Language and Gender

This contains resources for six hours worth of lessons on A-Level Language and Gender. It starts by introducing pupils and getting them interested in the topic, then incorporates several gender theories and theorists from the different models (deficit, dominance, difference, and diversity). We covered how gender is represented in songs, magazines, novels and in day-to-day life. I used these lessons with AS students but they could be used for A2 revision. The first lesson may even be useful for GCSE pupils who look at male and female language use.

The PowerPoints contain many long and short activities. This includes looking at representations of men and women in song lyrics; and analysing genderlect in Lady C's conversations in I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here; and in Willy and Linda's conversation at the start of Death of a Salesman. (YouTube links and page numbers of books are provided).

The three word documents include four different things:

1) A very concise gender theories 'pack' which summarises theories by: Lakoff, Coates, Tannen, Zimmerman & West, O'Barr & Atkins, Fishman, Beattie and Hyde. These summaries make excellent handouts for the pupils.

2) A gender terminology matching task which provides definitions for: objectification , lexical gaps, lexical asymmetry, pejoration, zoomorphism, semantic over-representation, generic terms, marked terms, the semantic rule, default assumptions and order of precedence. A teacher's answer sheet is provided.

3) A sheet which pupils can use to research their own gender theorists.

4) A homework task which gets pupils finding out the extent to which different theorists agree on particular aspects of gendered language use.