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社会语言学论文
A Brief Analysis of Gender
Differences in Language
姓
名：何丽丽
学
号：
2
院
系：外国语学院
班
级：英语
1101
指导教师：邓林
二〇一四年五月二十三日
A
Brief Analysis of Gender Differences in Language
Abstract
Sociolinguistics
is
the
descriptive
study
that
concentrates
on
the
study
of
how
language
is
used,
and
the
effects
of
language
use
on
society.
It
also
studies
how
language
varieties
differ
between
groups
separated
by
certain
social
variables,
for
instance, ethnicity, religion, status,
gender, level of education, etc. With regard to
this
paper, the emphasis will be put
onto the differences in the actual speech of
different
gender. We can classify the
gender differences in language into two
categories. The
first
category
is
mainly
about
sexism
in
language,
as
for
this
category,
we
mainly
focus on how speakers
demonstrate their different cultural attitudes
toward different
genders. The second
category is about the differences in the actual
speech of men and
women.
In
the first part, I will make a brief introduction
about sociolinguistics and gender
differences in
language.
In the second part,
it will
concern the
categories of gender
differences
in
language
and
previous
study
of
gender
differences
in
language.
The
third part concentrates on the approach
of the analysis. The fourth is about the data
collection
and
research
methodology.
The
fifth
part
analyzes
the
differences
of
the
speech between men and
women from three
perspectives
—
the purpose of
the speech,
the topic of the
conversation and the mode of the speech. The final
part comes to the
conclusion about the
gender differences in language.
Key
words:
Gender differences,
sociolinguistics, analysis
Main Body
1
、
Introduction
The
knowledge
of
gender
differences
in
language
is
very
helpful
for
language learners, and gender
differences may exist not only one but all
languages.
Men
and
women,
on
average,
tend
to
use
slightly
different
language
styles.
These
differences tend to be quantitative
rather than qualitative. That is, to say that
women
make
more
minimal
responses
than
men
is
akin
to
saying
that
men
are
taller
than
women. The initial identification of a
women's register was by Robin Lakoff in 1975,
who argued that the style of language
served to maintain women's role in society. A
later refinement of this argument was
that gender differences in language reflected a
power difference. However, both these
perspective have the language style of men as
normative,
implying
that
women's
style
is
inferior.
More
recently,
Deborah
Tannen
has compared gender
differences in language as more similar to
'cultural' differences.
Comparing
conversational goals, she argued that men have a
report style, aiming to
communicate
factual
information,
whereas
women
have
a
rapport
style,
more
concerned with building and maintaining
relationships. Such differences are pervasive
across mediums, including face-to-face
conversation, written essays of primary school
children, email, and even toilet
graffiti. Communication styles are always a
product of
context, and as such, gender
differences tend to be most pronounced in single-
gender
groups. One explanation for
this, is that people accommodate their language
towards
the
style
of
the
person
they
are
interacting
with.
Thus,
in
a
mixed-gender
group,
gender differences tend
to
be less pronounced.
A
similarly important
observation is
that this accommodation is usually
towards the language style, not the gender of the
person. That is, a polite and empathic
male will tend to be accommodated to on the
basis of their being polite and
empathic, rather than their being male.
All in all,
gender differences can be reflected in many
aspects in our daily life,
we
should
pay
more
attention
to
it,
thus
we
can
avoid
many
misunderstandings
between
men and women.
3
2. Literature Review
Categories of Gender Differences in
Language
According
to
Wolfson, the research
about language and sex can be divided into
two categories. The first category is
about sexism in language and the ways in which
speakers demonstrate their different
cultural
attitudes toward
men and women.
Two
areas of
sexism in English have been well-studied. One is
that females are excluded
from mention
in English because the generic he/man problem. Men
are regarded as
the representatives of
all human beings and their speech is the standard,
while women
are
seen
as
inferior
and
secondary
in
society.
The
second
is
that
females
are
give
negative
treatment
in
society.
Bad
words
in
our
daily
is
always
related
to
female
words. Female words are often used to
insult a male, whereas male words are usually
used to compliment female.
The
second
category
is
about
the
differences
in
the
actual
speech
of
men
and
women.
The
formation
of
these
differences
in
language
may
have
historical,
physiological,
social
and
psychological
factors.
Lakoff
(1973)
was
one
of
the
early
articles to deal with the issue of
differences in men
’
s and
women
’
s speech. She has
concluded
six
major
characteristics
of
women
’
s
speech:
lexical
choice,
question
intonation in statements, hedges which
includes tag questions and statement modifiers
which
remove
assertive
force,
emphatic
modifiers
and
intonational
emphasis,
hypercorrect
grammar and pronunciation and superpolite forms.
3. Theoretical Framework
The
contrast
analysis
of
male
and
female
language
in
daily
conversation
concerns
many
aspects,
such
as
the
topic
of
the
conversation,
the
mode
of
the
conversation and so on. The differences
of the speech between men and women may
result
from
their
conception
of
value,
their
hobby
and
their
interest
etc.
They
hold
different opinions according to the
same matter. So we can refer to the ethnography of
speaking in describing the gender
differences in language. Ethnography refers to the
4