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Katz, J., 1972. Semantic theory. New York: Hn~per and Row, Ouine, W., 1960. Word and object. Cambridge, l,lass.: MIT Press. Rosenberg, J., and C. Travis (eds.), 197I Readings in the philosophy of language. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Rosenberg, J., 1974. Linguistic representation. Dordrecht: Reidel. Schiffer, S., 1972. Meaning. London: Oxford Univ, Press. Searle, J., 1968. Austin on Iocutionary and illocutionary acts. Philosophical Review LXXVII (4), 405 - 424. Scarle, J., 1969. Speech acts. London: Cambridge Univ. Press. Scarlc, J.. 1975. A taxonomy of illocutior~ary acts. In: K. Gunderson (ed.), Minnesota Studies in !he Philosophy of Science, Vol. 7. Stra~son, P.~ 1964. lntentior and conver tion in speech acts. Philosophical Review LXXIII (4L 439 460.
Robin Lakoff, Language and Wo~. a n s Place. Harper Colophon bOOKS, San Francisco, 1 9 7 5 . 8 3 pp. $2.25. Reviewed by Lenora A. Timm, Linguistics C o m m i t t e e , University of California, E,avis, Calif. 95616. This book is, in the author's words, "an a t t e m p t to provide diagnostic evidence from language use for one t y p e of inequity that has been claimed to exist in our society: that between the roles of meu and w o m e n . 1 will attempt to discover what language use can tell us a b o u t the nature and extent of the inequity; anti fiaally to ask whether anything can be done, from the linguistic end of the problem: does one correct a social inequity by changing linguistic disparities?" (p. 4). Reviewing a book having the above as its stated obj~'ctives might seen',, at the out~et, ~ refreshing, interesting, perhaps even a gratifying t ~sk for a reviewer w h o is both a woman and a linguist. Unfortunately, my initial enthusiasm for the project soon gave way to disappointment as I picked my w a y through this slim, weakly-organized monograph which might never have come off the presses t f an internationally-known publishing house had not the title, the topic, and the times rendered it likely to be a good seller. It should be noted that over half the b o o k (50/83 pp.) originally appeared in 1973 as an article in Language in Society (reprinted by Harper without many of the scholarly-looking footnotes, some of which were omitted, others placed in the text); thus only the second half of the b o o k presents ideas worked on since 1973. Lakof~'s book is divided into two principal sections: Part I bears the same title as the book and consists of four subsections (perhaps one could call them chapters, except the breaks between them seem little motivated by any considerations of con< p t u a l ti~iness), entitled, respectively, 'Introduction', 'Talking Like a Lady', "I alkmg a b o u t Women' and 'Conclusion'. Part II o f the b o o k - called 'Why Women are Ladies' - is similarly arranged in four sub-parts, including an I n t r o d u c t i o n ( 13 pp.) and a Conclusion ( 1 paragraph) with 'Forms of Politeness' and 'Woman and Politeness' falling in between.
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It is in the Introduction of Part II that k a k o f f states most clearly what she considers to be essential features of 'woman's language'. There are nine such features ( L a k o f f calls them 'forms'), which I q u o t e in s u m m a r y fashion below (pp. 5 3 - 5 7 ) " Women have a large stock of words related to their specific interests, generally relegated to them as ' w o m e n ' s work': magenta, shirt, dart (in sewing), and so on... 2. ' E m p t y ' adjectives like divine, charming, cute... ~. Question intonation where we might expect declaratives: for instance tag questions ('It's so hot, isn't it'?') and rising intonation in statement contexts... 4. The use of hedges of various kinds. Women's speech seems in general to conta~,n more instances of 'well', ' y ' k n c w ' , 'kinda', and so forth: words that cor:vey the sense that the speaker is uncertain about what he (or she) is saying, or cannot vouch for the accuracy of the statement... 5. R::lated to this is the use of the intensive 'so'....Here we have an attempt to r,o,~ . . . .on . .,.,. ,s o, . . . . ~oo~;.,.o ~h .,...~,. oo'," l ¢oo' ~*-'--'-'., o~-~,,* *~;o but I L 1 1 .U . l.l ,., k ~~. l I to .J tgl[ J( dare not make it clear how strong... 6. Hypercorrect grammar: w o m e n are not supposed to talk rough... 7. Saperpolite forms.., w o m e n are supposed to speak more politely th~p ~nen... w o m e n don't use off-color or indelicate expressions; w o m e n are the experts at euphemism... 8. Women don't tell jokes...woman have no sense of humor. 9. Women speak in italics, and the more ladylike and feminine you are, the more in italics you are supposed to speak. This is another way of expressing uncertainty with y o u r own self-expression,.. This is, clearly, a 'mixed bag' of features, ahnost half of which ( 6 - 9 ) relate more to language use than to language structure per se. Features 1, 2, 4 and 5 touch on possible lexical differences in male/temale speech, while feature 3 suggests divergence in syntactic and suprasegmental phenomena. Several of these features overlap considerably (6 and 7; 4, 5 and 9) or seem downright misleading (8). It is not, however, on the putative features of w o m e n ' s language as des,:ribed by L a k o f f that l wish to focus in this review; it is, rather, on the authoffs generally slipshod approach to the enlire subject. Indeed, Lakoff's study is vulnerable to criticsm on so many counts that I judged it useful to try to olganize my complaints into severai categories: (i) methods of analysis; (ii) definitior of terms and concepts (or lack thereof); (iii) use of freewheeling, u n d o c u m e n t e d geh.'ralizations; (iv) infelicitous choice of a model of human evolution; (v) apparent obliviousness to two decades of work in sociolinguistics: tvi) minor complaints. (i) Methods. Lakoff states in no uncertain terms that her claims a b o u t w o m e n ' s language are based on data "gathered mainly by i n t w s p e c t i o n : 1 have examined my own speech and that of my acqua 9tances, and have used my own intuitions in analyzing it" (p. 4). In this approach to research Lakoff reflects, of course, the m e t h o d ological predilections of most TG linguists, whose traditions she claims to be breaking with (p. 48). This m e t h o d of producing data has wrought confusion a m o n g even 'pure' linguists (i.e., those specifically not concerned with the extra-linguistic aspects of speaking); and it seems particularly ill-suited to a aociolinguistic investigation .
