Language & Power

If power is enforceable because it comes from a place of authority - eg rules, laws - it can be described as...

• influential power

• instrumental power

The power to shape ideas or to persuade an audience can be described as...

• influential power

• instrumental power

'Teacher talk' is an example of...

• instrumental power (spoken)

• instrumental power (written)

• Influential power (spoken)

• influential power (written)

Every profession generates its own specialised language or field specific lexis. We often call this...

• rhetoric

• graphology

• jargon

• neologisms

How is the concept of "the female" often presented in written text?

• As a submissive gender

• As equal to "the male"

• As an unimportant gender

• As authoritative

Which grammatical convention is almost always still adhered to within written texts?

• The female subject / object is omitted from the sentence

• The male is given syntactic order of precedence

• The female proper noun is not capitalised

• The male noun is overly-modified with positive adjectives

A male-dominated society has caused which language features to occur more commonly in women's spoken language?

• Directive, rather than imperative, sentence types

• Tag questions

• Hedges and fillers

• All of the above

Reasons for women's differences in spoken language are:

• Women want to distinguish themselves from men

• Society expects women to conform to polite behaviour

• Women lack confidence in being assertive due to their socialisation into gender roles

• Women are not able to communicate as well as men