womans Place. Language in Society 2: 45-80.
Livia, Anna and Kira Hall. 1997. Its a Girl! Bringing Performativity Back to Linguistics. In
Kira Hall and Anna Livia (eds.) Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender, and Sexuality.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 3-18.
Lutz, Catherine. 1994. Engendered Emotion: Gender, Power, and the Rhetoric of Emotional
Control in American Discourse. In Catherine Lutz and Lila Abu-Lughod (eds.) Language
and the Politics of Emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 69-91.
Maltz, Daniel N. and Ruth A Borker. 1982. A cultural approach to male-female
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Miller, Laura. 2004. Those Naughty Teenage Girls: Japanese Kogals, Slang, and Media
Assessments. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 14: 225-247.
OBarr, William and Bowman Atkins. 1980. Womens Language or Powerless Language? In
Sally McConnell-Ginet, Ruth Borker, and Nelly Furman (eds.) Women and Language in
Literature and Society, pp. 93-110.

Ochs, Elinor. 1992. Indexing gender. In A. Duranti and C. Goodwin (eds.) Rethinking context:
Language as an interactive phenomenon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 335358.
Okamoto, Shigeko. 2002. Ideology and Social Meanings: Rethinking the Relationship between
Language, Politeness, and Gender. In Sarah Benor, Mary Rose, Devyani Sharma, Julie
Sweetland, and Qing Zhang (eds.), Gendered Practices in Language. Stanford, CA: CSLI
Publications, pp. 99-113.
Podesva, Robert. 2007. Phonation type as a stylistic variable: The use of falsetto in constructing
a persona. Journal of Sociolinguistics 11: 478-504.
Pujolar i Cos, Joan. 1997. Masculinities in a Multilingual Setting. In Sally Johnson and Ulrike
Hanna Meinhof (eds.) Language and Masculinity. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 86-106.
Rickford, John R. and Faye McNair-Knox. 1994. Addressee- and topic-influenced style shift: A
quantitative sociolinguistic study. In Douglas Biber and Edward Finegan (Eds.)
Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Register. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Sattel, Jack. 1983. Men, Inexpressiveness, and Power. In Barrie Thorne, Cheris Kramarae, and
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118-124.
Schilling-Estes, Natalie. 2002a. American English Social Dialect Variation and Gender. Journal
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Trudgill, and Natalie Schilling-Estes (eds.) Handbook of Language Variation and
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Sutton, Laurel A. 1995. Bitches and skankly hobags: the place of women in contemporary
slang. In Kira Hall and Mary Bucholtz (eds), Gender Articulated: Language and the
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