A study investigated whether, when second language learners engage in second-language interaction, opportunities to comprehend and produce the second language are conditioned by their gender and/or the correspondence between their gender and that of the interlocutor. The interactions of a native speaker (NS) and a non-native speaker (NNS) in same- and cross-gender dyads were analyzed in four information exchange tasks. Subjects were 12 male and 20 female native speakers of American English and 17 male and 15 female native speakers of Japanese learning English as a Second Language, all at the low-intermediate level. Results did not show a clear-cut role for NNS gender as a discriminating factor in frequency of negotiated interaction and its associated opportunities for comprehension of input, feedback on production, and modification of output. What emerged from testing of hypotheses was a complex interaction of both gender and task type in providing and inhibiting these opportunities. The framework for coding data on negotiated interactions and a diagram of one of the tasks are appended, and a 52-item bibliography is included. (MSE) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *****************************t*****************************************

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Robin Lakoff proposed that women are more likely than men to use tentative speech forms (e.g., hedges, qualifiers/disclaimers, tag questions, intensifiers). Based on conflicting results from research testing Lakoff’s claims, a meta-analysis of studies testing gender differences in tentative language was conducted. The sample included 29 studies with 39 independent samples and a combined total sample of 3,502 participants. Results revealed a statistically significant but small effect size (d .23), indicating that women were somewhat more likely than men to use tentative speech. In addition, methodological moderators (opera-tional definition, observation length, recording method, author gender, and year of study) and contextual moderators (gender composition, familiarity, student status, group size, conversational activity, and physical setting) were tested. Effect sizes were significantly larger in studies that (a) observed longer (vs. shorter) conversations, (b) sampled undergraduates (vs. other adults), (c) observed groups (vs. dyads), and (d) occurred in research labs (vs. other settings). The moderator effects are interpreted as supporting proposals that women’s greater likelihood of tentative language reflects interpersonal sensitivity rather than a lack of assertiveness. In addition, the influence of self-presentation concerns in the enactment of gender-typed behavior is discussed.

Bilingualism at Newcastle. I thank the audience at this conference for helpful comments. I am also indebted to Ingrid Piller, Adrian Blackledge, and Marya Teutsch-Dwyer for discussion and criticisms of earlier versions of this article. Any errors or inaccuracies are strictly my own. The purpose of the present paper is to theorize the relationship between bilin-gualism and gender within a feminist poststructuralist framework. I suggest that all language contact phenomena, including bilingualism, acquire different meanings in different contexts and can be linked to gender only indirectly. In some contexts, where bilingual skills are highly valued, they may become a means for one group to dominate the other, while in others bilingualism and cultural mediation are constructed as “servile ” occupations and assigned to the less powerful group. Depending on gender relations in minority and majority communities, the values and benefits of monolingualism and bilingualism may be different for men and women. In some situations, knowledge of the majority language would be useful to everyone in the community, in others, the majority language is more useful for men than for women, and yet in others, it is women who profit most by shifting to the majority language. In sum, it is argued that it is not the essential nature of femininity or masculinity that defines the patterns of bilingualism, language maintenance or language shift, but rather the nature of gender, social, and economic relations, and ideologies of language and gender that mediate these relations. 1.

This study explores whether third graders verbalize gender differences in dominance in mixed- and same-sex interaction. We tape-recorded the conversations of 43 pairs of Caucasian working-class children playing checkers in same- or mixed-sex conditions. Children appear to develop gender-differentiated speech styles. Boys brag and insult their opponents in both mixed- and same-sex conditions more often than do girls. Girls talk off-topic, interrupt, and laugh more in same-sex dyads than do boys or either, boys or girls in mixed-sex dyads. Gender differences in same-sex interaction were reflected in mixed-sex interaction. Although boys account for a larger proportion of direct requests and self-promoting speech in mixed-sex encounters, we failed to uncover substantial asymmetry in mixed-sex interaction, indicating that boys do not conversationally dominate girls in third grade. However, children were less mutually engaged in mixed-sex than in same-sex interactions, and girls especially showed less positive affect in mixed-sex dyads.

ABSTRACT In a society, gender ideology is created and refl ected in multiple ways. Among the myriad ways, language and culture play great role in creating and refl ecting gendered cul-ture in a society. This paper examines the representation of women in Oromo folk-proverbs and folk-religion, and analyses the position of women in the traditional Oromo cultural prac-tices. Despite all the barriers of patriarchal power, Oromo women had an infl uential position in the past although this has now declined following the decline in the people’s indigenous cultural practices. Oromo proverbs about womanhood were categorized into cultural stereo-types. Although the majority of the sample proverbs were basically disparaging, the seman-tics were shown to depend to a large extent on the complex whole of their context of use. The implications were also presented and discussed.

Previous research identifies a number of factors associated with a socially stigmatized speech style known initially as "women’s language " and subsequently as "powerless language. " This study examines the effects of speaker sex, socio-economic status, ability, communication apprehension, rigidity, and question type on the incidence of 16 style markers and on verbosity in simulated job interviews. Results reveal limited evidence of the impact of social and psychological factors, but pervasive potency for question type. Open questions constitute an element of interaction structure that engenders expressions of tentativeness and uncertainty. Under these circumstances, it is more reasonable to change dysfunctional linguistic stereotypes than common, contextually induced language behaviors. Language is at once a shaper of social reality and a reflection of its underlying dimen-sions. Lakoff’s (1973) work identifying a configuration of American speech patterns she termed &dquo;women’s language&dquo; (WL) emphasized the latter function, but bore implications for speakers altering their social realities by altering the language they use. Lakoff claimed that women use language that blunts assertions, trivializes content, and projects a subordinate position. According to this view, WL reflects the dominant view that

ABSTRACT Africa is a continent known for its rich oral arts. Proverbs are the most widely and commonly used in the continent’s long-standing tradition of oral arts. Among such oral arts, the African proverbs have been facilitating the transmission of knowledge and conven-tions from generation to generation. This paper analyzes the role of African proverbs in creating and perpetuating gendered culture. The author analyzed the African sexist proverbs within the post-modern theory of power relationships between social groups, and the role of language to mediate this relationship, to explore the implications of gender stereotypes.

ABSTRACT Africa is a continent known for its rich oral arts. Proverbs are the most widely and commonly used in the continent’s long-standing tradition of oral arts. Among such oral arts, the African proverbs have been facilitating the transmission of knowledge and conven-tions from generation to generation. This paper analyzes the role of African proverbs in creating and perpetuating gendered culture. The author analyzed the African sexist proverbs within the post-modern theory of power relationships between social groups, and the role of language to mediate this relationship, to explore the implications of gender stereotypes.

Overview of chapter This chapter seeks to establish the significance of workplace meetings as a critical site where leadership potential is exhibited and evaluated. Yet, it will be argued, men and