The Relationships among Gender, Power, and Register in the American Academic Community

1
The Relationships among Gender, Power, and
Register in the American Academic Community

• Nancy L. Drescher
• Minnesota State University, Mankato 20, 2003
• Nancy.Drescher_at_mnsu.edu
• Poster Presentation
• Perception and Realization in Language and Gender
• Research An International Conference
• July 20, 2003

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Corpus Description

• TOEFL 2000 Spoken and Written Academic Language
  (T2K-SWAL) Corpus
• Office Hours interactions (52,720 words)
• 11 text files from four different disciplines
• California State University, Sacramento Georgia
  State University Iowa State University and
  Northern Arizona University

3
Number of Words by Status and Sex
4
Stance Markers in Each Category
5
Tagged Texts (Biber)

• Speaker 2 I just want to know that Im like
  writing about what I should be
• Speaker 2 female student
• u2 .clp
• I pp1app1
• just rbemph
• want vb
• to to
• know vbivprv
• that thtvcmp
• I pp1app1
• 'm vbbemaux0
• like rb
• writing xvbgxvbg
• about in
• what wdtwho
• I pp1app1
• should mdnec
• be vbbeaux

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Customized Search Program (Drescher)

• procedure feature_find
• var
• i integer
• for i1 to id do
• begin
• if ((new_id_stringlx_arrayi.speaker_id)and
• (str_array50.tag1 'md') and
• (str_array50.tag2 'nec')) then
• begin
• lx_arrayi.feature1lx_arrayi.featur
  e1 1
• specific_word
• end

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Raw Frequencies One Observation
lt1gtmale instructor lt2gtfemale student lt3gt lt4gt
lt5gt lt6gt total words 2434
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Raw Frequencies One Observation (cont)
.
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Norming Frequencies Combined Observations
Students normed to 25,000 Professors normed to
25,000 Raw frequency X 25,000 Raw Frequency X
25,000 17,118 35,028 1 X 25,000
1.46 1 X 25,000 .71 17,118 35,028
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Sample Results by Status

• Comparison of normed category frequency
• by status
• Statistically significant at plt.05

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Sample Results by Status

• Comparison of the normed frequency of specific
  emphatics by status
• Statistically significant at plt.05

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Sample Results by StatusComparison of the normed
frequency of specific emphatics by status
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Qualitative Analysis - Framework

• Just has been found to function in three
  general ways (Biber et al., 1999)
• a way of focusing on the part of the clause for
  which the truth value of the proposition is most
  important (p.798) (e.g., I just cant believe
  it).
• a way of showing that a requested action in an
  imperative is not a very big imposition (e.g.,
  just sit down).
• a method of softening what is being said. This
  occurs particularly when people are justifying
  their or others actions, or making a claim on
  anothers attention (p. 799) (e.g., I just
  wondered. Shes just that way.).

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Qualitative Analysis Comparison of Functions

• Students used just primarily to focus on the
  truth value of a proposition and to soften their
  statements
• Professors used it less often in those
  capacities, but frequently used it to minimize
  their impositions.
• this just explains what theyre looking
  for(truth value)
• I have more than just the Lake Mary
  information(truth value)
• I was just wondering(softening)
• Ill just go to this website(softening)
• Just run them by Tim(minimize imposition)
• Just state your name(minimize imposition)

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Sample Results by Sex
16
Sample Results by Sex
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Qualitative Analysis - Monconc

• C\My Documents\Programming\Office hours\office
  hours\New Folder\Humhioh___n068.txt
• 3. ... Two thirty , yeah . u1 Ok .
  u2 Is that what time you 'll be
  here till ? u1 Actually I 'll be
  here till , yeah . I may run - step out
  for a little bit at two thirty cos ...
• C\My Documents\Programming\Office hours\office
  hours\New Folder\Humhioh___n068.txt
• 5. ... 1 Ok . Um , I think you
  mentioned this on the phone you have a
  minor , right ? u3 Yeah .
  Actually two minors . u1 Two
  minors . Ok . So you 're not gonna be
  an extended major . u3 No . u ...
• C\My Documents\Programming\Office hours\office
  hours\New Folder\Humhioh___n068.txt
• 11. ... be , um . . yeah , it would be
  , the - the U.s . geography is gonna be
  a lot more specific and actually for
  teaching American history you have to know
  the geography . u3 Yeah I - i
  definitely wanted to take ...

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Conclusions

• Male participants used significantly more
  amplifiers, emphatics, modals of prediction, and
  modals of possibility than women.
• Students used hedges and emphatics significantly
  more often than professors.
• Stance marker differences were exhibited in terms
  of both frequency and function according to
  status and sex