A Journal About Sex and Age

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The linguistics form used by women and men contrast-to different degrees-in all speech communities. There are other ways in which the linguistics behavior of women and men differ. It is claimed women are most linguistically polite than men, for instance, and that women are more emphasize differ on speech function.

CHAPTER II

SEX AND AGE

The linguistics form used by women and men contrast-to different degrees-in all speech communities. There are other ways in which the linguistics behavior of women and men differ. It is claimed women are most linguistically polite than men, for instance, and that women are more emphasize differ on speech function.

Sex-Exclusive Speech Differences-Non Western Communities.

Women and men do not speak in exactly the same way as each other in any community. The amazon Indians provide an extreme example. In Montana, for instance there are pronunciation differences between the sexes in the gross ventre American-indian tribe. Where the woman say [kja’tsa] for bread, the men say [d3a’tsa]. In this community if a person uses the wrong form for their sex, the older member of the community consider them bisexual. In Bengali, a language of India, the women use an initial [l] where the men use an initial [n] in some words.

            Word-shapes in order languages contrast because women and men use different affixes. In Yana, a north-american Indian language and Chiquita, a south American-indian languages, some of the words used among men are longer than the equivalents words used by women and to women, because the men’s formsometimes add a suffix, as illustrated in example.

Women’s form	Men’s form	meaning
Ba Yaa ?au nisaaklu	Ba-na Yaa-na ?au-na Nisaaklu-?1	Deer Personal fire He might go away

In Japanese, too some of the men’s forms are longer, while female forms of nouns are frequently prefixed by 0-, a marker of polite style.

In some languages, there are also differences between the vocabulary items used by women and men, though these are never very extensive. Japanese provides some clear examples.

Women’s form	Men’s form	meaning
Ohiya Onaka Oisii taberu	Mizu Hara Umai kuu	Water Stomach Delicious eat

Some speakers signal the sex of the speaker in their pronunsystem. In Japanese, there is a word atashi, meaning “I”, used only by woman, and another, boku, used only by men. But, there is also a form watakushi which can be used by women and men speakers.

            Linguistics differences between men and women speech may be just one dimension of more extensive differences reflecting the social hierarchy as a whole. In Bengali society, for instance, the younger person should not address a superior by first name. Similarly a wife, being subordinate to her husband, is not permitted to use her husband’s name.

            The fact that there are clearly identifiable differences between women and men’s speech in the communities discussed in this section reflects the clearly demarcated sex roles in these communities. Sex exclusive speech forms (some forms are used only by men or by women) reflect sex-exclusive social roles. The responsibilities of women and men are different in such communities, and everyone knows what they are. There are no arguments over they prepares dinner and who put the children in the bed.

Sex-Preferential Speech Features-Social Dialect Research

In western communities the speech forms they use also overlap. In other words, women and men do not use completely different forms. They use different quantities or frequencies of the same form. In all English speaking cities where speech data has been collected, for instance, women use more –ing pronunciation and fevwer –in pronunciation than men in word like swimming and typing. In montreal, the French used by women and men is distinguished by the frequencies wich which they pronounce [l] in phrases such as il, y a and il fait. Both women and men delete [l], but men do so more often than women. In Sydney, some women and men pronounce the initial sound in thing as [f], but the men use this pronunciation more than women. Both the social and the linguistics patterns in these communities are sex-preferential (rather than sex-exclusive). Though, both sexes use particular forms, one sex shows a greater preference for them than the other.

Sex and Social Class

The linguistics features which differ in the speech of women and men in western communities are usually features which also distinguish the speech of people from different social classes. In every social class, men use more vernacular forms than women. For instance, that in social dialect interviews in Norwich, men used more of the vernacular [in] form at the end of words like speaking and walking than women. And this pattern was quite consistent across five distinct social groups.

 

                                       men

Notice, too that in the lowest and the highest social group the women’s speech is closer to that of the men in same group than to that women in other group. In these groups class membership seems to be more important than gender identity.

