Edexcel English Language A Level Paper
1 Exam 2024 Questions and Answers
Lakoff's Deficit Model - Answer>>Features of women's
language
Women tend to apologise more, use tag questions, hedges,
empty adjectives, avoid cursing
Features of 'women's language' reflected women's inferior social
status
O'Barr and Atkins 'Powerless Language' - Answer>>Alternative
to the deficit model
Found that gender was less important than overall social status
and therefore 'powerless language' was a more effective label for
weaker conversational styles
Zimmerman and West 'Dominance Model' - Answer>>Recorded
interruptions in conversations between men and women and
found that 96% of interruptions were made by men
Argued this reflects the male role in society
Fishman 'Holding the Floor' - Answer>>Supported Zimmerman
and West with her study of holding the floor
Concluded that in mixed gender conversations, men tend to do
this on average twice as long as women
Trudgill Norwich study - Answer>>Studied men and women's
social class accents in Norwich and found that women's
pronunciation was closer to RP which is usually seen as the most
prestigious
Labov / Cheshire- Prestige - Answer>>Studied the speech of
adolescents in Reading and discovered that boys tended to use
more non-standard grammatical forms in order to seem more
rebellious and tough
, Known as prestige theory
Using standard english and RP gives a speaker overt prestige
which is more common in women
Using non-standard English gives a speaker covert prestige which
is more common in men
Tannen Difference Model - Answer>>Male and female
conversational styles are based around their different roles in
society
Men are more concerned with status, independence, gaining
factual information, finding solutions to problems, giving direct
orders and not minding conflict
Women are interested in forming bonds, showing understanding,
compromising, offering support, giving polite, indirect orders and
avoiding conflict
Also labelled male talk as report talk and female talk as rapport
talk
Cameron / Hyde 'Gender Similarities Hypothesis -
Answer>>Argues that a lot of research is biased, because there
has been more focus on the differences between the two
genders, which are actually quite small, rather than their
similarities
Refers to the work of Hyde, who carried out a statistical meta
analysis on a wide range of gender research and developed a
conclusion known as the 'gender similarities hypothesis'
Lavender Linguistics - Legman - Answer>>Includes research on
heteronormative and heterosexist language, and lexical items
used to refer to sexual orientations
Studied gay lexicon and found that it includes words specifically
used in the gay community with different purposes
Lavender Lexicons: specific lexicons for a group of people - e.g.
polari
1 Exam 2024 Questions and Answers
Lakoff's Deficit Model - Answer>>Features of women's
language
Women tend to apologise more, use tag questions, hedges,
empty adjectives, avoid cursing
Features of 'women's language' reflected women's inferior social
status
O'Barr and Atkins 'Powerless Language' - Answer>>Alternative
to the deficit model
Found that gender was less important than overall social status
and therefore 'powerless language' was a more effective label for
weaker conversational styles
Zimmerman and West 'Dominance Model' - Answer>>Recorded
interruptions in conversations between men and women and
found that 96% of interruptions were made by men
Argued this reflects the male role in society
Fishman 'Holding the Floor' - Answer>>Supported Zimmerman
and West with her study of holding the floor
Concluded that in mixed gender conversations, men tend to do
this on average twice as long as women
Trudgill Norwich study - Answer>>Studied men and women's
social class accents in Norwich and found that women's
pronunciation was closer to RP which is usually seen as the most
prestigious
Labov / Cheshire- Prestige - Answer>>Studied the speech of
adolescents in Reading and discovered that boys tended to use
more non-standard grammatical forms in order to seem more
rebellious and tough
, Known as prestige theory
Using standard english and RP gives a speaker overt prestige
which is more common in women
Using non-standard English gives a speaker covert prestige which
is more common in men
Tannen Difference Model - Answer>>Male and female
conversational styles are based around their different roles in
society
Men are more concerned with status, independence, gaining
factual information, finding solutions to problems, giving direct
orders and not minding conflict
Women are interested in forming bonds, showing understanding,
compromising, offering support, giving polite, indirect orders and
avoiding conflict
Also labelled male talk as report talk and female talk as rapport
talk
Cameron / Hyde 'Gender Similarities Hypothesis -
Answer>>Argues that a lot of research is biased, because there
has been more focus on the differences between the two
genders, which are actually quite small, rather than their
similarities
Refers to the work of Hyde, who carried out a statistical meta
analysis on a wide range of gender research and developed a
conclusion known as the 'gender similarities hypothesis'
Lavender Linguistics - Legman - Answer>>Includes research on
heteronormative and heterosexist language, and lexical items
used to refer to sexual orientations
Studied gay lexicon and found that it includes words specifically
used in the gay community with different purposes
Lavender Lexicons: specific lexicons for a group of people - e.g.
polari
