THE DOMINANCE MODEL Exemplified by Zimmerman and West

THE DOMINANCE MODEL (Exemplified by Zimmerman and West and Dale Spender)

This is theory that in mixed-sex conversations men are more likely to interrupt than women, as show by Zimmerman and West (1975). They report that in 11 conversations between men and women, men used 46 interruptions, but women only two. Dale Spender builds on this. She identifies power with a male patriarchal order in society, and states that language embodies structures that sustain male power.

Who is dominating/being dominated AND who would interrupt more…? A classroom of 19 students with a female teacher A classroom of 19 students with a male teacher A court of law with a male witness and a female judge An office with a female employee and a male boss A group of 5 friends 4 are male 1 is female A group of 5 friends 3 are male 2 are female A group of friends all are female Two friends talking, both are male A group of friends 3 are male aged 16, 3 are female aged 19 A group of 5 year olds, 3 are male 2 are female A father talking to his two young daughters A mother talking to her two teenage sons

However, this research is often contested: "The problem with this is that you might simply have one very voluble man in the study which has a disproportionate effect on the total…Why do interruptions necessarily reflect dominance? Can interruptions not arise from other sources? Do some interruptions not reflect interest and involvement? " – Geoffrey Beattie

Beattie found that women and men interrupted with more or less equal frequency. Men did interrupt more, but by a margin so slight as not to be statistically significant. Yet Beattie's findings are not quoted as often as those of Zimmerman and West. Why is this? Is it because they don’t fit with what someone wanted to show…!?

William O'Barr and Bowman Atkins studied the language of the courtroom and found female lawyers to be assertive and interrupt. They also found that witnesses of both sexes would use Robin Lakoff's weak "female" language. They concluded that these weak language traits are actually a "powerless language" rather than a "female language".

REVISION OF RESEARCH: • Dominance theory: in mixed-sex conversations men are more likely to interrupt than women • Deficit theory: women's speech is deficient in relation to a male norm

Write a list of any other factors you can think of that may affect our language choices?

Personality and Social Psychology Review - 2007 v Men tended to talk more in conversations between spouses or partners, those that included people of both sexes and situations where the topic involved disagreement. v Women dominate over men when they were among classmates, parents and children and when the topic of conversation required a discussion of feelings.