Chapter 7 : Gender and age

Chapter 7 : Gender and age

1. Gender

   • The term gender refers to socio-cultural behaviour including speech.
   • Differences according to the linguistic levels
     • Pronunciation
       • In Montana, women say [kja'tsa] for 'bread' while men say [dʒa'tsa]
     • Morphology
       • In Yana, men add the suffix 'na' for nouns, for example 'ba-na' (deer) while women do not.
     • Vocabulary
       • In japanese, women say 'otoosan' for father, while men say 'oyaji.
         • differences are related to formality or politeness not gender. Men’s forms are restricted to casual contexts, whereas women’s forms are more formal.
     • Grammatical structure
       • The use of double negative and (ain't)
   • Gender and social class
     • In every social class men use more vernacular forms than women.
     • Women are known to be more class sensitive and avoid vernaculars of their social class. because they care about their appearance which includes their speech
   • Explanations of women’s linguistic behavior
     • 1. The social status explanation
     • 2. women’s role as guardian of society’s values
     • 3. subordinate groups must be polite
     • 4. vernacular forms express masculinity

2. Features of women’s speech

   • 1. lexical hedges (fillers) you know, sort of, well, you see
   • 2. Tag questions: she is very nice, isn’s she?
   • 3. Raising intonation on declaration: it’s really good.
   • 4. Empty adjectives: charming, cute.
   • 5. Precise color terms. / 6. Intensifiers: just, very, so.
   • 7. hypercorrect grammar: use of standard.
   • 8. Superpolite forms: Indirect request, euphemism.
   • How women are categorised ?
     • They are categorised according to their husbands' social group

3. Age

   • Age- graded Features of Speech
     • Middle age use the standard language more because they interact with different domains
     • Young & elder speaks the vernacular language more "their behaviour is similar"
       • The use of slang, taboo, new words are all features of teenage language.
   • Age and social dialect
     • The language change according to the age
       • Example; In Montreal, the young are monolingual in which they speak french, then at the age of 30 they become bilingual in which they speak French and English, then when they become old they return to be monolingual.

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