During our visit to the UHCL veterans office there were two instances in which polite speech was prevalent. In both instances the ones responsible for using polite speech were both male vets whom were conversing with the woman behind the desk at the entrance of the veterans office. Both males came in at separate times and any time the woman behind the desk asked them question, they would reply with a “yes, ma’am” as seen on lines eleven and seventeen. This form of reply is one of the common polite expressions mentioned in Eckert and McConnell-Ginet’s Language and Gender book. According to Eckert and McConnell-Ginet “Research on politeness has boomed in the past several decades.” and “In common usage, politeness is associated with formal expressions
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Lakoff’s “Why Women are Ladies” article points out that as children we are taught that “women’s speech differs from men’s in that women are more polite-. “ Her overall argument is meant to disassociate women with polite language. Looking at the data we see that in this particular study men were the ones who had a more polite form of speaking instead of females. It wasn’t that the females were particularly rude when speaking to the woman at the desk, they just were not as polite as the two men were. Perhaps it is because Lakoff’s article was written in 1975 that we do not really see women being politer than men anymore or perhaps it was just this particular situation where the men demonstrated more polite language than women. Elinor Ochs mentions how “-we find that the relation between particular features of language and gender is typically non-exclusive. By non-exclusive, I mean that often variable features of language may be used by/with/for both sexes.” In other words Ochs states that certain forms of language and gender are not directly associated and instead can be used be either gender rather than just one or the other. Associating women with polite speech causes society to hold expectations that might not always be true. Lines eleven and seventeen once again prove that men are also capable of using more formal and polite speech. Therefore, Ochs’s statement about
Lakoff’s “Why Women are Ladies” article points out that as children we are taught that “women’s speech differs from men’s in that women are more polite-. “ Her overall argument is meant to disassociate women with polite language. Looking at the data we see that in this particular study men were the ones who had a more polite form of speaking instead of females. It wasn’t that the females were particularly rude when speaking to the woman at the desk, they just were not as polite as the two men were. Perhaps it is because Lakoff’s article was written in 1975 that we do not really see women being politer than men anymore or perhaps it was just this particular situation where the men demonstrated more polite language than women. Elinor Ochs mentions how “-we find that the relation between particular features of language and gender is typically non-exclusive. By non-exclusive, I mean that often variable features of language may be used by/with/for both sexes.” In other words Ochs states that certain forms of language and gender are not directly associated and instead can be used be either gender rather than just one or the other. Associating women with polite speech causes society to hold expectations that might not always be true. Lines eleven and seventeen once again prove that men are also capable of using more formal and polite speech. Therefore, Ochs’s statement about