"It's Like You Know": The Psychology
Behind Hedging In Male Speech

Introduction

It is difficult nowadays to engage in spoken dialogue without encountering one of the most common (and contentious) conversational elements: the hedging remark. Interpreted varyingly as a symbol of powerlessness, camaraderie, self-effacement or encouragement, hedging can manifest itself in many diverse forms, and can stem from any number of differing motivations. Like all linguistic phenomena, it is perhaps impossible to isolate any single, collective purpose behind the use of certain phrases or terms. Yet through structured observation, certain patterns inevitably tend to emerge. Upon further analysis, these patterns can be associated with general similarities and trends among the occurrence of those certain phrases, which can then be applied towards a better understanding of such occurrences in the real world.

Using such methods, this paper will attempt to examine and interpret the use (or lack thereof) of hedging comments — a primarily feminine tendency — as they appear in male speech. To do so, however, the concept of hedging must first be defined. For the purposes of this particular study, its implicit meaning will be couched in sociolinguistic terminology as set forth by Robin Lakoff, Bent Preisler, and Janet Holmes (among others), rather than the language of modality used by George Lakoff and other pragmatists. In other words, hedging will be approached as a conversational, rather than an academic, occurrence. Thus defined, the following pages will examine the ways in which hedging manifests itself in male speech, as opposed to and in conjunction with female speech. This will be accomplished through the use of original interviews with a male subject in same- and mixed-gender environments, as well as through previously documented conversation and academic literature concerning the nature of hedging comments. Finally, this paper will compare and contrast the existing traditional models of hedging and other, more contemporary examples (such as the repeated use of like in so-called "fashionable" conversation), and will determine, through the examination of their use in male speech, whether such occurrences constitute a form of hedging, or whether they represent an entirely separate linguistic category altogether.

Defining Hedging

Of primary importance in any study of linguistic phenomena is a working definition of the topic being examined. This, naturally, is no easy task considering the abundance of literature devoted to this particular subject — hedging comments as they are categorized by the linguistic community can take the form of anything ranging from broad, conversational implements to strategic devices in argumentative and scientific documents. Markkanen and Schröder (1997), in the introduction to Hedging and Discourse, enumerate the many forms and meanings that such comments take on. Used in everyday interactions, hedging exists as a sort of communicative strategy; in academic discourse its original use (as proposed by George Lakoff in 1972) was as an expression of degree or, as he labeled it, "fuziness" (Markkanen/ Schröder 1997). Expressions which modified the category membership of a noun or which — such as rather, largely, or in a manner of speaking — or which expressed epistemic modality (that is, the degree to which the speaker was confident in the truth of his statement) — such as possibly, may, or apparently — were the focus of this particular classification. Yet the modern understanding of hedging is much broader in scope. In terms of its academic application, scholars have recently associated hedging with attempts to make a particular line of reasoning more acceptable to an audience, or to indirectly support an argument by weakening the claim. In other words, it has become a rhetorical strategy, as well as a logical device.

This specific set of definitions, however, is much different from what sociolinguistics would identify as hedging. Rather than examining hedges in academic discourse, this field of study focuses on conversational forms of mitigation, ways in which the speaker can express uncertainty or camaraderie through certain expressions. The use of these expressions...you know, sort of, etceteras...differ from the pragmatists' model of hedging in that they indicate more about the psychological state of the speaker than the subject matter about which they are speaking.

