English Gender Differences Research

Language Gender Research

Peter Trudgill's Norwich Research 1972

Peter Trudgill's carried out research in the 1970s on the language change and social class and the differences between men and women.  The independent variables were the 5 social class that he studied.

Trudgill made a detailed study in which subjects were grouped by social class and sex. He invited them to speak in a variety of situations, before asking them to read a passage that contained words where the speaker might use one or other of two speech sounds. An example would be verbs ending in -ing, where Trudgill wanted to see whether the speaker dropped the final g and pronounced this as -in'.

His findings were:

In all social classes, the more careful the speech, the more likely people were to say walking rather than walkin'.

The proportion of walkin' type forms was higher in lower social classes.

The nonstandard -in' forms occurred much more often in men's speech than in women's, and this was true for all social classes.

When women were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended to say they used the standard -ing forms more often than they really did.

When men were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended to say they used the nonstandard -in' forms more often than they really did.

His findings shown that women were more likely to use the prestige pronunciation of words to speak a higher prestige above their social class, therefore trying to sound more intelligent.  On the other hands, men displayed men being less socially aspirational and appearing more secure in their social class. Therefore, this indicated women having higher social class aspirations than men. It also shows women spoke in a correct, better language than men which shows their language was more powerful than men’s as they use ‘better’ words.        

Robin Lakoff's research 1973
Robin believed womens speech can be distinguished in certain features. She wrote a book titles ‘The logic of politenesses in 1973. She devised the ‘politeness principle’ in 3 maxims

1. Don’t impose
2. Give options and
3. Make your receiver feel good

Lakoff claimed that there were certain features of women’s language that gave the impression women are weaker and less certain than men are. There are 9 features that encourage the opinion of women to be weaker than male.

1-Women have a specific lexis, using words like ‘mauve’ not shared by men. However, men have their own discreet lexis as well, relating to cars, sports, computers etc

2-Women use ‘empty’ adjectives like ‘divine, cute, charming’. But men use ‘damn, jolly’

3-Women use intonation on declaratives and co-operative tag questions- ‘it’s a hot day, isn’t it?’ (Tannen) men hate tag questions as they feel they are being manipulated, and use them for assertion- ‘that was a clever thing to do, wasn’t it?’

4-Women use hedges which suggest uncertainty though the intention is to be polite eg ‘well, kind of, sort of, I wonder, I think…’ They are regarded as weak. Men use tentative forms as well- ‘like’ (Scouse) but they are not perceived as signs of weakness

5. Women use more intensifiers like ‘so’ as in ‘so you’. Men use more taboo language to intensify their language but that isn’t regarded as weak. Women may now use more taboo language so as not to seem weak to men. Men use the f-word as a modifier, women use it as an expletive

6. Women tend to use more correct grammar forms than men. Research suggests this is due to parental influence. Women are less likely to use covert prestige (aggressive- male) but do use overt prestige to gain social status (convergence/divergence). Women gain status by sounding correct.

7. Women use superpolite forms. They use modals, implicatures, mitigated directives, avoid off colour remarks by using euphemisms and use please and thank you. They use hyper correction. Men can break politeness rules and tell rude jokes without being told off.

8. Women are poor at telling jokes and often don’t understand them. Men need to tell jokes to raise their prestige with other men.

9. Women speak in italics (over emphasis) to show that what they are saying is important, as they feel they will be ignored otherwise.

Text B Analysis - Gender and Language Analysis

Text B is a romantic novel extract which has the purpose to entertain; the source is not displayed. The target audience would typically be older women aged 25+ who like to read romantic stories in the style of Mills and Boon.  This extract shows the stereotypical roles of gender, which are suggested as the man being a hero and masculine, and the woman being vulnerable. I will be explaining in more detail how the author has portrayed this through the use of English language features.

 Robin Lakoff, in 1975, published the book ‘Language and Woman's Place’. This book supports assumptions of the language women use and one of English language examples that are typically used are intensifiers. Within the extract the women says, “I’m very grateful.” This intensifier exaggerates the cliché role of the man being a heroic and saving the day by rescuing the woman from danger and in this case he rescued her from being stuck in the cobbled lane. This relates to the purpose of this text being a romance novel, this typical scene is ideal for the target audience of women aged 25+ who want to read romantic novels such as Mills and Boon.