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(which Lakoff's study is supposed to be). since any one speaker necessarily represents but a single strand in a great a.,' complex web of social and linguistic interactions. Moreover, we are c o n f r o n t e d again with the old problem that the author's 'intuitions' a b o u t which sentence: are or are not acceptable do not always match up with the intuitions of the reader(s). For example, Lakoff states (p. 29) that one cannot use the noun 'mistress' in English unless ~ masculine noun representing 'possessor' precedes it. Thus the sentence *Rhonda is a mistress is deemed unacceptable by Lakoff; the implication, of course, is that one must specify whose mistress Rhonda is - e.g., R h o n d a is R o n ' s mistae~s. Fine, this usage does exist, and it is perhaps interesting that if we try reversing the proper nouns in the latter sentence, and changing mistress to master, we '-et R o n is R h o n d a ' s master, which does not necessarily imply an amorous relationship at all, but one of physical and/or psychological dominance of Ron over Rhonda. In order to convey the sexual c o n n o t a t i o n s of mistress when referring to a ma~, English speakers must choose another word entirely - lover isa c o m m o n choice and, it seems to me, quite adequate; w h y should we beat our breasts a b o u t this particular semantic quirk of English? More germane, however, to my criticism of Lakoff's reliance on introspection is the fact that after only 30 seconds of my o w n introspection, 1 came up with several instances o f sentences in which mistress could easily be used w i t h o u t a male possessor being implied - e.g.,
R h , n d a is the m,stress o f
a large household. ] five dogs and a cat.~ all she surveys. | etc. J
t could even say: R h o n d a is/ack [yes!] o]all trades and mistress o.fnone. With this kind ot pleasant but quite fruitless construction and exchange of sentences by and among (socio)linguists, efforts to build a t h e o r y of 'language in its social c o n t e x t ' will surely founaer as each investigator retrenche.~ at the o u t p o s t of her/his own ~ociolect; sociolinguists would be repeating the mistakes of the TG linguists. (ii~ Definitions. Unfortunately, Lakoff's reliance on introspection is not limited only to generating sentences which are supposed to be indicative of this or that semantic anomaly in English. The attthor's o w n intuitions abotlt how the world operates play far too imi-~rtant a role throughout the b o o k ; it is probably for this rea',(on that the reader is not burdened with clear definitions of terms (presumably be,ausc they arc !ntuitively obvious?) - e.g., the term ' w o m a n ' s language' itself, which ~s used inrert'hangeably with 'woman's speech' (p. 8 and passim) and 'conversational ~tvle' {p. 5 and passim). "Particle" is used for a while as an apparent s y n o n y m for "'~xpletive"tpp. I0 -1 1) and then seems to assume the meaning of 'polite reinforcel' ~.p. 18).
1-he closest approximation to a simple i n t r o d u c t o r y definition of ' w o m e n ' s language" is found on p. 8:
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" W o m e n ' s language shows up in all levels of the grammar of English. We find differences in ~:he choice and frequency of lexical items; in the situations in which certain syntactic rules are performed; in intonational and other supersegmental [sicl patterns". If the reader manages to get past the s o m e w h a t curious n o t i o n that language can 'show up' in a grammar, she might be t e m p t e d to look forward to the presentation , " some convincing quantitative evidence demonstrating the lexical, syntactic and suprasegmental differences between w o m e n ' s and men's 'languages' (perhaps "gynolect' and ' a n d r o l e c t ' would be more h propos). This expectation would be folly, however, since, in spite of occasional allusions to different frequencies of usage of this or th:~t linguistic feature by women and men, L a k o f f nowhere counts anything: the reader is expected (apparently) to accept without question the author's pcrs,~ilal interpretation of what constitutes feminine vs. masculine patterns of usage, l h u s . l.ak~fff writes boldly ( w i t h o u t the slightest tr',;ce of 'hedging'): "...it is a truism to state that the "stronger' expletives are reserved for men, and the "weaker" ones [t_,r w o m e n " (p. 10). Perhaps L a k o f f had in mind the mores of the Victorians when she wrote this, and/or her own experiences in life; but to me this statement is , o r a 'truism', at least not in the form in which it was presented. Women may not use strong expletives in all the same social/psychological c o n t e x t s in which men do land, indeed, the extent to which members of either sex use expletives - strong or weak will depend greatly on individual and family histories, as well as variation due to age and considerations of topic, mood, participants in the conversation, etc.); but this is not the same as claiming that women do not ever use them tbecause ~hey are "reserved" for men). In a similar spirit, [.akoff asserts flatly (p. 54) that the use of the intensive "so" "... is more frequent in women's than men's language, though certainly men can have it". Here isa possible hypothesis, but not a p r o v e n fact - how can it bc, since no evidence is a d d u c e d in support of this claim '~ tz~ any event. Lakoff's interpretation of 'so' as a 'hedging' device to conceal one'- real feelings (supposedly typical of w o m e n ' s language) leaves me completely non-I,itlssed: why is it more assertive/emphatic (hence manly) to say, for example:
really] i I',, i ,,e,'v hungry,
than to say:
I quite J I'm so hungry To me, these four sentences are all emphatic; if anything, tile sentences containing really and s~ arc more emphatic than the other two. In short, I cannot, on the basis of Lakoff's discussion of this intensive, understand what the fuss is about; but one opinion is only as good as another, and until a significant a m o u n t of data on English speakers' reactions to these intensives is provided, the issue is stalemated. (iii) Freewheeling generalizations. L a k o f f ' s study abounds in additional unsupported
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( o f t e n untenable) claims, some startling, some ludicrous. Considerations of space Limit my examples to just a few: ( 1) L a k o f f argues (p. 11) that since w o m e n are trained from c k i l d h o o d to be polite, t h e y must learn to avoid t sing expletiees; this means that w o m e n cannot express themselves as openly,/strongly as men, w h o are allowed to say Shit. t and HelU Thus, "allowing men stronger means of expression t h a n are open to w o m e n further reinforces men's position o f strength in the real world... Further, if s o m e o n e is allowed to show emotions, and conseque:atly does, others may well be able to view him as a teal individual in his o w n ,vight, as t h e y could not if he never showed emotion" (emphasis mine). So now we have learned that - contrary to Anglo-American stereotypes - m e n are the emotio:ml sex, and that their unchecked tongues and tempers have helped them achieve psychological, social and economic happiness. This is almost a revolutionary idea, and one o f the few that I am sorry L a k o f f did not elaborate. Still, I find it hard ,o convince myself that the road to inner satisfaction and outward success is paved with expletives. ~2) Later on (pp. 2 7 - 2 8 ) , L a k o f f argues that eccentricity - which she considers " t h e ultimate in vanity or self-cemeredness" - is p r e d o m i n a n t l y a m a l e trait: ~'A strong personality in general, a mark of egocentricity is again valued in men much more than in women. For these reasons, w o m e n are not very successful in business or politics, where both vanity and e,ccentricity o f certain sorts can be marks of distinction rather than objects of ridicule". This notion seems contrary-to-fact at the c~utset: if there is one thing politicians (in this c o u n t r y , at least) try to avoid at all costs, it is distinguishing themselves from mainstream behavioral norms; every effort ~ccms to be made to appear as ordinary, as respectable, as possible, indeed, it strikes me that eccentricity, so far as it is a political asset at all, has b¢en exploited more by female than by male politicians (I am thinking of the colorful Beila Abzug; Louise l)ay Hicks; Golda Meier [originally an American 1). However, even these examples are rare; and i suspect that Lakoff's correlation between eccentricity and political and/or businc~ success will leave other readers equally puzzled. (3) in summing up :~ome of the implicat o n s of recognizing the differences between w o m e n ' s and men's English, L a k o f f aaakes a point concerning the teaching of English as a second language: " I t is also iml~ortant for a teacher to be aware of the kind of language he or she is speaking: if a ~¢oman teacher unconsciously teaches ' w o m e n ' s language' to her male students, t t e y may be in difficulties when they try to f u n c t i o n in another c o u n t r y " (p. 47). This is confusing. L a k o f f had herself earlier argued (pp. 6 7) that i~.ost welt-educated w o m e n control b o t h men's and worn "n's language, that they shift from one to the other as the occasion dictates, t It is frankly
Unfort unztely, Lakoff developed fro::, tins the almost astounding notion that such switching ~ps the extra energy which women might use more creatively! A similar line of thinking for ~ng p|agucd the interpretation of bilinguals' language and cognitive development, but has at last been successfully overt~Jrned by the careful experiments of such psycholinguists as Lambert and Peat (1962); it would be tragic to allow this untutored, an d ultimately deleterious, view of bilingualism (in whatever form) to creep back into linguists' or sociolinguists' interpretation of speech behavior.
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hard to believe that w o m e n (or men) av knowledgeable of language structure and conversational patterns as T.E.S.L. instructors would be any more likely to teach their students such ' e m p t y ' (feminine) adjectives as cute, darling, divine, etc. than t h e y would be to instruct t h e m in the nuances of ' m e a t y ' (masculine) expletives. I do not disagree in principle that it may be necessary to keep men's and w o m e n ' s speech forms distinct in teaching some languages (such as Japanese), but in the case of English we still do not have a clear picture of what w o m e n ' s English is - if it is vi, h-vis men's, g a k o f f ' s nine features are highly tentative (and, as I pointed out ealiier, only four or five of them relate to linguistic structure: the rest focus on language ~,se in sociolinguistic contexts). In fact, recent research has shown that one of k a k o f r s ~uggested characteristics of wom-'n's English -- preponderance of tag questions in comparison with men -- is of highly questionable validity: Dubois and ('rouch (1975) found that in a three-hour taped conference at an American tmiversitk, male participants used tag questions 33 times, while women never used tbem. We must admit, ~hcn, that we are a long way from an accurate characterizatio,~ ot :.he sexual differonce:; in verbal behavior and, accordingly, not in a position to r e c o m m e n d what teachers of English as a second language should or should not transmit to their students, (4) Finally, a few briefer examples of Lakovian-style generalization and argumentation: - "Certainly it can be said that w o m e n have at their disposal a wider range of int o n a t i o n patterns than do men..." (p. 56). Yes, it can be said, but is it true? - " I t is equally true that different w o m e n speak women's language to differing extents; and, interestingly enough, it seems that academic w o m e n are among the least apt to be speakers of this language" (p. 57). If this is so, then one wonders w h y Lakoff, an academic, chooses herself as chief informant for this language! - " B u t certainly it is true that more w o m e n than men are institutionalized for mental illness; w o m e n form the huge majority of psychiatric patients" (p. (~2). This may be so; but the reader has a right to expect st)me d o c u m e n t a t i o n to this effect. In any event, her implication that being caught b,c~ween men's and women's language is one of the strains in a woman's life which "'tends to break down a w o m a n ' s mental resources" (p. 62) seems wildly speculative... -- L a k o f f offers up (p. 74) what she calls an " h y p o t h e s i s " -- viz., " . . . when the cyunch comes, the rules of politeness will supersede the rules of conversation: better bc unclear than r u d e " (emphasis mine). The thought of putting this hypothesis to the test strikes me as h u m o r o u s in the extreme... (iv) Evolutionary model. In the final pages oi her study, L a k o f f tries to account for the origins of the differences in men's and women's language. This is, to be sure, a largely speculative task, but then k a k o f f has already displayed her flair for this activity. With some (appropriate) hesitation L a k o f f adopts the notion of 'male bonding' in our primate ancestry as a possible key to linguistic divergences between the sexes. T h o u g h masculine solidarity with its well k n o w n manifestation in men's houses, men's clubs, etc. - is a familiar theme in ethnographic literature, the n o t i o n of male bonding has been put forth in its most explicit form by two social anthropologists, Tiger and Fox ( 1971 ), who argue that in p r e h u m a n primate societies the transition
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to hunting threw m~.n together into a cooperative enterprise which soon became an adaptive e c o n o m i c strategy. Men learned to hunt together and bring meat h o m e to the women w h o remained relatively ,'amp-bound'(except for the rounds o f foodgathering). Gradually, this successiul i attern of acquiring and sharing f o o d - the original division of labor- beca ne part of the hominids' genetic makeup (part of their " b i o g r a m m a r " in Tiger-Fox terms). From the original hunting bond among males, so the t h e o r y runs, men developed cooperation in o t h e r spheres, always excluding women. From here it was easy for them to gain dominance, since t h e y were a close, cooperative unit, while w o m e n were relatively isolated from one another, unorganized and thus unable to defend their c o m m o n interests. Lakoff picks up the ball (so to speak) from here" she apparently assumes (though do,:s not explicitly state) that m : l ' s language grew o u t of the goal-oriented camaraderie that has existed among males in every society since time immemorial: and because men have almost always and everywhere been dominant over women, so their 'language' is dominant and more higilly valued by both sexes than the 'language" of the submissive and ' u n b o n d e d ' women. Now contemplating the origins of things is an engaging task, and some readers of Lakotf's account of the origin of :;ex differences in _lano,,~o,~ ..~,~_~,~ may ¢;~a .... , enlightenment therein. However, I think it crucial to point that the Tiger-Fox hypothesis o f male bonding is not widely a~zcepted by anthropologists; indeed, this particular a t t e m p t to explain c o n t e m p o r a r y behavior in terms of human evolution is overly simplistic, if not simply naive (of. Alland, Jr. I973). Moreover. there is absolutely every reason to suppose that w o m e n left at camp while men went out to hunt together would talk and c o o p e r a t e to some e x t e n t at 1east in their various child-rearing and food-gathering/preparation activities (the literature on pre-industrial peoples is replete with examples of just this). One eminent zoologist has even suggested that w o m e n may well have originated language at the car,Jpsite while the men were out pursuing game, an occupation which, far from req ~ring comradely chatter, places a premium on stealth and silence ( H u t c h i n s o n I ~7¢~; ._4}: {~ Neglect of sociolinguistics. At various points in her b o o k , Lakoff calls atten.r'~ ~,.~ the necessity of looking b e y o n d pure linguistic structure if we are to gain some understanding of variation in language --- in other words, linguists must look .at the extra-linguistic contexts in which speech takes place: "the linguist must involve himself professionally, with sociology..." (p. 50). For once I find myself in complete agreement with Lakoff. But what surprises and, admittedly, irritates me is that Lakoff nowhere gives any evidence that she has even heard of sociolinguistics or the et>no~raphy of speaking, the practitioners of which have been making the same claim for yeers, and h:~ve been carrying out :esearch with the specific aim of finding correla~i~,rls and 'or ir~eraction between linguistic and social phenomena. Is it possible that L~koff was ~impiy m't a~ are of the work of Labor, Hymes, Gumperz, Ervin-Tripp, m:er ,a/ta. ~}~o~e ,};ec,reticaily and methodologically important publications on language ~nd :~ociety t>~r,: been amassing since the early 1960's (and even b e f o r e ) a n d ,;cap~u ahape ,:he now-burgeoning field of sociolinguistics? vi) Minor complaints. It is customary in reviews to include toward the end some
