een the sexes, with each sex misinterpreting the other's intentions. This causes problems in contexts where men and women regularly interact, and especially in heterosexual relationships.
Perhaps men have realised that a reputation for incompetence can sometimes work to your advantage. Like the idea that they are no good at housework, the idea that men are no good at talking serves to exempt them from doing something that many would rather leave to women anyway. (Though it is only some kinds of talking that men would rather leave to women: in many contexts men have no difficulty expressing themselves - indeed, they tend to dominate the conversation.) This should remind us that the relationship between the sexes is not only about difference, but also about power. The long-standing expectation that women will serve and care for others is not unrelated to their position as the «second sex». But in the universe of Mars and Venus, the fact that we (still) live in a male-dominated society is like an elephant in the room that everyone pretends not to notice. The tag question, similarly, can be interpreted as a hedging device which weakens womens speech. Of all the linguistic forms originally listed by Lakoff, the tag has come to hold the position of archetypal women s language feature [Coates 1989]. The different functions of the tag-question, Holmes [1992] reported the following results:
Figure 1
Function of tagWomenMenExpressing uncertainty35% 61% Facilitative59% 26% Softening6% 13% Confrontational ---- Total100% 100% N5139
As can be seen, men use question tags more often to express uncertainty while women use them largely to facilitate communication. Furthermore, she claims that downtoning a statement shows lack of confidence. Support for this position comes from those situations in which either verification of the statement can be made by mere inspection: John is here, isn «t he? or where it reflects the opinion of the speaker: The way prices are rising these days is horrendous, isn »t it? Clearly, these sentences need not be questioned and, thus, demonstrate the speaker's insecurity.There are instances as tag questions, two by the woman and one by a man:
Andy: You don t have a phone right now ... do you? (Falling intonation)
Jody: Mmhm.
Jody: Looks good ... huh? (Falling intonation)
Andy: Mmm.
Jody: You didn t get scissors, ehh? (Rising intonation)
Ian: It s like talking to a machine.
She obviously had this spiel ... It is not hard to see about the way men and women use language, provided those generalizations fit with already familiar stereotypes. An anecdote illustrating the point that, say, men are competitive and women cooperative conversationalists will prompt readers to recall the many occasions on which they have observed men competing and women cooperating - while not recalling the occasions, perhaps equally numerous, on which they have observed the opposite. If counter-examples do come to mind («What about Janet? She« s the most competitive person I know »), it is open to readers to apply the classic strategy of putting them in a separate category of exceptions (« of course, she grew up with three brothers / is the only wo...
