Lesson Five (Language and Social Relations)

Content:
 Speech Community and Related Concepts
 Power and Solidarity in Social Interactions
 Gender and Language

Discussions:
Speech Community and Related Concepts

The terms society and culture in anthropology are useful as general concepts, but no society's culture is uniform
for all its member. Any complex of learned patterns of behavior and thought that distinguished various segments
of a society (minorities, castes, and the like) is referred to as a subculture. By extension, this term is also used
to refer collectively all those who exhibit the characteristic of a particular subculture (e.g. the homeless as well
as the so-called beautiful people). Language and speech, too are characterized by lack of uniformity. In general,
any particular society is associated with a specific language, and multinational societies are associated with
several. But no language is ever uniform for all speakers of a society (people, community, and tribe). Certain
ways of speaking the same language may differentiate men from women, the young from the old, the poor from
the rich, and the like. All those who share specific rules for speaking and interpreting speech at least one speech
variety belong to a speech community.

However, it is important to remember that people who speak the same language are not always members of the
same speech community. On the one hand, speakers of South Asian English in India and Pakistan share a
language with citizens of the United States, but the respective varieties of English and the rules for speaking
them are sufficiently distinct to assign the two populations to different speech communities. On the other hand,
Muriel Saville-Troike (1982) identified even monolingual speakers of either Spanish (the official language) or
Guarani (the national language) as belonging to the same speech community in Paraguay because the social
roles of the speaker of the two languages are complementary--both groups are mutually dependent for services
or employment.Most members of a society, even if they happen to live in the same town,belong to several speech
communities. E.g. an elderly person may have considerable difficulty following the monotonous chant of an
auctioneer or comprehending what students talk about among themselves. But an auctioneer and a college
student can easily make the adjustment necessary to engage in a conversation with the elderly person and be
fully understood; all they have to do is to share enough characteristic patterns of pronunciation, grammar
vocabulary, and manner of speaking to belong to the same speech community.

Linguist refer to an area in which speakers of different languages share speaking rules as a speech area. Less
frequently employed terms for related concepts include language field, speech field, and speech network .
Language field refers to all those communities in which an individual is able to communicate adequately by virtue
of knowing the languages and language varieties serving the communities. The concept of speech field parallels
that of language field but involves the knowledge of rules for speaking rather than knowledge of language.
Speech network refers to linkages between persons from different communities who share language varieties
as well as rules for speaking. Example: In addition to her mother tongue, a woman knows four languages well
enough to read books and newspaper published in them; a total of five language make up her language field.
However, the same woman is able to communicate easily in only one foreign language in addition to her native
language; the speech communities within which she functions effectively in the two languages make up her
speech field. Within that speech field the woman has special rapport with those persons. regardless of where
they may come from, who share with her the two languages, rules for speech, and a professional interest in, the
linkages with these people make up her speech network.

Power and Solidarity in Social Interactions

It is widely believed that speech has great influence on the social life of individuals and whole communities.
Thus, a lot of research effort has been devoted to analyzing what people say in their daily interactions and the
linguistic choices they make to achieve communicative goals. Formentelli (2010) claims that while engaging in
conversations, speakers consciously or unconsciously demonstrate their identities, their belonging to a certain
culture or social community and their desire to come close or distance themselves from their addressees. Social
relations among speakers and addressees are usually reflected in the way they talk to each other; of these
relations are power and solidarity. Fasold (1990) as cited in Tannen (1993), states that since Brown and Gilman's
(1960) pioneering study, and the subsequent works of Friedrich (1972) and Brown and Levinson (1987), power
and solidarity have been fundamental concepts to sociolinguistic theory.

To give a definition of power and solidarity is not a difficult task, but the difficulty is to identify them in the actual
interactions of interlocutors. Brown and Gilman (1960) state that in any conversation between two persons one
of them is thought to have the power to control the talk and the behavior of the other person. They further claim
that both speakers cannot have the same level of power in the interaction. According to Tannen (1990), power
is associated with nonreciprocal forms of address. A speaker, for example, addresses another by a title or last
name but is addressed by the first name. Solidarity is associated with reciprocal forms of address. Both speakers
address each other by title, last-name or first name.

Power usually indicates asymmetrical relationships where one speaker is subordinate to another, while solidarity
indicates symmetrical relationships characterized by social equality and similarity. Those of solidarity distinguish
relatively intimate relations from distant ones (Hudson, 1996). Dominance or power in a conversation is usually
affected by several variables like; sex, status, age, and kinship relations which make power a non-inherited
feature. Power circulates among participants in a conversation due to many reasons (Mendez & Garcia, 2012).
Therefore, identifying power in a particular talk is not an easy task. Tannen and Kakava (1992) emphasize that
the linguistic markers of power and solidarity are not only ambiguous, implying either power or solidarity, but are
also polysemous as they may imply both at the same time.

Sequeiros (1997), cited in Mendez & Garcia (2012), illustrates that people perceive solidarity as a sporadic value
that entails closeness with others. Solidarity, Xiaopei (2011) argues, implies a similarity and a degree of
closeness and intimacy between people of equal power in the social order. Hence, solidarity is a relation which
mostly indicates similarity or even sameness of prominent features in two or more persons. Mazid (2008) states
that “the variety in solidarity may lie in the degree of intensity, or degree of solidarity, ranging from close intimacy
to distant reserve” (p.10). Most theories of solidarity conceive it as a positive concept which brings benefits to
group members and generates feelings of interconnectedness. Yet, some researches like Komter (2001) talk
about negative aspects and consequences of solidarity.

