Women language is weak as their speeches are emotive: they use precise colour terms7, intensifiers8 and emphatic stress, empty adjectives9, tag questions10, hedges11 and raising intonations while avoiding strong words or swear words. Tannen points out that women tend to use inclusive ‘we’ and ‘you’: by so doing, they are presenting their own idea as belonging to the group they are talking to, thus seeking approval from that group. This attitude is perceived as a sign of weakness due to lack of self-confidence. It should be acknowledged here that language and gender are operating in a two-way direction: gender affects people’s attitude and behaviour, their postures or gestures as well as their verbal communication. But in return, those communication channels translate gender through society. The gender construct expressed through interactions is the relation dominant-dominated – men being the dominant and women the dominated. Besides, Tannen (1990) notices that women are continually seeking for relationship whereas men are trying to establish status or hierarchy while interacting with others. Therefore women’s language — verbal and non-verbal — displays a high degree of affinity, which is a manifestation of weakness whereas men’s construes relation of power. Pease (2004) points out that “a submissive person will use more submissive gestures and a dominant person will use more assertive gestures”; this entails that a submissive individual will tend to use a submissive language and the language that an individual uses will set his status and position in society. In another way: Language mirrors identity. Language is considered as ‘social practice’, social practices being “what people actually do, i.e. the activities they engage in as they conduct social life” (Meurer, 2004:88). Meurer adds “No social practice is independent of role prescriptions and social structures” (2004:89). This communication function of language is highly valued within social life where communication skills — the ability to share ideas and viewpoints with others — are considered as an important requirement for integrating the world of work (Rai 2010), or a particular social circle. Thus, social position may be considered as in correlation with the ability to communicate in an effective way: As roles are embedded within language, language can be a means of integration or a means of segregation. Here language plays the role of identifier, it demarcates the class and role of the individual. Therefore, language plays a role in the shift from one class to another. This desire to move from one group or class of people to a higher one is also an attempt to change status. This change in status however requires change in language use as “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world” Ludwig Wittgenstein (1922). Ludwig Wittgenstein (1922) refers here to the use of words. According to him, people would not be able to describe world beyond their own as they do not have the words allowing them to do so.
Two examples of female leaders that were able to access the political field because of language mastery. Thatcher was given the name of “Iron lady” by the Russian News Agency, TASS in 1976, after her vitriolic speech that was “bashing the evils of communism” as historians presented it. She has a thorough knowledge of how media work, which allows her to achieve her goal, namely, to be close to people and thus maintain her popularity. This has largely contributed to her quest for power. She dares to say what she wants to say, thus making a lasting impression on people: she was called ‘Ségolène l'insubmersible et la communicante’, which shows the importance of communication. Political field is linked with power and it is thought to be a male domain but Thatcher and Royal could access there even if temporarily. The way people speak may affect their environment as it would draw their actual status towards the others: if the speakers are the ones who are contracting authority through talks, they are likely to have a prominent place in the society; otherwise, they would be put at the bottom of the social scale. However, the way people speak is also affected by the rules that govern a society and by the roles society has ascribed to people. Given the case of Thatcher and Royal, language can be considered as a medium used to integrate a given group – thus, a means leading to a ‘status change’ as it may allow a person to join a circle that is higher than his own. In the society at large, the same phenomenon can be seen at work: in order to be counted as a member of a particular group, one has to change one’s idiolect and accommodate to the language of the group. Thatcher and Royal did: they wanted to join the political field which mainly features powerful people, so they had to speak the language used in politics, which is the language of power. However, language is not the sole key to that circle. Language stops where society operates: Changing the way the language is used is an attainable goal at the level of the woman speaker but the way the public will perceive such change remains uncertain (Giddens: 1994:69).
EMPOWERING WOMEN THROUGH LANGUAGE USE Malagasy women were taught to be quiet and this is one of the main reasons of their poor participation in church as they are not interested in a leadership position. To be a leader, one has to be heard. One way to subvert the male authority in the church the following chart summarise the vision, the mission and the strategy to achieve the vision:
7
magenta, aquamarine
8
so, ‘just, very
9
charming, cute
10
Question-tags are Sentences in which a speaker makes a declarative statement. It is cold in here, isn’t it?
11
you know, sort of
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INSiGHT | October 2020
