研究生综合英语.ppt

Unit 9 You Are What You SayU9Additional Information for the Teachers ReferenceText You Are What You SayWarm-up ActivitiesFurther ReadingWriting SkillsAdditional WorkUnit 9 You Are What You SayWarm-up ActivitiesWarm-up 1How is womens language different from mens?Summary the main features of womens language with examples you can think of.Do you think such pairs of words as“bachelor/spinster”and“widow/widower”are real linguistic parallels?What are the different connotations of members of each pair?Can you think of examples of euphemism in the Chinese language and culture?1.2.3.Unit 9 You Are What You Say Robin Lakoff is an American author and professor of linguistics.She was born in Brooklyn,New York and attended Radcliffe College,Indiana University,and Harvard University for her B.A.,M.A.,and Ph.D.respectively.Since 1972,she has taught in the Linguistics Department at the University of California,Berkeley.She has written Language and Womans Place(1975)and coauthored Face Value:The Politics of Beauty(1984).In her most recent book,The Language War(2000),Lakoff analyzes the 1990s backlash,primarily by white men,to the previous decades“politically correct”speech movement.AIFTTR1Additional Information for the Teachers Reference1.Robin LakoffUnit 9 You Are What You SayAIFTTR2Women use more“fancy”color terms such as“mauve”and“beige”.Women use less powerful curse words.Women use more powerful intensifiers such as“terrible”and“awful”.Women use more tag questions.Women use more statement questions like“Dinner will be ready at seven oclock?”(with a rising intonation at the end)Womens linguistic behavior is more indirect and,hence,more polite than mens.2.Women Register in the language1)2)3)4)5)6)Unit 9 You Are What You SayText You Are What You SayNotesIntroduction to the Author and the ArticlePhrases and ExpressionsExercisesMain Idea of the TextUnit 9 You Are What You SayMIOTT1Main Idea of the Text You Are What You Say originally appeared in Ms.magazine in 1974 and was later included in her most famous work,a collection of essays entitled Language and Womens Place(1975).Based on Lakoffs anecdotal observations,it purports to illustrate the gender-based sociolinguistic behavior such as female submissiveness,based on use of tag questions to“avoid commitment or conflict with hearer by seeking confirmation”,a move that also signals lack of self-confidence.With her full awareness of womens social status and numerous objective examples prevalent in everyday English,the author draws an acute portrayal of how the female is verbally oppressed and ridiculed in a male-centered world.Unit 9 You Are What You SayIntroduction to the Author and the articleIntroduction to the Author and the Article Robin Lakoff is an American author and professor of linguistics.She was born in Brooklyn,New York and attended Radcliffe College,Indiana University,and Harvard University for her B.A.,M.A.,and Ph.D.respectively.Since 1972,she has taught in the Linguistics Department at the University of California,Berkeley.She has written Language and Womens Place(1975)and coauthored Face Value:The Politics of Beauty(1984).In her most recent book,The Language War(2000),Lakoff analyzes the 1990s backlash,primarily by white men,to the previous decades“politically correct”speech movement.Unit 9 You Are What You SayIntroduction to the Author and the article2 You Are What You Say originally appeared in Ms.magazine in 1974 and was later included in her most famous work,a collection of essays entitled Language and Womens Place(1975).Based on Lakoffs anecdotal observations,it purports to illustrate the gender-based sociolinguistic behavior such as female submissiveness,based on use of tag questions to“avoid commitment or conflict with hearer by seeking confirmation,”a move that also signals lack of self-confidence.It sparked decades of interest in and empirical research on the sociolinguistics of gender,some of which showed the relation between linguistic form and communicative function to be more complicated than one-to-one.Unit 9 You Are What You SayPart2_T1 “Womens language”is that pleasant,euphemistic,never-aggressive way of talking we learned as little girls.Cultural bias was built into the language we were allowed to speak,the subjects we were allowed to speak about,and the ways we were spoken of.Having learned our linguistic lesson well,we go out in the world,only to discover that we are communicative cripples damned if we do,and damned if we dont.Robin LakoffYou Are What You SayTextUnit 9 You Are What You SayPart2_T2 If we refuse to talk“like a lady,”we are ridiculed and criticized for being unfeminine.