吉林华桥外国语学院学年论文（2007级）姓名：董晏伯学号：1201070703院系：应用英语学院专业：英语（金融与保险）二〇一〇年七月The Investigation on the Difference of Utterance between Male and Female男女话语风格差异的调查姓名：董晏伯院系：应用英语学院专业:英语（金融与保险）吉林华桥外国语学院Jilin Huaqiao Foreign Languages InstituteThe Investigation on the Difference of Utterancebetween Male and FemaleⅠ.IntroductionThe Investigation on the Difference of Utterance between Male and Female .In fact I use the key word “sex” in my paper rather than “gender”, the current one, at first. I preferred not to use the word gender because it was technical term in linguistics, and most of the issues dealt with in our society focused on “sexism”. However, the current vogue is to use “gender” rather than “sex” for the topics discussed today, and I have therefore adopted it here. Further more, the sex normally refers to biological and physical differences between the male and female, whereas gender involves more social and cultural elements involving the whole gamut of social and cultural differences between the male and female. Therefore, in this view gender roles rather than sex roles should be the concern in discussion.Ⅱ.The Origin and Evolution of Gender Differences in Language 2.1 The Origin of Gender Differences in LanguageLanguage is an encyclopedia of studying the social behavior; language is a living fossil of recording the social life, which is affected by the views and values of society. In fact, language itself cannot be either good or bad, which serves not only as a mirror of our whole society but expresses and reflects the whole social reality. Gender difference existing in language is a linguistic phenomenon and is bound up with the sociocultural origin. In the linguistic literature perhaps these most famous examples of linguistic differentiation between the sexes is found in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies among the Carib Indians. “It is reported that male and female Caribs spoke different languages, the result of a long-ago conquest in which a group of invading Carib-speaking men killed the local Arawak-speaking men and mated with the Arawak women. It is said that the descendants of these Carib-speaking men and Arawak-speaking women have been described as having different languages, because boys learn Carib from their fathers and girls learn Arawak from their mothers.”① This specific phenomenon of using different languages by both men and women in the same tribe, which claims of the gender difference in language, is originated in a long-ago society.2.2 The Evolution of Gender Differences in LanguageIn 1975, Robin Lakoff, a representative of this theory expresses her idea in her works Langue and Women’s Place. She argues that people use different variants of language, which expresses the inequality of their roles in society. In her opinion, in the male-dominant society, the speech made by male is valued as standard, while that of female is deprived from that of male. It implies the female regard themselves as inferiors to the opposite sex.However, this theory has been doubted since with the development of human society. As the women liberation rises sharply, many changes have been taken place in the field of women‟s role. Th e linguistics noticed that the style differences in the male and female conversation are also constrained by such discourse styles as setting, topic, amount of utterance, and sociocultural conventions, etc. rather than only gender. Though there exist the disputes between binary thinking and pluralistic thinking on study of language use and gender today, sociolinguistic study falls into the latter category, and a new school appears gradually. Therefore, male and female discourse styles shift from static-and-macro research to dynamic-and micro research in language use and gender study.Ⅲ.Gender Differences in Linguistic Level3.1 Phonology and IntonationThe differences of phonology and intonation are partly decided by the physiological structural differences, and partly restricted by the factors such as traditional culture, social econo mic status, speakers‟ personalities, and communicational background.②Phonological differences between the speech of men and women have been noted in a variety of languages. In modern English phonology, the female voice usually has different characteristic s from the male voice. Take “soft” as an instance, female usually pronounces it as [soft], male as [so:ft]. Another example, “girl” is called a [gεəl] by female; [gз:l] by male. “In Scotland schoolgirls pronounce …t‟ in words like …water‟ and got more ofte n than schoolboys, who prefer to substitute a glottal stop. In Montreal many more men than women do not pronounce the …l‟ in the pronouns and articles il, elle, la, and les.”③The intonation patterns of men and women also have differences. There is a very interesting example from an English woman who was advised to speak more like a man in order to fill a position that previously belongs to men. Margaret Thatcher was told that her voice did not match her position as British Prime Minister: she sounded too “shrill”. She was advised to lower her voice, spoke more slowly, and adopted an authoritative speaking style. It occurred to her that she could make her new style a kind of trademark, one either well liked by her admires or detested by her opponents. Further more, women use certain patterns associated with surprise and politeness more often than men do. “Lakoff says women may answer a question with a rising intonation sentence pattern usually associated with a question rather than the falling intonation s entence pattern associated with making an affirmative statement,”④ e.g., Husband: When will dinner be