Such comments have also been shown to be largely characteristic of female speech. Among the first linguists to document this phenomenon was Robin Lakoff, in her 1975 work Language and Women's Place, which concluded that, in the words of fellow linguist Janet Holmes, "hedges...were characteristic of ‘women's language,' and that they expressed a lack of confidence and reflected women's social insecurity" (Holmes 1995, 73). Following that line of reasoning, Holmes concludes in Women, Men and Politeness that, in the context of politeness strategy, hedges "are devices which are aimed at reducing the imposition experienced by the person that the directive is addressed to," but as a general rule, "hedges weaken or reduce the force of an utterance" (Holmes 1995, 72-74). Holmes' work, as well as Bent Preisler's 1986 examination of masculine and feminine use of hedging comments in Linguistic Sex Roles in Conversation, identifies the phenomenon as a primarily gender-linked occurrence. Unlike Robin Lakoff, however, Holmes suggests (as will be suggested later on in this paper) that hedging comments do not serve exclusively as a means by which women reinforce their inferior societal position, and may imply a much broader range of socio-emotional motivations in addition to that of simply feeling insecure (Holmes 1995, 117). Finally hedges like technically are also associated, as in Bruce Fraser's 1980 article "Conversational Mitigation," with a speaker's attempts to take the edge off their statement in order to seem less culpable for what is being said (Fraser 1980). This sort of defensive usage, incidentally, was not shown to be characteristic of either gender, at least not as indicated by the author of this particular article.

Studies of Hedging in Male Speech

Although it is widely accepted that hedging comments are mainly a feature of female speech, they are by no means absent from masculine discourse. They are, however, quite limited. Holmes demonstrates in her research certain instances where males use hedging comments (such as you know or I think), however they were shown to be more likely to utilize such phrases in a formal, rather than informal manner, for the purposes of expressing epistemic, rather than affective, meaning (Holmes 1995, 113). While she makes no claim to support that males avoid hedging comments altogether, she does point out that women are overwhelmingly predisposed to the sort of "weakening" hedges that Robin Lakoff enumerates, hedges which are most commonly associated with the practice. Therefore...insofar as it is linked to an expression of gender inferiority...the women in Holmes' study seemed to confirm this commonly-held notion of hedging as a primarily feminine activity.

The sex-specific nature of hedging was displayed further by a study conducted for the purposes of this paper. The speech patterns of a male subject (18 years old) were recorded in both a single-sex environment, and an interaction with a female of the same age group. Although the results of this particular examination are undoubtedly incomplete due to the limited amount of collected data (only approximately 1 hour of conversation could be regarded as "untainted" by the psychological effects caused by the presence of the tape recorder), they may be considered at least partially representative of the verbal tendencies of other males of similar ages.

The results confirmed what many linguists have already demonstrated: hedging remarks — at least those remarks most commonly associated with hedging tendencies — were much more prevalent among the group where there was a female present. The male subject did occasionally display hedging behavior...when there was a lull in the conversation, he took the unusual initiative to open up another dialogue by utilizing a tag-question (which, according to Lakoff and others, is a form of hedging): "So you guys don't have school tomorrow, right?" Yet for the most part the hedging remarks— when they did occur, which by most standards was (interestingly) not particularly often — were uttered by females, and were notably absent from male/male interactions.

This was not, however, all that the interviews revealed. While there was a distinct lack of the more traditional forms of hedging in the same-sex environment, one pattern did emerge from the subject's conversation that was not predicated upon the gender of the speaker nor of the addressee, and that was at first glance apparently unaffected by the same factors which determined the use, or lack thereof, of other hedging comments. The occurrence of this particular utterance was distributed nearly equally among the same- and mixed-sex settings and, although it seemed to function on many levels like a hedge, it did not appear to possess the gender-linked characteristics that would be expected from a traditional hedging comment.

Isolating the Occurrence of Like

Though many of the typical hedging comments which appear in related studies may not necessarily be represented in a more contemporary interview such as the one conducted for this paper, there is nevertheless one term which has been occurring ever more frequently in everyday conversation. That term is the seemingly-ubiquitous like, and by merit of its sheer abundance in today's casual speech — in one 30-minute conversation between a male and a female subject it appeared an astounding 113 times — it warrants a separate, more specific analysis.

