English language analysis
At the beginning of the article the author sets a scene of a typical road trip. He portraits a tranquil atmosphere using adjectives “nice” and “relaxing”. However, this peaceful scene is soon disturbed by the argument of the couple, as John couldn’t understand what Allison’s actual intentions were. The author tells an anecdote in order to explain features of women’s spoken language, such as indirect speech, in more entertaining way that would capture the reader’s attention. He implements spoken language features, for example non standard structuring of questions “everything OK darling?” and punctuation marks “… “ which indentifies the pause of the speaker, so the story would be easy to follow. The anecdote highlights the indirect speech features of Allison by the use of interrogative “ Would you like a cup of coffee?” Although, the pronoun ‘you’ should suggest that she was only addressing to her friend, John, but according to author her intentions were self-centred. She only asked, because she wanted a cup of coffee herself. The metaphor “beats around the bush” also suggests that women tent to hedge and use fillers when expressing themselves. Robin Lakoff was one of the researches who identified features which characterised women’s language in 1975. She believed that women used indirect speech, because they had a lack of confidence and assertiveness. Meanwhile, Deborah Tehhan could argue that men and women are just different; therefore they have a different approach to the language use. According to her, women tent to use super polite forms using modals “would”, “may” and etc, meanwhile men use direct imperatives. The author uses a declarative “ get to the point” which links the scenario with the further development of an argument by also shifting the article to the present tense. Although men “bark” about the indirect speech, which really confuses them, the author presents it in a very positive light. He uses an adverb “perfectly” and positive verbs: