CHAPTER I

Introduction

In this paper, we are examining styles and registers, the way language is used,

and linguistic attitudes, the relationship between languages, thought and culture, the

issue of “woman’s language” is one which illustrates all these concepts. Is women’s

language a distinct style or register of a language? Are women more polite than men?

Are there any differences in the way women and men interact? How is language used

to refer to women and men? What message does the language used about women

convey about their status in the community?

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CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

A. Women’s Language and Confidence

While some social dialectologist suggested that women were status conscious,

and that this was reflected in their use of standard speech forms, Robin Lakoff, an

American Linguist, suggested almost the opposite. She argued that women were using

language which reinforced their subordinate status; they were ‘colluding in their own

subordination’ by the way they spoke.

Robin Lakoff shifted the focus of research on gender differences to syntax,

semantics and style. She suggested that women’s subordinate social status in

American society is reflected in the language women use, as well as in the language

used about them. She identified a number of linguistic features which she claimed

were used more often by women than by men, and which in her opinion expressed

uncertainty and lack of confidence.

1) Features of ‘Women’s Language’

Lakoff suggested that women’s speech was characterized by linguistic features

such as the following:

a. Lexical hedges or fillers, e. g. you know, sort of, well, you see.

Hedging is an aspect of women’s insecurity. According to Lakoff, one would

expect ‘you know’ to be randomly scattered through out women’s speech since it

usage is supposed to reflect the general insecurity of the speaker. The use of

hedges is also the manifestation of women’s lack of self-confidence. Lakoff

considered that “pause fillers” are also categorized as ‘hedges’, because of their

function which is expressing lack of confidence or uncertainty.

b. Tag Question, e. g. she is very pretty, isn’t she?

A tag question is used when is the speaker is stating a claim, but the speaker is not

totally sure about the truth of that claim, for example: Juan is leaving, isn’t he?

As Lakoff says, ‘a tag question is midway between an outright statement and a

yes-no question: it is less assertive than the former, but more confident than the

later’. (pp. 104)

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c. Rising intonation on declaratives: e. g. it’s really good.

Women show non-assertive behavior by using question intonation in conjunction

with declarative sentences. That is, rather than making direct statements, they

suggest or request agreement for their addressee (s). Lakoff says that in answering

a question like “when will lunch be ready?” women will respond not with a

statement but with a question intonation response, such as “oh, about twelve

o’clock?”

d. “Empty” adjectives: meaningless, can be omitted or changed into another word, e.

g. divine, charming, cute.

According to Lakoff, certain words are used almost exclusively by women. Lakoff

claims that women use “empty” adjectives such as divine and cute, these

adjectives are said to be not only meaningless, but also lacked of connotation of

power if contrasted with “men’s adjectives“such as great, terrific.

e. Precise color terms, e. g. magenta, aquamarine.

Lakoff suggested that there are some colors that are less common and used by

women only, such as mauve and chartreuse. Because women like details more

than women do. Therefore, women have more vocabulary in colors than men

have.

f. Intensifiers such as just and so, e. g. I like him so much.

Female often use intensifiers as so, such, quite, and vastly. E.g. I hate her so

much. Lakoff claimed that if women use hedging to express uncertainty, on the

other hand women use intensifying devices to persuade their addressee to take

them seriously and also to strengthen the meaning.

g. “Hypercorrect” grammar, e. g. consistent use of standard verb forms.

According to Lakofff, women tend to use more formal syntax than men, to use

forms of pronunciation which are closer to the prestige norm, and in general to

speak more formally than men do in similar situations.

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h. “Super polite” forms, e. g. indirect request, euphemisms.

Women are said to frame request and other sorts of utterances with excessively

polite form such as “Would you please open the door, if you don’t mind”. These

forms are often used by women than men.

i. Avoidance of strong swears words, e. g. fudge, my goodness.

Taboo language or non-standard words, have considered on strong swear words.

In language taboo is a prohibition forces the substitution of another word for one.

These words are rarely used and even avoided by women.

j. Emphatic stress, e. g. it was a brilliant performance.

Women use modifiers so, such, and very to emphasize their utterances much more

frequently than men do and they combined this usage with an intensity of

intonation out proportion with the topic of the phrase. Expressions like “It’s so

beautiful!” are seen as feminine.

Features which may serve as:

Hedging devices Boosting devices

Lexical hedges

Tag questions

Question intonation

Super polite forms

Euphemisms

Intensifiers

Emphatic stress

The hedging devices can be used to weaken the strength of an assertion while

the boosting devices can be used to strengthen it. For example, it’s a good film can be

strengthened by adding the intensifier really (it’s really good film) or weakened by

adding the lexical hedge sort of (it’s sort of a good film). However, some of these

devices serve other functions too, as we will see below.

Lakoff claimed both kinds of modifiers were evidence of an unconfident

speaker. Hedging devices explicitly signal lack of confidence, while boosting devices

reflect the speaker’s anticipation that the addressee may remain unconvinced and

therefore supply extra reassurance. So, she claimed, women use hedging devices to

express uncertainty, and they use intensifying devices to persuade their addressee to

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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 Lakof, both

hedges and boosters reflect women’s lack of confidence.

2) Lakoff's Linguistic Features as Politeness Devices

The tag question is syntactic device listed by Lakoff which my express some

expression such as:

1. Expressing uncertainty (rising intonation)

Example:

(Bella is a student. She is telling her friends about the event in her school)

Prom night was held in the last July, was it?

From the example above, Bella is uncertain about the time and she indicates

with rising tag which signal doubt about what she is asserting. This tag focuses on

the referential meaning of Bella's assertion in giving the accuracy of information

that she is giving.

2. Expressing affective meaning (falling intonation)

The tags question in this point may have a function as facilitative or positive

politeness devices, providing and addressee with an easy entrée into a

conversation.

Example:

(Bella has new friend named Andy. When she is eating in the cafeteria with her

friend, Dina she meets Andy and she introduces him to Dina)

Bella: Dina, this is my new friend, Andy. Dina has met you twice in the school,

haven’t you?

Dina: Well, actually three times. I met you when you were playing basket ball.

Example:

Mrs. Short : here's pretty one what's this one called Simon?

Simon : Mm, erm (pause)

Mrs. Short : See its tail, look as its tail. It's a fantail, isn’t it?

Simon : Mm.. a fantail. I see one of them

3. Expressing criticism (falling intonation)

A tag may also soften a directive or a criticism.

Example:

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(Bella has new shoes but her sister wears it without asking to her first)

Bella: It's good shoes, wasn’t it?

4. Tags may also be used as confrontational and coercive devices. This tag is

used to force feedback from an uncooperative addressee.

Example:

A: You'll probably find yourself um before the chief constable, okay?

B: Yes, sir yes understood.

A: Now you er fully understand that, don’t you?

B: Yes, sir, indeed, yeah.

Distribution of tag questions by function and sex speaker

Function of tag Women (%) Men (%)

Expressing uncertainty

Facilitative

Softening

Confrontational

Total

N

35

59

6

-

100

51

61

26

13

-

100

39

The table shows that the women used more tags than the men, as Lakoff

predicted. Women put more emphasis then men on the polite or affective functions of

tags, using them as facilitative positive politeness devices. On the other hand, men

used more tags for the expression of uncertainty.

B. Interaction

There are many futures of interaction which differentiate the talk of women

and men. Mrs Fleming’s distinction reflection of them. In this section I will discuss

two others: interrupting behavior and conversational feedback.

1) Interruptions

Example

Wanda : Did you see here that two sociologists have just proved that men

interrupt women all the time?

They –

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Ralph : Who says?

Wanda : Candace west of Florida State and Don Zimmerman of the University of

California at Santa Barbara. They taped a bunch of private

conversations, and guess what they found. When two out three women

are talking, interruptions are about equal. But when a man talks to a

woman, he makes 96 per cent of the interruptions. They think it’s a

dominance trick men aren’t event a were of. But –

Ralph : These people have nothing better to do than eavesdrop on

interruptions?

