Women, Men and Politeness

Janet Holmes

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317898726
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Langues et linguistique
• Categoria: Linguistique

Women, Men and Politeness focuses on the specific issue of the ways in which women and men express politeness verbally.Using a range of evidence and a corpus of data collected largely from New Zealand, Janet Holmes examines the distribution and functions of a range of specific verbal politeness strategies in women's and men's speech and discusses the possible reasons for gender differences in this area. Data provided on interactional strategies, 'hedges and boosters', compliments and apologies, demonstrates ways in which women's politeness patterns differ from men's, with the implications of these different patterns explored, for women in particular, in the areas of education and professional careers.

1 Sex, politeness and language

Are women more polite than men? The question is deceptively simple. The answer, by contrast, is very complicated as this book will illustrate.

When a sociolinguist is asked this question her first reaction is to say 'it depends what you mean by politeness, and it depends which women and which men you are comparing, and it also depends on the context in which they are talking'. Considerations such as these mean that any answer needs to be hedged and qualified in all sorts of ways. But perhaps I should say right at the outset that, when all the necessary reservations and qualifications have been taken into account, I think the answer is 'yes, women are more polite than men'. This book explores some of the evidence for that conclusion.

Sex and language

There is certainly plenty of evidence of differences between women and men in the area of language. It is well established, for instance, that girls are verbally more precocious than boys (see Maccoby and Jacklin 1974; Chambers 1992).

Over many years, women have demonstrated an advantage over men in tests of fluency, speaking, sentence complexity, analogy, listening, comprehension of both written and spoken material, vocabulary, and spelling.

(Chambers 1992: 199)

By contrast

men are more likely to stutter and to have reading disabilities. They are also much more likely to suffer aphasic speech disorders after brain damage . . . Males are also four times more likely to to suffer infantile autism and dyslexia than are females.

(Chambers 1992: 200)

Overall, females are clearly at an advantage in terms of verbal skills, especially initially. But women and men also use language differently, as we will see. And this is where differences in politeness can be observed.

Most women enjoy talk and regard talking as an important means of keeping in touch, especially with friends and intimates. They use language to establish, nurture and develop personal relationships. Men tend to see language more as a tool for obtaining and conveying information. They see talk as a means to an end, and the end can often be very precisely defined - a decision reached, for instance, some information gained, or a problem resolved. These different perceptions of the main purpose of talk account for a wide variety of differences in the way women and men use language, as the different chapters of this book will illustrate.

Some of the patterns which will be described vary according to the context. Men tend to dominate public talking time, for instance, while women often have to work hard to get them to talk in the privacy of their homes. Some of the differences reflect different meanings attached to the same linguistic forms. Women tend to use questions, and phrases such as you know to encourage others to talk. Men tend to use such devices to qualify the certainty or validity of the information they are asserting. Men's reasons for talking often focus on the content of the talk or its outcome, rather than on how it affects the feelings of others. It is women who rather emphasise this aspect of talk. Women compliment others more often than men do, and they apologise more than men do too. All these patterns (and more) will be explored and illustrated in the chapters that follow. They certainly provide evidence that women and men use language differently.

But if we are to assess whether one sex is more polite than the other, we need to define what we mean by politeness. It is important to begin with a clear understanding of what it means to be linguistically polite.

What is politeness?

Example 1¹
Wife lying in bed to husband who is getting dressed.
Amy: What time is it?
Carl: Almost seven o'clock.

Though language serves many functions, there are two - the referential and affective functions - which are particularly pervasive and basic (see Holmes 1982a, 1990a). The interaction in example 1 is primarily referential in its focus. Amy is seeking information which Carl supplies. On other occasions there could be other layers of meaning (e.g. a reproof for waking her so early), but in this case the only purpose of the question was to elicit the time. In other words it is clearly referential in its function.

Example 2
Young man, Alex, to friend contemplating a flat tyre.
What a bastard!