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mention of small errors, stylistic flaws, etc. 1 have no appetite for this task, since 1 have f o u n d it necessary to be so critical of much of the substance of Lakoff's study. Suffice it to say, the plofessional (or amateur) editor will find ample o p p o r t u n i t y to wield her red pencil at dubious punctuation or occasional typos (e.g., 'Loasati' for 'Koasati ' in the citation ol Haas' article in the Bibliography). ] h e serious social scientist will rankle at turns of phrase such as " t h e real decisions of life" (p. 9); %.. t h e y [ w o m e n ] are not fully h u m a n beings in their own right" (p. 22); " t h e y [menl act in the world as a u t o n o m o u s individuals..." ~p. 311; "Rules o f Politeness... predict w h y . . . " (p. 54). And the careful reader will be dismayed by the contradictory statements ahout l roquoian " M a t r i a r c h y " (p. 43, n. 4): or the misinterpretation of Jespersen's remarks on w o m a n and neologism (p. 55). Jespersen did plot claim that w o m e n in general are more prone to neologism than men, only that among the Botocudos of South America was this the c a s e ( 1 9 6 4 : 2 4 2 243); and this Jespersen found " c u r i o u s " ! A quick glance at Jespersen's chapter on "1he Woman' would have prevented this unnecessary e r r o r It has not been pleasant to write so critical a review of a book whose topic is of poiential theoretical and social importance and of great interest to the reviewer as well as to an ever-growing n u m b e r of scholars and the general public. I feel st~,mgly, however, that w o m e n may in the end do themselves more harm than good by overstating their case, exaggerating, even distorting, the significance of whatever differences may exist between men's and w o m e n ' s speech. There are some obvious inequities which should be corrected (such as the w o m a n ' s loss of her maiden name at marriage); and there is n o t h i n g to prevent us from investigating other, less obvious, discrepancies which may exist in the speech-related behavior of w o m e n and men. Herein lies what 1 judge to be the chief usefulness of Lakoff's study: it will serve and has already served (see Dubois and Crouch 1975) as a catalyst for research by other investigators more experimentally and empirically oriented than L a k o f f herself. A number of Lakoff's unsupported assertions about women's language could be reformulated as hypotheses, then tested in a controlled experiment or checked for validity against data gathered in natural speect,~ situations. Tiffs strikes me as the only sensible way to arrive at a valid description ~ linguistic features which are characteristic o f w o m e n in this society or elsewhere. Finally, I think L a k o f f deserves recognition for the fact that - for b e t t e r or worse - she .",as done pioneering work in an area which hitherto had been fairly well neglected by linguists, and even by sociolinguists; her study should help "raise the consciousness" of those who read it.
References Alland, Jr., A., 1973. Review of'The imperial animal' {by L. Tiger and R. Fox). American Anthropologist 75 (4), 1147- 1148. Dubois, B., and ;.. Crouch, 1975. The tag questions of women's speech: They don't really use more of them, do they?! Language in Society 4 (3), 289-294. Hutchinson, G.E., 1976. Man talking or thinking. American Scientist 64, 22-27.
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Jcspcrsen, O, 1964 [orig. 19211. Languag=: ~ts nature, development and origin. New York: Norton. Lakoff, R., 1973. Language and won, ~n's place. Language in Society 2 (1), 45-80. La robert, W.E., and E. Peal, 1962. The relation of bil~ngualism to intelligence. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied 76 (26). T!ger, L., and R. Fox, 1971. The imperial animal. New York: Delta.
(;.A. Klimov, O~Serk ob~?ej teo: ii ~rgativnosti. (Outline of a general theory of ergativity). Moscow, lzd-vo N a u k a ' , 1973. 264 pp. 1 rub. 35 kop. Reviewed by Bernard Comrie, King's College, Cambridge, England. I h i s book is not a detailed description of ergativity in o , e or more languages, but rather a general contribution to the typological characterization of ergativity, i The data range is extremely wide: the author is a specialist in Caucasian languages, and naturally draws much of his data from these languages, but the range of illustrative material includes many examples from, for instance, Amerindian, Austronesian, and Australian languages (although, as the author himself notes, the syntactic materials available to him on many of these languages left much to be desired). The main line of the book is that ergativity can be -'.aracterized typologically only from a diachronic viewpoint, in that it represents an intermediate stage b e t w e e n the 'active' language-type (see below) and the nominative language-type. This is one of the most original recent approaches to the problem of ergativity, and certainly deser, e s to be brougat to the notice of research workers engaged in problems of ergativity (in partitular, tho:.e who do not read Rt'ssian). In this review, 1 shall outline the main p~Znts of Klimov's argument, and also discuss those points where I consider his ap?r~Ja~h particularly vulnerable. t n discussing various language-types, and in particular the ergative language-type, K1imov insists on a distinction between the concepts 'construction', 'structure', and "system'. To take ergativity as an example: The ergative construction is a syntactic construction containing at least a subject, a direct obje,".t, and a transitive verb, where the subject of the transitive verb is treated differently from the subject of an intransitive verb, and the direct object of the transitive verb is treated in the same w a y as the subject of an intransitive verb. The ergative structure requires (in fact, as a ~ orol !ary of the definition of the ergative construction) also the presepce of the absolute c¢.mstruction, ceasisting of at least a subject and an intransitive verb, and of no direct ~Jbject. Thus the combinatior, of ergative and absolute constructions (and possibly of :,ome othersl gives the ergative structure. However, K l i ~ o v maintains that there are certain other typological properties, logically distinct from the ergative and absolute '~nstruct~ons, tf~at tend to cooccur with the ergative structure (such as SOV word t I am grateful to the following for discussion of various aspects of ergativity: S.R. Anderson, D.I2 Johnson, E.L. Keenan, A, Komld~y, G.K. Pullum. My work on languages of the U.S.S.R. '.'.as supported by a grant from the Soc',al Science Research Council for investigation of the s,.¢ntactic typology of the languages of the Soviet Union.
