Status and Control REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
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Figure 1. Tajfel’s Theory of Inter Group Relationship and Social Change Coates, 1997b
There are two possible strategies for the inferior social group. First, they can measure themselves against members of their own group. Second, they can try
individually to join the superior group. On the other hand, women who refuse to accept the inferior status in society will attempt as a group to change this. Tajfel
outlines three ways to do this. First, they will try to gain equality and will adopt the values of the superior or majority group, this is called assimilation. Second,
they will try to redefine the features which have previously been defined in negative terms by society. Third, they will try to create new dimensions in
comparison with the superior group, therefore they are defining for themselves what has positive value. This strategy is done by women to gain equality in
working condition and in legal terms. These kinds of women adopt a strategy and assimilate in to the dominant group in the following ways: They use deeper voice
Inferior Social Group
ACCEPT Inferior Status
Compare themself with others in group
Join superior group tokenism
REJECT Inferior Status
Assimilate with superior group and
demand equality Redefine negative
characteristics Create new
dimension for comparison
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lower pitch, use swears and taboo language, adopt a more assertive style in group interaction, adopt prosodic features more typical of men e.g. Falls rather
than rising intonation, and address themselves in public to the traditional male topic, such as business, politics, and economics.
Although, this is a good strategy for women, Coates 1997b finds out a problem in this strategy. The problem is women redefine themselves in terms of
men ‟s value. This is a flawed strategy because women are going for searching
their own satisfactory identity. Besides this theory, some researchers agree that there are two main
theories of gender differences in language. Both of the theories reflect the two views of women‟s status as a group. The first theory is the dominance theory. This
theory claims that the difference in language between men and women is a consequence of male dominance and female subordination Lakoff, 1975;
Fishman, 1983. Based on this theory, women are a suppressed minority group in society which is shown by the way they use language. On the other hand, men are
the superior group and the way they use language shows their power in society. The second theory is the difference theory Coates, 1986; Tannen, 1990. This
theory believes that men and women belong to different subcultures and that any linguistic differences can be attributed to cultural differences.