The utterance in example 2, by contrast, is primarily an expression of feelings. It expresses affective rather than referential meaning. No new information is conveyed that is not already apparent to the addressee. What the friend learns is how Alex feels about the situation they are observing. His utterance is clearly affective in its function.

The terminology differs, but this fundamental distinction has been repeatedly identified by linguists analysing many different features of language in a range of contexts (e.g. Brown 1977; Edmondson 1981; James 1983; Schiffrin 1987). The referential function of language is its function in conveying information, facts, or content. The affective function refers to the use of language to convey feelings and reflect social relationships. Almost seven o'clock is a predominantly informative utterance in response to what time is it?, whereas What a bastard! is an utterance with a predominantly affective message. Every utterance must express both functions, though one may be primary.

An utterance is always embedded in a social context which influences its form. The function of a greeting, an apology or a compliment will be predominantly affective or social. But even the form of a radio weather forecast which is predominantly referential in function, conveys information about the assumed social relationship between the presenter and the audience (Bell 1984, 1990). A great deal of the kind of conversation which is popularly labelled 'gossip' illustrates language serving both functions. Gossip conveys information - about people, events, attitudes - as well as serving the cohesive social function of emphasising membership of the in-group and reinforcing solidarity between contributors. In-group slang conveys a proposition (its referential meaning) as well as a social message in context (emphasising the boundaries of the group). Even the referentially orientated language of an exam paper reflects a particular (power-based) social relationship. Every utterance conveys social information about the relationship between the participants in the context in which it is uttered. The analysis of linguistic politeness focuses on this affective or social function of language.

Example 3
Young man knocks on a stranger's front door and says to the elderly man who opens the door.
I'm very sorry to bother you but our car has broken down. Could I possibly use your phone to ring the AA?

The young man in this example expresses himself very politely. He apologises for his intrusion, and his request for assistance is couched in very polite terms. Politeness is an expression of concern for the feelings of others. People may express concern for others' feelings in many ways, both linguistic and non-linguistic. Apologising for an intrusion, opening a door for another, inviting a new neighbour in for a cup of tea, using courtesy titles like sir and madam, and avoiding swear words in conversation with your grandmother could all be considered examples of polite behaviour.

In everyday usage the term 'politeness' describes behaviour which is somewhat formal and distancing, where the intention is not to intrude or impose, as illustrated in example 3 above. Being polite means expressing respect towards the person you are talking to and avoiding offending them. I will be using a broader definition of politeness. In this book 'politeness' will be used to refer to behaviour which actively expresses positive concern for others, as well as non-imposing distancing behaviour. In other words, politeness may take the form of an expression of good-will or camaraderie, as well as the more familiar nonintrusive behaviour which is labelled 'polite' in everyday usage.

This broader definition derives from the work of Goffman (1967) and Brown and Levinson (1987), which describe politeness as showing concern for people's 'face'. The term 'face' is a technical term in this approach. While it is based on the everyday usages 'losing face' and 'saving face', it goes further in treating almost every action (including utterances) as a potential threat to someone's face.

Everybody has face needs or basic wants, and people generally cooperate in maintaining each others' face, and partially satisfying each other's face needs. Politeness involves showing concern for two different kinds of face needs: first, negative face needs or the need not to be imposed upon; and secondly, positive face needs, the need to be liked and admired. Behaviour which avoids imposing on others (or avoids 'threatening their face') is described as evidence of negative politeness, while sociable behaviour expressing warmth towards an addressee is positive politeness behaviour (Brown and Levinson 1987). According to this approach, any utterance which could be interpreted as making a demand or intruding on another person's autonomy can be regarded as a potential face-threatening act. Even suggestions, advice and requests can be regarded as facethreatening acts, since they potentially impede the other person's freedom of action. Polite people avoid obvious face-threatening acts, such as insults and orders; they generally attempt to reduce the threat of unavoidable face-threatening acts such as requests or warnings by softening them, or expressing them indirectly; and they use positively polite utterances such as greetings and compliments where possible.

