Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-t27h7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-22T03:03:16.571Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Discourse Competence: Or How to Theorize Strong Women Speakers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Sara Mills
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In feminist linguistic analysis, women's speech has often been characterized as “powerless” or as “over-polite”; this paper aims to challenge this notion and to question the eliding of a feminine speech style with femaleness. In order to move beyond a position which judges speech as masculine or feminine, which are stereotypes of behavior, I propose the term “discourse competence” to describe speech where cooperative and competitive strategies are used appropriately.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 7 , Issue 2: Special Issue: Philosophy and Language , Spring 1992 , pp. 4 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Black, Marie and Coward, Rosalind. 1990. Linguistic, social and sexual relations: A review of Dale Spender's Man made language. In The feminist critique of language, ed. Cameron, Deborah. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope and Levinson, Stephen. 1978. Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena. In Questions and politeness, ed. Goody, Esther N.Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender trouble. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cameron, Deborah. 1985. Feminism and linguistic theory. London and New York: Macmillan.10.1007/978-1-349-17727-1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, Deborah, McAHnden, Fiona, and O'Leary, Kathy. 1988. Lakoff in context: The social and linguistic functions of tag‐ questions. In Women in their speech communities, ed. Coates, Jennifer and Cameron, Deborah. London and New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Cameron, Deborah, ed. 1990. The feminist critique of language. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Coates, Jennifer. 1986. Women, men, and language. London and New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Coates, Jennifer. 1988. Gossip revisited: Language in all‐female groups. In Women in their speech communities, ed. Coates, Jennifer and Cameron, Deborah. London and New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Coates, Jennifer and Cameron, Deborah eds., 1988. Women in their speech communities. London and New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Coward, Rosalind. 1983. Patriarchal precedents: Sexuality and social relations. London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Diamond, Irene and Quinby, Lee eds., 1988. Feminism and Foucault: Reflections on resistance. Boston: Northeastern University Press.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 1989. Language and power. London and New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Feminist Review. 1989. The past before us: Twenty years of feminism. No. 31.Google Scholar
Fishman, Pamela. 1983. Interaction: The work women do. In Language gender and society, ed. Thome, Barrie, Henley, Nancy and Kramarae, Cheris. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1972. On face work: An analysis of ritual elements in social interaction. in vCommunication in face to face interaction, ed. Laver, ?. and Hutchinson, ?.Harmmondswarth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Grabrucker, Marianne. 1988. There's a good girl. London: Women's Press.Google Scholar
Holmes, J. 1984. Hedging your bets and sitting on the fence: Some evidence for hedges as support structures. In Te Reo 27: 47–62.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Cora. 1986. Sea changes: Culture and Feminism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Kramarae, Cheris, ed. 1980. The voices and words of women and men. Oxford: Pergamon.Google Scholar
Kramarae, Cheris and Treichler, Paula. 1985. A feminist dictionary. London and Boston: Pandora.Google Scholar
Lakoff, Robin. 1975. Language and woman's place. New York: Harper Colophon.Google Scholar
McConnell‐Ginet, Sally, ed. 1980. Women and language in literature and society. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Mills, Jane. 1989. Womanwords. London and New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Mills, Sara. 1982. Woman and politeness. Master's thesis, University of Birmingham.Google Scholar
Mills, Sara. 1987. The male sentence. Language and communication 7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mills, Sara. 1991a. Negotiating discourses of femininity. Paper presented at Centre for Women's Studies. York University, York, UK.Google Scholar
Mills, Sara. 1991b Discourses of difference: Women's travel writing and cobnialism. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mills, Sara, et al. 1989. Feminist readings/Feminists reading. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.Google Scholar
William, O'Barr and Atkins, B.‘Women's language’ or ‘powerless language’. In Women and language in literature and society, ed. McConnell‐Ginet, Sally, Borker, Ruth, and Furman, Nelly. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Palmer, Paulina. 1989. Contemporary women's fiction: Narrative practice and feminist theory. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Dorothy. 1990. Texts, facts, and femininity: Exploring the relations of ruling. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Smith, Philip. 1985. Language, the sexes and society. Oxford and New York: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Spender, Dale. 1979. Man‐made language. London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah. 1990. You just don't understand: Women and men in conversation. London: Virago; New York: Morrow.Google Scholar
Walby, Sylvia. 1991. Theorizing patriarchy. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Webster, Wendy. 1990. Not a man to match her. London: Women's Press.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, Don and West, Candace. 1975. Sex roles, interruptions and silence in conversation. In Language and sex: Difference and dominance, ed. Thorrie, Barrie and Henley, Nancy. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.Google Scholar