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GENDER AND POLITENESS
Gender based differences in language use have been discussed and researched in a
lot of studies. So have the studies in politeness. The stereotypes of men’s and women’s
speech have been argued both for and against the general belief. However, the general
findings are that men and women speak using different contents and have different
purposes. Men’s speech is usually characterized as competition oriented, decisive, direct,
rational, logical, aggressive, dominant, and impersonal, while women’s is receptive,
indirect, emotional, conciliatory, and polite. These characteristics of men’s and women’s
speech are similar to the findings in cultural studies, i.e. that feminine cultures usually
emphasize interpersonal cooperation, friendly atmosphere, and sympathy for the weak,
while masculine cultures emphasize achievement, recognition, and challenges. Hence,
women are more affiliative by using communication to emphasize their relationship and
interaction with others, and men are more instrumental. (Kim & Breshahan, 1996)
In terms of politeness, there have also been countless of studies done. A thorough
investigation on politeness was done by Brown and Levinson (1987). They claimed that
there are certain social principles that guide human communication. They argued that as
we communicate with others, we are constantly aware of our own and others’ face and
that we cooperate to maintain one another’s face. Because face can be lost, maintained or
enhanced through interaction, we attend to it consciously or unconsciously in all forms of
communication. Thus we attempt to soften the effects of our face threatening acts (FTA)
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by using a variety of politeness strategies. Brown and Levinson claimed that to select
strategies, we access the seriousness of an FTA by taking into consideration interpersonal
factors such as social distance (D), power (P), perceived rank or degree of imposition (R),
and a complext host of other audience factors such as affect.
Scollon and Scollon (1995) maintained that there is no faceless communication.
They discussed face as having two sides: involvement and independence. Both produce
inherently paradoxical situation in all communications. One shows involvement by taking
the point of view of other participants, by supporting them in the views they take, while
the independence aspect of face emphasizes the individuality of the participants. They
believe that it is best to consider more talk, volubility, to be an involvement strategy, and
less talk, taciturnity, to be an independence strategy. When this idea is connected to
gender discourses they found that women tend to be voluble in small and more intimate
groups, taciturn in large and more formal or public situations. Men tend to be more
voluble in those more public contexts and fall into taciturnity or monologues in situations
of intimacy. This idea was also discussed by other linguists such as Deborah Tannen
(1994), Robin Lakoff (1973), Jennifer Coates (1993), Janet Holmes (1994) and many
others.
Since the scope of the discussion in gender and politeness is so broad, in this
paper I will only discuss some researches that have been done in the area of gender and
politeness, mainly in addressing terms, complimenting, and apologizing. Hopefully the
researches that have been done in English in this field can be applied and compared with
how Indonesian speakers carry out these speech acts and how they are different or
similar between men and women cross culturally.
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Terms of address
Brown and Gilman (1960) discussed the dimensions of power and solidarity as
the two main factors in explaining the different usage of pronouns in addressing terms. A
person may be said to have power over another when he /she is able to control the
behavior of the other, while solidarity refers to both persons who have roughly equal
power. They proposed the use of symbols T and V (from the Latin tu and vos) as generic
designation for a familiar and a polite pronoun of any language. When power relationship
occurs, it is usually nonreciprocal. The superior says T and receives V.
According to Brown and Gilman (p 265) the non-reciprocal power is associated
with a relatively static society in which power is distributed by birthright and is not
subject to much distribution. The static social structure was reasoned that each person had
each own properly appointed place and is not to wish to rise above it. The reciprocal
solidarity is grown with social mobility and equalitarian ideology. Hence, the society
where there is static social structure, the use of non reciprocal T and V can be found
between superior and subordinate, teacher and student, older sibling to younger sibling,
male to female, and husband to wife. Meanwhile the development of societies with an
equalitarian ideology acted against the non reciprocal power and in favor of solidarity.
However, there is still a question to be asked whether the equalitarian ideal is expressed
in a universal T or a universal V. They maintained that the ancient upper class preferred
the use of V while the revolutionists preferred T.