In his discussion of "downtoning" terms, Preisler does mention like as a particular form of hedging (Preisler 1986, 105), unlike both Holmes and Fraser, who omit the word from their lexicon of hedges. David Grambs, rather fatalistically, associates it not with a gender-specific lack of certainty but with a more general, postmodern trend towards conversational laziness. Though his virulent condemnation of the term may be on some levels justified, it seems more appropriate to limit such criticism to its overwhelming and frequent usage rather than its inherent qualities. After all, there is little such criticism leveled at other forms of hedging comments, save for that expressed by feminists who object to hedging's demeaning implications. The following examination, therefore, will eschew such forms of judgment in favor of a more neutral, practical analysis of the word like as it is used in conversation.

As Preisler remarks, hedges "signal non-commitment" and thus avoid conferring upon the speaker any undue responsibility for the contents of their statement (Preisler 1986, 104). This definition seems to fit neatly within the category of author Maggie Balistreri's "undercutting" like. This particular expression is classified, in her categorization of the many uses of the word, as a form of like that carries the flippant implication of "I'm not smart; I'm cool. I don't know where I picked up that knowledge," and is used in situations where the speaker wishes to indicate that they have no particular attachment to the claim they are putting forth (Balestreri 2001). An example of this particular like-usage is illustrated by a remark made by the teenage male recorded for the purposes of this study. Responding to the suggestion that he paint his fan different colors, he replied facetiously, "No 'cause I'll have like a seizure every time I turn the fan on." This comment serves to convey the impression that the speaker is ambivalent towards his choice of terminology — perhaps fearing that his use of "seizure" will come across as inappropriately technical to his peers — and essentially achieves what David Grambs describes as one of the primary goals of like-usage: to create an ironic distance between the speaker and his words (Grambs 2001).

Another hedging term listed by Preisler (1986), or something functions as a downtoner in a manner virtually indistinguishable from that of the "vague" like as described by Balestreri (2001). In the example Preisler provides, the speaker remarks, "The age limit is sixteen or something." This statement is nearly identical to a comment made by the male subject in this study. While discussing a foreign country, he observes, "Yeah the drinking age there's like eighteen." Both or something and like are used in these instances to indicate vagueness about the information being conveyed, and, again, serve to reinforce non-commitment and to relieve the speaker of accountability. This verbal phenomenon is summarized in author John Simon's introduction to Dumbing Down, in which he suggests that "like may be a disavowal of responsibility: if you say ‘I was like minding my own business,' the like may cover you if someone discovers that you weren't minding it" (Simon 1997, 5).

Finally the original, negative connotations of the word "hedging" come to mind when discussing a third and fourth category of like. Balestreri translates what she terms the "self-effacing" like as a (mainly affected) expression of the speaker's humility (Balestreri 2001), similar to Robin Lakoff's suggestion that hedging devices are designed primarily to keep the speaker — inevitably female — in her place. Interestingly enough, however, this is where like diverges from the traditional forms of hedging: the occurrence of the "self-effacing" like in the documented hour of conversation was almost equally distributed among masculine and feminine speech. When a female commented (somewhat jokingly) upon his physical appearance, the male subject replied with a trace of ostentatiousness, "Yeah...I go to the gym like every day." In this case the pride apparent in his tone was offset to a degree by his use of the "self-effacing" like, thereby maintaining his image of humility in the presence of his peers — who, most likely, would respond negatively to any overt display of arrogance.

Balistreri then enumerates a fourth category, what she calls the "cowardly" like, which encompasses yet another expression of humility. In this instance, the speaker employs this device when attempting to disagree "politely" with another (Balistreri 2001), much like Fraser's concept of conversational mitigation and the weakening effect it has upon statements of disagreement: such comments are "characteristically taken as a softer way of asserting that...'I am right'" (Fraser 1980, 349). While the hour-long conversation revealed only one example of this like-usage ("Well didn't you like already borrow five bucks from me on Thursday?") the comment was spoken by the male subject, indicating that this is yet another pseudo-hedge equally typical of both masculine and feminine speech.

