Introduction: Lakoff, psychology and tag questions

One of the most emblematic claims of early feminist work on language was that there are systematic differences between men and women in their use of tag questions. Famously, and as part of her path-breaking work in the study of gender inequalities, Lakoff (1975) suggested that there is a ‘linguistic rule’ that women will use tag questions more than men. This entails that:

Equally famously, subsequent researchers raised doubts about the empirical basis of the claim that tag questions are characteristic of women's talk and the idea that tag questions have a single and standard conversational role (e.g., Cameron et al., 1988; Coates, 2004; Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 2003; Holmes, 1995; Speer, 2005a).

This chapter will bracket off the wide-ranging arguments about whether tags do or do not mark a gender difference, or whether the grammatical pattern underlies some psychological state such as a lack of confidence or assertiveness. Nevertheless, to help us engage with the sociolinguistic literature we will work with a selection of tag questions produced by female speakers addressing male recipients. These will be taken from a varied set of contexts: a child protection helpline, mundane talk and a television programme where house buyers are helped in their search. Our broader aim, however, will be quite discrete.