Robin Lakoff

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robin Tolmach Lakoff (born 1942) is a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Lakoff's writings have become the basis for much research on the subject of women's language. In a 1975 article, she published ten basic assumptions about what she felt constituted a special women's language. Much of what Lakoff proposed agreed with theories originally proposed in the 1920s by Otto Jespersen in Growth and Structure of the English Language (1905, revised and republished several times).

Lakoff's most famous work, Language and Woman's Place, introduced to the field of sociolinguistics many ideas about women's language that are now commonplace. She proposed (Language and Woman's Place) that women's speech can be distinguished from that of men in a number of ways, including:

Hedges: Phrases like "sort of," "kind of," "it seems like"
Empty adjectives: divine, adorable, gorgeous, etc
(Super-)Polite forms: "Would you mind…" "Is it o.k if…?" "…if it’s not too much to ask"
Apologize more: "I'm sorry, but I think that…"
Speak less frequently
Avoid coarse language or expletives
Tag questions: "You don't mind eating this, do you?". Subsequent research has cast some doubt on this proposition
Hyper-correct grammar and pronunciation: Use of prestige grammar and clear articulation
Indirect requests: "Wow I'm so thirsty." – really asking for a drink
Speak in italics: Use tone to emphasis certain words, e.g., "so", "very", "quite".

Lakoff also developed the 'Politeness Principle', in which she devised three maxims that are usually followed in interaction. These are: Don't impose, give the receiver options and make the receiver feel good. She stated that these are paramount in good interaction. By not adhering to these maxims, a speaker is said to be 'flouting the maxims'.

[edit] Selected writings by Lakoff

1973 The logic of politeness; or, minding your P's and Q's.
1975 Language and Woman's Place. ISBN 0195167570
1977 "What you can do with words: Politeness, pragmatics and performatives." In: Proceedings of the Texas Conference on Performatives, Presuppositions and Implicatures, ed. R. Rogers, R. Wall & J. Murphy, pp. 79-106. Arlington, Va.: Center for Applied Linguistics.

1985 When talk is not cheap. With M. Aftel. Warner ISBN 0446300705
1990 Talking Power. Basic Books. ISBN 0465083587
1993 Father knows best: the use and abuse of therapy in Freud's case of Dora. With J. Coyne. Teachers College Press. ISBN 0807762660
2000 The Language War. University of California Press. ISBN 0520222962