The use of material, active verbs to describe the male actions such as “swept” “whisked” and “stepped” displayed the man as being active and powerful as he is doing all the action within the extract. This links to the stereotypical role of men being strong and capable of being independent. In contrast, the woman is shown as passive and weak as she has inactive verbs. For example, “lay” “struggled” “stared”. These verbs represent the women in this novel as being very weak and capable as she is not being active and she is staying still. Women are represented as inferior to the male gender, as they are represented as less capable within the extract. This could appeal to the target audience as women want to read a romantic novel where a woman needs protection from the cliché ‘knight in shining armour’.

The male gender is represented as attractive and desirable in this novel. This is shown through the use of adjectives to describe the man’s physical features within this extract are very desirable and attractive.  “Strong arms” and “chiselled mouth” appeal to the target audience as athletic and attractive and this is desirable for a typical fairy tale story, which women may want to read which has the perfect man as a hero. If the man was not described or if he was described as unattractive to the women in the novel then the story would not be as effective for the target audience, as they want to read a perfect story, as it is more romantic.

The lexical field of vulnerability such as “struggled” “slipped” and “unsteadily” suggests the women in the novel being weak and incapable of being independent. It also suggests the need of a hero or man to protect her as she is too feeble to do anything by herself without putting herself in danger. Therefore the gender of women is again represented as weak and the man is suggested as having a role as a hero.

In conclusion, the novel has a romantic sense of the attractive man saving the day by helping the women escape from being stuck in cobble. The man is described as very attractive and desirable which is appealing to the target audience of older women. The woman is described as weak through the use of words which show her being incapable. The active and inactive verbs also represent the roles carried out by both genders.

 

 

Mills & Boon style writing

Mills & Boon Style Writing

Gazing out the window, she was still unattended and lonely at the bar. She could sense someone staring at the back of her head, impatiently waiting for her to turn round. Turning her petite body, her eyes fixed on cool, piercing blue eyes. He swiftly approached her with a confident smile. She was captivated by his good looks and charming smile, which almost took her breathe away. “Hello” she timidly said. She felt a warm feeling of safety as the man sat next to her and his strong arms wrapped around her delicate waist. “Allow me to buy you a drink” he demanded. She blushed and shyly accepted. She admired his attractive face and husky voice as he ordered a pint and a vodka cranberry. Passing her vodka cranberry over, she gracefully flipped her hair and nervously glanced back at him. She was mesmerised with questions running through her mind, wondering why such a good looking man would approach her. She felt lucky to be accompanied with such a tremendous, fetching man.

Comments: This was my first attempt at writing an extract of a romantic novel in the style of Mills & Boon. I have carefully selected words that make the man seem strong and powerful, and the woman to seem delicate and vulnerable.

For example, the man has very active material verbs such as “swiftly approached” and “wrapped around her”. These actions make the man seem powerful and in control of the situation, making the woman appears vulnerable.

While the woman has very mental processes and not active verbs, this shows her as not doing actions, just thinking and this shows her as emotional and not powerful.  For example “gazing” and “admired”. I have also included a relational verb which shows the affect he man has on her which includes “she blushed”.  This shows her state of being is being controlled by the man and this portrays the affect he has on her.

He is also the one that initiates the interaction, by approaching her. As she was alone she is seen as an easy target and vulnerable. I have used words to describe her such as “delicate” and “petite”. This shows that she may be vulnerable as when something is petite and delicate; they are seen as being damaged easily. The man is seen as powerful as I have described him as having “strong arms” and “piercing blue eyes” and these are manly features which seem powerful.

Initial thoughts on language male/female gender roles

In society the majority of high paid jobs such as Politics are normally stereotypically seen as a male role. Politics is based on the use of carefully planned language, in order for people to agree with their decision making. Women are not seen as powerful in society, but the roles of powerful women has increased rapidly from many years ago. Men and women are not seen as equal in society and there are stereotypical activities which lead to these judgements. For example women are seen as stay at home mothers who clean after the house and children, whereas the father of the family goes to work and brings money for the family. Men are also seen as stereotypically use curse words more as they are surrounded by other males in areas such as pubs. They are also seen as more capable of being aggressive and cursing to sound intimidating.

http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/hsl_shl/van%20Baalen.htm interesting article on linguistic features of the differences between the language between the gender roles. For example explains it explains how the feature of hedging and how indicate that speakers are not committed to what they say. It also contains facts on the total number of women and men that use 'hedging'.