Sociolinguistics

Tutor: Andrei Avram

Gender and language I

Gender-exclusive differences

1 Gender-exclusive features
Gender-exclusive differences: gender-exclusive features are used only by and/or to
speakers of a particular sex (Meyerhoff 2006, Coates 2013, Holmes 2013).
Gender-exclusive features are a direct index of gender (Meyerhoff 2006).
Direct indexing: a form has the semantic feature [+male] or [+female] as part of its basic
meaning (Meyerhoff 2006).

2 Different languages
In some Amazon Indian tribes, men must marry outside their own tribe (exogamy /
exogamous marriage) and each tribe has a different language (Sorensen 1972,
Meyerhoff 2006, Homes 2013).
(1) M Tuyuka vs. F Desano

3 Phonological differences
Bengali (Indo-European, India)
Some words differ in their initial consonants (Holmes 2013, Wardaugh and Fuller 2015).
(2) M [n] vs. F, children and uneducated M [l]

Darkhat Mongolian (Asia)

M and F use partly different sets of vowels (Trudgill 1995).
(3) a. M central, rounded /ʉ/, /ɵ/ vs. F front, rounded /y/, /ø/
b. M back, rounded /u/, /o/ vs. F central, rounded /ʉ/, /ɵ/

Chukchi (eastern Siberia)

M do not pronounce /d/ and /n/ in intervocalic position (Wardhaugh and Fuller 2015).
M use /ʧ/ or /r/, F use /ʃ/ (Coates 2013).
(4) a. M nitvaqaat vs. F nitvaqenat
b. M [ramkɪʧɪn] vs. [ʃamkɪʃɪn] ‘people’

Yukaghir (north-east Asia)

Differences between M and F are also age-graded (Wardhaugh and Fuller 2015).
(5) a. child M /ts/; adult M /tj/; old M /ʧj/.
b. child M /dz/; adult M /dj/: old M /ʤj/.
(6) a. child F /ts/; adult F /ts/; old F /ʧj/.
b. child F /dz/; adult F /dz/; old F /ʤj/.
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Gros Ventre (American Indian, Montana, USA)

Harrison (2007)
(7) a. [ʧ]: adult, fluent M
b. [k]: F, children, non-fluent adult M
A child M in his teen years pronouncing [k] would be told to use [ʧ] (Harrison 2007).
M visiting linguists would be told to use [k] (Harrison 2007)

Gros Ventre (Montana, USA)

M use palatalized dental stops, F use palatalized velar stops (Coates 2013, Wardaugh and
Fuller 2015)
(8) M dyatsa [djatsa] vs. F kyatsa [kjatsa] ‘bread’
Any use of F pronunciations by M is regarded as a sign of effeminacy (Wardhaugh and
Fuller 2015). Use of the wrong form is interpreted as a marker of bisexuality (Coates
2013).

Yana (American Indian, USA)

Coates (2013), Yaguello (2018)
(9) a. M [gagi] vs. F [gak'] ‘crow’
b. M [p'aʤa] vs. F [p'aʧ'] ‘snow’
Rules: if the M word ends in the short vowels /i/, /a/ or /u/, the vowel is deleted and the
preceding consonant becomes voiceless

/i/
(10) a. /a/ → Ø / __#
/u/

b. C → [− voice] / __#

The M speech appears to preserve historically older forms.

F forms symbolize F’s lower social status, while M forms are associated with
ceremonies and formality (Sapir 1929 / 1964).
Atypical case: M speech is associated with linguistic purism (Coates 2013).

4 Morphological differences
Kūr̩ux (Dravidian, India)
M and F use different plural suffixes (Ekka 1972, Fasold 1990)
(11) M xaddar vs. F xadday ‘children’

Yanyuwa (Australia)
M and F really speak two different dialects. Differences go beyond sounds and words,
and include pronouns, grammatical affixes and other parts of speech. F’s speech is
reportedly more complex (Bradley 1998).
(12) child Ø-buyuka-la vs. M ji-buyuka-la vs. F ki-buyuka-la ‘at / with the fire’
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Gender-based differences are rigidly enforced. Errors, especially by newly-initiated adult

M expected to adopt fully M speech, are severely criticized (Bradley 1998).
Koasati (Louisiana, USA)
M verbal forms end in -s, F ones end in -Ṽ (Haas 1944).
(13) a. M kɑ́s vs. F kɑ́ ‘he is saying’
b. M lɑkɑwtɑkkǫ́s vs. F lɑkɑwtɑkkǫ́ ‘I am not lifting it’

M verbal forms have a high tone and end in -s, F ones have a falling tone and end in -l.
(14) M lɑkɑwhós vs. F lɑkɑwhôl ‘lift it! (pl.)’