The T/V systems are also discussed by Trudgill (1995:86ff) and Romaine
(1994:149ff). Trudgill maintains that where power was involved in a meeting between
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two individuals, the pronoun usage was non-reciprocal. Those with power use T to those
without, but received V back. However, while T-V usage remained in discourse between
unequals, equals now address each other as either T or V, depending on the degree of
intimacy and solidarity involved. This presumably was caused by the gradual rise of
democratic egalitarian ideology. Sometimes this may cause some problem though, like
when Romaine relates a cartoon where a man addresses a woman as V, but uses the verb
form appropriate for the T form.
In connection with gender, Nessa Wolfson (1989) discussed an interesting
evidence in the use of terms of endearment. Like Brown and Gilman, Wolfson also stated
that non reciprocal address forms carry the implication that the addressee is somehow
subordinate to the speaker. In public places, women whose names are not known to the
speaker are usually addressed in one of three ways: ma’am to show respect, no address
form (zero form), or by the so called terms of endearment such as dear, hon, sweetheart,
or doll. (p 169) The terms of endearment is used to males only by older women to much
younger men, but women are often addressed with terms of endearment, no matter what
their age or status. The use of terms of endearment, according to Wolfson, is often nonreciprocal. Thus it can be a sign that females are generally held in less respect than are
males, especially in American society. (p 170) The non-reciprocal use of any form of
address can often mean that the person who receives it cannot return it unless she or he
intentionally breaks the social conventions. Hence, the fact that many males use terms of
endearment to females is a clear message of dominance and power since the man is aware
that the woman who is addressed with a term of endearment is not free to reciprocate by
addressing him similarly. (p 171)
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Thorne and Henley (1975) discussed the use of titles used for women and men.
They observed that the title Lord is always reserved as a title for deities and certain
Englishmen, but any woman may call herself a lady. Sir and Master seem to have been
used through time as titles of courtesy for men. However, Madam, Miss and Mistress
have all derogated, becoming euphemisms respectively for “a mistress of a brothel,” “a
prostitute,” and “ a woman with whom a man habitually fornicates.” Female kinship
terms have also been used in derogated connotation whereas male kinship terms stay the
same. Niece is a euphemism for “a priest’s illegitimate daughter or concubine,” aunt was
first to mean “an old woman” and then “a bawd or a prostitute,” and sister is a term for “a
disguise whore” in the seventeenth century. (pp 65-66) Thorne and Henley maintained
that all the terms originated as positive designations for women gradually degenerated to
become negative in the milder instances and abusive in the extreme. However, a
degeneration of terms for men has not occurred. Words denoting boys and young men
have failed to undergo the pejoration so common with terms for women.(p 69)
The cause for the degeneration of terms designating to women was suggested by
Stephen Ullman (1967) as associated with a contaminating concept, euphemism, and
prejudice. The term woman was avoided since it acquired the meaning mistress. Female
is considered degrading and indelicate.(p 231) Even a supposed to be neutral term Ms,
which is now used to address a woman to replace Miss or Mrs., still does not denote an
independent meaning. As it is meant for either a married or a single woman, the meaning
therefore is still tied to how her relationship with a man is. Romaine (1994:127) argues
that a woman’s marrital status is irrelevant and is marked only for men’s convenience.
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Practices such as taking a man’s family name or using titles such as Miss or Mrs. Are
symbolic of women’s position as men’s property and represent their status as sex objects.
The study of differential terms of address and reference for women and men and
the study of terms of endearment to women, according to Wofson (1989: 171) are only a
few manifestations of the often unwanted intimacies that women are forced to accept.
However unconsciously used, they are transparent and easily noticed. Romaine
(1994:108) also agrees with the fact that women have been especially sensitive to gender
differences in naming practices and forms of address. She relates an experience when she
was first teaching in Britain. Males and females were indicated on student lists by the use
of the initials and last names for men, while women had the title Miss (or Mrs.) added to
their names. Even when her colleague explained to her that it was done so that they
would know which students were males and females, he could not explain why women
were singled out to have titles indicating their marital status.