Wanda : - but woman make ‘retrievals’ about one third of the time. You know,

they pick up where they left off after the man –

Ralph : Surely not all men are like that Wanda?

Wanda : - cuts in on what they were saying. Doesn’t that-

Ralph : speaking as a staunch supporter of feminism, I deplore it Wanda.

Wanda : (sign) I know, dear.

Ralph here illustrated a pattern for which there is a great deal of research

evidence. The most widely quoted study, and the one referred to by Wanda in

example 11, collected examples of students’ exchanges in coffee bars, shops and other

public places on tape-recorder carried by one of the researches. The results were

dramatic, as table 12.2 illustrates. In same-gender interactions, interruptions were

pretty evenly distributed between speakers. In cross-gender interactions almost all the

interruptions were from males.

Table 12.2 Average number of interruptions per interaction

Interrruption

%

Same – sex interaction

Speaker 1 43

Speaker 2 57

Cross sex interaction

Woman 4

Man 96

Source: from Zimmerman and west 1975: 116

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These researches followed up this study with one which recorded interactions

in sound-proof booths in a laboratory. The percentage of male interruptions decreased

to 75 per cent in this less natural setting, but there was no doubt that men were still

doing most of the interrupting. In other contexts too, it has been found that men

interrupt others more than woman do. In department meetings and doctor-patient

interaction, for instance, the pattern holds. Woman gets interrupted more than man,

regardless of whether they were the doctors or the patients. In exchanges between

parents and children, father did most of the interrupting, and daughters were

interrupted most-booth by their mothers and their fathers. And study pre-scholars

found that some boys start practicing this strategy for dominating the talk at very early

age. Women are evidently socialized from early childhood to expect to be interrupted.

Consequently, they generally give up the floor with little or no protest, as example 12

illustrated.

2) Feedback

Example

Marry : I worked in that hotel for- ah eleven years and I found the patrons

were really you know good

Jill : Mm.

Mary : You had the odd one or two ruffian’d come in and cause a fight but

they were soon dealt with.

Jill : Right, really just takes one eh? To start trouble.

Marry : Yeah, and and it was mostly the younger ones.

Jill : Mm.

Marry : that would start you know.

Jill : Yeah.

Marry : the younger – younger ones couldn’t handle their booze.

Jill : Mm.

Another aspect of the pictures of woman as cooperative conversationalists is

the evidence that woman provide more encouraging feedback to their conversational

partners than men do.

One New Zealand study which examined the distribution of positive feedback

(noises such as mm and mhm) in casual relaxed interaction between young people

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found that woman gave over four times as much on this type of supporting feedback

as men. American studies of informal speech as well as talk in classrooms and under

laboratory condition have also demonstrated that women provide significantly more

encouraging and positive feedback to their addressees than men do. One researches

noted that women students were also more likely than men to enlarge on and develop

the ideas of a previous speaker rather than challenge them.

In general then, research on conversational interaction reveals women as

cooperative conversationalists, whereas men tend to be more competitive and less

supportive of others.

3) Explanation

In an interesting range of this research, it is quite clearly gender rather than

occupational status, social class, or some other social factor, which most adequately

accounts for the interactional patterns described. Women doctors were consistently

interrupted by their patient, while male doctors most of the interrupting in their

consultations. A study of women in business organizations showed that women bosses

did not dominate the interactions. Male dominated regardless of whether they were

boss or subordinate. The societally subordinate position of women reflected in these

patterns has more to do whit gender that role or occupation. For this data at least,

women’s subordinate position in male-dominated society seems the most obvious

explanatory factor.

Women’s cooperative conversational strategies, however, may be explained

better by looking at the influence of context and patterns of socialization. The norms

for women’s talk may be the norms for small group interaction in private context,

where the goals of the interaction are solidarity stressing-maintaining good social

relations. Agreement is sought and disagreement avoided. By contrast, the norms for

male interaction seem to be those of public referentially oriented interaction. The

public model is more likely than agreement and confirmation of the statement of

others. Speakers compete for the floor and for attention, and wittiness, even at other’

expense is highly valued. These patterns seem to characterize men’s talk even in

private contexts, as will be illustrated bellow.

