The Analysis of the Difference Between the Language of Male and Female

The Analysis of the Difference between the Language of Male and Female

Abstract : Gender difference is a popular research topic for many disciplines and linguistics is no exception. Within the field of linguistics, the main focus is on the language difference between men and women. My paper aims to explore the language difference between men and women. The first part is some evidence about the difference and list many differences. The second part illustrates the causes of differences. The third part is the influence on communication.

Key words: gender differencelanguage usemanwoman

Men and women are the main bodies in social activities. Language is an important tool for people to be involved in the society. Because of the gender difference, there exist many differences when people use language. Thus there is a close relationship between different genders and language use. Although the study of how gender is reflected in language is a recent branch of linguistics, it has developed into a wide field with a considerable number of studies since the first publications of research findings in the early1960s. The research on the relationship between language and gender develops on 4 levels: 1 the gender difference in language form and structure; 2 gender discrimination in language; 3 the gender difference in utterance style; 4 the reasons for gender difference in language. While the first studies in the field focused on differences between the ways men and women talk on a "phonological, morphological, syntactic or lexical level" (Coates 1998: 7), later studies concentrated on findings based on conversational analysis. These were the two methodologies employed in the field of language and gender. A number of differences between the ways women and men talk were formally discovered and recorded.

1. Gender differences in language use

(1)The difference in vocabulary use

Vocabulary is the most active element in language. Obviously, the vocabulary difference manifests the relationship between gender difference and language application.

The woman’s language—both languages used to describe women and language typically used by women had the overall effect of submerging a woman’s personal identity. Six categories of language are sharply differentiated by the sex of the speaker: lexical distinctions such as color terms, strong versus weak expletives, “women’s” versus “neutral” adjectives, tag questions, question intonation with statement syntax, and strength of directive speech acts.

Women like to use specialized words.It is widely believed that women have larger color vocabularies than do men. For example, Robin Lakoff (1975) states this as a fact and suggests as an explanation that in this society woman spend much more of their time on color-related activities such as choosing clothes than men do.They prefer to use color terms borrowed from French, such as “azure”, “lavender”, “mauve” etc. These words are not only familiar to them, but they can show their elegance.Women imitate the prestigious and more standardized language of the social classes immediately above their own in order to become more prestigious and powerful themselves. Women like to use words that are closely related to their life.

In the communication process, women frequently use some complimentary words to express approval and admiration such as “adorable”, “charming”, and “divine”, etc. These words are expected in women’s speech, but not generally in men’s. Women also use some intimate words, such as “darling”, “baby” or use the nickname to call others.

When they want to express exaggeration, Jeperson and Lakoff found that female use more intensifiers than male, such as “so”, “awfully”, “pretty”, “terribly”, “quite”, etc.

Male speakers are often found to use socially disfavored variants of sociolinguistic variables while women tend to avoid these and use standard, prestige linguistic form.. This shows male speakers’ tendency to use forms that are generally considered “correct” less frequently than women speakers.

Men widely use imprecatory words or exclamations to show their inner feelings, especially “four-letter words”, such as “shit”, “damn”, etc. As for exclamations, men usually “Lord”, “Good lord”, “Good heaven”, “Bless my soul”. Women often use “Oh dear”, “Goodness”, “Gracious”, “Dear me”. Women are not expected to use strong expletives, such as “damn” or “shit”, but are encouraged to use weaker ones like “oh dear” or “my god”. There is an example given by Lakoff shows the difference when men and women use exclamations.

Oh dear, you’ve put the peanut butter in the refrigerator again.

Shit, you’ve put the peanut butter in the refrigerator again.

This difference in linguistic acculturation between men and women gives men the opportunity to express strong emotions with impunity, while the woman can not.

Some of these, like “great” and “terrific”, are neutral in the sense that either men or women readily and appropriately use them.

The gender difference reflects sex discrimination. In American Heritage Dictionary which was published in 1969, the vocabularies related to men are commendatory, such as “manliness”, “masculine charm”. But it’s unfair to women, for example, “womanish tears”, “feminine wiles”. The interpretations of words, including some neutral words, are often influenced by non-linguistic element. Now, when we hear somebody say “My cousin is a professor, or doctor, or steel worker”, we will presuppose somebody’s cousin is male. This situation has changed a lot as more and more women are doing these kinds of jobs. When we hear somebody say “My cousin is a nurse, or typist, or primary school teacher” we will presuppose somebody’s cousin is female. Women writers, actors, poets, heroes, heirs are also called authors, actors, poets, heroes and heirs. When we refer to hero, in Chinese, we usually call women heroes “女英雄” in order to emphasize her gender. It seems that “英雄” is only used for men. In English, “governor” means the leader of a state while “governess” means tutor; “mistress” not only means hostess, mostly refers to lover. In Chinese, we talk about “未婚妈妈”,but not “未婚爸爸”；we say “职业妇女” not “职业先生” .In Europe and America, most women will use her husband’s surname after marriage, Hong Kong,Macao and Taiwan are the same case. We call a lady Jack Fromkin (her husband’s name) but we never call a man Vicki Fromkin(his wife’s name). In China, we call a couple Mr * and Mrs *, although the lady has his own surname. Some words refer to men and women, such as “brotherhood of man” refers to men and women, while sisterhood refers to women, not including men. In Chinese, “他们” refers to “男性和女性”， “她们”refers to “女性”.

