Name : Helena Londa Sato Sera

NIM : 12117011

Gender, age, and language

The world we live in is full of diversity. There are different societies, languages, genders and
ages. We are going to explore some linguistic differences between men and women, the old and the
young.

Lakoff (features of ‘women’s language’)

a. Lexical hedges or fillers, e.g. you know, sort of, well, you see.
b. Tag questions, e.g. she’s very nice, isn’t she?
c. Rising intonation on declaratives, e.g. it’s really good.
d. ‘Empty’ adjectives, e.g. divine, charming, cute.
e. Precise color terms, e.g. magenta, aquamarine.
f. Intensifiers such as just and so, e.g. I like him so much.
g. ‘Hypercorrect’ grammar, e.g. consistent use of standard verb forms.
h. ‘Superpolite’ forms, e.g. euphemisms, indirect requests.
i. Avoidance of strong swear words, e.g. fudge, my goodness.
j. Emphatic stress, e.g. it was a BRILLIANT performance.

So far, sociolinguistics have proposed three main approaches that try to explain the linguistic
differences between men and women.

- The dominance approach.

Dominance is an approach whereby the male is seen as superior to the female in a society. This
results in a primarily male-centered language. Scholars such as Dale Spender and Don
Zimmerman subscribe to this view.
- The deficit approach
‘Deficit’ is an approach in which Jespersen defines male languages the standard and female as
deficient. Women’s language is considered to have something inherently ‘wrong’.
- The difference approach
Difference is an approach that differentiates men and women as belonging to different
‘subcultures’. And they have been socialized to do so since childhood. Deborah Tannen
attributes gender differences in language to cultural differences.

Men and women have distinct linguistic features. Different age groups also have their own
speech patterns. Individuals’ pitch, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation vary at different ages. They
also change their language while talking to people of other ages.

General features of different age groups

 1. Adults generally have lower pitch than children.
2. Adult men tend to use more swearing in all-male setting, whereas adult women reduce swearing
in all settings.
3. Different generations use different slangs.
4. The use of vernacular forms is more frequent in child-hood and adolescence, then steadily
reduces when approaching middle age, and gradually increases again in old age.
5. Younger and older speakers tend to use less prestigious variants than middle-aged speakers.

Children speak in high pitch and use more vernacular forms.

Adults (low pitch). Voice quality reflects people’s physical growth. Adults voices sound deeper than
children’s.

Elderly (more use of vernacular). Generally, old people’s speech shows more frequent use of vernacular
froms.

People adapt their language when they talk to different age groups. Parents regularly use imperatives
while talking to children, but adopt a gentle tone to talk to the elderly.

In the Chinese context, particularly prominent female speech features include more intensifiers,
‘superpolite’ forms, hedges, fillers and repetitions but fewer swear words. Under the influence of
physical , social and cultural factors, different age groups have distinct pitches, pronunciation,
vocabulary and grammar.