The differences between women and men in ways of interacting may be the

result of different socialization and acculturation patterns. If we learn ways of talking

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mainly in single sex peer groups, then the patterns we learn likely to be sex-specific.

And the kids of miscommunication which undoubtedly occurs between women and

men may well attributable to the different expectations each sex has of the function of

the interaction, and the ways it is appropriately conducted. Some of these differences

will be illustrated in the next section.

C. Gossip

A gossip is someone who reveals personal information about others. Gossip

means to tell secret information to another person. Gossip is idle talk or rumors,

especially about the personal or private affairs of others, It is one of the oldest and

most common means of sharing facts and views, The term can also imply that the idle

chat or rumors is of personal or trivial nature, as opposed to normal conversation.

Gossip describes the kind of relaxed in group-talk that goes on between people

in informal contexts. In western society, gossip is defined as ‘idle talk’ and considered

particularly characteristic of women’s interaction. Its overall function for women is to

affirm solidarity and maintain the social relationships between the women involved.

Women’s gossip focuses predominantly on personal experiences and personal

relationship, on personal problems and feelings.

Gossip is not a trivial pastime: it is essential to human social, psychological

and even physical well-being. Women are more skilled than men at making gossip

entertaining – three factors are involved: highly animated tone, plenty of detail and

enthusiastic 'feedback'. Specifically referring to a woman's close female friends at the

birth of a child (those she would choose to be godparents to her child, her 'god-sisters',

if you like). The word later came to mean more generally a close (female) friend or

companion, and then the kind of talk characteristic of intimate friends, i.e. chatty talk

about the details of personal matters and relationships, the sharing of secrets – more

or less what we currently mean by gossip.

Regardless of whether it is just an advanced form of grooming, gossip can

play a lot of different roles in social interactions. When gossiping, people:

Entertain each other

Influence one another's opinions

Exchange important information

Point out and enforce social rules

10

Learn from others' mistakes

Women agreed that a particular tone of voice – high and quick, or sometimes a

stage whisper, but always highly animated – was important in generating a sense of

excitement.

"Gossip's got to start with something like [quick, high-pitched, excited] "Oooh –

Guess what? Guess what?" or [quick, urgent, stage whisper] "Hey, listen, listen – you

know what I heard?""

"You have to make it sound surprising or scandalous, even when it isn't really. You'll

go "well, don't tell anyone, but." even when it's not really that big of a secret."

That the men in our groups found the lack of body-language signals in

telephone communication a bigger problem than the women. Both sexes commented

on this problem, and both tended to use 'emoticons'(symbols representing emotions –

such as smiles, sad faces – normally expressed in body language) in text messages,

but the men seemed to find talking to 'a disembodied voice' more of a handicap. It

may be that men are not only less verbally skilled than women, as noted earlier, but

also less 'vocally' skilled – less adept at conveying mood and emotion through

variations in tone, pitch and volume.

Not surprisingly women’s gossip is characterized by a number of the linguistic

features of women’s language described above. Proposition which express feelings

are often attenuate and qualified. Women complete each other’s utterances, agree

frequently, and provide supportive feedback. The following example of shared from a

gossip session between women who worked together at a bakery illustrates the

cooperative and positive nature of their talk.

Example 1:

Jill : Perhaps next time I see Brian I’ll pump him for information. Brian tells me

all.

Fran : the gossip.

Jill : I know it’s about 6 years old but,

Fran : (laugh) it doesn’t matter.

Jill : it doesn’t matter at all.

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Fran : true, true, it’s the thought that counts.

The male equivalent of women’s gossip is difficult to identify. In parallel

situations the topics men discuss tend to focus on things and activities, rather than

personal experiences and feelings. Topics like sport, cars and possessions turn up

regularly. The focus is on information and facts rather than on feelings and reaction.