Studies reviewed here differ in the type of informants they observe and the medium of interaction these
informants use. Most of the studies related to power and solidarity are concerned with how native speakers
reflect these two social relations in their interactions using their native language. A few other studies aim at
comparing the techniques people from two different languages use to express power and solidarity relations.
Another type of studies target communities of mixed informants who come from different parts of the world
speaking different languages but live in the same community usually due to reasons such as pursuing an
education. More challenging studies are the ones that examine power and solidarity in the interactions of people
using English as a foreign language. The review conducted in this study will be organized based on the type of
informants they target.

NATIVE INFORMANT STUDIES

Native-informants studies of power and solidarity are the studies that observe the linguistic behavior of people
who use native tongue in their social interactions. The first native informant study was conducted by Tannen and
Kakava (1992). The study analyzed expressions of agreement in the natural conversations tape-recorded in
Athens as provided by two Greeks, man and a woman, and an American woman to show if these expressions
could denote power or create solidarity among interlocutors. The study assumes that different people have
different purposes and different styles of saying ‘no’. Analysis of the three speakers’ conversations showed that
they exhibited different frames; they each had different purposes in the conversation and different styles of
disagreeing.

The authors tried to create a link between expressions of disagreement and remarks of power and solidarity by
focusing on two markers of solidarity, namely names or figurative kinship terms often in the diminutive form and
personal analogy. The authors stressed the idea that power and solidarity are not paradoxical; they rather entail
each other as they emerged in conversations. The analysis shows that although people react differently when
they have different opinions regarding something, they are not really very different. This is because of the use of
markers of solidarity which keep people close to each other even when they disagree. Disagreement can be
seen as a marker of solidarity even though people take opposing stands. With regard to gender differences, the
study concluded that the male respondent gives advice in a direct way, while the female respondent gives advice
indirectly.

Tannen and Kakava’s (1992) contributed a lot to the literature of power and solidarity as it was an empirical study
based on the analysis of spontaneous speech. The objective set at the very beginning of the study was partly
achieved. The part related to markers of disagreement and their relation to power and solidarity was totally
covered, while the part related to gender differences required further elaboration. The study relied on empirical
work supported by personal claims and reflections the authors, specifically Kakava, had after a long history
researching in this and other related fields. The markers of disagreement and advice and their relation with, and
their influence on power and solidarity among interlocutors were discussed. This hypothesis was discussed fully
and a clear conclusion was attained. The second hypothesis was related to the influence of gender on the way
power markers are used to disagree and give advice. This hypothesis, however, was not dealt with
comprehensively. It was touched upon here and there in a way that gave the impression that it was only a
marginal aim. A very pertinent question to ask is, “why was the American woman included in the study as it was
about Greek?” Perhaps, the authors wanted to test a very specific point which was ‘disagreeing with a foreigner
’.

Salifu (2010) suggests that the linguistic forms speakers use to address each other imply various social and
cultural meanings such as the relations between participants and the attitude the speaker bears to the addressee.
The author identified the key linguistic components in Dagbanli, the language spoken in Savelugu in Northern
Ghana such as address forms: kinship terms, names and titles. He also discussed the social and cultural values
related to each. Salifu also outlines the different ways in which these elements are combined not only for the
purpose of identifying the addressee or referent, but also for communicating other social meanings and attitudes
like politeness, power and solidarity. The author assumes that the speaker of Dagbanli has a set of linguistic
choices to address one another. These linguistic choices are influenced by three main social variables: kinship
terms, age and sex. These three variables construct hierarchical relations between interlocutors. These may be
represented in the rights and privileges older people have over younger ones. The mode of address, the author
believes, is an example of the linguistic forms that express such hierarchical relations.

The study identified some differentiation that Dagomba people should pay attention to; social hierarchy, age,
sex, and status. In terms of sex, women are considered subordinate to men, while seniority in age entails a lot
of prestige, respect and positive self-image. The third variable is status which refers to a position or office usually
identified by a title which a person acquires or inherits and the possession of which entitles the holder to certain
degrees of privilege and prestige. In verbal interaction, respect must be shown to those older than oneself and
to those of higher status. The author claims that a child should be taught the most basic speech forms for starting
a successful conversation: (1) greeting and (2) addressing or referring to older people appropriately. The author
states that the name of an older or higher status person must be preceded by a kinship term whether speaker
and addressee are kindred relations or not. An older person may, however, address a younger person by name
only.

The author presents the theoretical framework that defines the main concepts related to the study starting with
the social deixis that is concerned with those aspects of language structure that encode the social identities of
participants, or the social relationships between them, or between one of them and persons and entities referred
to. Then, the concept of politeness is introduced and linked with the face as the public self-image. This image is
either positive or negative and are both used, consciously or unconsciously, in the conversation as the situation
demands.

Names, the first form of address, are classified into two main types; traditional and Islamic. Traditional names
are already found in the language of Dagomba, while Islamic names are derived from Arabic. Kinship terms are
classified into superior kin which includes, among many, yaba (grandfather), (yab) paga (grandmother) ma
(mother), ba (father), bakpema (‘senior father’, i.e. father’s older brother/cousin). In Dagomba culture, any
speaker who addresses any person who is older than he should use a kinship term in front of the name of the
addressee such as mapira (junior mother/ mother’s younger sister or cousin) and pirba (father’s younger or older
sister or cousin). Inferior kinship terms are used whenever the speaker is younger than the addressee. Such
terms may include bia (son/daughter/nephew/niece), tuzo (younger brother/sister/cousin/).

The exceptional use of kinship and social terms to show respect has been also emphasized in other communities
and cultures such as the Chinese and Japanese. You (2014) states that words expressing relationship, e.g.
father, aunt, or position, e.g. teacher, lecturer, are used as address terms to show respect and/or signal the
formality of the situation, for example, Mandarin Chinese: baba qing chi; Japanese: sensei dozo! The address
forms of a language are arranged into a complex address system with its own rules which need to be acquired
if a person wants to communicate appropriately. However, Salifu (2010) states that in the Dagomba culture kin
terms can also be used to address non-related adults who are strangers to each other. Men address other adult
strangers of both sexes as father’s kin (bapira), whilst women address adult strangers as mother’s kin (mapira).

