Diana Hornoiu

Language and Gender. An Analysis of Conversational Discourse in English and

Romanian

Following Putnam, a stereotype is defined as a set of properties which are

thought to be possessed by the objects that lie in the extension of the term and
which everyone speaking the language in question must know in order to use the
term correctly. /23
What is of central importance is that it is the use of the stereotype that enables
efficient communication. Since the speaker knows the addressee has this
stereotype ( a stereotype that the speaker shares with the addressee), he
assumes the latter will draw the corresponding conclusions and he intends the
latter to draw those conclusions. /23
Thus, a stereotype represents an initial schematic instance of knowledge,
whereas a prototype has a generally accepted perennial value. /23
In English-speaking communities there has been a broad consensus about the
characteristics presumed to be typical of each group. Men have been described
as leaders- as dominant, aggressive, independent, and competitive. Women have
been described as emotional, subjective and aware of the feelings of others.
Male speakers are perceived as being louder, more forceful, dominating, and
aggressive, whereas female speakers are believed to be more friendly, open, selfrevealing, emotional, and polite, and to show more concern for the listener.
Women are described as consistent users of indirect influence strategies and tag
questions, whereas men are thought to display their dominant, competitive
nature by interrupting their interlocutor more often than women do.
Some gender stereotypes have been confirmed by empirical research. For
instance, the stereotypical belief that women use more grammatical correct
sentences is confirmed by quantitative sociolinguistic studies carried out in
various English-speaking communities. Regardless their age and social class
membership, women tend to use more standard forms than men in both formal
and informal styles of speech.
Stereotypes, however, are not always accurate depictions of the group members
to which they apply. 25
At a broad level, the content of gender role stereotypes ascribes an agentic
quality to men and a communal quality to women. Thus we could argue that the
attributes agentic and communal label two stereotypical types of behaviour
associated with men and women respectively. As the literature reviewed so far
shows, the following features go into the make-up of the agentic stereotype:
-

Self-assertion
Dominance
Aggression
Forcefulness
Competitiveness
Independence from other people

The communal stereotype for gender-appropriate behaviour, on the other hand,

emphasizes traits such as:
-

Solidarity
Showing concern for the welfare of other people
Being friendly
Being emotionally expressive
Politeness
Self-disclosure 26 27

These agentic and communal stereotypical traits of mens and womens linguistic
behaviour are manifest during interaction at the level of conversational
strategies.
Deviations from agentic and communal stereotypical behaviour have been shown
to influence us in subtle and insidious ways. Generally, the further women depart
from gender role expectations the more negatively they are evaluated. 27
Women who take on gender-opposite linguistic behaviours are perceived as more
competent, but at less socially attractive than women who engage in behaviours
more typical of traditional sex role norms. For men, gender-opposite behaviours
may increase perceived social attractiveness and at the same time make little
difference in terms of perceived competence. These perceptions occur regardless
of the perceivers own sex.
Thus, gender stereotypes have both a descriptive and a prescriptive o normative
component. Not only do they indicate what group members are like, but also
what group members should be like- that is, what behaviour is appropriate for
members of the group. 28
As Eagly (1987:9) pointed out in her structural theory of social roles, men will be
expected to be more agentic and task-oriented, women to be more communal
and emotionally expressive in accordance with their social roles. 33