Gender, age,

politeness and stereotype

 Gender in dialectologies study
• Gender vs sex
• Gender is part of social dialect  reflecting social
hierarchy
- women are not allowed to use their language with the
husband’s family and children (Amazonian Indian tribes’
language)
- there are different features of women’s language
 phonologically, morphologically, syntactically (Indian,
Japanese, Yana language
- The impossibility for women to address their husbands by
their names
 Gender in dialectologies study
• in an ‘equal’ society --- where social roles
overlap:
- women are using more correct forms (standard)
- on preference stage not exclusive one
• The questions then:
- women vs men in the same social class
- Women used more standard forms
- women vs other women in different social class
- women in higher class use more standard forms
 Why?
1. Women are more status conscious
- Being aware that they way they speak reflects their social
status  speaking accordingly to claim such status
2. Women’s role as the guardian of society’s values
- Society expects women to behave better than men
 better language used (+ role of mother)
3. Subordinate group must be polite
- By using standard forms, women are looking after their need
to be valued by others
4. Vernacular forms express machismo
- Vernacular use carry macho connotation and toughness
 Not to mention....
• women’s categorization
 some may refers to their husbands’ occupation
• The influence of the addressee and the context
 women are more cooperative  showing more speech
accommodation
 women’s standard forms reflect their sensitivity to the
contextual factors (showing social distance)
• Some exceptional cases
women use more vernacular forms (expressing non-urban
values) & (anti establishment attitude  may be
characterized as teenage particular speech)
 Age graded featured speech
• The pitch of voices characterized women/men
differences
– (physically) men has lower and women has higher
pitch (children have the same pitch– higher)
– (socially) lower pitch represents masculinity
• Vocab, pronunciation, and grammar
differentiate age groups (as in case of swear
words, slang)
 Models of Age graded speech
• vernacular forms are used more by childhood
and adolescence ---
• They are less used by middle age groups
– Conformity to the social pressure
• They are used more by old age group
– as the social pressure reduce (due to the leaving
of workforce)
 Gender in ‘social’ study
• Lakoff : different use in syntax, semantic, style
 women were using languages which
reinforced their subordinate status
: features of women language (on p.286)
 expressing uncertainty and lack of confidence
 Gender in ‘social’ study
However, tag can be used for many purposes:
- Showing uncertainty
- Being facilitative
- Softening a directive or a criticism
- Reflecting concern for other’s feeling
- Strengthening the force of utterances

Women may use tag for being facilitative

 as women are more accommodative (also in the case
of hedges): concerning not just status dimension but
social dimension as well
 Men vs women across culture
in Mexico (Mayan tribe):
Women’s patterns are more used

In Malagasy
The men qualify and modify their utterances ; use less
direct language

In Samoa
Status is more important than gender  in using
politeness devices
 Gender in interaction
Study conducted in US:
• Men talk more than women in formal
occasion such as TV interview, staff meetings,
or conference discussion
• men interrupts more often than women
• Women easily give up the floor when being
interrupted
• Women provide more encouraging feedback
 Gender in interaction
• gossip is considered as the characteristics of women
interaction
to affirm solidarity and social relationship between the
women
 focusing on the affective message on the person’s feeling
not on the referential content
 having cooperative and positive nature

• Men’s gossip is difficult to identify

Focusing on activities and things, not affective but on the
information
Having arguing, conflict , criticizing, change topic abruptly
(showing the ways in maintaining solidarity in men)
 The construction of Gender
• gender is perceived as given  develop
construction accordingly
• Gender is constructed (e.g. in the case of
police-women, and men working is feminine
contexts)
• Sexist language