Yet even in light of these many similarities, one cannot immediately incorporate like into the broader category of hedging. The fact that males seem to be more comfortable using like over other hedging remarks in both same- and mixed-gender environments suggests that, despite their likeness, the two linguistic forms possess certain important differences. Like the more traditional forms of hedging, like does indeed serve in certain circumstances to mitigate the speaker's statement or request, to indicate uncertainty or vagueness, and to imply a lack of responsibility for the contents of their declaration. However it also appears to carry a host of additional possible meanings which go beyond the scope of mere hedging. As Balistreri suggests, like can serve as a sort of linguistic safety net, to protect the speaker from seeming inarticulate where there is a gap in their sentence. It can also act as a filler verb ("And I was just like, 'What are you doing?'") or, more traditionally, as a substitute for example. In general, however, the main differentiating factor between like and other forms of hedging seems to be the absence, in the case of like, of gender-linked patterns of use.

Conclusion

As was suggested in the introduction, it is most likely impossible to develop any singular, all-encompassing explanation for the occurrence of a particular linguistic phenomenon. Hedging remarks, despite the unequivocal testimony of theorists like Robin Lakoff, are no exception; though their original domain may have been exclusively feminine, the categories delineating such speech-acts are continually being expanded to fit the changing social environment in which they exist. As Janet Holmes suggests in the conclusion to Women, Men and Politeness, hedging comments are perceived differently according to the context in which they are spoken (Holmes 1995). Therefore one could not assume, while certain hedges are more prevalent among women in certain situations, that such comments will be used identically among different age and social groups, consequently suggesting that hedging remarks — and (perhaps more importantly) the socio-emotional motivations behind them — are by no means inherently feminine. Rather than indicating anything about gender stratification, the contemporary hedge-like usage of like speaks more to the social regulations governing how one should portray oneself in spoken language, regardless of the gender of the speaker or addressee.

Value-judgments of this particular term aside (linguists like Grambs are quick to point out the degenerative effects the word has upon the English language), like serves as a practically-indispensable facilitator of communication, particularly among teenagers and young adults. It seems primarily designed, in all its various manifestations, to reinforce the casual nature of the conversation and to ensure the addressees that the speaker is assuming an appropriately ironic distance from his words and is not taking things too seriously, so as not to appear threatening or (worse yet) hypocritical. Such actions may be especially important in many male-dominated situations involving young adults, where it is vital to one's social standing to appear aloof and uninterested in the topic at hand. This is, of course, a largely superficial gambit...but then again, this is probably the whole point: as Bruce Fraser remarks, "irony is dependent on the hearer recognizing that the speaker does not mean what he says" (Fraser 1980, 349).

Hedging...be it epistemic or affective, gender-linked or gender-ambivalent...still remains a subject of great curiosity in the linguistic community. Though its meaning and connotations have undoubtedly undergone revision in the years since its introduction into academia, the term hedging nevertheless retains some of its original self-effacing undertones as proposed by Robin Lakoff. Yet can this term be applied to the modern, colloquial incarnation of like? The answer, of course, is dependent upon the strictness of the broader category. If like is indeed a form of hedging, it is a rare example of one which is not affected by either the gender of the speaker or the gender of the listener. This may be the result of the changing social climate which now — at least among younger individuals — seems to value passivity (or, at the very least, intellectual passivity) over aggressiveness. Such a trend might be particularly prevalent among males who would traditionally view any sort of dedication or commitment to one's ideas as "uncool" or overly pretentious. This, however, is merely a speculation which could only be proven or disproven through further research and observation. The origins of the like-phenomenon are cloudy and unclear, and the reasoning behind such repetitive use of this tenacious monosyllable remains ambiguous at best.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Balistreri, Maggie (2001). "Like."
      http://www.vocabula.com/vrmar01balistreri.htm

Fraser, Bruce (1980). "Conversational mitigation," Journal of Pragmatics, 4:4, 341-350.

Grambs, David (2001). "The Like Virus."
      http://www.vocabula.com/vraugust01grambs.htm

Holmes, Janet (1995). Women, Men and Politeness. London: Longman, 1995.

Lakoff, Robin (1975). Language and Women's Place. Rpt in: Holmes, Janet. Women, Men and Politeness. London: Longman, 1995.