The method adopted in Salifu (2010) is qualitative but mainly dependent on the researcher himself as he is a
speaker of the Dagomba dialect. He also relies on personal interviews held with some families living in Dagbanli.
Relying on personal claims and personal interviews may weaken the conclusions made in this study. However,
this may be justified by the fact that such dialects do not have formal records written about them. The problem
is stated at the very beginning of the study and the hypotheses are also presented in a straight forward manner.
Yet, the procedures adopted in collecting and analyzing data are not very clear such as the way the researcher
conducts the interviews and which claims are based on which interviews. However, the evidences provided are
very effective in supporting the main argument raised in the study. These are sometimes linked with other
evidences and that makes the argument more convincing.

The studies reviewed above focused on disagreement in Tannen and Kakava (1992), and forms of address in
Salifu (2010). Both studies employed a qualitative approach in collecting data supported by researchers’
personal perceptions. They both depended on observing and recording the linguistic behavior of informants;
Salifu (2010) made use of interviews to support his personal claims while Tannen and Kakava (1992) transcribed
all incidents of disagreement and accompany the transcription with word to word glosses. This difference may
be ascribed to the different audience each study targets. The procedures of choosing informants in Tannen and
Kakava (1992), and executing interviews in Salifu (2010) are both obscure and should have been explained in
more detail

NON-NATIVE INFORMANT STUDIES

Socio-pragmatic studies that investigate the linguistic behavior of interlocutors using the foreign or the second
language are few in number. Mendez and Garcia’s study (2012) is concerned with power and solidarity relations
manifested by foreign learners of English in the classroom. The study is based on a critical discourse analysis
referring to school students’ power and solidarity relations in English as a foreign language in an elementary
school in Bogota, Colombia. The study is inspired by Fairclough’s (1989) statement on the possibility of dealing
with power and solidarity relations in any context where people interact with each other regardless of the medium
of discourse they use, native or non-native. The study claims that there are various techniques of exercising
power and solidarity in the classroom. It also assumes that reproaches can be used to exercise, resist, and
challenge power. Solidarity, on the other hand, can be represented by taking sides to protect colleagues in the
class.

Mendez and Garcia (2012) made use of the learner-based approach they adopted in their teaching methodology
in which the learner is the focus of the educational process. Keeping the eye on students as generators of power
and solidarity gave researchers the chance to recognize them as persons as well as learners. The study’s focus
was on (1) finding the way power and solidarity dynamics occur in the classroom when students work in groups
and on (2) detecting the effect of power and solidarity in directing the class and modifying its development.

The informants targeted in the study included a class of 34 students from the fifth grade. Half of the informants
belonged to low and middle-income households and the other half to high income households. After establishing
procedures of data analysis, the subjects were video-recorded while working together. These procedures were
later used in analyzing video-recordings in order to arrive at certain interpretations. These interpretations were
validated by interviewing students and asking them for explanations for certain actions and behaviors. The study
investigated two different types of relations; students-students and students-teacher relations. In each type of
relation, the techniques of showing power and solidarity are different. It was observed that some of the
characteristics of the students’ power, among others, had to do with discipline, responsibility, fellowship,
resistance, reproach, and silence. Teachers represent the dominant party in a class, yet students assume
positions of power when they work together. In most events, good students exert power in the class; though in
some other cases silent students assume positions of power in front of colleagues, since a student who keeps
silent forces others to speak. Teachers usually express power via the reproaches they use inside the classroom,
while students use reproaches to complain about others’ performance and behavior. This technique can also be
used by students to show solidarity with the teachers. A student, for example, might tell the teacher that his
colleague had not done his/her homework, had not participated in a task, etc. Students also show their solidarity
with their teammates when grouped together to perform a certain task.

Senowarsito (2013) examines strategies used by teacher and students in two 90 minute English lessons in a
senior high school in Indonesia to show politeness. The data were video-recorded from two classroom settings
where English was the object and the medium of teaching. Data was analyzed in terms of Brown and Levinson‘
s politeness Theory. As in Mendez and Garcia (2012) classroom interaction is by large dominated by the teacher
to instruct, explain, appreciate, encourage, and respond to students’ questions. Due to students’ limited linguistic
competence, their interaction was basically to respond to teachers’ questions and instructions. The study showed
that various positive, negative and on record strategies have been identified in the discourse sued by teachers
and students in classroom interaction.

Students tend to use some interpersonal function markers and linguistic expressions that include addressing,
encouraging, thanking, apologizing, and leave–taking as well as some other non-verbal expressions. Social
distance created by age difference and institutional setting is still prominent in classroom interactions. To be
polite, teachers employ strategies such as reducing the threat of face using group identity markers and
expressions of sympathy, showing respect and establishing a close relationship. Similarly to reduce power,
teachers try to appreciate students' participation and use indirect speech acts and solidarity makers. Imperative
expressions teachers give are often softened by the expression ‘please’.

Both studies explored teachers’ and students’ linguistic strategies used in classroom interactions indicating that
teachers usually represent the powerful side in the class, yet teachers often try to create close relations with their
students. Actually, the English language becomes an object of learning, rather than a medium of communication
in the English lesson. The focus is often on the linguistic and semantic features of the language instead of the
pragmatic features. Teachers rarely pay attention to the pragmatic issues of language use. Consequently,
students are still unaware of these issues and their pragmatic abilities still lag behind.
MIXED INFORMANT STUDIES

Mixed informant studies target communities in which people who come from various linguistic backgrounds
speak the same language. Formentelli’s (2010) targets mixed informants, who come from different countries and
speak different languages but study together in an academic setting, namely the University of Reading, and use
English as the medium of instruction. This study deals with verbal and the non-verbal patterns of address, the
use of nominal and prenominal forms, the level of formality shown by students and teachers, and the influence
of hierarchical relations on the frequency of certain address strategies. Hickey and Stewart (2005); Helmbrecht
(2003) refer to the unusual system of address forms in English which makes it different from other European
languages. Accordingly, power and solidarity are not expressed on a binary address system based on T/V
pronouns.