(2)The difference in conversational style

Men almost effortlessly raise topics which women most often support. Women’s topics were not only less actively supported, but were frequently and actively discouraged. Other studies have shown that American men tend to be more likely to give direct commands, while American women are more likely to ask questions to further a conversation. Women tend to give verbal responses to their interlocutor’s statements and give compliments. These combinations of these behaviors appear to place men in the position of controlling conversation, while women do the “interactional housework” to keep the conversation going.( Coates 1993:114-29) For example, when a woman talked with a man, the woman usually would use the favorable languages in order to gain better impressions from the man, while the man would not avoid using the disfavored languages.

When speaking, men often emphasize their masculinity and other forms women use to symbolize femininity, and that this is more basic than social class. Women ask more questions than men. It is a reflection of general insecurity resulting from long-term oppression. They like to use tag question. For example, she may say:

That’s an interesting idea, isn’t it?

It’s really cold here, isn’t it?

The food tastes terrible, doesn’t?

William O’Barr and Bowman Atkins’s (1980) study of speech in a North Carolina courtroom gives further support to the view that so-called women’s language is equated with relative powerlessness.Women often use hedges and modifiers to avoid expressing their attitudes directly, such as “sort of”, “kind of”, “I think”, “I have”. They may say “I sort of/ kind of like the movie”. “I guess things are pretty hard for you now”. People have to understand it comprehensively in order to correctly grasp the information and in order to make a good decision. And they feel context is essential for understanding. Most women, before telling you the headlines, will want to set up the situation and say what the context is. Women like to use the expressions of ultra-polite language form, such as “Would you mind……?”, “I’d appreciate it if……”, “…… if you don’t mind”. They express imperative in the form of question. For example, if the room is cold, husband may say “Shut the window” while wife may say “Would you mind shutting the window?”

Men believe the best way to absorb information and make decisions is to strip away all the details and focus only on the bare bones elements.When men communicate they’re concerned with conveying information and establishing status. When women communicate they’re concerned with conveying information and building connections. There’s a study that shows that when men have a success, they attribute it to their own abilities. When they’re not successful, they tend to attribute it to external factors. The opposite is true for women. When women have a failure, they tend to attribute it to their own shortcomings. And when they succeed, they tend to link it to external factors, such as teamwork and luck.

Through comparing the language form used by men and women with the terms referring to men and women, we came to know that there are ways of speaking which men use to emphasize their masculinity and other forms women use to symbolize femininity. Through analyzing the cross-sex conversations between men and women, we came to know that men effortlessly raise topics, whereas, women tend to support others’ topics. And men have the opportunity to express strong emotion just because women are forbidden to use strong expletives.

3 Reasons for such differences

Lakoff thought the differences of language between men and women is caused by social factors, not the language itself. These social factors are:

(1) Men and women’s social role is different. The society is made up of men and women. Because of the sex difference, men and women carry out different social responsibilities in social activities. According to THE NEW YORKER’s investigation, among social activities, men pay more attention to politics, business, law, tax and sports. They control everything and occupy a more powerful position. Women are in a subordinate position. Women pay more attention to what is related to everyday life. Women are only a rib removed away from men. At the beginning of Bible, one thing is certain that women’s social status is governed and dominated by men. In all, women speak without confidence because they have low social status and have no power. (Lakoff, 1973) So women’s conversational style is called “powerless style”.

(2) Social discrimination exists. The society is men-centered. Women are derived from men. Men’s will represent the whole society’s will. People reach an agreement that men are superior to women. Men have more privileges than women because they have much more power and strength. The women are considered in a lower status.

(3). Value is another element. Value is the core of culture. Different values will also influence men and women’s vocabulary selection. Value can directly influence language and culture. In many aspects, values decide the difference of gender language.

(4). Psychological elements. Peter Trudgill thinks why women’s utterance has characteristics is that compared with men, the society has different expectations and demands prevail in women’s ideas in the form of stereotypes and become social strong pressure. As a result, women follow these models to conduct consciousnessly. The behaviors which do not meet these expectations and requirements will be considered divergent from social conventions and will be subject to negation. Thus, women are clear about their status and always pay special attention to their language, especially use hyper-correct grammar and elegant language.(Dai Weidong, 1995)

4. Influence on cross-cultural communication

Paying attention to difference of language between men and women can reduce communication failure. The difference of vocabulary leads to difference in communication. When men and women communicate, it is easy to misunderstand each other. Men use curse words in order to show their intimacy or to make communication go on very well, but women consider curse words vulgar, impolite and lack of self-restraint. So under this condition, communication failure may come about. When some phrases refer to men or women, the meaning is totally different. Men should avoid using this kind of phrase to refer to women. For example, “have great legs”, when referring to men, means strong body; when referring to women, it means flightiness.

Conclusion

Although there is much language difference between men and women, we never deny that there is also a similarity as the society develops. The research on language and gender has just begun and there is much room left for us to complete. The research involves many disciplines and many related aspects need to explore and research further.