Robin Lakoff

-In 1975 she published an influential account of women's language called 'Language and women's place'.
Issues with the book:
-Data came from a very white middle class context
-Small dated sample
-40 years ago
-restrictive context
-Age varies

The theory she made up was called the Deficit theory/model, she thought that:
-Women prefer to use hedging, using phrases like "sort of" or "kind of"
-they use more (super) polite forms, e.g. "would you mind?"
-use tag questions, e.g. " you're going to dinner, aren't you?"
-speak in italics- to add emphasis
-use empty adjectives like: divine, lovely, cute
-use hypercorrect grammar and punctuation
-use direct quotation- men paraphrase more often
-have a special lexicon- women use more words for things like colours, men for sports.
-women often phrase statements as questions
-use "wh" imperatives - hidden commands
-speak less frequently
-overuse qualifiers, e.g.. "I think that"
-apologise more
-use modal constructions such as can, would or should
-use less swearing/taboo language
-use indirect commands like "it is cold in here" which would mean to shut the window or put the heating on
-use more intensifiers especially so and very
-lack sense of humour

My reaction to her theory:
Robin Lakoff has some good points on the speech of women, however they are mainly stereotypical. By this I mean she is judging women on how the society sees them because I myself as a women do not think most of her points are true. For example Lakoff thinks that women swear less but many don't not, there are women who swear equally as much as men. Also the fact that she says women lack a sense of humour is completely not true and very offensive. Some women cannot take certain jokes because they can be offensive rather than funny so the fact is that they usually interpret humour in a different way to men. The fact that she does not actually have much data and evidence which prove her opinions is why I disagree with her.