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Discourse Competence: Or How to Theorize Strong Women Speakers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Sara Mills
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Abstract

In feminist linguistic analysis, women's speech has often been characterized as “powerless” or as “over-polite”; this paper aims to challenge this notion and to question the eliding of a feminine speech style with femaleness. In order to move beyond a position which judges speech as masculine or feminine, which are stereotypes of behavior, I propose the term “discourse competence” to describe speech where cooperative and competitive strategies are used appropriately.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 7 , Issue 2: Special Issue: Philosophy and Language , Spring 1992 , pp. 4 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by Hypatia, Inc.

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