Nr. 1 (26) anul VIII / ianuarie-martie 2010 - ROMDIDAC
Nr. 1 (26) anul VIII / ianuarie-martie 2010 - ROMDIDAC Nr. 1 (26) anul VIII / ianuarie-martie 2010 - ROMDIDAC
sociolingvistică Costin – Valentin Oancea Men’s language versus Women’s language: gender and linguistic differences N Introduction: owadays, a major topic in sociolinguistics is the connection, if any, between ways of using particular languages and the social roles of men and women who speak and use these languages. A milestone in the study of gender differences is Robin Lakoff’s Language and Women’s Place published in 1975. The American sociolinguist was the first to distinguish between what she called ‘women’s language’ and ‘men’s language’. Is Lakoff’s distinction viable nowadays? Do men and women use language differently? In the following lines I will argue that this difference between men’s talk and women’s talk exists even today. In the first part of the paper we will discuss gender differences in British and American English and some of their dialects, and different opinions in the literature will be presented. In the second part of the paper we will establish whether Romanian is a gendered language based on the research of Hornoiu and on a research project that I conducted among Romanian M.A. students at the University of Bucharest. Ex Ponto nr.1, 2010 174 1. Gender differences in British and American English As already stated above, the publication of Robin Lakoff’s book Language and Women’s Place in 1975 marked a turning point in sociolinguistics. Before embarking on the discussion proper, a distinction must be drawn between sex and gender. Eckert and McConnel-Ginet (2003:10) claim that sex is a biological categorization based primarily on reproductive potential, whereas gender is the social elaboration of biological sex. Gender builds on biological sex, it exaggerates biological difference and, indeed, it carries biological difference into domains in which is completely irrelevant. For instance there is no biological reason why women should wear skirts and men not, or why women should have pink or red toenails and men should not. This distinction is important because we need to understand sex as something that we are born with and gender as something that defines us, as a social variable. In the linguistic literature one of the most important phonological differences between the speech of men and women can be found in Gros Ventre (which is an Amerindian language in the northeast of the United States). In Gros Ventre
women have palatalized velar stops while men have palatalized dental stops (an example would be that women say kjatsa ‘bread’ and men say djatsa). Any use of female pronunciations by males is likely to be regarded as a sign of effeminacy, as Wardhaugh (2006:318) says. Haas (1944) was among the first who noticed that in Koasati (an Amerindian language spoken in southwestern Louisiana), among other gender differences, men pronounced an‘s’ at the end of verbs while women did not (e.g. male lakáws ‘he is lifting it’ as opposed to the female lakáw). 1 One of the interesting aspects was that this kind of pronunciation was on the verge of extinction due to the fact that girls and young women do not use these forms. From a morphological and lexical point of view, Lakoff (1975) asserts that women use colour words like beige, ecru, mauve, aquamarine, lavender, but most men do not. Here, an observation must be made. Although most men do not use these words they have them in their vocabulary. They can distinguish between these colours; it is just that they simply prefer not to use them. Lakoff goes further and claims that adjectives such as adorable, charming, divine, lovely and sweet are also commonly used by women and very rarely by men. She also conducts an experiment to pinpoint similarities between women’s language and men’s language in point of vocabulary, by presenting a pair of sentences to native speakers of standard American English: a. Oh dear, you’ve put the peanut butter in the refrigerator again. b. Shit, you’ve put the peanut butter in the refrigerator again. We can predict that first sentence belongs to ‘women’s language’ and the second to ‘men’s language’. I think that this was possible in the mid-seventies but nowadays things are quite different. More and more women and teenagers (namely girls) use the second sentence in The United States. I do not think that this is true for native speakers of British English because, first of all the British usually do not use the word ‘shit’. Instead of ‘shit’ they would probably say ‘bloody hell’ ‘blimey’ ‘ruddy’ or ‘damn it’. From this point of view Lakoff’s work now seems out-dated and out of tune with modern attitudes. Language commentators have little trouble in identifying what they think to be women’s language, though their lists usually have no validity. This view, that women use certain words, and have created their own vocabulary has been held over three centuries, as Hornoiu (2002: 117) eloquently puts it. She provides a list of words that have been ascribed to women: ah!, oh!, such, so, fine, flirtation, vast(ly), frightful (18 th century) implicit, splendid, pretty, horrible, unpleasant (19 th century) lovely, darling, sweet, so, too, awfully, sweetie, doll, all rightie, itsy bitsy, mauve, wonderful, divine, dreamy, heavenly, cute, powder room, hanky, honey, poor thing, horrid, ecru (20 th century) One can notice that adjectives and adverbs are more predominant in women’s vocabulary. According to Jennifer Coates (2004:10) commentary on gender differences in vocabulary was quite widespread in eighteen-century writings, as the following lines will demonstrate. The excerpt below written by Richard Cambridge for The World of 12 December 1754 gives us a glimpse of how women’s language was perceived in those times: Ex Ponto nr.1, 2010 175