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Katz, J., 1972. Semantic theory. New York: Hn~per and Row, Ouine, W., 1960. Word and object. Cambridge, l,lass.: MIT Press. Rosenberg, J., and C. Travis (eds.), 197I Readings in the philosophy of language. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Rosenberg, J., 1974. Linguistic representation. Dordrecht: Reidel. Schiffer, S., 1972. Meaning. London: Oxford Univ, Press. Searle, J., 1968. Austin on Iocutionary and illocutionary acts. Philosophical Review LXXVII (4), 405 - 424. Scarle, J., 1969. Speech acts. London: Cambridge Univ. Press. Scarlc, J.. 1975. A taxonomy of illocutior~ary acts. In: K. Gunderson (ed.), Minnesota Studies in !he Philosophy of Science, Vol. 7. Stra~son, P.~ 1964. lntentior and conver tion in speech acts. Philosophical Review LXXIII (4L 439 460.
Robin Lakoff, Language and Wo~. a n s Place. Harper Colophon bOOKS, San Francisco, 1 9 7 5 . 8 3 pp. $2.25. Reviewed by Lenora A. Timm, Linguistics C o m m i t t e e , University of California, E,avis, Calif. 95616. This book is, in the author's words, "an a t t e m p t to provide diagnostic evidence from language use for one t y p e of inequity that has been claimed to exist in our society: that between the roles of meu and w o m e n . 1 will attempt to discover what language use can tell us a b o u t the nature and extent of the inequity; anti fiaally to ask whether anything can be done, from the linguistic end of the problem: does one correct a social inequity by changing linguistic disparities?" (p. 4). Reviewing a book having the above as its stated obj~'ctives might seen',, at the out~et, ~ refreshing, interesting, perhaps even a gratifying t ~sk for a reviewer w h o is both a woman and a linguist. Unfortunately, my initial enthusiasm for the project soon gave way to disappointment as I picked my w a y through this slim, weakly-organized monograph which might never have come off the presses t f an internationally-known publishing house had not the title, the topic, and the times rendered it likely to be a good seller. It should be noted that over half the b o o k (50/83 pp.) originally appeared in 1973 as an article in Language in Society (reprinted by Harper without many of the scholarly-looking footnotes, some of which were omitted, others placed in the text); thus only the second half of the b o o k presents ideas worked on since 1973. Lakof~'s book is divided into two principal sections: Part I bears the same title as the book and consists of four subsections (perhaps one could call them chapters, except the breaks between them seem little motivated by any considerations of con< p t u a l ti~iness), entitled, respectively, 'Introduction', 'Talking Like a Lady', "I alkmg a b o u t Women' and 'Conclusion'. Part II o f the b o o k - called 'Why Women are Ladies' - is similarly arranged in four sub-parts, including an I n t r o d u c t i o n ( 13 pp.) and a Conclusion ( 1 paragraph) with 'Forms of Politeness' and 'Woman and Politeness' falling in between.
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It is in the Introduction of Part II that k a k o f f states most clearly what she considers to be essential features of 'woman's language'. There are nine such features ( L a k o f f calls them 'forms'), which I q u o t e in s u m m a r y fashion below (pp. 5 3 - 5 7 ) " Women have a large stock of words related to their specific interests, generally relegated to them as ' w o m e n ' s work': magenta, shirt, dart (in sewing), and so on... 2. ' E m p t y ' adjectives like divine, charming, cute... ~. Question intonation where we might expect declaratives: for instance tag questions ('It's so hot, isn't it'?') and rising intonation in statement contexts... 4. The use of hedges of various kinds. Women's speech seems in general to conta~,n more instances of 'well', ' y ' k n c w ' , 'kinda', and so forth: words that cor:vey the sense that the speaker is uncertain about what he (or she) is saying, or cannot vouch for the accuracy of the statement... 5. R::lated to this is the use of the intensive 'so'....Here we have an attempt to r,o,~ . . . .on . .,.,. ,s o, . . . . ~oo~;.,.o ~h .,...~,. oo'," l ¢oo' ~*-'--'-'., o~-~,,* *~;o but I L 1 1 .U . l.l ,., k ~~. l I to .J tgl[ J( dare not make it clear how strong... 6. Hypercorrect grammar: w o m e n are not supposed to talk rough... 7. Saperpolite forms.., w o m e n are supposed to speak more politely th~p ~nen... w o m e n don't use off-color or indelicate expressions; w o m e n are the experts at euphemism... 8. Women don't tell jokes...woman have no sense of humor. 9. Women speak in italics, and the more ladylike and feminine you are, the more in italics you are supposed to speak. This is another way of expressing uncertainty with y o u r own self-expression,.. This is, clearly, a 'mixed bag' of features, ahnost half of which ( 6 - 9 ) relate more to language use than to language structure per se. Features 1, 2, 4 and 5 touch on possible lexical differences in male/temale speech, while feature 3 suggests divergence in syntactic and suprasegmental phenomena. Several of these features overlap considerably (6 and 7; 4, 5 and 9) or seem downright misleading (8). It is not, however, on the putative features of w o m e n ' s language as des,:ribed by L a k o f f that l wish to focus in this review; it is, rather, on the authoffs generally slipshod approach to the enlire subject. Indeed, Lakoff's study is vulnerable to criticsm on so many counts that I judged it useful to try to olganize my complaints into severai categories: (i) methods of analysis; (ii) definitior of terms and concepts (or lack thereof); (iii) use of freewheeling, u n d o c u m e n t e d geh.'ralizations; (iv) infelicitous choice of a model of human evolution; (v) apparent obliviousness to two decades of work in sociolinguistics: tvi) minor complaints. (i) Methods. Lakoff states in no uncertain terms that her claims a b o u t w o m e n ' s language are based on data "gathered mainly by i n t w s p e c t i o n : 1 have examined my own speech and that of my acqua 9tances, and have used my own intuitions in analyzing it" (p. 4). In this approach to research Lakoff reflects, of course, the m e t h o d ological predilections of most TG linguists, whose traditions she claims to be breaking with (p. 48). This m e t h o d of producing data has wrought confusion a m o n g even 'pure' linguists (i.e., those specifically not concerned with the extra-linguistic aspects of speaking); and it seems particularly ill-suited to a aociolinguistic investigation .
(,I. u
~
F,.4 L,
-.
