Biography - Lakoff, Robin Tolmach (1942-)
Contemporary Authors - January 1, 2004
This digital document, covering the life and work of Robin Tolmach Lakoff, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thomson Gale. The length of the entry is 684 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:
Family: Born November 27, 1942, in Brooklyn, N.Y.; married George Lakoff (a professor), June 9, 1963; children: Andrew. Education: Radcliffe College, B.A., 1964; Indiana University, M.A., 1965; Harvard University, Ph.D., 1967. Memberships: Linguistics Society of America. Addresses: Office: Department of Linguistics, University of California, 2120 Oxford St., Berkeley, Calif. 94720.
Language Research Foundation, Cambridge, Mass., textbook editor, 1968-69; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, assistant professor of linguistics, 1969-71; Stanford University, Stanford, Calif., fellow of Center for Advanced Study of Behavioral Sciences, 1971-72; University of California, Berkeley, associate professor of linguistics, 1972--. Lecturer in classics and linguistics, University of Illinois, 1968; visiting associate professor, University of Michigan Linguistics Institute, 1973.
WRITINGS BY THE AUTHOR:"Sidelights"Robin Tolmach Lakoff's book Language and Woman's Place discusses language's part in indicating and reinforcing society's attitudes toward women. Reviewer Ann Scott of the English Journal notes that "Language and Woman's Place goes a long way toward elucidating for the open-minded reader the reasons for the feminist attack upon language use, separating the sense from the nonsense.... Less controversial, but probably more socially revealing, are Lakoff's observations about the language spoken by women themselves." Lakoff identifies certain speech patterns and word choices found almost exclusively in the linguistic behavior of women; she observes, for example, that women more frequently than men add a tag question at the end of a declarative assertion, such as "He's with the Philharmonic, isn't he?" The tag question diminishes the force of the sentence and may be indicative of a sense of subordination, claims Lakoff. The author notes other areas in which women's language is both characteristic and socially revealing. Her analysis is based on personal observation and interpretation rather than scientifically collected data; thus Scott concludes that "in the absence of experimental proof [Lakoff] invites the reader to make his (?!) own observations and draw his own conclusions."
Lakoff and co-author Raquel L. Scherr use a similar method in Face Value: The Politics of Beauty, drawing from anthropology, philosophy, psychology, art, surveys, and personal experience to explain conventional ideas of beauty. While attractiveness has traditionally been perceived as a form of power, Lakoff told Los Angeles Times writer Harriet Stix that "beauty comes from what the observer observes. It has to be a passive trait." Because of this passivity, Lakoff explained to Stix that "beauty is a nice tool precisely because you don't have to take responsibility for it, whereas if you go out in the world and do something, you are responsible. That can be very troubling for a lot of women," she continued, "especially if they were brought up not to be particularly self-confident." Even though changing attitudes about beauty can be frightening because they are new, "the important thing is that we somehow transcend the issue of looks and have something else," Lakoff declared. "If we can feel good about what we accomplish, then we can have looks to play with as an additional attraction."
FURTHER READINGS ABOUT THE AUTHOR:PERIODICALS
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Publication:Contemporary Authors
(Biography)
Date: January 1, 2004