This problem is also seen in the use of titles such as Professor or Doctor. Some
professional women have the option of using their titles to avoid being addressed as Miss
or Mrs. However, there is still a tendency that the terms Miss, Mrs., or Ms. are still asked
to be embedded in the name, whereas men do not have this problem. The terms surgeon,
chairman, salesman, steward, manager, and other generic nouns have also shown a bias
in the usage of the supposedly sex neutral terms. Even when the term person is used to
replace the generic man, it has been shown that women are much more likely than men to
be referred to as a chairperson or salesperson.
Many Asian languages have more complex systems in the use of terms of address.
Japanese have four pronouns to refer to “I” depending on formality of the occasion and
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status of one’s interlocutor. In Chinese, the forms which are equivalent to English “I” are
actually more like titles since they mean ‘younger brother,’ ‘less worthy one,’ ‘the fool,’
while the forms for “you” mean ‘big brother,’ ‘wise one.’ (Romaine, 1994:28) Maxine
Hong Kingston in “The Woman Warrior” relates her reluctance in using the Chinese
pronoun for “I” since it can also mean ‘slave’. The speech level system in Javanese is
probably the most elaborate system (Smith-Hefner, 1988). There are at least three levels
of speech which can be distinguished in terms of ‘high’ (krama), ‘middle (madya), or
‘low’ (ngoko). Javanese women are required to be more polite than men in most
linguistic situations, especially within family. Thus, a wife will address her husband with
‘panjenengan’ or ‘sampeyan’ for ‘you’ which is in krama or madya, while a husband
uses ‘kowe’ in ngoko to his wife, since Javanese women are supposed to use a more
deferential speech style in addressing their husbands than their husbands with them. This
asymetric pattern reflects traditional Javanese status hierarchies in which a woman’s
status is lower than that of her husband within the family.
Compliment
Complimenting is another speech act that implies the use of politeness strategies. Holmes
(1988:446) defines compliment as “a speech act which explicitly or implicitly attributes
credit to someone other than the speaker, usually the person addressed, for some ‘good’
(possession, characteristic, skill, etc.) which is positively valued by the speaker and the
hearer.” According to Brown and Levinson (1987) paying a compliment is a positive
politeness strategy that addresses the hearer’s positive face. A compliment such as “Your
opinions are very valuable,” conveys agreement, approval, and a sense that speaker and
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hearer share similar views. Positive politeness strategy, they argue, indicates a desire to
establish social solidarity (p 101)
Holmes (1995) found that women gave and received more compliments than did
men. Women as well as men also complimented other women more than they did men.
She offers two possible explanations for this. The first is that men recognize women’s
high valuation of facework, so frequent complimenting shows their efforts to converge
with women’s communicative style. Secondly, it rests on the idea of the subordination of
women for whom complimenting is just another way of controlling and evaluating
women. This second reason in fact has some similarity with the use of terms of
endearment to women as discussed earlier in this paper.
She also observed that women peers use solidarity type compliments more often
than men, hence showing more addressee-oriented behavior than men. However, when
complimented, women tend to deny the compliment more often than men, whereas men,
who tend not to use compliments affectively but referentially, accept them more readily.
Thus, compliments for men seem not to signal politeness but are more referentialoriented, more controlling and face threatening. This finding is also supported by
Herbert’s study (1990). He found that women’s compliments were more personal in
focus, whereas men’s compliments were more impersonal, especially when speaking to
men. He also suggested that ‘subjective’ compliments such as “I really like your shirt”,
have less force than the ‘objective’ form such as “That’s a nice shirt.”
When seen from the syntactic structure both men and women were generally
consistent with the patterns:
1. NP is/looks (really) ADJ (e.g., “That shirt is so nice”)
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2. I (really) like/love NP (e.g., “I love your hair”)
3. PRO is (really) (a) ADJ NP (e.g., “This was really a great meal”)
The adjectives nice, good, pretty, beautiful, and great are more often used. Verbs such as
like and love are also more prominent. However, women rely more heavily than men on
the I like NP pattern which indicates a personal focus, while men use ADJ NP pattern
more often. Herbert mentioned that there is a general belief that women prefer
personalized to impersonalized forms, parallel with the characterization of women’s style
as social, affiliative, other-oriented, socioemotional, and supportive. He also states that
compliments from females are longer than compliments from males (pp 212ff)
What is more interesting in the study of compliments is to see how compliments
are responded by the addressees. Herbert (1990:208), based on his study done in 1986
and 1989 distinguished 12 types of compliment responses:
1. Appreciation token. A verbal or non verbal acceptance of the compliment. (e.g.
Thanks, Thank you, [nod])
2. Comment acceptance. Addressee accepts the complimentary force and offers a
relevant comment on the appreciated topic (e.g., Yeah, it’s my favorite too).