- Page 131 and 132: de „ocupaţie” sau de dictat mo
- Page 133 and 134: multe aplauze, şi Zaharia Stancu s
- Page 135 and 136: acum la câte un film nou are câte
- Page 137 and 138: lui Novicov, s-a oprit asupra propu
- Page 139 and 140: că poezia ar fi un dialect al limb
- Page 141 and 142: poeţi contemporani NISTOR BARDU Ni
- Page 143 and 144: învăţătură care se dovedise a
- Page 145 and 146: 3. În România, în Cadrilater, di
- Page 147 and 148: la eliberarea Basarabiei rupte din
- Page 149 and 150: comentarii ELVIRA ILIESCU Tragica n
- Page 151 and 152: lor/ nu se poate duce; şi Forţa i
- Page 153 and 154: numărându-ţi în fiecare diminea
- Page 155 and 156: Dar nu poate să nu recunoască:
- Page 157 and 158: precum Ion Ghica, C.A.Rosetti sau I
- Page 159 and 160: Ştefan Dimitriu nu este nici pe de
- Page 161 and 162: ANGELO MITCHIEVICI Retrospectivele
- Page 163 and 164: are a evenimentelor surprinsă cu f
- Page 165 and 166: larizate consumerist ale unor legen
- Page 167 and 168: STAN V. CRISTEA Ana Dobre şi lectu
- Page 169 and 170: Barbu între personalizare şi depe
- Page 171 and 172: Spiridon nu se poate îndepărta pr
- Page 173 and 174: ucurii,/ Că mi-i dor de-ai mei cop
- Page 175 and 176: fugă bucuroşi la ţară. ,,Regres
- Page 177 and 178: sau a unei culturi. De aceea, ne vo
- Page 179 and 180: Basarabeanul pentru a se elibera de
- Page 181: NOTE 1. ibid., pag. 176. 2.Cimpoi,
- Page 185 and 186: The English language, as we know, m
- Page 187 and 188: are very attentive with the words t
- Page 189 and 190: muzică. profil MARIANA POPESCU Arh
- Page 191 and 192: Barbu-Bucur a pus bazele Corului ps
- Page 193 and 194: prietenei sale Pulvia, în care se
- Page 195 and 196: vorbindu-le astfel, poruncise să i
- Page 197 and 198: la această titulatură: „Şi în
- Page 199 and 200: deja, prin activitatea şi opera is
- Page 201 and 202: disciplinei tutelate de Muza Clio,
- Page 203 and 204: anual, în câte un volum care poar
- Page 205 and 206: de colea?!... Ba poet între poeţi
- Page 207 and 208: frica/ Oare am trăit degeaba în m
- Page 209 and 210: Revista revistelor Revista HELIS, c
- Page 211: Cărţi primite la redacţie ♦ Dm
sociolingvistică<br />
Costin – Valentin Oancea<br />
Men’s language versus Women’s language:<br />
gender and linguistic differences<br />
N Introduction:<br />
owadays, a major topic in sociolinguistics is the connection, if any, between<br />
ways of using particular languages and the social roles of men and women<br />
who speak and use these languages. A milestone in the study of gender<br />
differences is Robin Lakoff’s Language and Women’s Place published in<br />
1975. The American sociolinguist was the first to distinguish between what<br />
she called ‘women’s language’ and ‘men’s language’.<br />
Is Lakoff’s distinction viable nowadays? Do men and women use language<br />
differently?<br />
In the following lines I will argue that this difference between men’s talk<br />
and women’s talk exists even today.<br />
In the first part of the paper we will discuss gender differences in British<br />
and American English and some of their dialects, and different opinions in the<br />
literature will be presented. In the second part of the paper we will establish<br />
whether Romanian is a gendered language based on the research of Hornoiu<br />
and on a research project that I conducted among Romanian M.A. students<br />
at the University of Bucharest.<br />
Ex Ponto nr.1, <strong>2010</strong><br />
174<br />
1. Gender differences in British and American English<br />
As already stated above, the publication of Robin Lakoff’s book Language<br />
and Women’s Place in 1975 marked a turning point in sociolinguistics. Before<br />
embarking on the discussion proper, a distinction must be drawn between<br />
sex and gender. Eckert and McConnel-Ginet (2003:10) claim that sex is a<br />
biological categorization based primarily on reproductive potential, whereas<br />
gender is the social elaboration of biological sex. Gender builds on biological<br />
sex, it exaggerates biological difference and, indeed, it carries biological<br />
difference into domains in which is completely irrelevant. For instance there<br />
is no biological reason why women should wear skirts and men not, or why<br />
women should have pink or red toenails and men should not. This distinction<br />
is important because we need to understand sex as something that we are<br />
born with and gender as something that defines us, as a social variable.<br />
In the linguistic literature one of the most important phonological differences<br />
between the speech of men and women can be found in Gros Ventre (which is<br />
an Amerindian language in the northeast of the United States). In Gros Ventre
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