SOCIOLINGUISTICS

LANGUAGE AND GENDER

Group 3
The Members:

I Made Hardi Setiawan (1712021005 / 6A)

I Made Restu Garvani (1712021032 / 6A)
Putu Suardamayasa (1712021034 / 6A)

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS

GANESHA UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION

2020/2021
ABSTRACT
There is a very close connection between language and sex or gender that makes there is the
existence of differences of language between man and woman. In which part the language
between man and woman are different? Men and women have differences in some parts. In
syntax and pragmatic features, men and women are very different. In the sociolinguistic area,
men and women have a different address. Sociolinguistics area covered like politeness and
interruption. In terms of the topic’s communication between men and women also completely
different. Here seen obviously the differences between men and women in choosing about
communication’s topic. Besides those differences here, we explain a little bit example of the
differences taken from daily life.
Keywords: Language, sex or gender, sociolinguistics area, language differences.

INTRODUCTION
Language and gender is one of the topic discussed in the sociolinguistics. Language
and gender refer to the use of language between male and female. It means that in this
sociolinguistics topic will discuss about the connection between the structures, vocabularies,
and ways of using particular language and social roles of the men and women (Li, 2014). In
the use of language, many studies found that there are differences between women and men
in the use of language. Generally, women and men have different attitude and life style, this
also influence the way they use language. Gender difference is not only a reflection of the
speeches between male and female, but also a reflection of their different living style and
attitudes (Gu, 2013).
According to Buyukahiska (2011), states that women love to talk, while men prefer
action to words. Women use conversation as a way of connection with others emotionally,
while men treat conversation either as practical tool or a competitive sport. Women are good
at listening, building rapport with others and avoiding or defusing conflict. Men confront
each other more directly, and are less attuned to either their own or others’ feelings (Gray,
1992: 21 as cited in Buyukahiska, 2011). Therefore, men and women have difference
perspective in the society that makes them to have different way in using language.
In sociolinguistics, the researchers study the relationship between language and
gender in many aspects, such as gender and politeness, gender and language style (Gu, 2013).
Most of the researchers believe that females are more polite than males. The language of
female is indirect and implicit; male’s is direct to the contrary. Some scholars like Tannen
even hold that males and females come from different culture and the communication
between them should be transcultural communication. So, if failure in communication
appears, it is nothing to be surprised at. Gray believes that males come from Mars and
females come from Venus (Gu, 2013). Since they come from different celestial, there must be
some differences between them. The sociolinguists put forward their hypothesis and proved
them. It is worth mentioning that all the researches reflect that there is some prejudice against
the language of female and their communicative style.

DISCUSSION
A. Gender vs Sex
According to British sociologist, Giddens (1989) (cited in Buyukahiska,
2011), defines sex as biological or anatomical differences between male and female,
while gender concerns to the psychological, social and cultural differences between
man and woman. In other words, sex is something that you have, and it can be defined
in terms of objective, scientific criteria, that is the number of X chromosomes that a
person has. On the other hand, Gender is social property, something acquired or
constructed through your relationships with others through an individual’s adherence
to certain cultural norms and proscriptions. Gender is not something we are born with,
and not something we have, but something we do something we perform.

B. Language and Gender

The way people use language can be related to the social network they belong
to, their habitual activities, their identities as particular kinds of people and their status
relative to others. Each of these things is potentially affected by gender divisions
which are characteristics of our society. Cameron (cited in Buyukahiska, 2011) claims
that there is a complex relationship between language and gender in the academic
studies of language and gender. Holmes (cited in Buhukahiska, 2011) formulates six
candidate universals regarding language and gender:
1. Women and men develop different patterns of language use.
2. Women tend to focus on the affective functions of an interaction more often
than men do.
3. Women tend to use linguistic devices that stress solidarity more often than
men do.
 4. Women tend to interact in ways that will maintain and increase solidarity,
while especially in formal contexts men tend to interact in ways that will
maintain and increase their power and status.
5. Women use more standard forms than men from the same social group in the
same social context.
6. Women are stylistically more flexible than men.