The data collection methodology used relies basically on a nine month field research during which the corpus
was collected. It includes observing the linguistic behavior of participants and semi-structured interviews
conducted with 26 informants, 18 students and 8 teachers and video-recording of lessons. Observation was
useful in detecting the categories of forms used in interactions and to form hypotheses about the variables and
mechanisms framing the phenomenon of address.

The study found that a reciprocal usage of formal address forms indicating distance has not been identified by
participants or reported in video-recordings. The mutual use of informal address forms denoting familiarity was
not as frequent as was expected and illustrated in previous models and described as marked by subjects.
Although some students evaluate reciprocal informal address as a motivating factor as it helps create a suitable
atmosphere for studying and collaborating with their lecturers, the majority still prefer to use formal strategies as
a way to show respect. This is shown frequently in the address forms used by first year students. They feel more
at ease in employing the non-reciprocal use of address forms highly employed at secondary schools. Lecturers
show different opinions with regard to the use of reciprocal informal address, as some encourage the use of first
name for students, while others emphasize the necessity of signaling boundaries.

The study also finds that differences in power regulate the choice and distribution of address forms in the
academic setting. Formal forms of address are used to address the more powerful party, while informal strategies
are used with less powerful addressees. Furthermore, the change to reciprocal informal vocatives is initiated by
the powerful side and never by the less powerful. Interestingly, the findings of this study show different linguistic
behavior from the ones described over the last decades for American academic settings. The British speakers
are keener on keeping the asymmetrical distribution of address forms and consider reciprocal informal strategy
as a marked choice.
Yet, the study does not make use of the chance of having a mixed community that encompasses students
coming from different parts of the world to dig deeper for possible differences in the use of address forms during
classroom interaction. It would have been so tremendous if the researcher had kept an eye on the ways natives
and non-natives used address forms in classroom interactions and try to identify whether students who belong
to different cultures made efforts to assimilate into the new academic setting or stick to their linguistic and social
habits. No reference is made to instances of code-switching that is very popular in communities where more than
one language is present though code-switching is one of the ways that denote power or create solidarity in
multilingual communities (Walker, 2011).

Sliwa and Johansson (2014) examine the effects of evaluations of non-native speaking staff’s spoken English in
international business settings. The study proposes a sociolinguistic perspective of power and variations in
linguistically miscellaneous establishments in an Anglophone environment. The study proposes a critical
consideration of language and power in these establishments via concentrating on verbal language use in a
diverse linguistic setting in which English is the official medium of interaction. The study employs a qualitative
approach, namely an interpretive approach, where reflexive analysis of the researchers’ responses to the
participants’ spoken English are offered. Sliwa and Johansson (2014) implicate that managers need to
comprehend the relation between English language used by native and non-native speakers and power and
inequalities in their organizations. Evaluations made by non-native listeners and speakers encompass several
non-linguistic factors which may deepen disparities among staff and eventually lead to conflicts and rejections.
Such conflicts and rejections will possibly result in negative impacts on the organization. Creating a linguistically
inclusive climate inside the organization requires the development of corporate policies and processes which
overtly address language attitudes and the use of language.

Following Giles and Marlow’s (2011), the study employs direct interviews to construct the research design.
Altogether, 54 semi-structured interviews were conducted between March-September 2012 with foreign
academics working at 19 business schools in the UK. Participants were either recruited from university websites
or through the researchers’ direct contact with these participants. Several criteria such as L1 background and
the type of work occupied were considered in the selection of participants. The interviews were recorded and
transcribed. Data were analyzed in a reflexive manner starting by reading and coding respective transcripts to
identify the ways participants used to account for events and emotions related to the use of English. Transcripts
were later shared and discussed by researchers. A framework that can account for non-native speakers’ use of
English, in addition to evaluations was used. The process of data analysis and interpretation required sequential
and repeated series of shifting between the empirical data, the thematized material and the theoretical notions
utilized.

The study is a call for international business researchers to conduct further studies of the relationship between
language use, power and inequalities in organizations. Understanding the meaning and dynamics of such
categories of diversity has significant implications for managing power relations and inequalities in organizations
operating in the international business environment. By contrast to a situation where the lack of linguistic
solidarity between speakers leads to negative evaluations of non-native speakers and to the construction and
perpetuation of organizational inequalities, where linguistic similarities are perceived, such negative evaluations
do not arise. Through adopting the sociolinguistic framework of status, solidarity and dynamism, the
interdisciplinarity of international business research was extended to demonstrate how concepts and ideas
developed by sociolinguistic research can help understanding phenomena occurring in contemporary
multicultural and multilingual organizations. The study recommends that organizations arrange regular staff
training courses on the influences of language used by managers and employees in creating a more linguistically
inclusive environment.

The research design was basically based on recorded interviews which could have been preceded by a
questionnaire that tells something about what informants believe in and actually do in their interactions.
Moreover, native speakers’ evaluations were not included as a source of data; hence, discussing the judgments
about non-native speakers’ use of language made by standard speakers was not attempted. Speakers’ and
listeners’ evaluations made with regard to interactions where the same speakers and listeners engaged were
unfortunately not considered.

It is obvious from the two studies reviewed above that managing multilingual diversity through a focus on finding
a common language does not inevitably generate an integrative outcome (Piekkari, Vaara, Tienari & Säntti,
2005). Yet, profounder understanding of the language used by people who come from different linguistic
backgrounds and work or study in the same setting can be helpful in creating a more productive and friendly
environment in which conflicts and prejudices can be avoided.

CROSS CULTURAL STUDIES

Misic (2004) refers to the significance of cross-cultural studies by claiming that there are rules for polite
acceptance or refusal, greetings, conversation topics, forms of address, in all societies but these rules differ
cross-culturally. Thus, a certain linguistic behavior is acceptable or even desirable in a certain society but is
inappropriate or even taboo in another. These differences may seem totally random but are actually closely
connected with different social values and attitudes of different societies. In spite of the importance of cross-
cultural studies, very few researches have investigated power and solidarity relations in two different cultures
looking for possible similarities between the two.

Spencer-Oatey (1997) is a cross cultural study that deals with people’s conceptions of an unequal role
relationship in two different types of cultures: a high power distance society and a low power one. The study
employs a mixed, qualitative and quantitative, method that bases its investigation on a questionnaire and
interviews. 166 British and 168 Chinese tutors and postgraduate students in three different British universities
and different tertiary institutions in Beijing and Shanghai were asked to respond to a questionnaire which aims
at investigating their conceptions of degrees of power differential and social solidarity in this role relationship.
Results hinted to a significant nationality effect for both aspects. Chinese participants judged the relationship to
be closer and having a greater power differential than the British respondents did. Written comments on the
questionnaire and interviews with 9 Chinese with experience of both British and Chinese academic environments
confirmed the statistical findings. The comments stated that there are major ideological differences related to the
differing conceptions.

The study results are discussed in terms of Western and Asian concepts of leadership, and differing perspectives
on the compatibility/incompatibility of power and solidarity. With regard to power, the study follows Pye’s (1985)
and Wetzel’s (1993) which refer to the contrast between Asian and Western concepts of power. These two
studies point out that in the West; power is usually linked negatively with authoritarianism, whereas in Asia it is
often linked positively with kindness and supportiveness.

The study has a great degree of authenticity as it depends on a mixed method which makes use of statistics,
comments and interviews. Practically speaking, the study adds to the body of knowledge about cross-cultural
differences and their effects on social relations. The findings of the study are of great benefit to people from
Britain and China in particular as it informs them of the differences between British and Chinese communities
which may be problematic for interlocutors in a cross-cultural encounter. The only thing that the researcher could
have done extra is to find British people to interview besides the nine Chinese interviewed and ask them to give
comments.

Bargiela, Boz, Gokzadze, Hamza, Mills, and Rukhadze (2003) investigate the way ethnocentricism, and in
particular anglocentrism, informs certain linguistic strategies in cross-cultural interactions between British and
American speakers and speakers of English from other countries. The authors assume that for many British and
American speakers, informality is considered as an indicator of ease of communication and solidarity with
strangers. In British and American societies, there is a tendency to move towards first name basis as quickly as
possible as it is a politeness strategy. Yet, in other language groups, such strategy may be regarded as impolite.
The study also investigates strategies of politeness and distance used in English, Italian, Arabic and Georgian
along with the various strategies of naming used in different countries and their effect on social relations.

The data analyzed in this study were collected from previous literature about the subject and the personal claims
and assumptions each of the authors has about his native language. No recordings, interviews or questionnaire
were conducted to collect data for analysis. Yet, the conclusions attained seem reasonable and well supported
by a sufficient number of examples. The study concludes that British and American speakers of English should
reconsider the assumption that involvement politeness strategies are perceived by people from different cultural
backgrounds in opposite ways rather than the one intended. Calling others by their first name, for example, is
regarded as a sign of friendliness and solidarity in communities like the British or Georgian. However, it is a sign
of deference and over-familiarity in other communities like the Arabs and Russians, especially when social
variables such as age, status and gender are not regarded.

Therefore, great attention should be directed to the appropriateness of address forms in cross-cultural
interactions. Social variables like age, education, status, gender, etc. should also be taken care of not only in
cross-cultural interactions but also in local interactions in which the interlocutors are supposed to be equal
(Salzman, 1993). The researchers also conclude, following Fraser (1990), that each society has a specific set of
social traditions, including more or less explicit rules that judge a certain behavior, a state of affairs, or a way of
thinking, governing polite behavior. Being polite definitely means to show respect or solidarity towards your
partner and to avoid offending him. Linguistic strategies used to show politeness are formulated within different
social and cultural backgrounds; thus, the ways solidarity is shown by interlocutors could be more or less different
based on these social and cultural backgrounds.

The interesting thing about the two cross-cultural studies reviewed above is that they look for possible differences
among various languages and cultures that should be considered in any cross-cultural encounter to avoid
misunderstanding. The first study targets two different cultures, while the second is more comprehensive as it
targets five different cultures. The first study, however, seems more objective than the second since it relies on
qualitative and quantitative data collection. The second study relies entirely on personal claims made by the five
authors who belong to the five cultures. Yet, the study findings from the second study are well supported by
examples which may give the study the trait of objectiveness and reliability.

CONCLUSION

Socio-pragmatic studies are among the most interesting undertakings as they take care of the language people
use to address each other in preserving social relations and respecting cultural values of the community they
live in. Socio-pragmatic competence entails more than just linguistic and lexical knowledge. It entails that the
speaker has the ability to vary speech in accordance with the situational or social values present (Harlow, 1990).
People are always obsessed with the desire to be as friendly as possible to gain the favor of their addressees.
That is why speakers are very careful with what they say to and how they address others. The studies above
are all endeavors to investigate the social and cultural implications contained in different people’s speech. More
research efforts may be needed to investigate similar aspects of other societies in order to provide linguists with
the raw material needed to understand the way people talk to each other and the communicative goals they want
to achieve
Cross-cultural studies are strongly required as they give a broader idea of the linguistic choices people from
different cultures make in similar social settings. Studies that attempt to examine that behavior in mixed informant
communities are also recommended, as they can show how people who belong to different cultures linguistically
behave when they are in the same setting. Instances of code-switching in mixed environments can be a way of
showing power and solidarity inside the classroom and that would very interesting to examine. The review
presented here indicates the need for conducting more socio-pragmatic studies that investigate various social
relations in interactions where people use foreign or second languages. More cross-cultural studies that look for
possible similarities and differences in the way people from different cultures perceive social relations and
express them are also needed. Cross-cultural studies, in which informants from different cultures use non-native
language such as English for example, are also lacking in the literature.

