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pamela fishman
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Pamela Fishman
Pamela Fishman theory
Dominance theory continued
- All the theorists in this field believed it was not down to inferiority of women speakers, but more the dominant style that men had. Similiar to the views of feminists.
- Some ideas from theorists in this category suggest that compared to women, men talk for longer on average, they interrupt more and they control the language system.
- Pamela fishman argues in Interaction: the Work Women Do (1983)
- That conversation between the sexes sometimes fails, not because of anything inherent in the way women talk, but because of how men respond, or don't respond.
- Women ask questions to try to get a response from men, not because of their personality weaknesses.
Experiments
Dominance theory
The dominance theory states the power imbalance between men and women is due to men being dominant and controlling in their interactions.
Pamela Fishman conducted an experiment and involved listening to fifty-two hours of pre-recorded conversations between young American couples. Five out of the six subjects were attending graduate school; all subjects were either feminists or sympathetic to the women’s movement, were white, between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five. Fishman listened to recordings and concentrated on two characteristics common in women’s dialect, including tag questions for example ”you know?”
Fishman focuses on some of the features of women’s language considered by Lakoff but interprets them in a very different way.
For example, she asserts that questions do not signal uncertainty or powerlessness, but are instead one of a variety of tools used by women as a means of keeping a conversation going.