In study of a parallel group of men working at bakery, the linguistic features

of the interaction were also quite different. Long pauses were tolerated and were

apparently not interpreted as discouraging following a contribution, even one which

seemed to invite a response. The men provided conflicting accounts of the same

event, argued about a range of topics. Their strategies for amusing each other were

often to cap the previous speaker’s utterance or to put them down. In other words,

their talk constructed completely with the cooperation, agreeing, and supportive,

topically coherent talk of the women in exactly the same context-working in the

bakery-on a different night.

The following excerpt illustrates the competitive verbal abuse which was

typical of the male interaction in the bakery.

Example 2:

Greg : create!

Jim : case!

Greg : what?

Jim : they come in cases Greg not creates.

Greg : oh same thing if you must be picky over every one thing.

Jim : just shut your fucking head Greg!

Greg : don’t tell me to fuck off fuck (…)

Jim : I’ll come over and shut you.

Allan : (laughingly using a thick-sounding voice) yeah I’ll have a create of apple

thanks.

Greg : no fuck off Allan.

Allan : a dozen.

Con : (amused tone) shitpicker!

Evidence of this kind makes it easier to understand why some researchers have

suggested that women and men belong to different cultural groups. It also helps

explain why women and men sometimes miscommunication.

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Gossip can:

Reinforce – or punish the lack of – morality and accountability;

Reveal passive aggression, isolating and harming others;

Serve as a process of social grooming, building a sense of community with shared

interests, information, and values;

Begin a courtship that helps one find their desired mate, by counseling others; or,

Provide a peer-to-peer mechanism for disseminating information in organization

1) The Characteristics of Gossip:

The conversation takes place in private.

The people talking are transmitting information as though it were fact, but they

have not confirmed the information as factual.

The people gossiping and the person being gossiped about know each other in real

life. By this definition, celebrity gossip is not really gossip unless the speaker and

the listener are friends with the celebrity in question.

Something in the speaker's body language or tone of voice suggests a moral

judgment about the information being relayed. For example, the sentence "Clara

got a puppy" sounds pretty neutral. But if Clara lives in a college dorm that

doesn't allow pets and the person speaking sounds scandalized, the sentence

becomes gossip.

The people gossiping compare themselves in some way to the person being

gossiped about, usually considering them to be superior to the subject.

2) Gossip’s Benefits:

Gossiping is enjoyable. Many people gossip just for fun or to blow off steam.

When you gossip with someone, you and the person you're talking to are

displaying reciprocal trust. The people you chose to gossip with are people you

trust not to use the information that you're sharing against you.

Gossip encourages social bonding. The people you gossip with become part of a

group -- everyone else is outside of your group.

3) Some Negative Consequences of Gossip:

Lost productivity and wasted time,

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Erosion of trust and morale,

Increased anxiety among employees as rumors circulate without any clear

information as to what is fact and what isn’t,

Growing divisiveness among employees as people “take sides,"

Hurt feelings and reputations,

Jeopardized chances for the gossipers' advancement as they are perceived as

unprofessional, and

Attrition as good employees leave the company due to the unhealthy work

atmosphere.

D. The Construction of Gender

In generally gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between

males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and

feminine attributes assigned to them. But, however, these assumptions are challenged

and we have to re-think. Look at the example:

Ed: he’s I mean he’s like a real artsy farsty fag he’s like (indecipherable) he’s so gay

he’s got this like really high voice and wire rim glasses

In this example, Ed criticises a man who fail to fit the established masculine

norms, but ironically, Ed’s criticism uses features associated wit more ‘feminine’

speech styles, such as freguent use of the practile like, hedges such as I mean, and

intesifiers, such as real, so, and really. Yet Ed is talking in a male-only context. This

example clearly challanges some of the generalisations in aerlier sections, and

encourages a more dynamic analysis.