            Across all social groups women use more standard forms than men and so, correspondingly, men use more vernacular forms than women. In Detroit, for instance, multiple negation (e.g. I don’t know nothing about it), a vernacular features of speech, is more frequent in men’s speech than in women’s. this is true in every social group but the differences is most dramatic in the second highest social group (the lower middle class) where the men’s multiple negation score is 32 percent compared to only 1 percent for women. Even in the lowest social group, however, men use a third more instances of multiple negations than women (90 vs 59 percent)

Explanations of Women’s Linguistic Behavior

“Why can’t a woman be more like a man?”

To answer the question, four different explanations were suggested.

Ø  The first appeals to social class and its related status for an explanation.

Ø  The second refers to women’s role in society,.

Ø  The third to women’s status as a subordinate group and

Ø  The fourth to the function of speech in expressing masculinity.

The Social Status Explanation

Linguistics has suggested that women use more standards speech forms than men because they are more status-conscious than men. The claim is that women are more aware of the fact that the way they speak signals their social class background or social status in the community. Standards speech forms are generally associated with high social status and so, according to this explanation women use more standard speech forms as a way of claiming such status. The fact that women interviewed in new York and in Norwich reported that they used more standard forms that they actually did, has also been used to support this explanation. Women generally lack status in society, and so it is suggested some try to acquire it by using standard speech forms and by reporting that they use even more of these forms than they actually do.

An American study compared the speech of women in service occupation, working in garage and hotels, for instance with the women working in home. Those in paid employment used more standards forms and this interaction had its effect on their own usage. By contrast, the women who stayed home interacted mainly with each other and this reinforced their preference for vernacular forms. The younger women in Ballymacarrett , a suburb of Belfast found work used a much higher percentage of linguistics features associated with high status groups than the older women who were working at home.

Woman’s Role as Guardian of Society Values.

A second explanation for the fact that women use more standard forms than men points to the way society tends to expect “better” behavior from women than from men. Little boys generally allowed more freedom than little girl.. women are designated the role of modeling correct behavior in the community, predictable then, following this arguments, society expects women to speak more correctly and standardly than men, especially when they are serving as models for children’s speech.

Subordinate Groups Must Be Polite

The third explanation which has been proposed for women’s use of more standard forms is that people who are subordinate must be polite. Children are expected to be polite to adults. Women as a subordinate groups, it is argued must avoid offending men and so they must speak carefully and politely.

Vernacular Forms Express Machismo

“Why don’t men use more standard forms?”

One answer which can be given is that the men prefer vernacular forms because they carry macho connotation of masculinity and toughness. If this is true it would also explain why women might not want to use such forms.

There are some evidence to support the question. The speakers on a tape who were identified as most likely to win in a street fight were those who used most vernacular forms.

How are Women Categorized?

From data, in assigning women to a particular social class, researcher often used the woman’s husband occupation as their major criterion. not all women marry men from the same social class, however. It is perfectly possible for a woman to be better educated than the man she marries. or even to have a more prestigious job than him.

Age-Graded Features Of Speech

One of the most obvious speech differences between women and men is in the pitch of their voices. Most people believe this difference develops at puberty. It is thought to be as difficult to guess the sex of a 5 year-old on the phone as it is to identify the sex of swaddles infant from it wails and coos.

Age And Social Dialect Data

Social dialect research has provided a great deal of information about patterns of pronunciation and grammar for different age groups.

CHAPTER III

Conclusion

Psycholinguistics about sex and age, can be found in some aspects. Women and men do not speak in exactly the same way as each other in any community. “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?”

To answer the question, four different explanations were suggested.

Ø  The first appeals to social class and its related status for an explanation.

Ø  The second refers to women’s role in society,.

Ø  The third to women’s status as a subordinate group and

Ø  The fourth to the function of speech in expressing masculinity.

And the other aspects can be explained bellow:

Woman’s Role as Guardian of Society Values.

Subordinate Groups Must Be Polite

Vernacular Forms Express Machismo