О. П. Молочко

Чернівецький національний університет імені Юрія Федьковича

Науковий керівник: канд. філол. наук, доцент Н. Л. Львова

Gender Approach in Tag Questions’ Realization

Carrying out our analysis on the materials of the first book of Philip Pullman's trilogy of fantasy novels "His Dark Materials" and J. K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" we face a distinct and vivid diversity of the use of tag questions by female and male characters and by female and male authors.

The objective of the theses is to investigate the tag questions taking into consideration the gender and social status of interlocutors.

Philip Pullman, the best-selling English writer, in "The Golden Compass" uses fifty-four "formal" (e.g. But now that you know, it really would be better to let me have it, wouldn't it?) and "informal" (e. g. This little girl's pretty important, huh?) tag questions, and the greater number of them are asked by women [3: 249; 3: 269].

The usage of tag questions in "The Golden Compass" is an indicator of what is called a "girl talk" owing to the fact that with a help of tags women keep conversations carrying on. Also it could be interpreted in two ways. Men sound sure of themselves with a stronger sounding declarative statement. We call it a "rapport talk". Women are seeking input with a tag question and are therefore not only speaking a "girl talk", but also a "rapport talk". It is an indicator of a woman's tendency towards connectedness versus the need to be right [3].

Taking into consideration the fact that the author of the novel is a man, we may also regard women's frequency to use tag questions as P. Pullman's proving an idea of women being a purely fair sex. They are endowed with curiosity, uncertainness, interest, and zest, which provoke them to ask tag questions "just to make sure".

To highlight a different perspective on women's use of tag questions in "The Golden Compass", we may view this pattern of speech as a weakness, a need for affirmation of an idea. It can also be viewed as an asset, the willingness to get input from others to perhaps come up with a better plan. It is an invitation to chime in and share ideas, and it also lets the listener know that her opinions are both welcomed and valued. The women use tag questions to emphasize and encourage the other person to agree. They turn a bold assertion into a question that is difficult to disagree with.

Generally speaking, P. Pullman's "The Golden Compass" meets Robin Lakoff's dual claim that women use tag questions in more conversational situations than men do and that such questions signify an avoidance of commitment, causing the speaker "to give the impression of not being really sure of himself, of looking to the addressee for confirmation, even of having no views of his own". Research findings so far suggest that women use interrogative forms more than men and that this may reflect women's relative weakness in interactive situations: they exploit tag questions in order to keep conversation going:

"Well, he should've stayed there, shouldn't he?"

Mrs. Coulter smiled at Lyra in a way that seemed to say, "You and I understand these things, don't we?" [3: 48; 3: 82]

On the contrary, we may trace much more frequent use of tag questions by Joanne Rowling (136 examples). Though the main peculiarity of her tag questions is that the absolute majority of them is used by men. This observation can be explained by the fact that in most dialogues between Harry, Ron and Hermione, the boys are reputed to be less aware of the righteousness of information than Hermione, an overachiever who excels academically. And as it is mentioned above, tag questions as a rule are used to verify or check information that the speaker thinks is true or to check information that he isn't sure about [4]:

"That's your ghoul, isn't it?" asked Harry, who had never actually met the creature that sometimes disrupted the nightly silence.

"Hang on," said Ron, frowning. "The bit of soul in that diary was possessing Ginny, wasn't it? How does that work, then?"

On the other hand, Hermione indeed uses tag questions in her speech, but exclusively to make sure that people around understand her, or that can also be a result of her uneasiness, nervousness, and agitation:

"Oh… thanks, Ron… I'm sorry…" She blew her nose and hiccupped. "It's just so awf-ful, isn't it?"

"Yes, but we're still going to have to try and trace the real locket, aren't we?" said Hermione, "to find out whether or not it's destroyed".

In J. K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" there is highlighted the theory of Dubois and Crouch, who challenged the issue of tag questions, pointing at the fact that men apply tag questions more frequently than women [1: 293]. Their findings are counter to those of Lakoff, as she had used introspective methods in her study [2: 50-71].

On investigating tag questions in the novels using quantitative and qualitative methods, we found out that 60 % of all the tag questions of "The Golden Compass" are used by the female characters (32 out of 54 interrogative sentences), while 83 % of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" are used by male characters, to be precise, by protagonists (113 out of 136 interrogative sentences).