Using this definition, behaviour such as avoiding telephoning a colleague early on a Sunday morning or apologising for interrupting a speaker are expressions of negative politeness, while sending a birthday card to a friend, or calling a child siueetie, are expressions of positive politeness. As the examples suggest, politeness may be expressed both verbally and non-verbally, but in this book I will be focusing on linguistic politeness, or ways in which people express politeness through their use of language.

I suggested above that women tend to be more polite than men. More specifically, it will become clear in the following chapters that, in general, women are much more likely than men to express positive politeness or friendliness in the way they use language. Women's utterances show evidence of concern for the feelings of the people they are talking to more often and more explicitly than men's do.

Example 4

Helen and John were talking to their friend Harry who is a school principal. Harry was describing the problems that schools face in adjusting to the new competitive environment and describing the increase in stress this involved for teachers. In the course of the conversation he mentioned in passing some severe physical symptoms of stress that he had been experiencing. At this point Helen's attention was entirely directed to concern for his physical health, and as soon as there was an opportunity she asked, 'But are you OK now? Have you seen a doctor?'

John's almost simultaneous comment continued the philosophical discussion about education policy: 'But this is a clear example of intensification of work - it's always the effect of pressure for increased efficiencies'. Harry's response to Helen's concern for his health was very brief and even a little impatient, suggesting her question was irrelevant, and this was reinforced as he picked up the discussion with John. When I questioned them later, both men remembered the incident and both argued that Helen's concern for Harry's health was inappropriate and distracting at that point in the discussion, even though they were all close friends.

This example suggests women and men may have different norms in this area. What each sex considers appropriate or polite in any particular context may differ quite markedly. Why should this be? Why do we find such differences in the way women and men use language?

Why do women and men interact differently?

A variety of explanations has been proposed for gender² differences in language use (see, for example, Henley and Kramarae 1991; Uchida 1992; Noller 1993). Some argue that innate biological differences account for sex-differentiated rates of language acquisition, for instance, as well as for differences in psychological orientation or temperament (e.g. Buffery and Gray 1972; McGlone 1980; McKeever 1987; Gottman and Levenson 1988). Psychological differences account for gender differences in orientation to others. Women are more concerned with making connections; they seek involvement and focus on the interdependencies between people (e.g. Chodorow 1974; Gilligan 1982; Boe 1987). Men are more concerned with autonomy and detachment; they seek independence and focus on hierarchical relationships. If one accepts this view, it is possible to see how such psychological differences might account for differences in the ways women and men use language. A preference for autonomy links more obviously with linguistic strategies that assert control, for example, while a focus on connection relates more obviously to linguistic devices that involve others and emphasise the interpersonal nature of talk.

Other researchers put a great deal of stress on socialisation as an explanatory factor (e.g. Maltz and Borker 1982; Tannen 1987). In many societies, girls and boys experience different patterns of socialisation and this, it is suggested, leads to different ways of using and interpreting language. In modern western societies, most girls and boys operate in single-sex peer groups through an influential period of their childhood, during which they acquire and develop different styles of interaction. The boys' interaction tends to be more competitive and control-orientated, while the girls interact more cooperatively and focus on relative closeness. Gender differences in patterns of language use can be explained by the fact that girls and boys are socialised into different cultures. Each group learns appropriate ways of interacting from their same sex peers - including ways of interacting verbally.

A third explanation attributes gender-based differences in linguistic behaviour to the differential distribution of power in society. Men's greater social power allows them to define and control situations, and male norms predominate in interaction (Zimmerman and West 1975; West and Zimmerman 1987). It has also been suggested that those who are powerless must be polite (Deuchar 1988). So in communities where women are powerless members of a subordinate group, they are likely to be more linguistically polite than the men who are in control. An emphasis on in-group solidarity is a feature of oppressed groups (Brown and Levinson 1987); subordinate groups tend to stress the values and attitudes which distinguish them from those who do...