Nancy L. Drescher The Relationships among Gender, Power, and Register in the American Academic Community

Minnesota State University, Mankato
230 Armstrong Hall
Mankato, MN 56001
nld4@dana.ucc.nau.edu

Abstract

During a face-to-face interaction, people do much more than exchange information. Their social relationships are established and reaffirmed through the language they use (Eggins and Slade, 1997). One way they establish and reaffirm their relationships is through the expression of emotions, attitudes, and opinions, which are classified together under the construct of stance (Biber, et al, 1999). A wide variety of linguistic variables have been shown to reflect differences in the way men and women express stance, but most of these studies have focused on only a few variables in a limited number of conversations and have reached quite different conclusions in the process. Studies have tended to either take a quantitative approach with a very limited qualitative analysis or have focused solely on qualitative analysis to the exclusion of quantitative differences. This study aims to examine a large number of linguistic variables within the context of the American University in order to illuminate the various contexts and relationships within which this variation occurs. Using a quantitative corpus-based approach that integrates an extensive qualitative analysis, a broad view of how and when gender identities are salient within this community should emerge. This study will identify and interpret various patterns of oral stance among men and women students and professors within different contexts of the academic community. A combination of computational, functional, and multivariate analyses should allow for the identification of patterns of use as well as an interpretation of those patterns within this community.

Poster Materials

Click here to download Nancy Drescher's Power Point presentation.
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