Sarah Mills, Deborah Cameron and Muriel Schultz

Deborah Cameron- Theory of verbal hygiene

Cameron argues that both men and women face certain expectations about the appropriate mode of speech they use in order to be socially accepted into their gender. She argues that women's verbal conduct is significant because it shapes the way in which women behave in other aspects other than speech. Furthermore, women have been instructed in the 'proper' ways of talking just like women are instructed on what is the 'proper' way to dress, for example the constant pressure to use cosmetics and in other 'feminine' kinds of behaviour. The acceptance of 'proper' speech style, Cameron describes as 'verbal hygiene'. Through her research she claims that 'verbal hygiene' is a way to make sense of language and that it also represents an attempt to impose order in society.



Muriel Schulz- The semantic derogation of women

Schulz argues that there are a significant amount of slang words used to describe women that obtain negative connotations. She goes on to argue that the reason for this is because men fear women's attitudes and that these slang insults aimed at women, said by men are the only outlet men have. Schulz argues that words that were once used in a nice and gentlemanly way have changed and have become rude and slanderous towards women, this is derogation is action. The main issue Schulz addresses is that the language we use today we carry on through to the next generation. In addition, if society continues to use these slang words in order to insult women then a new generation will start to use them and it creates a vicious cycle that will continue unless a generation decides to stop using this part of language.


Sarah Mills
 Mills investigated the various lexical pairs and how they are lexical asymmetric to one another. She also did further research in the correlation between femininity and politeness and masculinity and impoliteness. She considered whether the politeness used was hereditary by women, essentially she focused on the way in which certain genders speak and the hereditary traits in which they entail.