Calling the 'Gendered Language' Few (2 Viewers)

[The Chad]

Hmmm, sometimes I get the feeling that I am the only person doing Module C's Gendered Language. Somebody prove me wrong, oh, and as you do so, tell me what think of it & how you are coping/conquering it.

 

[blah says she]

There was only about 200 people doing 'Gendered Language' last year. Anyway, yep, I'm doing it. I go through periods of hating it and then liking it. I'm not really coping or conquering it at all The teacher tells us that we need to extend Tannen and develop our own ideas. Tannen's said it all though! I don't have any original ideas, when I think I do, I realise that it's cos I've already read it somewhere How are you finding it?

 

[saz]

Another victim of gendered language...

I too am one of the 'lucky' few whose school chose to force upon us the teachings of gendered language. I think im fairly right with the 'essay' type question but when it comes to the 'creative' side- umm lets just say i have no idea. I dont know if any of u, like me, find it hard to incorporate ideas on gendered language into a piece of writing without sounding obvious, or wihtout focussing too much on gender roles rather than language.....

And theres also the underlying fear that our teacher has taught us completely wrong and we will go into the exam with a completely different concept to the other schools {school (?)} studying this module!!

So any ideas/thoughts from u other gendered languagers...?

 

[blah says she]

what texts r u doing? we're doing twelfth night, elizabeth and tannen. i dont know if its just my teacher but it's like she seems to stress its not all feminist type thing, but all it seems to me is bagging out and saying women are seen as inferior/not equal and yadda yadda, it all seems like it stems back to feminism.

 

[saz]

....

Yeh our school also does those three texts.... the whole feminism thing also confuses me a bit as well. From wat i can work out the whole module is about the way the differences in how women & men communicate i.e.their language assigns gender roles within society... which to me leads back to females roles in society i.e feminism! BUt then when u look at the markers comments from last year they say that there was a problem with focussing too much on gender roles rather than language.... argh

Ah i cant wait till this is over... i reckon this is the unit that prob wont count for me anyway!

 

[blah says she]

most of the course i've tried to b/s my way through, but i was never quite good enough to pull it off i always seem to use the same arguments. i was confused when watching elizabeth cos the teacher kept telling us about something which i thought was completely detached from gendered language, obviously not. a lot of the gendered language which isnt probably applicable as gendered language im going to shove in under the label "body language" all my units count cos im doing 10. anyway good luck with the study

 

[emzy_87]

ive just started yr 12, and we're doing gendered language as well. Apparently there are only 120 students doing it for our yr (04)... we havent really got into the depths of it yet- however, i think it will be an interesting unit. My class is, ah, very diverse & we all have our different opinions on the matters Tennan has brought up in her book- shall make for an interesting year!
As for texts, we do the twelth night, tennan, but i'm not sure whether we do elizabeth or not.
i'll get back to you on that...
how did you guys fnd the course overall??

 

[blah says she]

On the whole I suppose it's not too bad. There are some really interesting parts. If you're anything like me and some of the girls in my class, then you'll go crazy and start analysing everyone's conversational style as masculine or feminine. (I'll be forever doing it ) Do you go to a co-ed school? I went to an all girls school so the discussion we had was pretty one-sided and biased!

 

[tegs]

We're doing it too, with those same texts.
I'm not really sure what we're meant to be talking about. Our teacher is really hopeless.
Can anyone give me any help?
I got great marks in class, but I think thats just because the teacher doesnt know what he's looking for. Help!!!

 

[Katgurl]

i was kind of wondering how many people are pro-tannen and how many are against her, coz i have heard a few people who really argue fiercely against her, but i think what she says is quite good. I think it isn't a good idea to get too worried about gender roles, i found the preface to Tannen's book helped me grasp what aspect to look at and why she wrote about the differences in conversational style. Best idea is not to get too carried away with trying to figure out which style is better, because you will just go round in circles.

