Romantic Fiction Piece

Weakness and Strength

Weakness placed her delicate fingertips along his medium complexioned skin. She felt broad, strong shoulders and a firm chest. She breathed in considerably, allowing all of the salty, crisp air to fulfil her lungs, and her pulse to take over her fragile heart. She felt his too, on the left side of his chest, steady but intense.
This moment was like no other, a blanket of the ocean cascading up the shore wrapping around their feet, the sound relaxing their ears like a lullaby. The silent sun was glistening on the water at sunset, and glowing towards their very presence, creating a silhouette of two figures behind them on the velvety, pale-pink sand.
Strength ran his large, masculine hands through her hairline slowly and delicately, as if he was touching a feather, and carried his hand towards the back of her neck. He held the back of her head in the crease of her neck and Weakness felt her pulse quicken. She already felt something extraordinary after knowing him just a few weeks. He pulled her slightly closer so their chests were pressed together and he looked into her mesmerising jade-green eyes. She looked back into his, crystals of hazel and dark ocean-blue coruscating in the evening light, more beautiful than hers, she thought. She felt a lump of nervousness in her chest as she wanted to make an impression on him, as he had already done with her, but she had no idea how he felt anyway and she needn't worry about that now. This moment is all that counts.
He moved his chin ever so slightly, pressed his forehead lightly onto hers, and closed his eyes. He took a small breath and Weakness felt her pulse now racing. He then turned his chin. He looked at her one last time. Then placed his rounded lips upon hers as he held her face. He kissed her with passion and amorous. Weakness felt a feeling she had never felt before, it was indescribable.  Her body felt delicate and fragile, as he grabbed her waist strongly and lifted her up in the air towards him. This all felt so surreal. She could not comprehend how she felt like this. Strength placed her back on the sand, kissed her forehead lightly and walked up away from the beach. She watched his dark, curled hair sway in the sunset as he walked away, and his bronzed, dampened skin as he took one glance back at her.

An introduction to Language and Gender - with relevant theories.

Language and Gender

Robin Lakoff (1975) studied and published an account of women's language. From his research he set some assumptions and claims about women's language. Lakoff suggested that women use super-polite terms and forms of phrases whereas men do not tend to as much. He also suggested that women speak much less frequently and use hyper-correct grammar and pronunciation which is also apparent is the extract. I am going to look at how this is shown in an extract from a Mills and Boon romantic novel:

# Please note I have removed descriptions outside of the dialogue to purely focus on language used #

Male: I don'y suppose you took time to eat dinner, either. 

Female: I... had something earlier. On the plane.

... Male: Plastic food. 

Female: I don't know what concern it is of yours. 

Male: None. 

This extract shows that when the female speaker, Jill, is still trying to be fairly closed and tying not to let her guard down, but also seems to be getting rather irritated with him, as he is interrogating her with questions she may not want to answer if she does not know the man very well. She may not really care what he thinks of her, but she still uses the more polite form of 'I don't know what concern it is of yours' rather than the more bald, on-record form of perhaps 'It's none of your business'. Instead she uses negative face because it almost seems like that is how she is used to acting, with a lack of confidence due to established and identified gender roles of the man being seen as more dominant, and therefore she may not want to disregard this and lose respect from the man himself. This example proves Lakoff''s suggestion that women use more polite forms of language.

Zimmerman and West (1975) studied into the idea of a difference and dominance theory in language. They carried out a study and recorded 31 segments of conversation between men and women, they found that in 11 conversations, men interrupted 46 times and women only twice. This study helped to put forward their theory of dominance, as men are much more likely to interrupt, they tend to be more dominant in conversation and certainly have more air time. 

This is a short transcript at home, at meal-time on a Sunday:

# Vertical lines show overlap in conversation #

Female 1: Everyone! Dinner's ready!

Female 2: Oh this looks lovely darling, did you put oregano in it?

Female 1: Yes I did Mum, | tell me if it needs some more though.

Male 1:                               |Which one's mine?

Female 1: It's that one, Sven.

This small extract demonstrates how men have a tendency to interrupt much more often than women. I find this interesting because I don't know if it's because they have more power or dominance or whether its just a conversational habit that men usually develop. Either way, this example demonstrates how men are more likly to interrupt which leads to a particular dominance of their air-time in conversation.

Pamela Fishman (1983) developed a theory as regards to interaction: 'the work women do' theory. She suggested that conversation between the sexes sometimes fails, because of the way men respond and react to women's utterances, or don't respond. Fishman also claimed that in mixed-sex langauge interactions, men speak on average for twice as long as women. 

This is another extract from a Mills and Boon romantic novel to prove this theory:

# Please note I have removed descriptions outside of the dialogue to purely focus on language used #

Female 1: Thank you

Male 1: I might have saved your life, you know.

Female 1: How?

Male 1: You could have drowned.

Female 1: Not very likely. I had no intention of swimming.

Male 1: You can't trust the tides here. Even this close to the shore, the waves are capable pf jerking your feet out from under you. You might easily have been swept out to sea.

This again represents how a male speaker dominates the conversation through air-time. As it is a dialogue and there are no other speakers in the conversation, they take part in fair turn-taking, however he is speaking for much longer than her and always attempts to set and shift the agenda, which represents power and dominance in the conversation which could be associated with stereotypical male gender roles.