C. Lexicon, Syntax and Pragmatic Features

The research into gender differences in the field of linguistics began with
Robin Lakoff. She put forward “female language” and her book Language and
Women’s Place published in 1973 aroused the linguists’ interests in this research
topic. Lakoff (1973) points out several features of the female language in her book.
1) Specialized vocabulary. Compared with the language of males, females often like
to use more concrete color words, such as mauve, yellow, azure, beige and
lavender. What’s more, they prefer to some concrete words that have a close
relationship with life.
2) Milder expletives. Females use expletives in a milder tone, but males often speak
in a strong tone. For example, men often say “shit or damn it”, while female often
use milder expletives, like “go to hell”. The control of social conventions may
lead to the different ways of speaking.
3) Empty adjectives. Females always use some adjectives, such as charming, divine,
and cute to express their feelings. While men are more less in using that kind
adjectives.
4) Tag questions. Though males and females both use tag questions in a certain
situation, females use tag questions specially, that is to say, when they express
their opinions, tag questions are their favorite way of speaking even they are sure
about what they want to say, e.g. She is very nice, isn’t she? Their purpose is to
show they want to get recognized by others.
5) Intonation. Females prefer to a rising tone even in a declarative sentence, e.g. it’s
really good? So, their uncertainty and indecision have been revealed by a rising
tone.
6) Super polite forms. Females are more polite than males. They tend to prefer an
indirect way of speaking. A case in point is “I was wondering whether it was
possible for you to hand me that book?”
 7) Hypercorrect grammar (consistent use of standard verb forms). Females usually
speak in a formal manner not only in grammar, but also in pronunciation. They
never use such words as “ain’t”, “goin”.
8) Joke-telling and humor. The language of female lacks humor; they speak less
humorously than males. Females inherently are not good at creating humor and
understanding humor. For instance, we have known the famous classic and comic
characters like Mr. Bean and Chaplin, but female comic characters can never be
found to equate with them. The situation is the same in China, Zhao Benshan, Guo
Degang and Zhou Libo has gained more popularity than any females.
9) Emphatic stress, e.g. it is a brilliant performance. Here, all are hedging devices
except the boosting devices intensifiers and emphatics stress. Lakoff (1973)
argues that women’s use hedging device to express uncertainty, and they use
boosting devices to persuade their addressee to take them seriously. Women boost
the force of their utterances because they think that otherwise they will not be
heard or paid attention to. So, according to Lakoff, both hedges and boosters
reflect women’s lack of confidence. Lakoff also says that women may answer a
question with a statement employing the rising intonation pattern usually
associated with making a question rather than the falling intonation pattern
associated with making a firm statement.
Lakoff (1973) held that the differences in lexicon, syntax and pragmatics
mentioned above give us a unique style of the language of female: obedient,
uncertainty and passive. Their speaking style is determined by the requirements of the
society for females and their subordinate social status.

D. Sociolinguistics Area
In sociolinguistics, the researchers study the relationship between language
and gender in many aspects, such as gender and politeness, gender and language style.
Most of the researchers believe that females are more polite than males. The language
of female is indirect and implicit; male’s is direct to the contrary. Some scholars like
Tannen even hold that males and females come from different culture and the
communication between them should be transcultural communication. So, if failure in
communication appears, it is nothing to be surprised at. Gray (cited in Gu, 2013)
believes that males come from Mars and females come from Venus. Since they come
from different celestial, there must be some differences between them. The
sociolinguists put forward their hypothesis and proved them. It is worth mentioning
that all the researches reflect that there is some prejudice against the language of
female and their communicative style.
1) Politeness
Women use certain patterns associated with surprise and politeness more
often than men. Coates (cited in Shazu, 2014) women's language was described as
weak, unassertive, tentative, and women were presented as losers, as victims.
Holmes (cited in Shazu, 2014) characterizes women’s speech as more polite than
men’s speech. Researchers argue that the women use more tags than the men. But
they do not use them for the same purposes as the men. Women put more
emphasis than men on the polite or affective functions of tags, using them as
facilitative positive politeness devices. Men, on the other hand, use tags for the
expression of uncertainty. In a study of Mayan community in Maxico, for
instance, overall, the women used more politeness device than the men, so the
pattern seemed to resemble the Western pattern. But, increasingly, the men used
far fewer politeness forms to each other than to women. So, male talk to males
was relatively plain an unmodified. In this community, ‘men’s talk’ could be seen
as the unusual variety rather than women’s talk.
2) Interruptions
There are many features of interaction which differentiate the talk of
women and men. Women tend to interrupt less in conversation and “to be more
attentive listeners, concerned to ensure others get a chance to contribute” than
men (Shazu, 2014). Despite the widespread stereotype of women as the talkative
sex, and proverbs which characterize women as garrulous. Women’s tongues are
like lambs’ tails, they never still’ most of the research evidence points outs the
other way. In a wide range of contexts, particularly non-private ones such as
television interviews, staff meetings and conference discussions, where talking
may increase your status, men dominate the talking time. In the same gender
interruptions are pretty evenly distributed between speakers. In same-sex pairs: a)
Men argue more with other men, b) Women are more dramatic with other women.
A number of studies show that in cross-sex interactions, men frequently interrupt
women but women much less frequently interrupt men. In cross-sex conversation,
women ask more questions, encourage others to speak, use more signals like- ‘mm
hmm’ to encourage others to continue speaking, use more instances of you and
 we, and do not protest as much as men when interrupted. Men interrupt more,
challenge more, dispute, and ignore more, try to control what topics are discussed,
and make categorical statement. That is, in the cross-sex interactional patterns in
conversation, men and women seem to exhibit the power relationship that exists in
society, with men dominating and women subservient. There is no doubt that men
are still doing most of the interrupting. In other contexts, too, it has been found
that men interrupt others more than women do. In departmental meetings and
doctor-patient interactions, for instance, the pattern holds. Women get interrupted
more than men, regardless of whether they are the doctors or the patients. In
exchanges between patients and children, fathers do most of the interrupting, and
daughters are interrupted most- both by their mothers and their fathers. However,
most of the men speak more often and for longer than most of the women. Most of
men interrupt more than the women. While men and women are both guilty of
interrupting, there are some significant differences:
- Men interrupt, overall, more often than women.
- Men interrupt other women more often than they interrupt men.
- Men are more successful at taking and maintaining the floor.
- Women’s interruptions take the form of questions and/or supportive
statements (yeah, right, I see, is that so, etc.).
Holmes (cited in Shazu, 2014), on the other hand, found that in doctor-
patient conversations female doctors were interrupted more often than male
physicians. In addition, in business organizations, men but not women tended to
dominate the interactions. West (cited in Shazu, 2014) came to similar
conclusions in her study of interaction between doctors and patients.
3) Competitive vs. cooperative
It is found that women are more supportive and cooperative
conversationalists; and men are more competitive conventionalists. A research on
the Malagasy community, women’s speech is more direct than men’s speech. It is
women who handle the bargaining necessary in the market-place, and it is the
women who deal with family arguments and disagreements. Men’s speech in this