ready?Wife: (using this rising intonation pattern) Oh ... around six o‟clock...? According to Lakoff, women do this because they are less sure about themselves and their opinions than men, so that they use a rising intonation pattern. In contrast, men usually tend to use high falling intonation at the end of sentences, so that their voice sounds resolute and affirmative. For example,I wish you‟d try it.Male: _—_ \ _Female: _ —_ ∕_⑤According to the “double value standards”, men‟s social value is decided by their virtual ability, while their manner and behavior are not extremely important. But women‟s social value is determined by their appropriate and graceful images. As a n external expression women‟s speech act becomes a very important social value to appraise language politeness, appropriate speaking style, and speech strategy, which then become the concrete content and request of women‟s social behavior standards.3.2 LexicologyIn the area of lexicology, many of the studies have focused on English. In English, Lakoff claims that women are sensitive to color words but most men do not. And through Nowaczyk‟s experiment, the result shows that men usually use restricted color terms rather than elaborated color terms like mauve, beige, aquamarine, lavender, taupe, and magenta, which is usually adopted by female usually.Lakoff also maintains that adjectives such as adorable, charming, divine, lovely, and sweet are also commonly used by women but only very rarely by men. Women are also said to have their own vocabulary for emphasizing certain effects on them, words and expressions such as so good, fun, lovely, divine, precious, darling, and fantastic. Euphemism is one of the most important rhetoric, existing generally in languages. It is a kind of self-defending and self-comforting desire to many people, especially to female. An interesting example says that there is a person visited a Madame‟s husband, but the Madame told the friend her husband “is burning with a low blue flame”, that is to say her husband was drunk. To use euphemism can dodge embarrassing expression for women. As following examples:⑴I have to go powder my nose. →I need to use the washroom.⑵John smokes a pack of cigarettes a day. →John smokes a lot of cigarettes.The use of euphemism also has great different between male and female. The male like to use nit, dawn, piss, fuck, and blast to show their curse; but female always try their best to avoid these words by use of Oh dear, Goodness, Gracious, Dear me, etc., for example,Female: Oh dear, you‟ve put the peanut butter in the refrigerator again.Male: Shit, you‟ve p ut the peanut butter in the refrigerator again.There certainly are gender differences in various languages in lexicology. We will look at some of the evidence that there are gender differences in Japanese. A male describe himself as “boku” whereas a female use “watasi” or “atasi”to show they arewomen when they speak. Usually women and children use “wa” or “kasira”to end a sentence, but men seldom do that; they usually use “ne” or “kana”.3.3 SyntaxIn male and female verbal communication, Lakoff claims that because women are less sure and affirmative of themselves and their opinions than men. They often like to add tag question to statement, e.g., “He can‟t do that, can he?”, “That was pretty silly, wasn‟t it?”. On the other hand, the use of tag questio n by female can achieve three good effects as follows: Firstly, it may confirm whether the information reliability, e.g., “John was ill, wasn‟t he?”. Secondly, it may soften the expression, e.g., “Pass the book to me, will you?”. Thirdly, the speaker is ex pected to give the hearer a signal: it is your turn you to say at the present. It can impel the conversation to move forward, e.g., “It is really a nice day, isn‟t it?”. Tag question can provide enough information, and make their own topic can be accepted by others who can simply use “yes” or “no” to reply even. Besides, female prefer to pronounce like “we” and “you” as subject to show their consideration and care in conversation, e.g., “We will give you our best service.” Sometimes they also use some sente nce patterns like I suppose, I think, well, you know, etc. to show they are uncertain and perplexedⅣ.Social and Cultural RootConsidering gender difference in discourse style, many scholars attempted from different perspective to make explanations of the reasons of gender difference. Goodwin, through a series of observation and investigation, found that there exists a hierarchy system in the male group. While in the female group, they stress more the value of cooperation. An American linguist, Tannen expounded that the female use fewer imperative sentences instead of more suggestive sentence that was used by men.According to scholars‟ viewpoint, I conclude that the male and female show a clear difference in their language. And the difference that begins with how girls and boys use language as children when they grow up in different sub-cultural environment worlds.In some studies, we can find that little girls play in small groups or in pairs; they have a best friend, with whom they spend a lot of time talking. It‟s the telling of secrets that makes them best friends. They learn to use language to care—to make connections and feel close to each other. Boys, on the other hand, tend to play competitive games in a larger group, or a smaller social group, in which some boys give orders, and others are pushed around. So boys learn how to use language to gain independence finding their way up, and trying to get all the attention, challenging and resisting challenges, imperative knowledge and other skill. They learn different uses of language skills till adulthoods, where they affect cross-gender conversations.