Wednesday, 5 March 2014

Language and Gender


In my opinion, there are noticeable differences between the socially acceptable way that both men and women talk, like there are certain expectations they should be satisfying. For example, I think it's never been very acceptable for women to swear, but men have always been more allowed to do it. In school, a male would always be typically punished less if they swore, than a female. This is also a well known stereotype that men do swear or use language profanity a lot more than women, but is that necessarily true? It is seen that more women than men tend to also cover up or sugar coat their swear words, like using "oh goodness" instead of "oh god" to avoid blasphemy or offending anyone. This then also links to the overall general stereotype that women should be more polite than men, using the umbrella term as "being lady-like" linking to sexism and what is expected of them.
Not only due to the spoken language, but women are usually permitted to cry in public and express their emotions more openly. In Key's observation (1975) that "if a woman cries into a pillow, it's 'muffled sobbing' yet if a man cries into a pillow, it's 'blubbering' with negative connotations".
Several writers have also stated that men will use a lot more colloquialism than women, such as shortened words and acronyms, as well as general slang. This was illustrated by the writers Labov (1966), Levine and Crockett (1966) and Trudgill (1972) the latter, who also noted women maintaining standard English more than men, in regional areas and their accents.
I believe that another stereotype portrayed in the modern day is that women are not expected to talk as much as men, and that men should do all the talking/negotiating because that's the more masculine to do. This is also demonstrated by Kramer (1974) who also said that women typically talk less than their male partners.

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