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(which Lakoff's study is supposed to be). since any one speaker necessarily represents but a single strand in a great a.,' complex web of social and linguistic interactions. Moreover, we are c o n f r o n t e d again with the old problem that the author's 'intuitions' a b o u t which sentence: are or are not acceptable do not always match up with the intuitions of the reader(s). For example, Lakoff states (p. 29) that one cannot use the noun 'mistress' in English unless ~ masculine noun representing 'possessor' precedes it. Thus the sentence *Rhonda is a mistress is deemed unacceptable by Lakoff; the implication, of course, is that one must specify whose mistress Rhonda is - e.g., R h o n d a is R o n ' s mistae~s. Fine, this usage does exist, and it is perhaps interesting that if we try reversing the proper nouns in the latter sentence, and changing mistress to master, we '-et R o n is R h o n d a ' s master, which does not necessarily imply an amorous relationship at all, but one of physical and/or psychological dominance of Ron over Rhonda. In order to convey the sexual c o n n o t a t i o n s of mistress when referring to a ma~, English speakers must choose another word entirely - lover isa c o m m o n choice and, it seems to me, quite adequate; w h y should we beat our breasts a b o u t this particular semantic quirk of English? More germane, however, to my criticism of Lakoff's reliance on introspection is the fact that after only 30 seconds of my o w n introspection, 1 came up with several instances o f sentences in which mistress could easily be used w i t h o u t a male possessor being implied - e.g.,
R h , n d a is the m,stress o f
a large household. ] five dogs and a cat.~ all she surveys. | etc. J
t could even say: R h o n d a is/ack [yes!] o]all trades and mistress o.fnone. With this kind ot pleasant but quite fruitless construction and exchange of sentences by and among (socio)linguists, efforts to build a t h e o r y of 'language in its social c o n t e x t ' will surely founaer as each investigator retrenche.~ at the o u t p o s t of her/his own ~ociolect; sociolinguists would be repeating the mistakes of the TG linguists. (ii~ Definitions. Unfortunately, Lakoff's reliance on introspection is not limited only to generating sentences which are supposed to be indicative of this or that semantic anomaly in English. The attthor's o w n intuitions abotlt how the world operates play far too imi-~rtant a role throughout the b o o k ; it is probably for this rea',(on that the reader is not burdened with clear definitions of terms (presumably be,ausc they arc !ntuitively obvious?) - e.g., the term ' w o m a n ' s language' itself, which ~s used inrert'hangeably with 'woman's speech' (p. 8 and passim) and 'conversational ~tvle' {p. 5 and passim). "Particle" is used for a while as an apparent s y n o n y m for "'~xpletive"tpp. I0 -1 1) and then seems to assume the meaning of 'polite reinforcel' ~.p. 18).
1-he closest approximation to a simple i n t r o d u c t o r y definition of ' w o m e n ' s language" is found on p. 8:
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" W o m e n ' s language shows up in all levels of the grammar of English. We find differences in ~:he choice and frequency of lexical items; in the situations in which certain syntactic rules are performed; in intonational and other supersegmental [sicl patterns". If the reader manages to get past the s o m e w h a t curious n o t i o n that language can 'show up' in a grammar, she might be t e m p t e d to look forward to the presentation , " some convincing quantitative evidence demonstrating the lexical, syntactic and suprasegmental differences between w o m e n ' s and men's 'languages' (perhaps "gynolect' and ' a n d r o l e c t ' would be more h propos). This expectation would be folly, however, since, in spite of occasional allusions to different frequencies of usage of this or th:~t linguistic feature by women and men, L a k o f f nowhere counts anything: the reader is expected (apparently) to accept without question the author's pcrs,~ilal interpretation of what constitutes feminine vs. masculine patterns of usage, l h u s . l.ak~fff writes boldly ( w i t h o u t the slightest tr',;ce of 'hedging'): "...it is a truism to state that the "stronger' expletives are reserved for men, and the "weaker" ones [t_,r w o m e n " (p. 10). Perhaps L a k o f f had in mind the mores of the Victorians when she wrote this, and/or her own experiences in life; but to me this statement is , o r a 'truism', at least not in the form in which it was presented. Women may not use strong expletives in all the same social/psychological c o n t e x t s in which men do land, indeed, the extent to which members of either sex use expletives - strong or weak will depend greatly on individual and family histories, as well as variation due to age and considerations of topic, mood, participants in the conversation, etc.); but this is not the same as claiming that women do not ever use them tbecause ~hey are "reserved" for men). In a similar spirit, [.akoff asserts flatly (p. 54) that the use of the intensive "so" "... is more frequent in women's than men's language, though certainly men can have it". Here isa possible hypothesis, but not a p r o v e n fact - how can it bc, since no evidence is a d d u c e d in support of this claim '~ tz~ any event. Lakoff's interpretation of 'so' as a 'hedging' device to conceal one'- real feelings (supposedly typical of w o m e n ' s language) leaves me completely non-I,itlssed: why is it more assertive/emphatic (hence manly) to say, for example:
really] i I',, i ,,e,'v hungry,
than to say:
I quite J I'm so hungry To me, these four sentences are all emphatic; if anything, tile sentences containing really and s~ arc more emphatic than the other two. In short, I cannot, on the basis of Lakoff's discussion of this intensive, understand what the fuss is about; but one opinion is only as good as another, and until a significant a m o u n t of data on English speakers' reactions to these intensives is provided, the issue is stalemated. (iii) Freewheeling generalizations. L a k o f f ' s study abounds in additional unsupported
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( o f t e n untenable) claims, some startling, some ludicrous. Considerations of space Limit my examples to just a few: ( 1) L a k o f f argues (p. 11) that since w o m e n are trained from c k i l d h o o d to be polite, t h e y must learn to avoid t sing expletiees; this means that w o m e n cannot express themselves as openly,/strongly as men, w h o are allowed to say Shit. t and HelU Thus, "allowing men stronger means of expression t h a n are open to w o m e n further reinforces men's position o f strength in the real world... Further, if s o m e o n e is allowed to show emotions, and conseque:atly does, others may well be able to view him as a teal individual in his o w n ,vight, as t h e y could not if he never showed emotion" (emphasis mine). So now we have learned that - contrary to Anglo-American stereotypes - m e n are the emotio:ml sex, and that their unchecked tongues and tempers have helped them achieve psychological, social and economic happiness. This is almost a revolutionary idea, and one o f the few that I am sorry L a k o f f did not elaborate. Still, I find it hard ,o convince myself that the road to inner satisfaction and outward success is paved with expletives. ~2) Later on (pp. 2 7 - 2 8 ) , L a k o f f argues that eccentricity - which she considers " t h e ultimate in vanity or self-cemeredness" - is p r e d o m i n a n t l y a m a l e trait: ~'A strong personality in general, a mark of egocentricity is again valued in men much more than in women. For these reasons, w o m e n are not very successful in business or politics, where both vanity and e,ccentricity o f certain sorts can be marks of distinction rather than objects of ridicule". This notion seems contrary-to-fact at the c~utset: if there is one thing politicians (in this c o u n t r y , at least) try to avoid at all costs, it is distinguishing themselves from mainstream behavioral norms; every effort ~ccms to be made to appear as ordinary, as respectable, as possible, indeed, it strikes me that eccentricity, so far as it is a political asset at all, has b¢en exploited more by female than by male politicians (I am thinking of the colorful Beila Abzug; Louise l)ay Hicks; Golda Meier [originally an American 1). However, even these examples are rare; and i suspect that Lakoff's correlation between eccentricity and political and/or businc~ success will leave other readers equally puzzled. (3) in summing up :~ome of the implicat o n s of recognizing the differences between w o m e n ' s and men's English, L a k o f f aaakes a point concerning the teaching of English as a second language: " I t is also iml~ortant for a teacher to be aware of the kind of language he or she is speaking: if a ~¢oman teacher unconsciously teaches ' w o m e n ' s language' to her male students, t t e y may be in difficulties when they try to f u n c t i o n in another c o u n t r y " (p. 47). This is confusing. L a k o f f had herself earlier argued (pp. 6 7) that i~.ost welt-educated w o m e n control b o t h men's and worn "n's language, that they shift from one to the other as the occasion dictates, t It is frankly
Unfort unztely, Lakoff developed fro::, tins the almost astounding notion that such switching ~ps the extra energy which women might use more creatively! A similar line of thinking for ~ng p|agucd the interpretation of bilinguals' language and cognitive development, but has at last been successfully overt~Jrned by the careful experiments of such psycholinguists as Lambert and Peat (1962); it would be tragic to allow this untutored, an d ultimately deleterious, view of bilingualism (in whatever form) to creep back into linguists' or sociolinguists' interpretation of speech behavior.
