Gender in Sociolinguistics

GENDER in Sociolinguistics

By/ Brwa Rasul Sharif

What does sex mean in sociolinguistics?

•      Sex marks the distinction between women and men as a result of their biological, physical and genetic differences.

 What does gender mean in sociolinguistics?

•      Gender roles are set by convention and other social, economic, political and cultural forces. Sex (Wardhaugh, 2008) is to a very large extent biologically determined whereas gender is a social construct.

Male or Female?

                Wodak (1997a, p. 4) says that what it means to be a woman or to be a man changes from one generation to the next and….varies between different racialized, ethnic, and religious groups, as well as for members of different social classes (Wardhaugh, 2008). And according to Wardhaugh (2008) because of the different roles they play in society and the different jobs they tend to fill, women may live longer than men.

 

Gender-exclusive speech differences

       Women and men do not speak in exactly the same as each other in any community. The language is shared by women and men, but with some particular linguistic features.

1.     Pronunciation can be changed according to gender. For example, in Montana, The Gros Ventre American Indian tribes. Women calls (bread) as [kja'tsa]   while men calls it as [dʒa'tsa]. Another example is in Bengali, a language of India. Women generally add initial [l] while men add initial [n].

 

2.     Word-shape: Men and women use different affixes. For example in Yana (North American Indian language) women add a suffix such ba while men add a suffix such as ba-na for ‘deer’. Another example is adding a suffix for ‘person’ women say yaa   while men say yaa-na, in Chiquita (South American Indian language).

 

3.     Vocabulary: Men and women use different vocabulary items. For instance, Traditional Japanese are frequently prefixed by o- therefore women say oishii  while men say umai  for‘delicious’. In Modern Japanese women’s form are used by everyone in public contexts, while men’s form are restricted in casual contexts.

 

4.     Pronoun: Some languages signal the gender of the speaker in the pronoun system. Therefore Words for ‘I’ in Japanese can be use by women as atashi, watashi, watakushi while men use ore and boku

 

 

Gender-preferential speech features:

              In Sydney, (Australia) men drop more [h]s than women. For example men instead of ‘happy’ would sound [æpɪ] rather than /hæpɪ/. Another example can be seen in Montreal, (France) in which men delete more [l]s than women. For example instead of saying il y a   and  il fait  they would say i y a and i fait.

 

Gender social class

              In every social status men use more vernacular forms than women. Men may use multiple negations for example (I don’t know nothing about it). And later studies in Boston and Detroit identified that boys used more vernacular forms such as (consonant cluster). For example they use las’ [las] and tol’ [toul] instead of last [last] and told [tould]. And instead of th [ð] they would say [d] in the and then.

 

Explanation of women’s linguistic behavior

§  There are four different explanations:

1.     The social status explanation: women are more status-conscious than men. And they are aware of speech signals and social class background. And they are interacting with people who are used more standard forms.

 

2.     Women’s role in society: generally society expects better behavior of women. And they are designated as the role of modeling correct behavior in the community. But this is certainly not true for all. Interaction between a mother and her child are likely to be very relaxed and informal.

 

3.      Women’s status as a subordinate group: Subordinate People must be polite. Women are also looking after their own need to be valued by society and using standard forms protects her ‘face’. Women’s sensitivity to their addressees is more promising to those of the people they are talking to.

4.     Vernacular forms express machismo: Men use less standard forms. While it is claimed that standard forms express femininity.

 

Some alternative explanations

1.     Women's categorizations: Not all women marry men from the same social class, however it is perfectly possible for a woman to be better educated than the man she marries, or even to have a more prestigious job than him.

 

2.      The influence of the interviewer and the context: Women tend to become more cooperative conversationalists than men. Men on the other hand tend to be less responsive to speech of others, and to their conversational needs.

e.g:  A Mombasa study/Swahili data: the women interviewed shifted much more dramatically than the men did from more to less standard forms when they were speaking to a friend rather than a stranger.

References:

Bauer, L., Holmes, J., & Warren, P. (2006). Language mattes. Basingstoke and Hampshire: Palgrave Mackmillan.

Coulmas, F. (2005). Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Holmes, J. (2008). An introduction to sociolinguistics. Harlow, UK: Pearson Education.

Minas, A. (1993). Gender basics. California: Wadsworth.

Wardhaugh, R. (2008). An introduction to sociolinguistics (5th ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.