Approaching gender identity as a construction, rather than as a fixed category,

is also useful in accounting for examples where women adapt to ‘masculine’ contexts,

and men adapt to ‘feminine’ contexts. Women in the police force, for instance, are

sometimes advised to portray a masculine image - to wear bulky sweaters suggesting

upper-body strength, and wellworn boots to suggest they are used to hard work. They

also adopt a cool distant style; they don’t smile much, and they talk ‘tough’. Men who

work in clothing shops and hairdressing salons, on the other hand, often construct a

more ‘feminine’ identity in these contexts than when they are in the pub or the sports

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club changing room. They use features of the more cooperative discourse style

associated with ‘gossip’, avoiding swear words, using respectful or sometimes

affectionate terms of address, and encouraging the addressee to talk.

E. Sexist Language

Sexist language is language that expresses bias in favor of one sex and thus

treats the other sex in a discriminatory manner. In most cases, the bias is in favor of

men and against women. In the past, women are supposed to stay at home, remaining

powerless and generally subordinate to man, whereas men are considered as the

center both in the family and society. In a word, for a long time women have been

looked on as “the weaker sex” in society. Even in English-speaking countries, which

hold the claim that “every one is created equal”, discrimination against women exists.

Language simply reflects this social fact. However, because of their greater status-

consciousness, the movement amongst feminists to reduce sexual discrimination and

sex-role stereotyping has led to a number of conscious attempts to influence and

change languages and linguistic behavior.

1) Sexism in English

In society, men are considered the norm for the human species: their

characteristics, thoughts, beliefs and actions are viewed as fully representing those of

all humans, male and female. This practice can make women invisible in language or

altogether excludes them. It can also lead to their portrayal as deviations from this

'male = human' norm. Women's linguistic status is often dependent on or derives from

that of men, which is represented as autonomous. By relegating women to a

dependent, subordinate position, sexist language prevents the portrayal of women and

men as different but equal human beings.

1. Common forms of sexism in English include the use of 'man' and 'he / him / his' as

generics—that is, nouns and pronouns referring to both men and women—the use

of suffixes -man, -ette, -ess, -trix in occupational nouns and job titles,

asymmetrical naming practices, and stereotyped images of women and men as

well as descriptions of (mainly) women which trivialise or denigrate them and

their status.

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a) English does not possess a third person singular pronoun which is

genderneutral. Instead the 'masculine' pronouns 'he', 'him' and 'his' are

generally used to refer to both men and women. This is confusing and

inaccurate and, as well, makes women invisible. Consider the following

examples:

All men are mortal,

Julia is a man

Therefore, Julia is mortal.

Like other animals, man nourishes his baby with milk.

We want to hire the best men we can get for the job.

In example 1), the underlined sentence sounds absurd, since everybody knows

Julia is a girl’s name. In example 2), the underlined part sounds more ridiculous and

it’s obviously contradictory to the common sense. In example 3), the problem is that

we can’t know the exact sex of the persons they want to hire. They may want only

girls, or both sexes, but they simply use “man” here.

b) In English language, there are many words, which are clearly male-orientated

in that they contain the element “—man” while they can in fact apply to both

sexes, For example:

Chairman congressman councilman

newsman foreman freshman

Policeman salesman mailman

c) Sexism in language is also showed in that the noun of feminine gender can

only be obtained by adding a certain bound morpheme to the noun. For

example:

MALE FEMALE MALE FEMALE

Man Woman Manager Manageress

Prince Princess God Goddess

Author Authoress Mayor Mayoress

ount Countess Shepherd Shepherdess

host Hostess Steward Stewardess

poet Poetess Usher Usherette

heir Heiress Sailor Sailorette

hero Heroine Conduct Conductette

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2. Some English words, especially the name of some professions, are basically of

common gender, namely, they can be applied to both sexes. However, people

usually will habitually associate them only with male. Consequently, we have to

add “woman” before those names if we want to refer to female of those

professions. For example:

COMMON GENDER FEMALE

Doctor Woman doctor

Professor Woman professor

Engineer Woman engineer

Lawyer Lady lawyer

Reporter Girl reporter

The above examples obviously reflect people’s deep-rooted discrimination

against women, that is, women have to be dependent on men and are even just some

appendages of man.