3. Praise Upgrade. Addressee accepts the compliment and asserts that the compliment
force is insufficient (e.g., Really brings out the blue in my eyes, doesn’t it?).
4. Comment history. Addressee offers a comment(s) on the object complimented. (e.g., I
bought it for the trip to Arizona).
5. Reassignment. Addressee agrees with the compliment assertion, but the
complimentary force is transferred to a third person (e.g., My brother gave it to me) or
to the object itself (e.g., It really knitted itself).
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6. Return. As with number 5 except that the praise is shifted (or returned) to the first
speaker (e.g., So’s yours).
7. Scale down. Addressee disagrees with the complimentary force, pointing to some
flaw in the object or claiming that the praise is overstated (e.g., It’s really quite old).
8. Question. Addressee questions the sincerity or the appropriateness of the compliment
(e.g., Do you really think so?).
9. Disagreement. Addressee asserts that the object complimented is not worthy of praise
(e.g., I hate it).
10. Qualification. Weaker than number 9: addressee merely qualifies the original
assertion, usually with though, but, well, etc. (e.g., It’s alright, but Len’s is nicer).
11. No acknowledgment. Addressee gives no indication of having heard the compliment:
The addressee wither (a) responds with an irrelevant comment (i.e. topic shift) or (b)
gives no response.
12. Request interpretation. Addressee, consciously or not, interpretes the compliments as
a request rather than a simple compliment. Such responses are not compliment
responses per se as the addressee does not perceive the previous speech act as a
compliment (e.g., You wanna borrow this one too?)
From the 12 types, Herbert divides them into two categories: Agreement and nonagreement. The agreement consists of acceptance (i.e., appreciation token, comment
acceptance, and praise upgrade) and non-acceptance (i.e., comment history,
reassignment, and return). Herbert found that only one third of the American responses
fall into the category of acceptance. Among them, compliments offered by males are
more likely to be accepted than compliments offered by females, especially if offered to
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female addressees. Female compliments, especially those addressed to other females, are
more likely responded with non-agreement. Again there is a tendency here that male
compliments being accepted is consistent with the notion that acceptances are most
common among status non-equals and among those whose status is not negotiated. Thus,
women whose responses are most of all in the acceptance category when complimented
by males may also indicate the low status of women. Wolfson (1989: 172ff) also
maintained that women, whatever their status, are frequent recipients of compliments
having to do with their female roles. She even observed that no matter what professional
level a woman may attain, she is still treated like a woman. Because of women’s role in
the social order, they are seen as appropriate recipients of all manner of intimacies and
social judgments in the form of compliment. Coates (1993:129) argues that cross-sex
compliments are more threatening than same sex compliments, and compliments seem to
be more face threatening to men than to women.
Herbert (1990), Holmes(1988), Coates (1993), and Wolfson (1989) also found
that males rarely received compliments, since males are usually in either equal or higher
positions than women, it is not surprising that the great majority of compliments are
addressed to women. Wolfson relates an interesting example of a group of women who
were dining in a restaurant. They were amazed when a completely strange man, middle
class and middle aged, stopped at their table on his way out of the restaurant and
addressed one of the women with this comment; “I’ve been watching you all through
lunch. You have a beautiful smile. It lights up the whole room.” It is unimaginable,
according to Wolfson, that a woman would walk up to a strange man in a restaurant and
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compliment him on his smile. Hence the way a woman is spoken to shows a subtle and
powerful way of perpetuating her subordinate role in society (p 173).