Yana (USA)
Some M words are longer than the equivalent words used by F and to F (Coates 2013,
Holmes 2013, Yaguello 2018)
(15) a. M ʔau-na vs. F ʔau ‘fire’
b. M ba-na vs. F ba ‘deer’
c. M yaa-na ‘person’ vs. F yaa ‘person’
Rule: when the F word ends in a long vowel, a diphthong or a consonant, or if the word is
monosyllabic, M’s speech uses the suffix -na.

Island Carib (Dominica)

M treat non-concrete nouns as feminine, while F treats them as masculine (Taylor 1951)
(16) M tugura buga vs. F ligira buga ‘the other day’

5 Syntactic differences
Anejom̃ (Republic of Vanuatu, Oceania) uses different possessive structures (Meyerhoff
2006): “direct possession” for inalienable possession (e.g. ‘my hand’), a “subordinate
construction” for things that can be removed (e.g. ‘its lid’), “active possession” for things
over which the speaker is in active control (e.g. ‘my knife’).

“Direct possession” is also used for same-sex siblings, while the “subordinate
construction” is also used for opposite-sex siblings (Meyerhoff 2006)
(17) a. direct possession:
etwa -k
same-sex sibling my
‘my same-sex sibling’
b. subordinate construction:
nataheñ / nataüañ erak
sister / brother my
‘my sister / brother’

M use “direct possession”, while F use “active possession” to refer to their spouse
(Meyerhoff 2006)
(18) M ega -k vs. F nataüñ uñak
wife my husband my
‘my wife’ ‘my husband’
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6 Lexical differences
Gros Ventre (American Indian, Montana, USA)
Harrison (2007)
(19) M wei vs. F ao ‘hello’

Chiquito (American Indian, Bolivia)

Kinship terms differ according to the sex of the speaker (Bodine 1975, Trudgill 1995).
(20) a. M ijai vs. F išupu ‘my father’
b. M ipaki vs. F ipapa ‘my mother’
c. M tsaruki vs. F ičbausi ‘my brother

7 Semantic differences
Arapesh (Papua-New Guinea)
The sex of the person being talked about can only be known if the sex of the person being
talked to is known (Harrison 2007)
(21) mehinen:
a. ‘your sister’s son’, if the interlocutor is M
b. ‘your brother’s daughter’, if the interlocutor is F

8 Special registers
Special registers may be the consequence of taboo (Jespersen 1922, Trudgill 1995).

Xhosa (Bantu, Republic of South Africa): Hlonipha or isihlonipho sabafazi ‘women’s

language of respect’ (Finlayson 1995, Swann 2001).
Hlonipha designates the avoidance by married F of any syllables that occur in the names
of their in-laws, particularly their father-in-law, mother-in-law, father-in-law’s brothers
and their wives, and father-in-law’s sisters (Finlayson 1995, Swann 2001).
The strategies employed in hlonipha consist of: consonant deletion; consonant
substitution; use of a synonym; use of a paraphrase; (among younger women) use of a
borrowing from English or Afrikaans. Nominal class prefixes are exempt from hlonipha
(Finlayson 1995, Swann 2001).

In-law’s name Bheki → the syllable bhe- in e.g. i-bhekile ‘tin can’ must be avoided.
(22) a. consonant deletion: i-ekile
b. consonant substitution: i-wekile
c. use of a synonym: i-konkxa ‘can or tin in which preserves are kept’
d. use of a paraphrase: i-sikhelelo ‘something that can be used for drawing
liquid’
e. use of a borrowing: English tin can / Afrikaans blik ‘tin can’

Hlonipha also reflects F’s relative powerlessness and M’s dominance in traditional
societies.
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9 Conclusions
M and F speech have been analyzed as reflexes of difference, i.e. different subcultures
(anthropological linguistics), or of power and dominance, i.e. male dominance and
female subordination and oppression (Lakoff 1975, Spender 1980).
Social distinctions are reinforced through gender-exclusive differences (Swann 2001).
Terms such as “men’s language”, “women’s language”, “male speech”, “female speech”,
“male forms”, “female forms” imply homogeneity of men and of women as social
groups (Swann 2001).

References
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