In 1972, Robin Lakoff published an article entitled “Language and woman's place,” which created a huge fuss. There were those who found the entire topic trivial — yet another ridiculous manifestation of feminist “paranoia.” And there were those — mostly women — who jumped in to engage with the arguments and issues that Lakoff had put forth. Thus was launched the study of language and gender.

Lakoff's article argued that women have a different way of speaking from men — a way of speaking that both reflects and produces a subordinate position in society. Women's language, according to Lakoff, is rife with such devices as mitigators (sort of, I think) and inessential qualifiers (really happy, so beautiful). This language, she went on to argue, renders women's speech tentative, powerless, and trivial; and as such, it disqualifies them from positions of power and authority. In this way, language itself is a tool of oppression — it is learned as part of learning to be a woman, imposed on women by societal norms, and in turn it keeps women in their place.

This publication brought about a flurry of research and debate. For some, the issue was to put Lakoff's linguistic claims to the empirical test. Is it true that women use, for example, more tag questions than men? (e.g. Dubois and Crouch 1975).