Johnson and Roen (1992) did a research on compliments in written discourse in
peer reviews found that both gender of writer and gender of addressee are also important
factors in complimenting. They found that as a group, women’s papers exhibited more
compliments intensifiers, more personal involvement in compliments and more use of the
compliment framing strategy than did those that the men wrote. Also, language variation
that was associated with gender of addressees was more salient than was variation
associated with gender of writer. Women also place stronger emphasis on expressing
solidarity within their own subcultural group.
The studies of compliments in other cultures have not been researched as much as
those in English. Holmes argued that there is a fundamental difference in the perception
of compliments by women and men. For women, she argued, compliments are positively
affective speech acts, serving to increase or consolidate the solidarity between speaker
and addressee. For men, compliments can be regarded as a face threatening act and task
oriented. Across cultures, one’s perception on compliments also varies. In Indonesia, for
instance, a compliment on someone’s possession may indicate the complimenter’s envy
to what the addressee has. The recipient of the compliment may also feel obliged to offer
the complimented object to the complimenter. As to how the perception differs between
men’s and women’s in Indonesian, there has not been any published research found so
far.
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Apology
Like compliments, apology is also another form of politeness strategy. Holmes (1990)
differentiates compliments and apologies as: Compliments focus on the addressee’s
positive face wants, whereas apologies are generally aimed at face redress associated
with face threatening acts (FTA) or offences which have damaged the addressee’s face in
some respect and can therefore be regarded as what Brown and Levinson called as
negative politeness strategies.
There have been a number of classification systems of apology devised by many
researchers. Holmes (1990:167) formulated them based on her naturally occurring data in
her New Zealand corpus as follows:
(A) An explicit expression of apology
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Offer apology, e.g., “I apologize”
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Express regret, e.g., “I’m sorry’
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Request forgiveness, e.g., “excuse me”; ”forgive me”
(B) An explanation or account, an excuse or justification
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e.g., “I wasn’t expecting it to be you”; “we’re both new to this”
(C) An acknowledgment of responsibility
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Accept blame, e.g., “it was my fault”
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Express self-deficiency, e.g., “I was confused”; “I didn’t see you”
-
Recognize H as entitles to an apology, e.g., “you’re right”; “you deserve an
apology”
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Express lack of intent, e.g., “I didn’t mean to”
-
Offer repair/redress, e.g., “we’ll replace it for you”; “I’ll bring you another”
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(D) A promise of forebearance
-
e.g., “I promise it won’t happen again”
Holmes found that apologies used more frequently by women in speech to other women,
and least frequently in the speech of men to other men. Women apologize more to other
women is a mark of positive politeness but it is realized through negative politeness
strategy. Men, who are more status than solidarity oriented, use apologies to perpetuate
power differences. In unequal and distant relations, men’s apologies are to assert the
position of social authority, hierarchy and control. Women therefore use more strategies
which focus on a harmonious relationship with the other person by expressing lack of
negative intent and recognizing the other person’s right to an apology. Men are more
likely to use formal strategy (e.g., I do apologize), admit guilt, accept blame, or express
self deficiency which places men in a more distant and ‘one down’ position vis-à-vis the
addressee. Hence, it may explain the reason why there are least frequent apologies among
men.
Lakoff (1990:269) also discussed that it would be odd for a man of high authority
to apologize. She argued that to give and receive an apology, both parties must agree on
certain facts:
1. The utterer (apologizer), or someone under the apologizer’s control, performed the
act in question.
2. The act was injurious to the receiver of the apology.
3. The utterer needs forgiveness from the hearer.
These put the speaker in a position of relative powerlessness or loss of authority or that
the apologizer is in the wrong and obliged to make redress. Therefore, according to
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Lakoff, people tend to perform apologies ambiguously and indirectly. So instead of
saying, “I apologize for X” one will say, “I’m sorry that X happened to you.” Thus, it
may imply that there is no wrongdoing in the part of the speaker. The explanation is
similar to an apology, but it puts the hearer in the one-down position as the one who does
not understand. The speaker retains the power by telling the hearer that S knows
something which H does not and that S will help H. That’s why it is important for a
powerful person to not be seen as apologizing but explaining.