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hard to believe that w o m e n (or men) av knowledgeable of language structure and conversational patterns as T.E.S.L. instructors would be any more likely to teach their students such ' e m p t y ' (feminine) adjectives as cute, darling, divine, etc. than t h e y would be to instruct t h e m in the nuances of ' m e a t y ' (masculine) expletives. I do not disagree in principle that it may be necessary to keep men's and w o m e n ' s speech forms distinct in teaching some languages (such as Japanese), but in the case of English we still do not have a clear picture of what w o m e n ' s English is - if it is vi, h-vis men's, g a k o f f ' s nine features are highly tentative (and, as I pointed out ealiier, only four or five of them relate to linguistic structure: the rest focus on language ~,se in sociolinguistic contexts). In fact, recent research has shown that one of k a k o f r s ~uggested characteristics of wom-'n's English -- preponderance of tag questions in comparison with men -- is of highly questionable validity: Dubois and ('rouch (1975) found that in a three-hour taped conference at an American tmiversitk, male participants used tag questions 33 times, while women never used tbem. We must admit, ~hcn, that we are a long way from an accurate characterizatio,~ ot :.he sexual differonce:; in verbal behavior and, accordingly, not in a position to r e c o m m e n d what teachers of English as a second language should or should not transmit to their students, (4) Finally, a few briefer examples of Lakovian-style generalization and argumentation: - "Certainly it can be said that w o m e n have at their disposal a wider range of int o n a t i o n patterns than do men..." (p. 56). Yes, it can be said, but is it true? - " I t is equally true that different w o m e n speak women's language to differing extents; and, interestingly enough, it seems that academic w o m e n are among the least apt to be speakers of this language" (p. 57). If this is so, then one wonders w h y Lakoff, an academic, chooses herself as chief informant for this language! - " B u t certainly it is true that more w o m e n than men are institutionalized for mental illness; w o m e n form the huge majority of psychiatric patients" (p. (~2). This may be so; but the reader has a right to expect st)me d o c u m e n t a t i o n to this effect. In any event, her implication that being caught b,c~ween men's and women's language is one of the strains in a woman's life which "'tends to break down a w o m a n ' s mental resources" (p. 62) seems wildly speculative... -- L a k o f f offers up (p. 74) what she calls an " h y p o t h e s i s " -- viz., " . . . when the cyunch comes, the rules of politeness will supersede the rules of conversation: better bc unclear than r u d e " (emphasis mine). The thought of putting this hypothesis to the test strikes me as h u m o r o u s in the extreme... (iv) Evolutionary model. In the final pages oi her study, L a k o f f tries to account for the origins of the differences in men's and women's language. This is, to be sure, a largely speculative task, but then k a k o f f has already displayed her flair for this activity. With some (appropriate) hesitation L a k o f f adopts the notion of 'male bonding' in our primate ancestry as a possible key to linguistic divergences between the sexes. T h o u g h masculine solidarity with its well k n o w n manifestation in men's houses, men's clubs, etc. - is a familiar theme in ethnographic literature, the n o t i o n of male bonding has been put forth in its most explicit form by two social anthropologists, Tiger and Fox ( 1971 ), who argue that in p r e h u m a n primate societies the transition
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to hunting threw m~.n together into a cooperative enterprise which soon became an adaptive e c o n o m i c strategy. Men learned to hunt together and bring meat h o m e to the women w h o remained relatively ,'amp-bound'(except for the rounds o f foodgathering). Gradually, this successiul i attern of acquiring and sharing f o o d - the original division of labor- beca ne part of the hominids' genetic makeup (part of their " b i o g r a m m a r " in Tiger-Fox terms). From the original hunting bond among males, so the t h e o r y runs, men developed cooperation in o t h e r spheres, always excluding women. From here it was easy for them to gain dominance, since t h e y were a close, cooperative unit, while w o m e n were relatively isolated from one another, unorganized and thus unable to defend their c o m m o n interests. Lakoff picks up the ball (so to speak) from here" she apparently assumes (though do,:s not explicitly state) that m : l ' s language grew o u t of the goal-oriented camaraderie that has existed among males in every society since time immemorial: and because men have almost always and everywhere been dominant over women, so their 'language' is dominant and more higilly valued by both sexes than the 'language" of the submissive and ' u n b o n d e d ' women. Now contemplating the origins of things is an engaging task, and some readers of Lakotf's account of the origin of :;ex differences in _lano,,~o,~ ..~,~_~,~ may ¢;~a .... , enlightenment therein. However, I think it crucial to point that the Tiger-Fox hypothesis o f male bonding is not widely a~zcepted by anthropologists; indeed, this particular a t t e m p t to explain c o n t e m p o r a r y behavior in terms of human evolution is overly simplistic, if not simply naive (of. Alland, Jr. I973). Moreover. there is absolutely every reason to suppose that w o m e n left at camp while men went out to hunt together would talk and c o o p e r a t e to some e x t e n t at 1east in their various child-rearing and food-gathering/preparation activities (the literature on pre-industrial peoples is replete with examples of just this). One eminent zoologist has even suggested that w o m e n may well have originated language at the car,Jpsite while the men were out pursuing game, an occupation which, far from req ~ring comradely chatter, places a premium on stealth and silence ( H u t c h i n s o n I ~7¢~; ._4}: {~ Neglect of sociolinguistics. At various points in her b o o k , Lakoff calls atten.r'~ ~,.~ the necessity of looking b e y o n d pure linguistic structure if we are to gain some understanding of variation in language --- in other words, linguists must look .at the extra-linguistic contexts in which speech takes place: "the linguist must involve himself professionally, with sociology..." (p. 50). For once I find myself in complete agreement with Lakoff. But what surprises and, admittedly, irritates me is that Lakoff nowhere gives any evidence that she has even heard of sociolinguistics or the et>no~raphy of speaking, the practitioners of which have been making the same claim for yeers, and h:~ve been carrying out :esearch with the specific aim of finding correla~i~,rls and 'or ir~eraction between linguistic and social phenomena. Is it possible that L~koff was ~impiy m't a~ are of the work of Labor, Hymes, Gumperz, Ervin-Tripp, m:er ,a/ta. ~}~o~e ,};ec,reticaily and methodologically important publications on language ~nd :~ociety t>~r,: been amassing since the early 1960's (and even b e f o r e ) a n d ,;cap~u ahape ,:he now-burgeoning field of sociolinguistics? vi) Minor complaints. It is customary in reviews to include toward the end some
