1. L25A: Language, Gender and Sex 2006-2007
Lecturer: Emmogene Budhai-Alvaranga
addresses: or
L23A Website:
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2. Topics - the Session Sex vs. Gender
Gender and its socio-cultural context; its place in society.
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3. Sex vs. Gender
Sex: produces categories distinguished by biological characteristics - man vs. woman
Gender: produces categories which are based on socio-cultural behaviour - male vs. female
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4. Gender identity (Holmes, 2001:303)
Women - adapt to ‘masculine context’
eg. women in certain jobs – police force
Men - adapt to ‘feminine context’
eg. Men working in clothing stores or hairdressing salons
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5. Women’s and Men’s language
1. Gender-exclusive speech differences:
difference in languages used (eg. given by Holmes 2001: 150)
differences in linguistic features (eg. found in Jespersen 1922)
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6. Rochefort (1655, cited in Jespersen, 1922:237)
“the men have a great many expressions peculiar to them, which the women understand but never pronounce themselves. On the other hand, the women have words and phrased which the men never use, or they would be laughed to scorn. Thus it happen that in their conversations it often seems as if the women had another language than the men.”
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7. The repetoires of personal pronouns of men and women are different as follows:
Pronoun: First person (I)
Men’s speech Women’s speech
Formal watakusi watakusi
watasi atakusi*
Plain boku watasi
atasi*
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8. Japanese cont’d Second person (you) Men’s speech Women’s speech
Formal anata anata
Plain kimi anata
anta* anta*
(*marks variants of a social dialect)
[source: Mesthrie, Swann, Leap, Deumert 2000:219]
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9. Women’s and Men’s language
Gender-preferential speech features
They use same speech forms – difference in quantity or frequencies of use.
Women tend to prefer standard forms, men prefer vernacular forms.
Example: women produced more ‘th’ than alternatives [f], [t], [d]
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10. Explanations of women’s linguistic behaviour:
the social status explanation
different patterns of socialization
dominance/Subordinate group must be polite.
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