Directives used by senior female police officers in Lesotho: exploring the balance between culturally determined and professional interactional styles
SOURCE: Journal of Communication
OUTPUT TYPE: Journal Article
PUBLICATION YEAR: 2015
TITLE AUTHOR(S): K.M.Sobane
KEYWORDS: CULTURAL PLURALISM, GENDER EQUALITY, LESOTHO, POLICE OFFICERS, PROFESSIONALISM, WOMEN
DEPARTMENT: Impact Centre (IC), Impact Centre (PRESS), Impact Centre (CC)
Print: HSRC Library: shelf number 8966
HANDLE: 20.500.11910/1660
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/1660
OUTPUT TYPE: Journal Article
PUBLICATION YEAR: 2015
TITLE AUTHOR(S): K.M.Sobane
KEYWORDS: CULTURAL PLURALISM, GENDER EQUALITY, LESOTHO, POLICE OFFICERS, PROFESSIONALISM, WOMEN
DEPARTMENT: Impact Centre (IC), Impact Centre (PRESS), Impact Centre (CC)
Print: HSRC Library: shelf number 8966
HANDLE: 20.500.11910/1660
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/1660
If you would like to obtain a copy of this Research Output, please contact Hanlie Baudin at researchoutputs@hsrc.ac.za.
Abstract
The recent era of women's empowerment has seen women's gradual role-transition from traditional domestic roles to male-dominated professional spaces. This transition presents a socio-linguistic dilemma for these women, because their interactional styles have to strike a balance between culturally prescribed feminine ways of speaking and communicative demands of their job. This paper explores the use of directives by senior female police officers in the Lesotho Mounted Police Service (LMPS). Through observations, audio recordings and unstructured interviews, data was collected from 16 women who were in senior positions in the LMPS. Four types of directives with varying degrees of face threat and imposition were found. These are: inference based, questions, mitigated and direct imperatives. The choice of form was determined by a set of contextual factors not gender. The paper concludes that these women's interactional style reflects competence in varying directive patterns depending on the context.-
Related Research Outputs:
- Whose right it is anyway? equality, culture and conflicts of rights in South Africa
- Gender inequality persists in artisan employment in South Africa
- Book review: Bradby, H. & Hundt, G.L. (eds). 2010. Global perspectives on war, gender and health: the sociology and anthropology of suffering. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing. 157 p. ISBN 9780754675235
- Research visit to Swaziland, Lesotho and Mauritius
- The global debate on multiculturalism and women's human rights in South Africa
- Women, culture and inequality: human rights and the feminisation of poverty in South Africa
- Women's human rights and the "culture" of violence in South Africa
- "This dam is cruel": women's lives and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project
- 'All mouth and no trousers'
- Lesotho Highlands water project monitoring and evalution survey, 2005/06: woman questionnaire (ages 15-54)
- The role of the chapter 9 institutions in the promotion and protection of gender equality in South Africa
- Teacher education and the challenge of diversity in South Africa
- Masculine bodies, feminine symbols: challenging gendered identities or compulsory femininity?
- HIV/AIDS and 'othering' in South Africa: the blame goes on
- Women and integrated development planning: provincial presentation
- Gender, decentralisation and integrated development planning in South Africa
- Women, decentralisation and integrated development planning in South Africa: final results report
- Lesotho Highlands water project: Downstream community survey - 2006: female questionnarire (ages 15-49)
- Dedication to Ronald Louw
- Gender, success and institutional culture