6. Sex Differences in Parent-Child Interaction

My memories of childhood are still repressed (I'm working on it...) and I don't have children, so this article was a bit difficult to relate to. However, I started to think about my best friend and how she and her husband interact with their children. My friend, Cindy, and her daughter, Carmen (age 11), have a very open and honest relationship. There are no secrets and Carmen feels she can tell her mother anything. The same can be said for Cindy and her son, Gabriel (age 7), but I don't know exactly what he feels he has to share with his mother other than that he has a lot of girlfriends (Insomuch that he had to change schools because his girlfriend at the time wouldn't let him break up with her and had another boy threaten Gabriel. He asked to change schools). Their father, Tony, is a quiet man in general and he is not the one either of his children come to with a problem. He is involved in their lives, but communication comes mostly from Cindy. Like in the article, the fathers take a more submissive role when it comes to personal communication and seem to be in control of the structure of punishment and rules. The mothers seem to be the primary form of communication for all members of the family.

5. "Kings Are Royaler Than Queens": Language and Socialization

In our article questions, Professor Burke asked us if we agreed with Amy Sheldon and her thesis statement that the English language "reflects sexist, male-centered attitudes that perpetuate the trivialization, marginalization, and invisibility of female experience." At first, I did not completely agree with this statement because I saw more evidence of this in other languages like Spanish and French, but after contemplating the exact nature of her argument, I have to agree with Sheldon.
Unlike French and Spanish, where the marginalization is apparent in the differentiated endings of some words to coincide with the properties of masculinity and femininity, the English language has us believe that there is no gender value placed on certain words. But, just as Sheldon's daughters example shows, the dominance of masculinity in language overshadows the potential power of femininity.

4. A Cultural Approach to Male-Female Miscommunication

Growing up as a girl can be hard unless you have communication tools that help you to decipher the complex code of "girl talk." If you do not have these tools, then a social connection can seem almost impossible. The article states that "friendship is seen by girls as involving intimacy, equality, mutual commitment, and loyalty," (424) and that the boys seem to be missing out on this. In my experience, the trials and tribulations of social acceptance by girls in high school was an intimidating time because I did not understand the hierarchy of power that determined your ranking in the social structure of friendships. My lack of knowledge kept me on the outside of peer groups. I only formed one friendship based on any of the characteristics in the article, and we are still friends after nineteen years.

As an adult who has figured out the specific elements within female relationships, I can still see the same structures of high school in my current circle of friends. Although now grown women, the desire to maintain the tight bond is still there. What also remains is the ability to disband when there is conflict by removing contact from the slanderous friend who threatens the solidarity of a group of women. Some things never change.

3. "Women's Language" or "Powerless Language"?

The fact that the title even questions the more appropriate use of this term is ridiculous. One shouldn't even have to read the article to determine the many levels on which this question is wrong, but in my experience, I know that many people wouldn't question the validity of either title. It almost seems that "women" and "powerless" go hand in hand in many societies. However, this article proved that women's language is much the same as men's language in the courtroom. Whether based on nervousness or expertise, the way in which people are interrogated is not influenced by gender.

2. Gender and Sociolinguistic Variation

What I found most interesting in this chapter was the role that the burnout girl plays in society. The fact that she has more to lose in terms of power and status is what motivates her to use standard language in a more conservative way. The burnout girl is at the bottom of the sociolinguistic hierarchy. She has to prove herself in more ways than the jock girl, whose economic status already puts her at an advantage over the burnout girl because of her access to education and the probability of parents who encourage or demand excellence in academia.

I can relate to this.

There was little expectation of me by high school "guidance" counselors. Like the burnout girl, I had to learn to play by their rules in order to get them to notice me as a serious student, as a contributing member of society; I learned to read, write, and speak the in the dominant discourse. I am at a point in my life where I can float between economic classes through language variation. I do not have the power of race or gender to elevate my class status, but I have the power of written and verbal language to lay my claim.

1. Yanyuwa: 'Men speak one way, women speak another'

In American culture, power is applied to masculine speech and vernacular. There is a hierarchy of power that deems the language of men more influential. In Yanyuwa culture the same power is placed on the male language because men are ridiculed for using the womans language even though that was his first language. However, there seems to be a mutual acceptance of the differences in the way that women speak and the way that men speak. They don't question why it is and neither gender seems to care, "'It's just the way it is, no other reason."' (19)