Louder than words:

Analysing girls' silence in a language-learning classroom

 

Dr Allyson Jule

School of Humanities and Social Sciences

The University of Glamorgan, Wales

 

 

This paper addresses a phenomenon seen in one language classroom where the seven year old girls displayed consistent silence in response to classroom discussions. The project used ethnographic methods of participant-observer as well as video footage to document the silence and to analyse it within the classroom discourse patterns. The analysis of their silence is set within the particular feminist linguistic theories of Coates (1993, 1998), Tannen (1998), and Cameron (2001), with reference to Gal's (1991) theory of silence and Lakoff's (1995) and Goldberger's (1997) work on female silence in group settings.

 

The paper settles on samples of classroom discourse and examines the teacher's practices that may partly contribute to the imbalance of boys-talk to girls-talk in the classroom conversations. The particular habits of conversation in this language classroom are explored as possible explanations of the silent female voices.

 

The classroom was observed by the use of ethnographic methods for ten months of a school year (1998-1999); there are 11 boys and 9 girls in the study and one language teacher. The total hours of video data totalled over 40, with transcription work that followed. From the transcriptions, a word count separated and clarified which gender was speaking more in this classroom and to what extent. A deeper discourse analysis searched for reasons why the girls in this second grade language-learning classroom were so quiet. Such moments can be viewed on video.

 

It has been difficult for linguists to provide evidence of silence or what contextual features may be powerful in creating the silence. The use of word-counting provides a starting point in this regard. The word-count results were converted into percentages, staggered with samples taken throughout the school year, and then placed in chart form for easy reading. See Chart 1:

 

 

CHART 1: THE GENDERED LINGUISTIC SPACE

 

 

 

 

However, measurements, such as the one above, can not provide the fuller explanations for the silence or the contest in which it exists. The use of isolating speech acts (such as those articulated by Cameron, 2001) offers much in this regard. These results suggest that the teacher spoke more to the boys and thereby created the situation for them to respond. A full breakdown of speech acts is in the full paper. I have, however, selected sections of classroom moments that reveal the silent presence of the girls in this language classroom. A search for the reasons for silence asks certain questions: Why are these girls so consistently quiet? Is it possibly the teacher practices? Or is the teacher disengaged from the girls because they are so quiet? Have both possibilities impacted each other? What are implications of these findings for primary language teaching?

 

 

Sample 1:

Teacher:                      When you find the next page you’ll have to start right away! The P’s I want you to make the bubble first and then start the back. Remember on the d’s, the little guys, you do the ball first and then the stick. Ball first and then the stick. Ball first and then the stick. Then it comes out really nicely.

                                                (Begins assisting students individually. She pauses at Girl 1’s desk.)

                                                Teacher:                            Put your name on the top. This one right here. Show me…(she moves on)

(No spoken response from Girl 1.)

 

Sample 2:

                                                (Camera pans back to Teacher helping students with their work.)

Teacher:                      Do not put two the same (in a sing-song voice) If you want to trade your book, you can do that for a minute, while we just finish up here. (Girl 1 continues sitting patiently at her desk.) Remember please that you pick two from here, two from here, and then you pick one more from either space. It doesn’t matter. Whatever you want, but you need five altogether.

 

                                                (Students work on their own. Camera focuses on Girl 1, who prints and then erases her work. Teacher can be heard in the background, circulating around and checking and correcting students’ work. After about a minute, camera pans out to show most students getting up and walking away from their desks, evidently finished. Girl 1 continues working on her own. After another minute, Girl 1 finishes and gets up. She never asked for help, nor did Teacher offer any.)

 

In the two brief samples, Girl 1 never called out and, when addressed, she was usually corrected: she was not listened to and was not praised. Her usual form of interaction with her language teacher was to be silent. The other girls in this classroom presented similar silence. This supports the early work of Spender (1980a, 1980b), Gal (1991), Lakoff (1995), and Goldberger (1997).

 

Quite clearly, Girl 1 in the two samples given here appeared not to be having a rich discourse experience within her language classroom. This silence may be partly due to the teacher’s practices in general or other issues of power and powerlessness in the room. The paper addresses various possibilities.

 

 

References

Cameron, D. (2001). Working with discourse. London: Sage.

Coates, J. (1993). Women, men, and language: A sociolinguistic account of gender differences in language. (2^nd ed.) London: Longman.

Coates, J. (1998). Introduction. In: J. Coates (Ed). Language and gender: A reader. (pp. 1-5). Oxford: Blackwell.

Gal, S. (1991). Between speech and silence: The problematics of research on language and gender. Papers in Pragmatics. 3 (1), 1-38.

Goldberger, N. (1997). Ways of knowing: Does gender matter? In M.R. Walsh (Ed.) Women, men, and gender. (pp. 252-260). London: Yale University Press.

Jule, A. (forthcoming). Gender and silence in a language classroom: Sh-shushing the girls. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave-Macmillan.

Jule, A. (2002) Speaking their sex: A study of gender and linguistic space in an ESL Classroom. TESL Canada Journal. Vol. 19, 2 (Spring), 37 - 51.

Jule, A. (2001). Speaking her sex: Gender in an ESL classroom. BAAL conference papers, University of Reading, Reading, UK.

Lakoff, R. (1995). Cries and Whispers: The shattering of the silence. In K. Hall and M. Bucholtz (Eds.). Gender articulated: Language and the socially constructed self. (pp. 25-50). London: Routledge.

Spender, D. (1980a). Mad made language. London: Routledge Kegan Paul.

Spender, D. (1980b). Talking in the class. In D. Spender & E. Sarah (Eds.). Learning to lose: Sexism and Education. (pp. 148-154). London: The Women's Press

Tannen, D. (1998) The argument culture. London: Virago.