It was funny this year coz our class was all girls (co-ed school but none of the boys wanted to extend their english) with a female teacher and any time a male teacher came to see the class for anything and asked what we were studying, he would immediately stand taller, cross his arms and do his very best to look masculine (short of killing a tiger) ... we got some very funny responses from teachers... you should try it sometime

 

[The Chad]

My teacher is the definitive feminist, which is especially good for this module. I really don't feel like there's much to it, so maybe I'm underestimating it... though i doubt it. In my class I'm the 'master of gendered language', yep, the person most learned in a feminist course is a guy. So really for me its been a discovery of how I can better use my male voice to gain greater power in conversations... Thanks Tannen. Oh, are exemplar essays 100%? The one we got given for gendered language is rubbish. Katgurl, do you think Catwoman is a feminist icon? What with the dominatrix getup and all. Your personal hero?

 

[blah says she]

yeah exemplar responses = full marks

what tannen says i can identify with, but sometimes i feel like it's so obvious what she's saying, but then some of it was like wow, really. it was an interesting module all in all, although i love to bitch about how bad it was

im trying to get through this bundle of notes we got given, how many trees have suffered for notes on gendered language

 

[TygA]

Im doin tannen, elizabeth and twelfth night also i cant find any good notes on the crap do any of yaz have anythin ve had to make my own stuff and i dont think its that good coz tannen keeps repeating herself the whole book

 

[mal]

Gendered language is the easiest topic. I wouldn't be caught dead studying the deconstructed post structuralist world of postmodernism (which the fundamental flaw is that since as a concept post-modernism objects to the orthodox conevntional beliefs, when it becomes orthodox does it reject itself?) If you are confused by that last sentence then count your lucky stars you are doing gendered language where only simplified concepts such as meta-messages and assyemntries are the hardest theory based ideas to comprehend. Remeber that every conversation has gendered aspects, there fore every type of communication be it bewteen people of the opposite or same gender can be used to illustrate gendered values or roles. Remeber the course concentrates on how subtle idiosyncracies and mannerism physically and verbally manifested by language shows the values implied. It is the values that matter the most.

 

[saz]

when u put it that way.... u make a good point I spose it is pretty easy when u compare it to other modules and relatively more interesting (Language of sport?? wat the...) So yes.... as it is under "Language and Values" we just have to talk about how the conversational/ language styles of males and females communicates VALUES about society...? I'm not so scared anymore.....

 

[saz]

when u put it that way.... u make a good point I spose it is pretty easy when u compare it to other modules and relatively more interesting (Language of sport?? wat the...) So yes.... as it is under "Language and Values" we just have to talk about the conversational/ language styles of males and females communicates VALUES about society...? I'm not so scared anymore.....

 

[Alethia]

Hmmm...a pro Tannan thread. That's new. We had a thread last year that was spent hammering Tannen. We had some strange dislike to her. Prabably our teacher's fault. She has a linguistics degree and set really hard assignmnents. Seems like everyone tends to do the trio of Tannen, Elizabeth and 12th night.
It also seems to be a topic that all girl classes do. I thought it would be interesting to discuss Tannens relevations with a guy, but alas, even if we did find a school willing to debate I doubt our catholic school would have let us converse with the opposite sex!

 

[tegs]

We have 2 guys in our class, and our teacher is a guy, so it's been interesting getting a guys perspective on it all, even tho our teacher is offically asexual.
I'm just not quite sure what we're meant to be going on about. I seem to be repeating myself in this module. There's only so much to gabber on about.

 

[pinksugar]

Well, I could really do with some help from you other poor souls stuck doing gendered language! MY SELF SELECTED TEXT SUCKS!

arg! I'm telling you, it is so hard to find one its unbelieveable..

our class didn't get an exemplar essay, it got an essay from this really smart girl who did the paper last year or the year before who I'm sure we all hate now because no one will ever sound that technical!

I'm having a major stress attack. I STILL don't know how language shapes and reflects values! can someone point me towards some study notes or something? Please!

 

[blah says she]

We didn't get any sample essays from previous years. Maybe a good thing as I'd be freaked out