Deficit 

Lakoff, 1975

Main features of women's language 

-Hedges and fillers 'sort of' 'kind of' 

-Empty adjectives 'divine' 'adorable' 

-Super-polite forms 'would you mind' 

-Apologise more

-Speak less frequently 

-Avoid coarse language 

-Tag questions 

-Hyper correct grammar and pronunciation (women perceive language to be inspirational)

-Indirect requests : 'I'm so thirsty' - asking for a drink. (pragmatics)

-Speak in italics (use tone of voice to emphasis certain words)

Criticisms of Lakoff 

-Since  her work there has been a lot of changes between the genders. 

- Her work lacks statistics 

Jenny Chesire, 1983

 (supports Lakoff's idea of 'hyper-correct grammar and pronunciation)

looked at certain grammatical variations in the speech of young children and found that boys used more non-standard English than girls. 

Difference 

(idea that women and men speak differently) 

Deborah Tannen , 1990 

-Identifies gender differences in terms of competitiveness (male) and co-operative (female). 

"There are gender difference in ways of speaking and we need to identify and understand them" 

Contrasts to differences 

Status vs Support - men use language and dominance. Women are likely to support and agree. 

Independence vs Intimacy - Men use language to show they don't need to rely on others. Women can connect with others. 

Advice vs understanding 

Information vs feelings 

Orders vs Proposals 

Conflict vs Compromise