Gender-based Language Use: Understanding When, How, and Why Women Communicate Similarly and Differently 133

Keyword(s):  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 397-405
Author(s):  
Jarjani Usman ◽  
Yunisrina Qismullah Yusuf

This study investigated dehumanizing metaphors used in the daily life and collective memory of Acehnese people in Indonesia and how male and female persons are presented. The interviews were held with 20 people from six districts in Aceh province, Indonesia. Data were collected from elders aged 60 and above, and Acehnese is spoken as their mother tongue. Since they did not travel much (except for occasional holidays with families and Hajj pilgrimage), they are deemed untainted native speakers of Acehnese. For analysis, grounded by the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, this study found that the metaphorical expressions in the Acehnese culture that dehumanize people mostly use animals' concepts, and the rests are of the inanimate entity, and plants. The negative meanings present human as animals are such as agam buya (crocodile man), kamèng keudèe (goat in the market), manok agam (cock), among others, and the positive ones that present human as plants are boh lam ôn (a leaf-covered fruit) and padé jum (wet rice). They negatively or positively describe a person's behavior where the negative ones are commonly associated with a person's corrupt behavior and the positive ones for good behavior. Most of the dehumanizing metaphors are genderless; only a few are gender-based. Acehnese is a genderless language that has no distinctions of grammatical gender. These metaphors inform the conceptual system or belief of the Acehnese society through language use.


2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-44
Author(s):  
Anmol Ahmad ◽  
Fizza Farrukh

Gender studies have been an invigorating field of study under numerous lenses. Such explorations explore the inimitable distinctiveness and resemblance between the two genders. Correspondingly, this study focuses particularly on written communication of Pakistanis. Utilizing Searle’s Taxonomy for Speech Acts (1969) and Wulandari (2014)’s Taxonomy for Speech Act Functions, this research investigates differences and similarities of language use among Males and Females on the online social platforms of Facebook and Twitter. Data comprises of a thousand utterances accounted from selected social mediums. Results reveal Pakistani Males tend to use Expressive Acts often within their language while updating their status messages on Facebook and Twitter; contrastingly, Pakistani Females prefer to employ the Directive and Assertive Acts frequently in their language used in Facebook and Twitter status updates. Furthermore, Pakistani Males utilize the medium for informing their potential audience about various topics. While, Pakistani Females make use of the status messages to achieve multiple purposes, including: informing, suggesting and asserting. Through application of ANOVA, study’s results validate linguistic differences in language use of Pakistani Males and Females. It corroborates the fact that gender-based differences are part of the identity of a person and these are reflected through the medium of language elaborately.


2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 694-714 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rong Ma ◽  
Anita Atwell Seate

Drawing on self-categorization theory, the current study examines the effects of gender salience and interlocutor gender typicality on men and women’s use of tentative language in emails. We conducted an experiment manipulating identity salience using gender-stereotypic conversation topics, and typicality using biographies of the fictitious female interlocutor. The results were consistent with self-categorization theory and previous research on gender-based language use: Men were more tentative when discussing a conversation topic in which their gender group was not considered experts. More important, interlocutor gender typicality influenced participants’ tentative language, such that when the interlocutor was a typical woman, men and women became more tentative discussing a conversation topic in which they were not considered experts. This study has implications for future research on the contextual factors that may influence the use of language in both intragroup and intergroup communication.


Author(s):  
Toyese Najeem Dahunsi

Studies have established gender-based variations in human’s use of language, particularly in the areas of grammar and lexis.  This study investigated language use in prose-works involving male and female writers, aimed at finding out whether there were grammar related variations in the use of language by the selected male and female writers.  The framework adopted for analysis was the Hallidayan notion of Clause Complexes and Embedded Clauses and how writers made conscious choices from the grammar of logical meaning in their different narratives.  Five male-authored and five female-authored prose-works were selected for the study.  A part of each prose-work containing fifty (50) consecutive sentences was randomly excised and analysed into clause simplexes, clause complexes and embedded clauses, and the frequencies of these clause types were determined.  The result clearly showed that the male authors had higher frequencies of clause complexes than simplexes; whereas the female writers had lower frequencies of complexes but higher frequencies of simplexes.  It also showed higher frequencies of embedded clauses in male-authored texts than in female-authored ones. The results therefore suggested that narratives of male writers tend to be more syntactically complex (because of higher frequencies of clustered clauses and varying functional and semantic relationships among component clauses) and semantically complex (because of a much tighter integration of meanings through clause clustering and embedding).  The narratives of female writers, on the other hand, tend to be syntactically and semantically simple (with higher use of simplexes, but less use of complexes and embedded clauses).Keywords: Grammar, gender, clause complexes, clause simplexes, embedded clauses.


2008 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 87-92
Author(s):  
Leonard L. LaPointe

Abstract Loss of implicit linguistic competence assumes a loss of linguistic rules, necessary linguistic computations, or representations. In aphasia, the inherent neurological damage is frequently assumed by some to be a loss of implicit linguistic competence that has damaged or wiped out neural centers or pathways that are necessary for maintenance of the language rules and representations needed to communicate. Not everyone agrees with this view of language use in aphasia. The measurement of implicit language competence, although apparently necessary and satisfying for theoretic linguistics, is complexly interwoven with performance factors. Transience, stimulability, and variability in aphasia language use provide evidence for an access deficit model that supports performance loss. Advances in understanding linguistic competence and performance may be informed by careful study of bilingual language acquisition and loss, the language of savants, the language of feral children, and advances in neuroimaging. Social models of aphasia treatment, coupled with an access deficit view of aphasia, can salve our restless minds and allow pursuit of maximum interactive communication goals even without a comfortable explanation of implicit linguistic competence in aphasia.


1991 ◽  
Vol 36 (7) ◽  
pp. 641-641
Author(s):  
No authorship indicated
Keyword(s):  

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