Power in Language

Overview of Language Differences

An important prerequisite to exploring power differences based on language is exploring language differences generally that have been uncovered in existing research. A focus on gender pervades much early work as seen in two classic bodies of linguistics research—Otto Jespersen in 1922 and Robin Lakoff in 1975. These works are important since they provide the foundation for a deficit and dominance perspective on language, specifically related to gender—that women’s speech is trivial and therefore less important than men’s, and that women’s use of language was caused by and an effect of women’s lack of cultural and political power. Over the decades, these classic works have served as a springboard for many feminist communication research studies. To summarize briefly, male speech is typically direct, clear, and precise and thus serves an instrumental purpose and a preference for “getting things done.” On the contrary, women’s speech is more indirect, repetitious, and unclear and reflects a greater concern for preserving relationships. Looking more closely at the content of such men’s and women’s speech, women typically use more hedging (e.g., “sort of,” “I guess,” “maybe”), tag questions (e.g., “that report was confusing, wasn’t it?”), and “empty adjectives” (e.g., cute, nice, divine), and apologize more (e.g., “I’m sorry, but I’m just not going to apologize for that”).

Research has also engaged with cross-cultural communication differences. For instance, Geert Hofstede’s seminal work on culture and communication looks at differences based on several factors (e.g., power distance, emphasis on verbal or nonverbal communication, time), including gender. In so-called masculine societies, gender roles are distinct—men are assertive and more focused on material gain, whereas women are modest and concerned with quality of life. On the contrary, in feminine societies, gender roles overlap and both men and women are concerned with quality of life. Relatedly, multicultural studies scholars have noted “language choice” as a site of struggle for individuals who are bilingual or multilingual. Studies have considered, for example, the implications of having to speak in a preferred and dominant tongue (e.g., English) despite the desire—and felt personal obligation—to use the mother tongue (e.g., Spanish). Such language choices have been shown to have consequences in terms of personal and social identity and cause stress for communicators. In fact, researchers should be mindful that such language struggles are present in the conduct of the research itself in terms of interacting with participants.

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