Ⅴ.ConclusionMany linguists studied the special subject, namely the gender difference in amount of utterance. Many researchers agree that men speak more than women do. In the investigation, I got almost the same conclusion through observing and analyzing the interpose phenomenon between men and women in conversation. As the survey result shows, whether adults or youths, the interposition of men are more than women.Men often violate turn taking regulation, and women often loss the opportunity of speaking b ecause of men interruption. Whereas, women rarely violet men‟s turns. Even they do so, they seldom contend with men for the right to control topic, but just make some compliments to show their supports. In different situations, women tend to speak more encouragingly and reply more cooperatively. They try to seek the more similar aspects in order to keep their communication more smoothly. Generally speaking, men pay more attention to the indicative function of their speech while women stress more on their social function, namely, to establish and develop their relationships with others.Through analyzing and sampling the phenomenon of interpose to observe the amount of utterance between men and women, we can conclude that it isn‟t that women always talk more, while men are taciturn and succinct. Women talk more at home, since talk, for them, is a way of creating imitative. However, men regard talk as a means to show they are in charge, and they often see no need to talk at home. But they talk more in “public” situations with people they know less well. At a meeting, when questions are asked, it is always a man who speaks first. When on the opened phones of a radio or a talk show, the vast majority of talks from men, who are more likely to speak more to explain their questions (if they have any) and address many different topics.There is a very interesting phenomenon, when the testees confront the question that who interrupts more in the daily conversation, almost men thought women speak more, and interrupt more, but it is not true actually through analysis. In the investigation, women indicate that if they were interested in or concerned about men‟s topic, they would raise some questions on the current topic to make the conversation continue, or forecast the o pposite sex‟s speech, or show their approval or disapproval. If they are not interested in men‟s topic, they mostly only make a brief reply or keep in silence, but rarely adopt the positive method to interrupt and get the right to speak. On the other hand, men interrupt others because they associate another thing rather than the current topic, or show their different opinion to the opposite party. These interviews suggest, for frequently interpose, men are more than women in fact. Moreover, there are great significances in the study of gender difference in languages use. Firstly, understanding gender difference in ways of talking is the first step toward adjusting differences between the male and female. Secondly, a studying of gender difference can be helpful for us to have deep understanding of the relationship between language and culture. Thirdly, this research is significant in terms of school education. If school can help students consider the difference as cross-cultural, thenstudents could find that they and their partners are willing to make adjustments and improve their relationship.Bibliography1. John A. Dixonl, and Don H. Forster, Gender and Hedging: From Sex Differences to Situated Practice, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Vol. 26, No. 1, 19972. Lakoff, R., Language and Women's Place, NY: Harper & Row, 19753. Spender, Dale, Man and Language, 2nd edition, London: Pandora Press, 19924. Jespersen, Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin, NY W. W., 19925. Dong Yin-xiu，《兰州工业高等转科学校学报》，2004年3月6. 李中泽，《社会学要义》，人民出版社，2004年1月7. 胡壮麟，《语言学教程》，北京大学出版社，2001年7月8. 杨永林，《社会语言学研究》，上海外语教育出版社，2004年6月9. 殷红梅，《英语学习》（英语中委婉语的使用及构成），北京出版社，2001年9月10. 王烈琴，《外语教学》（优势与差异：言语交际中的性别因素），西安出版社，2005年9月ContentsI. Introduction (1)Ⅱ.The Origin and Evolution of Gender Differences in Language (1)2.1 The Origin of Gender Differences in Language (1)2.2 The Evolution of Gender Differences in Language (1)III. Gender Differences in Linguistic Level (2)3.1 Phonology and Intonation (2)3.2 Lexicology (3)3.3 Syntax (4)IV. Social and Cultural Root (4)V. Conclusion (5)Bibliography (6)AbstractAn American linguist Sapie said, “Language is the product of history.” Language exists among hundreds and thousands of people, and it develops with the development of the society. Gender differences are fundamental fact of human life and it is not surprising to find them in language. Language and gender are related and their relationships are interactive. In many cases, although men and women speak the same language, they use it differently in phonology, intonation, lexicology, syntax, etc.Moreover, through investigations I conclude that in cross-sex conversation women ask more question than men. They use more signals like “mhmm” and “oh” to encourage others to speak, and use more instances like “you” and “we” to build good relationships with others. In addition, men interrupt, dispute and ignore more; they try to control whatever topics and are inclined to make categorical statements. The reason of men and women‟s speaking differ because the different way of boys and girls in childhood, and the different role of men and women in society. If such is the case, we might expect adjustments in men and women communications.摘要美国语言学家Sapie说道,“语言是历史发展的产物。