GENDER AND LANGUAGE

Since the early 1990s, the theme of men and women metaphorically ‘speaking different languages’ has become
very common in popular culture. According to books like Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, women
love to talk, whereas men prefer action to words. Women view talking as a way of connecting with others
emotionally, whereas men treat conversation either as a practical tool or a competitive sport. Women are good
at listening, building rapport with others and avoiding or defusing conflict; men confront each other more directly,
and are less attuned to either their own or others’ feelings (Gray, 1992: 21). More recently, a new wave of popular
scientific writing has linked these observations to differences in the way male and female brains work (Baron-
Cohen, 2003; Brizendine, 2006). One study of Australian school children’s attitudes to foreign language learning
found that pupils as young as 12 knew all the ‘Mars and Venus’ clichés. ‘Girls can do languages – that’s how
their brains are’, said one boy. Another commented: ‘Girls enjoy talk: it’s what they do, what they’re good at’.
Most of the girls agreed that ‘boys are hopeless communicators!’ (Carr and Pauwels, 2006: 146).

But when you embark on the academic study of language and gender, you will quickly notice how different it is
in its assumptions, questions, methods and conclusions. Academic researchers, unlike popular writers, do not
equate studying gender with cataloguing differences between men and women. The more evidence has
accumulated from studying men and women in a range of communities and contexts, the clearer it has become
that generalizations along the lines of ‘men use language like this and women use it like that’ may be accepted
as oversimplification.

Sex or Gender?
The British sociologist Giddens (1989) defines sex as biological or anatomical differences between male and
female, whereas gender concerns the psychological, social and cultural differences between man and woman.
In other words, sex is something you have, and it can be defined in terms of objective, scientific criteria- that is,
the number of X chromosomes a person has. Gender, on the other hand, is social property: something acquired
or constructed through your relationships with others through an individual’s adherence to certain cultural norms
and proscriptions. Gender is not something we are born with, and not something we have, but something we
do– something we perform (Butler, 1990: 302). Imagine a small boy proudly following his father. As he swaggers
and sticks out his chest, he is doing everything he can to be like his father - to be a man. Chances are his father
is not swaggering, but the boy is creating a persona that embodies what he is admiring in his adult male role
model. The same is true of a small girl as she puts on her mother’s high-heeled shoes, smears makeup on her
face and minces around the room. Chances are that when these children are grown they will not swagger and
mince respectively, but their childhood performances contain elements that will no doubt surface in their adult
male and female behaviors. Chances are, also, that the girl will adopt that swagger on occasion as well, but
adults are not likely to consider it her mincing as “cute as her mincing act. Chances are that if the boy decides
to try a little mincing, he won’t be considered cute at all. In other words, gender performances are available to
everyone, but with them constraints come on who can perform which personae with impunity. And this is where
gender and sex come together, as society tries to match up ways of behaving with biological sex assignments
(West and Zimmerman, 1987: 121).

Sex is a biological categorization based primarily on reproductive potential, whereas gender is the social
elaboration of biological sex. Gender builds on biological sex, it exaggerates biological difference and, indeed, it
carries biological difference into domains in which it is completely irrelevant. There is no biological reason, for
example, why women should mince and men should swagger, or why women should like to have their nails
polished and men should not. But while we think of sex as biological and gender as social, this distinction is not
clear-cut. People tend to think of gender as the result of nurture -as social and hence fluid -while sex is simply
given by biology. However, there is no obvious point at which sex leaves off and gender begins, partly because
there is no single objective biological criterion for male or female sex. Sex is based in a combination of
anatomical, endocrinal and chromosomal features, and the selection among these criteria for sex assignment is
based very much on cultural beliefs about what actually makes someone male or female. Thus the very definition
of the biological categories male and female, and people’s understanding of themselves and others as male or
female, is ultimately social. Fausto-Sterling sums up the situation as follows “...labeling someone a man or a
woman is a social decision. We may use scientific knowledge to help us make the decision, but only our beliefs
about gender -not science-can define our sex. Furthermore, our beliefs about gender affect what kinds of
knowledge scientists produce about sex in the first place (2000: 3).”

It is commonly argued that biological differences between males and females determine gender by causing
enduring differences in capabilities and dispositions. Higher levels of testosterone, for example, are said to lead
men to be more aggressive than women; and left-brain dominance is said to lead men to be more ‘‘rational’’
while their relative lack of brain lateralization should lead women to be more ‘‘emotional.’’ But the relation
between physiology and behavior is not simple, and it is all too easy to leap for gender dichotomies. It has been
shown that hormonal levels, brain activity patterns, and even brain anatomy can be a result of different activity
as well as a cause. For example research with species as diverse as monkeys (Rose et al., 1972) and fish (Fox
et al., 1997) has documented changes in hormone levels as a result of changes in social position. Work on sex
differences in the brain is very much in its early stages, and as Fausto-Sterling (2000: 647) points out in
considerable detail, it is far from conclusive. What is supposed to be the most robust finding - that women’s
corpus callosum, the link between the two brain hemispheres, is relatively larger than men’s – is still anything
but robust. Men’s smaller corpus callosum is supposed to result in greater lateralization, while women’s larger
one is supposed to yield greater integration between the two hemispheres, at least in visuo-spatial functions. But
given that evidence for sex-linked brain differences in humans is based on very small samples, often from sick
or injured populations, generalizations about sex differences are shaky at best. In addition, not that much is
known about the connections between brain physiology and cognition - hence about the consequences of any
physiological differences scientists may be seeking or finding. Nonetheless, any results that might support
physiological differences are readily snatched up and combined with any variety of gender stereotypes in some
often quite fantastic leaps of logic. The products of these leaps can in turn feed directly into social, and particularly
into educational policy with arguments that gender equity in such ‘‘leftbrain areas’’ as mathematics and
engineering is impossible.

