Women, Men and Language: A Sociolinguistic Account of Gender Differences in Language

by Jennifer Coates

In this second edition, Jennifer Coates has thoroughly revised and updated the text, incorporating new material in the field of language and gender. She provides an overview both of traditional lore about the linguistic behaviour of women and men, and also of recent research findings in sociolinguistics and related subjects.

Genres: Linguistics, Nonfiction, Feminism, Language, Read For School, Science, Gender Studies

228 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[george ☽]

the worst thing about reading this was that i didn't even have to do a presentation on it in the end...so i just.... forced myself through this painfully dry book... for nothing....

[Natasha May Anderson]

I got this for when I was studing English Language at A level. I've skim-read it. But she's definitely favoring women.

[Paige · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this theoretical text a lot more than I thought I would. While I still think it's not the best to put authors or speakers into boxes they must remain in, I think it is helpful to differentiate between masculine and feminine speech cues that are happening either consciously or subconsciously. The more I looked into it the more I feel that it really made a lot of sense, and helped a lot with what it means to do certain speech acts that are typically applied to one gender or the other (or thinking about the reaction when performing a speech act that is thought of as opposite of your gender). I would have rated it 5 stars, but it has a lot of British data I felt was a lot to move through to get to the point. But obviously you need data to make a linguistic argument so this is just me as a person who is barely getting into linguistics.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

[Annabella · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was very interesting and gave me many ideas for my thesis

[Raúl · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good introduction to issues of gender in linguistics, despite it's datedness

[Gamer BlackopsOG]

ok

[Daisy Atkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating overview of something a lot of people overlook in day-to-day life. I saw one review say this 'favoured' women, but at no point in the book does Coates say that the way men use language is any worse than women or is a 'bad thing', but if you interpret the data that way then surely that's more your opinion than hers?

I particularly found the studies on conversations between men and women, men and men, and women and women interesting, seeing how each sex uses the same aspects of language to mean completely different things. For example women using questions - such as 'The weather is bad today, isn't it?' to prompt responses from men (who often don't reply where women would like them too' whilst men use questions to show uncertainty so they aren't immediately judged as wrong and have a defense if they are.

[Devon Fritz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book may be old for the field of sociolinguistics at this point, but a lot of the content was new to me. A lot if really interesting points about speech differences between men and women are raised and then put into a broader scope of power, in a Foucaultian sort of way. Coates presents many intuitions we have about men vs woman's speech and then goes on to provide empirical evidence to either support or deny such claims.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in linguistics, sociology, or women's rights, but I would especially recommend it to you if you aren't interested in those fields, as you will probably get the most out of it.

[Miki · Rating 4 out of 5]

*4.5

This is a fantastic, in-depth look at linguistics and sociolinguistics. I wish I'd read an updated version as Coates notes in the last chapter that changes have occurred in the field and that her work doesn't include research on queer linguistics. This was a slow read because it is a textbook, but it was still enjoyable and educational! I really recommend this book as it is an extremely important read.

[Physical, borrowed from a friend]