community is indirect and circumlocutionary. In general, research on
conversational interactional reveals women as cooperative conversationalists,
whereas men tend to be more competitive and less supportive of others.
4) Topic of conversations between Men and Women
 In conversations involving members of both sexes, men speak more than
women. The topics of the conversations also vary. Men-men: competition and
teasing, sports, aggression, business, politics, legal matters, taxes. Women-
women: self-feeling, affiliation with others, family and social life, books, food and
drink, life’s troubles, and lifestyle. Adjectives such as adorable, charming, divine,
lovely, and sweet are commonly used by women than by men. They also add tag
questions very often for the same reasons: the sense of being unsure and
insecurity.
According to Zhasu (2014), there is a widespread belief that women talk
more than men. ‘Men have been shown to talk more than women in settings as
diverse as staff meetings’ (Eakins and Eakins 1978), television panel discussions
(Bernard 1972) and husband-and-wife pairs in spontaneous conversation (Soskin
and John 1963). Evidence suggests that men and women tend to discuss different
topics (Zhasu, 2014). For example, men tend to talk about sport, politics and cars,
whereas women tend to talk about child-rearing and personal relationships.
5) Questions
Men and women differ in their use of questions in conversations. For men,
a question is usually a genuine request for information whereas with women it can
often be a rhetorical means of engaging the other’s conversational contribution or
of acquiring attention from others conversationally involved, techniques
associated with a collaborative approach to language use. Therefore, women use
questions more frequently. In writing, however, both genders use rhetorical
questions as literary devices. For example, Mark Twain used them in "A War
Prayer" to provoke the reader to question his actions and beliefs. Tag questions
are frequently used to verify or confirm information; though in women’s language
they may also be used to avoid making strong statements.
6) Turn-taking
As the work of Victoria DeFrancisco shows, female linguistic behavior
characteristically encompasses a desire to take turns in conversation with others,
which is opposed to men’s tendency towards centering on their own point or
remaining silent when presented with such implicit offers of conversational turn-
taking as are provided by hedges such as "y’ know" and "isn’t it". This desire for
turn-taking gives rises to complex forms of interaction in relation to the more
regimented form of turn-taking commonly exhibited by men.
 7) Changing the topic of conversation
According to Bruce Dorval in his study of same-sex friend interaction,
males tend to change subject more frequently than females. This difference may
well be at the root of the conception that women chatter and talk too much.
Goodwin (cited in Zhasu, 2014) observes that girls and women link their
utterances to previous speakers and develop each other topics, rather than
introducing new topics. However, a study of young American couples and their
interactions reveal that while women raise twice as many topics as men, it is the
men's topics that are usually taken up and subsequently elaborated in the
conversation.
8) Listening and attentiveness
It appears that women attach more load than men to the importance of
listening in conversation, with its connotations of power to the listener as
confidant of the speaker. This attachment of import by women to listening is
inferred by women’s normally lower rate of interruption — i.e., disrupting the
flow of conversation with a topic unrelated to the previous one and by their
largely increased use of minimal responses in relation to men. Men, however,
interrupt far more frequently with non-related topics, especially in the mixed sex
setting and, far from rendering a female speaker's responses minimal, are apt to
greet her conversational spotlights with silence, as the work of Victoria
DeFrancisco demonstrates.
When men talk, women listen and agree. However, men tend to
misinterpret this agreement, which was intended in a spirit of connection, as a
reflection of status and power. A man might conclude that a woman is indecisive
or insecure as a result of her listening and attempts of acknowledgment. When in
all actuality, a woman's reasons for behaving this way have nothing to do with her
attitudes toward her knowledge, but are a result of her attitudes toward her
relationships. The act of giving information frames the speaker with a higher
status, while the act of listening frames the listener as lower. However, when
women listen to men, they are not necessarily thinking in terms of status, but in
terms of connection and support.

CONCLUSION
References:
Buyukahiska, D. (2011). Gender and Language. Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 9 (2), 459 – 471.
Gu, L. (2013). Language and Gender: Differences and Similarities. International Conference
on Advances in Social Science, Humanities, and Management.
Li, J. (2014). A Sociolinguistics Study of Language and Gender in Desperate Housewives.
Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 4 (1), 52 – 57.
Lakoff, R. (1973). Language and Woman’s Place. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press