Do Males and Females Think and Learn differently?

The question of gender differences in intelligence or academic achievement has been debated for centuries, and
the issue has taken on particular importance since the early 1970s. The most important thing to keep in mind
about this debate is that no responsible researcher has ever claimed that any male-female differences on any
measure of intellectual ability are large in comparison to the amount of variability within each sex. In other words,
even in areas in which true gender differences are suspected, these differences are so small and so variable
that they have few practical consequences (Fennema, Carpenter, Jacobs, Franke and Levi, 1998). Far more
important are differences caused by cultural expectations and norms. For example, twelfth-grade girls score
significantly lower than boys on the quantitative section of the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) (Gallagher and
De Lisi, 1994) and on Advanced
Placement tests in mathematics (Stumpf and Stanley, 1996). A summary of 20 major studies shows that males
scored better than females in math, whereas the opposite was true on English tests. Surprisingly, males scored
better on multiple choice tests, but not on other formats. There may be a biological basis for such differences,
but none has been proven. The most important cause is that females in our society have traditionally been
discouraged from studying mathematics and therefore take many fewer math courses than males do. In fact, as
females have begun to take more math courses over the past two decades, the gender gap on the SAT and on
other measures has been steadily diminishing (Fennema, et al., 1998: 278).
Bearing these cautions in mind, note that studies generally find that males score higher than females on tests of
general knowledge, mechanical reasoning, and mental rotations; females score higher on language measures,
including reading and writing assessments, and on attention and planning tasks (Warrick and Naglieri, 1993).
There are no male-female differences in general verbal ability, arithmetic skills, abstract reasoning, spatial
visualization, or memory span (Fennema et al., 1998). There is an interesting argument about variability of
performance in certain areas. For example, Feingold has argued that males are more variable than females in
quantitative reasoning-that is, that there are more very high-achieving males and more very low-achieving males
than there are females in either category (1992: 47). Studies of students who are extremely gifted in mathematics
consistently find a substantially higher number of males than females in this category: However, there is still a
lively debate about the idea that males are more variable than females in intellectual abilities (Bielinski and
Davison, 1998: 353-4).

In school grades, females start out with an advantage over males and maintain this advantage into high school.
Even in math and science, in which females score some- what lower on tests, females still get better grades in
class ( Maher and Ward, 2002). Despite this, high school males tend to overestimate their skills in language and
math, while females underestimate their skills. In elementary school, males are much more likely than female s
to have reading problems and are much likely to have learning disabilities or emotional disorders (Smith, 1991).

Sex-Role Stereotyping and Gender Bias

If there are so few genetically based differences between males and females, why do so many behavioral
differences exist? These behavioral differences originate from different experiences, including reinforcement by
adults for different types of behavior.

Male and female babies have traditionally been treated differently from the time they are born. The wrapping of
the infant in either a pink or a blue blanket symbolizes the variations in experience that typically greet the child
from birth onward. In early studies, adults described boy or girl babies wrapped in blue blankets as being more
active than the same babies wrapped in pink. Other masculine traits were also ascribed to those wrapped in blue
(Baxter, 1994). Although gender bias awareness has begun to have some impact on child-rearing practices,
children do begin to make gender distinctions and have gender preferences around the age of 3 or 4. Thus,
children enter school having been socialized into appropriate gender-role behavior for their age in relation to
community expectations (Delamont, 2001). Differences in approved gender roles between boys and girls tend
to be much stronger in low- Social Economic Situated families than in high- SES families (Flanagan, 1993).

Socialization into this kind of approved sex-role behavior continues throughout life, and schools contribute to it.
Though interactions between socialization experiences and achievement are complex and it is difficult to make
generalizations, schools differentiate between the sexes in a number of ways. In general, males receive more -
attention from their teachers than females do. Males receive more disapproval and blame from their teachers
than females do, but they also engage in more interactions with their teachers in such areas as approval,
instruction giving, and being listened to. Teachers tend to punish females more promptly and explicitly for
aggressive behavior than they do males. Torrance (1986) found that the creative behavior of males was
rewarded by teachers three times oftener than that of females. Other differentiations are subtle, as girls are
directed to play in the house corner while boys are provided with blocks or when boys are given the drums to
play in music class, girls are given the triangles.

Development of Gender Roles

As for all aspects of human development, there are two main influences on the development of gender role:
genetics and environment. Although it has not been proved completely yet, there are strong indications that
some male and female differences are biological. Lefrancois (1997) states that the greater aggressiveness of
males relative to females is a good example for the idea that the differences come from biology. Males tend to
be more aggressive not only in most human societies, but also among most non-human animal species. Male
aggressiveness may be linked to the presence of male hormones as when females are given testestorone
injections, they too tend to become more aggressive.

The effect of environment can be named as the influence of social roles and expectations. In spite of the
biological aggressiveness of males, the roles assigned by the society to an individual is a determining factor in
the different male and female behaviors. Lefroncois (1997) exemplifies this with the following: when young
American children are asked which personality characteristics are masculine and which are feminine, they
typically have no problem in agreeing on the characteristics for each gender. That may be because in North
American societies, most occupations and many sports requiring aggression have traditionally been restricted
to males while non-aggressive and more nurturant behavior to females. Society provides children with clear
models and children see them everywhere: at home, on TV, on playground and at school. The message they
got as a result of this is that there are behaviors, occupations, interests and attitudes that are clearly appropriate
for one gender but inappropriate for the other.