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mention of small errors, stylistic flaws, etc. 1 have no appetite for this task, since 1 have f o u n d it necessary to be so critical of much of the substance of Lakoff's study. Suffice it to say, the plofessional (or amateur) editor will find ample o p p o r t u n i t y to wield her red pencil at dubious punctuation or occasional typos (e.g., 'Loasati' for 'Koasati ' in the citation ol Haas' article in the Bibliography). ] h e serious social scientist will rankle at turns of phrase such as " t h e real decisions of life" (p. 9); %.. t h e y [ w o m e n ] are not fully h u m a n beings in their own right" (p. 22); " t h e y [menl act in the world as a u t o n o m o u s individuals..." ~p. 311; "Rules o f Politeness... predict w h y . . . " (p. 54). And the careful reader will be dismayed by the contradictory statements ahout l roquoian " M a t r i a r c h y " (p. 43, n. 4): or the misinterpretation of Jespersen's remarks on w o m a n and neologism (p. 55). Jespersen did plot claim that w o m e n in general are more prone to neologism than men, only that among the Botocudos of South America was this the c a s e ( 1 9 6 4 : 2 4 2 243); and this Jespersen found " c u r i o u s " ! A quick glance at Jespersen's chapter on "1he Woman' would have prevented this unnecessary e r r o r It has not been pleasant to write so critical a review of a book whose topic is of poiential theoretical and social importance and of great interest to the reviewer as well as to an ever-growing n u m b e r of scholars and the general public. I feel st~,mgly, however, that w o m e n may in the end do themselves more harm than good by overstating their case, exaggerating, even distorting, the significance of whatever differences may exist between men's and w o m e n ' s speech. There are some obvious inequities which should be corrected (such as the w o m a n ' s loss of her maiden name at marriage); and there is n o t h i n g to prevent us from investigating other, less obvious, discrepancies which may exist in the speech-related behavior of w o m e n and men. Herein lies what 1 judge to be the chief usefulness of Lakoff's study: it will serve and has already served (see Dubois and Crouch 1975) as a catalyst for research by other investigators more experimentally and empirically oriented than L a k o f f herself. A number of Lakoff's unsupported assertions about women's language could be reformulated as hypotheses, then tested in a controlled experiment or checked for validity against data gathered in natural speect,~ situations. Tiffs strikes me as the only sensible way to arrive at a valid description ~ linguistic features which are characteristic o f w o m e n in this society or elsewhere. Finally, I think L a k o f f deserves recognition for the fact that - for b e t t e r or worse - she .",as done pioneering work in an area which hitherto had been fairly well neglected by linguists, and even by sociolinguists; her study should help "raise the consciousness" of those who read it.
References Alland, Jr., A., 1973. Review of'The imperial animal' {by L. Tiger and R. Fox). American Anthropologist 75 (4), 1147- 1148. Dubois, B., and ;.. Crouch, 1975. The tag questions of women's speech: They don't really use more of them, do they?! Language in Society 4 (3), 289-294. Hutchinson, G.E., 1976. Man talking or thinking. American Scientist 64, 22-27.
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Reviews
Jcspcrsen, O, 1964 [orig. 19211. Languag=: ~ts nature, development and origin. New York: Norton. Lakoff, R., 1973. Language and won, ~n's place. Language in Society 2 (1), 45-80. La robert, W.E., and E. Peal, 1962. The relation of bil~ngualism to intelligence. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied 76 (26). T!ger, L., and R. Fox, 1971. The imperial animal. New York: Delta.
(;.A. Klimov, O~Serk ob~?ej teo: ii ~rgativnosti. (Outline of a general theory of ergativity). Moscow, lzd-vo N a u k a ' , 1973. 264 pp. 1 rub. 35 kop. Reviewed by Bernard Comrie, King's College, Cambridge, England. I h i s book is not a detailed description of ergativity in o , e or more languages, but rather a general contribution to the typological characterization of ergativity, i The data range is extremely wide: the author is a specialist in Caucasian languages, and naturally draws much of his data from these languages, but the range of illustrative material includes many examples from, for instance, Amerindian, Austronesian, and Australian languages (although, as the author himself notes, the syntactic materials available to him on many of these languages left much to be desired). The main line of the book is that ergativity can be -'.aracterized typologically only from a diachronic viewpoint, in that it represents an intermediate stage b e t w e e n the 'active' language-type (see below) and the nominative language-type. This is one of the most original recent approaches to the problem of ergativity, and certainly deser, e s to be brougat to the notice of research workers engaged in problems of ergativity (in partitular, tho:.e who do not read Rt'ssian). In this review, 1 shall outline the main p~Znts of Klimov's argument, and also discuss those points where I consider his ap?r~Ja~h particularly vulnerable. t n discussing various language-types, and in particular the ergative language-type, K1imov insists on a distinction between the concepts 'construction', 'structure', and "system'. To take ergativity as an example: The ergative construction is a syntactic construction containing at least a subject, a direct obje,".t, and a transitive verb, where the subject of the transitive verb is treated differently from the subject of an intransitive verb, and the direct object of the transitive verb is treated in the same w a y as the subject of an intransitive verb. The ergative structure requires (in fact, as a ~ orol !ary of the definition of the ergative construction) also the presepce of the absolute c¢.mstruction, ceasisting of at least a subject and an intransitive verb, and of no direct ~Jbject. Thus the combinatior, of ergative and absolute constructions (and possibly of :,ome othersl gives the ergative structure. However, K l i ~ o v maintains that there are certain other typological properties, logically distinct from the ergative and absolute '~nstruct~ons, tf~at tend to cooccur with the ergative structure (such as SOV word t I am grateful to the following for discussion of various aspects of ergativity: S.R. Anderson, D.I2 Johnson, E.L. Keenan, A, Komld~y, G.K. Pullum. My work on languages of the U.S.S.R. '.'.as supported by a grant from the Soc',al Science Research Council for investigation of the s,.¢ntactic typology of the languages of the Soviet Union.