(“She thinks like a man”is,at best,a left-handed compliment.)If we do learn all the fuzzy headed,unassertive language of our sex,we are ridiculed for being unable to think clearly,unable to take part in a serious discussion,and therefore unfit to hold a position of power.It doesnt take much of this for a woman to begin feeling she deserves such treatment because of inadequacies in her own intelligence and education.Unit 9 You Are What You SayPart2_T3 “Womens language”shows up in all levels of English.For example,women are encouraged and allowed to make far more precise discriminations in naming colors than men do.Words like mauve,beige,lavender,and so on,are unremarkable in a womans active vocabulary,but largely absent from that of most men.I know of no evidence suggesting that women actually see a wider range of colors than men do.It is simply that fine discriminations of this sort are relevant to womens vocabularies,but not to mens;to men,who control most of the interesting affairs of the world,such distinctions are trivial irrelevant.Unit 9 You Are What You SayPart2_T4 In the area of syntax,we find similar gender-related peculiarities of speech.There is one construction,in particular,that women use conversationally far more than men:the tag question.A tag is midway between an outright statement and a yes-no question;it is less assertive than the former,but more confident than the latter.A flat statement indicates confidence in the speakers knowledge and is fairly certain to be believed;a question indicates a lack of knowledge on some point and implies that the gap in the speakers knowledge can and will be remediedUnit 9 You Are What You SayPart2_T5by an answer.For example,if,at a Little League game,I have had my glasses off,I can legitimately ask someone else:“Was the player out at third?”A tag question,being intermediate between statement and question,is used when the speaker is stating a claim,but lacks full confidence in the truth of that claim.So if I say,“Is Joan here?”I will probably not be surprised if my respondent answers,“no”;but if I say,“Joan is here,isnt she?”instead,chances are I am already biased in favor of a positive answer,wanting only confirmation.I still want a response,but I have enough knowledge(or think I have)Unit 9 You Are What You SayPart2_T6to predict that response.A tag question,then,might be thought of as a statement that doesnt demand to be believed by anyone but the speaker,a way of giving leeway,of not forcing the addressee to go along with the views of the speaker.Another common use of the tag question is in small talk when the speaker is trying to elicit conversation:“Sure is hot here,isnt it?”But in discussing personal feelings or opinions,only the speaker normally has any way of knowing the correct answer.Sentences such as“I have a headache,dont I?”are clearlyUnit 9 You Are What You SayPart2_T7ridiculous.But there are other examples where it is the speakers opinions,rather than perceptions,for which corroboration is sought,as in“The situation in Southeast Asia is terrible,isnt it?”While there are,of course,other possible interpretations of a sentence like this,one possibility is that the speaker has a particular answer in mind “yes”or“no”but is reluctant to state it baldly.This sort of tag question is much more apt to be used by women than by men in conversation.Why is this the case?Unit 9 You Are What You SayPart2_T8 The tag question allows a speaker to avoid commitment,and thereby avoid conflict with the addressee.The problem is that,by so doing,speakers may also give the impression of not really being sure of themselves,or looking to the addressee for confirmation of their views.This uncertainty is reinforced in more subliminal ways,too.There is a peculiar sentence intonation-pattern,used almost exclusively by women,as far as I know,which changes a declarative answer into a question.The effect of using the rising inflection typical of a yes-no question is to imply that the speaker is seeking confirmation,even though Unit 9 You Are What You SayPart2_T9the speaker is clearly the only one who has the requisite information,which is why the question was put to her in the first place:(Q)When will dinner be ready?(A)Oh.around six oclock.?It is as though the second speaker were saying,“Six oclock if thats okay with you,if you agree.”The person being addressed is put in the position of having to provide confirmation.One likely consequence of this sort of speech-pattern in a woman is that,often unbeknownst to herself,the Unit 9 You Are What You SayPart2_T10speaker builds a reputation of tentativeness,and others will refrain from taking her seriously or trusting her with any real responsibilities,since she“cant make up her mind,”and“isnt sure of herself.”Such idiosyncrasies may explain why womens language sounds much more“polite”than mens.It is polite to leave a decision open,not impose your mind,or views,or claims,on anyone else.So a tag question is a kind of polite statement,in that it does not force agreement or belief on the addressee.In the same way a request is a polite command,in that it does notUnit 9 You Are What You SayPart2_T11force obedience on the addressee,but rather suggests something be done as a favor to the speaker.A clearly stated order implies a threat of certain consequences if it is not followed,and even more