Sexist language encourages discrimination and can discourage people from pursuing

their dreams. If engineers are always spoken of as male, a girl who aspires to be an

engineer may feel that she has no hope, since "all" engineers are men. Sexist language

also offends people when they find themselves excluded. This is not an issue that

violates your right to free speech; you are free to use offensive language, and also free

to decide that you do not agree with the aforementioned definition of what constitutes

sexist language. However, if you are using language that is offensive to half of your

audience, you will not get your message across. People will not be receptive to your

arguments if they are aggrieved by your use of exclusively masculine pronouns. There

are some reasons why we should avoid sexism in language:

a. Some people feel insulted by sexist language.

b. Sexist language creates an image of a society where women have lower social and

economic status than men.

c. Using nonsexist language may change the way that users of English think about

gender roles

Therefore, there are some ways to avoid the sexism in language, such as:

1) Avoid unnecessary male pronouns by using plural pronouns "they", "them", etc.

"Someone has left their briefcase behind."

"If anyone phones, tell them I am in a meeting."

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2) Replace male pronouns with combinations such as "she or he", "him or her", "her

or his".

*"A fashion model is usually obsessive about her or his diet."

"The journalist must be accurate when she or he reports interviews."

(* these combinations can sound rather awkward. They should not be repeated

often in a piece of writing or conversation. The written form s/he, he/she, her/him

is acceptable.)

3) Use other words when referring to both men and women.

"People are ..."

"Human beings must protect ..."

"Who's staffing the office?"

4) Use expressions or pronouns that do not support sexist assumptions about jobs.

"Teachers must not be late for their classes."

"A chairperson should be fair to all her or his colleagues."

5) Use job names that apply equally to men and women.

"The chairperson handed out notes of the last meeting."

"Mary is a very experienced camera operator."

"James is a nurse and Barbara is a doctor."

"We offer language courses for business people."

All in all, sexism in language is a social problem, since it is the reflection of

human beings’ thoughts. As we know, language is a comparatively stable system.

Much of its reduction in sexist language appears to be taking place as an unconscious

reflection of social and attitudinal changes. Therefore, to eliminate the sexist

language, we should above all eliminate the concept of prejudice in human beings

thoughts. Only by this way can we be free of sexism both in language and the society

forever.

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CHAPTER III

Conclusion

According to Lakoff, most women use reinforced language in their

subordinate status by the way they spoke. Furthermore, he says that the use of hedges

and boosters reflect women’s lack of confidence.

Studies showed that men, and even boys interrupt more, due to women's

gender rather than to their role or occupation. Besides, the studies also show that

women are more cooperative and give more feedback than men do. Therefore, women

tend to become more cooperative conversationalists than men.

Linguistically, it is claimed that women are more polite than men. Women use

more standard forms than men, because children and women are subordinate groups

and they must avoid offending men, therefore they must speak carefully and politely.

Gossip is a social not a referential function to affirm solidarity, and relieve

feelings. The equivalent activity for gossip to men is mock-insults and abuse, with the

function of expressing solidarity & maintaining social relationships.

Approaching gender identity as a construction is useful in accounting rather

than as a fixed category. One of the more obvious ways in which people construct

particular kinds of social identity is trough their narratives of personal experience.

Sexist language encodes stereotyped attitudes to women and men. Sexist

language is language that expresses bias in favor of one sex and thus treats the other

sex in a discriminatory manner. Therefore, to eliminate the sexist language, we should

above all eliminate the concept of prejudice in human beings thoughts.

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Arif. 2011. Sex, Politeness, and Stereotypes. Available at:

http://nurarifs.blogspot.com/2011/09/sex-politeness-and-stereotypes.html.

Accessed on 7 December 2011

Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148068580921557.

Access on: 5 December 2011. 10.35 am

Holmes, J. 2001. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (2nd Edition). Malaysia: Pearson

education

Lei, Xiaolan. Sexism in Language. Available at:

http://www.jllonline.co.uk/journal/5_1/5LingLei.pdf. Accessed on 7

December 2011

Nordquist, Richard. Sexist Language. Available

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December 2011

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7 December 2011

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Access on: 5 December 2011. 10.30 am

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