The 3Ds

Dominance

• 'The dominance approach sees women as an oppressed group, and interprets differences in men and women's speech in terms of men's dominance and women's subordination.
• The dominance theory states we live in a patriarchal society.
• We live in a male dominated world - men dominate positions of power.
• Men dominate even though the population is 49% male and 51% female. 

Theorists who have studies into the dominance theory: (Note: These studies may be outdated as they were not conducted recently and society has changed in the last 20-30 years)

• Dale Spencer (1980)
• Zimmerman and West (1975)
• Jennifer Coates (1993)
• Pamela Fishman (1983)

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. In Conversational Insecurity (1990) Fishman questions Robin Lakoff's theories. Lakoff suggests that asking questions shows women's insecurity and hesitancy in communication, whereas Fishman looks at questions as an attribute of interactions: Women ask questions because of the power of these, not because of their personality weaknesses. Fishman also claims that in mixed-sex language interactions, men speak on average for twice as long as women.

The dominance theory uses a fairly old study of a small sample of conversations, recorded by Don Zimmerman and Candace West at the Santa Barbara campus of the University of California in 1975. The subjects of the recording were white, middle class and under 35. Zimmerman and West produce in evidence 31 segments of conversation. They report that in 11 conversations between men and women, men used 46 interruptions, but women only two.

Difference

• 'The difference approach sees women as belonging to 'different sub-cultures', who are differently socialized from childhood on wards, and who may therefore have different problems in communication as adults.' 
• Deborah Tannen (1989) talks about Verbal Hygiene (1995). She argues that language is not politically correct.
• Politically correct language: Getting rid of feminine suffixes, marked forms of words are not politically incorrect e.g. 'manageress' and 'actress'.
• Tannen's views also identify differences in terms of competitiveness and cooperativeness. 

Theorists who have studies into the difference theory: (Note: These studies may be outdated as they were not conducted recently and society has changed in the last 20-30 years)

• Deborah Tannen (1989)

A big advocate of this approach is Deborah Tannen. She believes the difference starts in childhood, where parents use more words about feelings to girls and use more verbs to boys. Males and females belong to difference sub-cultures and therefore speak differently. 

Ann Weatherall found that:

• Women's talk is co-operative.
• Men's talk is competitive.
• Women are more likely to use hedging, "sort of" "kind of"...
• Women speak for less time and are less likely to interrupt.
• Females use more tag questions:
  
  F: We're seeing Mum later, aren't we?
  M: We're going to see Mum today.

Deficit

• 'Deborah Cameron challenges the whole idea that there are two different and contrasting languages for men and women, arguing that this is the deficit model approach (one language is inferior to the other).'
• She asks whether gender alone is at the core of individual identity - is the term genderlect more or less precise that idiolect?
• The way men and women talk in different situations may reveal the effects of dis-empowerment, or may signal the effects of other variables, including socio-economic status, education, context, peer group and even personality.  

Theorists who have studies into the deficit theory: (Note: These studies may be outdated as they were not conducted recently and society has changed in the last 20-30 years)

• Deborah Cameron
• Robin Lakoff (1975)

Deborah Cameron says that wherever and whenever the matter has been investigated, men and women face normative expectations about the appropriate mode of speech for their gender. Women's verbal conduct is important in many cultures; women have been instructed in the proper ways of talking just as they have been instructed in the proper ways of dressing, in the use of cosmetics, and in other “feminine” kinds of behaviour. This acceptance of a “proper” speech style, Cameron describes (in her 1995 book of the same name) as “verbal hygiene”.

Reference 1

Reference 2