Deborah Tannen (1990:234) also argued that from the perspective of status, a
person who apologizes takes a one-down position, and accepting the apology preserves
the asymmetry, whereas deflecting the apology restores balance. This explains why
women appear to apologize too much, for they do not risk a one-down position. Tannen
also suggests that when women say “I’m sorry,” it is to express sympathy and concern,
not apology, while men take it as an apology. Hence, a woman interpretes “I’m sorry” as
establishing connection by similar feelings, a man takes it as “a notion that she might be
at a fault, and so frame himself as one-up, in a position to absolve her of guilt.” (p 232)
There have been a number of research done on comparative study of apology
between different cultures. Naomi Sugimoto (1997) did a Japan – US comparison of
apology styles. She found that Japanese used more repeated types (e.g., “Sorry, sorry, I’m
very sorry”) whereas US Americans used more intensified types (e.g., “I’m terribly
sorry”). Japanese employed more elaborated types of remorse statements when
Americans used the unelaborated type. Japanese often referred to negative aspects of
damage, whereas Americans stressed positive aspects of the situation. Japan where the
message is likely to be taken as an indication of the offender’s care and concern about the
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victim, a US offender may point out the bright side of the situation with a genuine
intention to make the victim feel better. However, researches on apologies in other
cultures in terms of gender differences have not so far been found published.
In a high context culture like Indonesia, I observed that apologies are often
indirectly conveyed instead of explicitly expressed by the offender, especially between
two equals. The powerful, like the Americans, use more ambiguous explanation to keep
the position one-up. However, the finding about US offender who may point out the
bright side of the situation to make the victim feel better, could be taken as a sign of the
offender’s lack of empathy or remorse or even as a sign of an attempt to escape
responsibility.
Conclusion
The studies of gender and politeness as are revealed in the use of terms of address,
compliments and apologies have shown that in many situations, women still occupy
relatively powerless social positions and their language was judged as “powerless”
language. Masculinity is the unmarked form and femininity is the marked form. English
language is heavily oriented towards males. Many semantic items for women carry the
connotation of being less value such as the use of terms of address for women. Wolfson
(1989:175) maintains that “what is particularly distressing about the semantic derogation
of woman is that it clearly appears to be part of a historical process whereby words which
once were positive or neutral and often used to refer to members of either sex have taken
on negative sexual connotations and now used exclusively about women.”
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The use of compliments and apologies by women showed that women are more
personal-oriented and show greater concern for the other, while men are more task
oriented and assert more power than the other. Many researchers also agree that polite
and collaborative styles of communication are powerless when they are not reciprocated
such as how women could not easily compliment men as men could do to them. Women
also use apologies more than men, showing their intention to restore the balance between
speaker and hearer, whereas men prefer formal strategy or some ambiguous explanation
type of apology to maintain their ‘one-up’ position.
Other researches on gender and politeness that have been carried out that would
also be worth discussing are on request and refusal. There was also an interesting finding
on interaction of status and gender based on non-verbal communication. Nancy Hoar
(1992:130) pointed out that women’s high pitch voices connote childhood rather than
adulthood. And this connotation suggests the lower status and power, for children are
typically concerned with trivial matters, whereas adults are concerned with more serious
matters. Also, children are expected to defer to adults. She convinced this finding with
the fact that women who aspire to influential positions are often adviced to cultivate
lower pitched voices, ones that communicate authority. Other non-verbal aspects such as
how often women smile, how much they listen and give more eye contact, are among
other non-verbal aspects that may contribute to the studies of gender and politeness.
Every culture also has a notion of politeness that may be different from other
cultures. In some cultures, politeness may be important, sometimes optional or
inappropriate. Therefore researches on gender and politeness in different cultures will
indeed enrich the researches that have been carried out in English. As Holmes also
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pointed out that although many of the findings on language and gender seem to be similar
in many parts of the English speaking world, it is important not to overgeneralize and to
assume that they are universal.
The study of gender and politeness, however, should not suggest that women need
to adopt a ‘masculine’ style of communication, for one need not avoid being inferior in
order to become superior, and need not be impolite in order to avoid being powerless.
Gender differences in communication should be considered as alternatives rather than a
powerless or ineffective style versus authoritative, assertive style. Perhaps a change in
social attitude would be much more beneficial for a more equal approach of women and
men.
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