GENDER IN LANGUAGE

Gender and sex

Sex is to a very large extent biologically determined, whereas

Gender is a social construct involving the whole gamut of genetic, psychological, social, and cultural differences between males and females.

Biological differences

Females have two X chromosomes.

Have more fat & less muscle than male.

They also mature more rapidly & live longer.

Have different characteristics from the male voice.

Exhibit different ranges of verbal skills.

Males have an X & a Y.

Males are stroger and weigh less.

Otak Pria dan Otak Wanita

Differences in speech

Mowen’s speech is trivial, gossip laden, corrupt, illogical,idle,

euphemistic, or deficient is highly suspect; more precise or stylish or even less profane than men’s speech

Men indulge in a kind of phatic small talk that involves insults, challenges,and various kinds of negative behavior to do exactly what women do by their use of nurturing,

polite,feedback-laden,cooperative talk. In doing this , they achieve the kind of solidarity they prize.

Sociolinguistic differences Holmes (1998) identified five differences what

she calls “sociolinguistic universal tendencies”:

1. women & men develop different patterns of language use.

2. Women tend to focus on the effective 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 which will maintain and increase solidarity, while men tend to interact in ways which will maintain & increase their power and status.

5. Women are stylistically more flexible than men

Phonological differences

In Amerindian language, women have palatalized velar stops where men have palatalized dental stops, e.g: female kjatsa “bread” and male djatsa.

In Yukaghir, both women & children have /ts/ and /dz/ where men have /tj/ and /dj/.

Morphological differences

Women use color words like: mauve,beige,aquamarine or lavender, but most men do not.

Women also maintains adjectives such as: adorable, charming, divine,lovely,&sweet.

Women also use words&expression such as: so good,such fun,exquisite, lovely, divine, precious, darling,fantastic.

But men do not.

Morphological differences

Actor-actress Waiter-waitress Master-mistress Widower-widow Gentleman-lady Bachelor-spinster

Differences in used:

You can say: (She is Fred’s widow), but not ( He’s Sally’s widower).

Neutral words:Chair-person, salesclerk,

letter carrier and actor ( she’s an actor).

New categorization:Policeman to police officer

Chairman to chair person

Sailorman to sailor person

Grammatical differences

According to Lakoff: Women may answer a

question with a statement that employs the rising intonation pattern.

Women often add tag questions to statements, e.g. “they caught the robber last week, did’nt they?”

Women using certain patterns associated with surprise&politeness more often than men.

Why? Women do this

because they are less sure abouit themselves and their opinions than are men.

change

ChangeEarly man

Man and his world

Mailmen

The common man

The motorist...he

The farmer & his wife

Mary Smith is highly successful woman executive

The fair sex

The captain is John Smith. His beautiful first officer is Joan

Porter

ToEarly humans

World history

Mail carriers

Ordinary people

The motorist..he or she

A farm couple

Mary smith is a highly succesful executive

Women

The captain is John Smith and the first officer is joan Porter

Gender differences in various languages

In japanese:When women speak they use

of a sentence-final particle ne & wa.

Female use:watasi or atasi While male use : boku or ore.

e.g: a man says : boku kaeru (i will go back) while a female says: watasi kaeru wa .

In Arabic: In arabic all vocabularies

differ according to gender : Female (muannats) & male ( mudhakkar) .