impolite implies that the speaker is in a superior position and able to enforce the order.By couching wishes in the form of a request,on the other hand,a speaker implies that if the request is not carried out,only the speaker will suffer:noncompliance cannot harm the addressee.So the decision is really left up to the addressee.The distinction becomes clear in these examples:Unit 9 You Are What You SayPart2_T12 Close the door.Please close the door.Will you close the door?Will you please close the door?Wont you close the door?In the same ways as words and speech patterns used by women undermine womens image,those used to describe women make matters even worse.Often a word may be used of both men and women(and perhaps of things as well);but when it is applied to women,it assumes a special meaning that,by implication rather than outright assertion,is derogatory to women as a group.Unit 9 You Are What You SayPart2_T13 The use of euphemisms has this effect.A euphemism is a substitute for a word that has acquired a bad connotation by association with something unpleasant or embarrassing.But almost as soon as the new word comes into common usage,it takes on the same old bad connotations,since feelings about the things or people referred to are not altered by a change of name;thus new euphemisms must be constantly found.There is one euphemism for woman still very much alive.The word,of course,is lady.Lady had a masculine counterpart,namely gentleman,occasionally shortened to gent.But for some reason lady is much commoner than gent(leman).Unit 9 You Are What You SayPart2_T14 The decision to use lady rather than woman or vice versa,may considerably alter the sense of the sentence,as the following examples show:(a)A woman(lady)I know is a dean at Berkeley.(b)A woman(lady)I know makes amazing things out of shoelaces and old boxes.The use of lady in(a)imparts a frivolous,or nonserious,tone to the sentence:the matter under discussion is not one of great moment.Similarly,in(b),using lady here would suggest that the speaker considered the“amazing things”not to beUnit 9 You Are What You Sayserious art,but merely a hobby or an aberration.If woman isused,she might be a serious sculptor.To say a lady doctor is very condescending,since no one ever says gentleman doctor or even man doctor.For example,mention in The San Francisco Chronicle of January 31,1972,of Madalyn Murray OHair as the lady atheist reduces her position to that of scatterbrained eccentric.Even woman atheist is scarcely defensible:sex is irrelevant to her philosophical position.Part2_T15Unit 9 You Are What You SayPart2_T16 Many women argue that,on the other hand,lady carries with it overtones recalling the age of chivalry:conferring exalted stature on the person so referred to.This makes the term seem polite at first,but we must also remember that these implications are perilous:they suggest that a“lady”is helpless,and cannot do things by herself.Lady can also be used to infer frivolousness,as in titles of organizations.Those that have a serious purpose(not merely that of enabling“the ladies”to spend time with one another)cannot use the word lady in their titles,but less serious onesUnit 9 You Are What You SayPart2_T17may.Compare the Ladies Auxiliary of a mens group,or the Thursday Evening Ladies Browning and Garden Society with Ladies Liberation or Ladies Strike for Peace.What is curious about this split is that lady is in origin a euphemism a substitute that puts a better face on something people find uncomfortable for woman.What kind of euphemism is it that subtly denigrates the people to whom it refers?Perhaps lady functions as a euphemism for woman because it does not contain the sexual implications present in woman:it is not“embarrassing”in that way.If this is so,weUnit 9 You Are What You SayPart2_T18may expect that,in the future,lady will replace woman as the primary word for the human female,since woman will have become too blatantly sexual.That this distinction is already made in some contexts at least is shown in the following examples,where you can try replacing woman with lady:(a)Shes only twelve,but shes already a woman.(b)After ten years in jail,Harry wanted to find a woman.(c)Shes my woman,see,so dont mess around with her.Unit 9 You Are What You SayPart2_T19 Another common substitute for woman is girl.One seldom hears a man past the age of adolescence referred to as a boy,save in expressions like“going out with the boys,”which are meant to suggest an air of adolescent frivolity and irresponsibility.But women of all ages are“girls”:one can have a man not a boy Friday,but only a girl never a woman or even a lady Friday;women have girlfriends,but men do not in a nonsexual sense have boyfriends.It may be that this use of girl is euphemistic in the same way the use of lady is:in stressing the idea of immaturity,it removesUnit 9 You Are What You Saythe sexual connotation lurking in woman.Girl brings to mind irresponsibility:you dont send a girl to do a woma