More interestingly, in a study by Kelly and Grotton (cited in Lefrancois, 1997), it was indicated that masculine
roles are more constraining than feminine roles. While, it is acceptable for girls to show masculine interests and
to engage in masculine activities, it is less acceptable for boys to be feminine. Girls in trousers are acceptable
in a way that boys in dresses will probably never be. Both boys and girls generally agree that the masculine role
is the preferable role. When boys and girls in the study are asked ‘if you wake up tomorrow and discover that
you were girl (boy) how would your life be different?’, ‘terrible’, or ‘that would be catastrope’, or ‘a disaster’ the
boys answered. But the girls responded very differently. They said ‘great’. The study shows that boys saw girls
as more passive, weaker, more restricted in activities and more emotional. However, girls viewed boys as more
active, less concerned with appearance, more aggressive, more athletic and better able to travel and develop a
career.

Woolfolk (1980:175) introduces the term ‘gender-role identity’ which is the image each individual has of himself
or herself as masculine or feminine in characteristics- a part of self-concept. People with a ‘feminine’ identity
would rate themselves high on characteristics usually associated with males, such as ‘sensitive’ or ‘ warm’, and
low on characteristics traditionally associated with males, such as ‘forceful’ and ‘competitive’. The question how
gender role identities develop can be answered in two ways. Firstly, the role of biology can be mentioned.
Hormones affect the activity level and aggression; therefore, boys tend to prefer active, rough and noisy play
while girls prefer plays that require less activity. Secondly, social and cognitive factors can be regarded as
affecting the gender-role identity. As an example to this it can be said that parents are more likely to react
positively to assertive behavior on the part of their sons and emotional sensitivity in their daughters. Through
their interactions with family, peers, teachers and the environment, children begin to form as Woolfolk (1980)
calls it ‘gender schemas’ or ‘organized networks of knowledge’ about what it means to be male or female. Gender
schemas help children make sense of the world and guide their behavior. So a young girl, whose schema for
girls includes girls play with dolls and not with trucks, will remember and interact more with dolls than trucks
(Liben and Signorella, cited in Woolfolk, 1980).

Gender and Language

It is not a myth that gender influences language use-but that is not simply because men and women are naturally
different kinds of people. Rather, gender influences linguistic behavior because of its impact on other things that
influence linguistic behavior more directly. The way people use language can be related to the social network
they belong to, their habitual activities, their identities as particular kinds of people and their status relative to
others. Each of these things is potentially affected by gender divisions which are characteristics of our society.
As Cameron (2000) claims, there is a complex relationship between language and gender in the academic
studies of language and gender. Holmes (cited in Bergwall 1999) formulates six candidate universals regarding
language and gender:
1. Women and men develop different patterns of language use
2. Women tend to focus on the affective functions of an interaction more often than men do.
3. Women tend to use linguistic devices that stress solidarity more often than men do.
4. Women tend to interact in ways that will maintain and increase solidarity, while especially in formal contexts
men tend to interact in ways that will maintain and increase their power and status.
5. Women use more standard forms than men from the same social group in the same social context.
6. Women are stylistically more flexible than men.
Although there are dangers in seeking generalizations as above, Holmes’s formulations support the common
assumption that there may be some common ground underlying the linguistic positions of women and men in
the world (Bergwall, 1999).

Community of Practice (CofP) Theory

Community of Practice Theory helps in understanding human behavior and particularly linguistic behavior. The
term Community of Practice was introduced to language and gender research by Echert and McConnell-Ginnet
(1992). They define CofP as follows: An aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagement in
an endeavor. Ways of doing things, ways of talking, beliefs, values power relations- in short practices- emerge
in the course of this mutual endeavor. As a social construct, a CofP is different from the traditional community,
primarily because it is defined simultaneously by its membership and by the practice in which that membership
engages (1992:464).

Holmes and Meyerhoff (1999) state that the process of becoming a member of a CofP- as when one joins a new
workplace, a book group, or a new family (e.g through marriage)- involves learning. When someone learns to
perform appropriately in a CofP according to their membership status, they initially become a peripheral member
but later become a core member. Thus, a CofP inevitably involves the acquisition of sociolinguistic competence.
In other words, members of a community influence each other in their behaviors or activities. When somebody
joins a new group, he is like an apprentice. In order to be a member of a group, they first observe the activities
and practices of other group members and they adjust their behaviors according to the group’s, namely
community’s expectations. They subconsciously acquire the behaviors that are expected from them. These
behaviors also include some specific aspects of language structure, discourse, and interaction patterns.

Recent research on the relationships between language and gender claim that gender is socially constructed in
interaction, rather than existing as a fixed social category, to which individuals are assigned at birth. Thus, CofP
theory supports the idea that the way we use language is learned from the people around us. For a male baby,
for instance, stereotypes like father and brother in the community of family affect the way he acquires the
language while for a female one mother and sister have the major influence. Paralleling to this, Ponyton (1985)
states that all members of society is important but parents and educators are important in particular because
they are the primary agents of the society in the socialization of children into these institutionalized attitudes. It
is from their mouths that children hear the words, and the ways of speaking, that will eventually become their
words, their ways of speaking.

Gender/Sex and First Language Acquisition

General acceptance about children’s way of learning their mother tongue is quite straightforward; it is natural
and without striking a blow. There is always difference in talent when children study other knowledge, for
example, some children are good at mathematics, while others have a talent for physics. However, there is little
difference in mother tongue acquisition. Although children’s living environments differ in thousands of ways and
experiences in physics and intelligence are totally different, these differences do not influence their acquisition
of mother tongue at all. Five or six-year-old, regardless of their gender, have the same language ability roughly
despite their different language environments. It’s easy for children to learn their mother tongue and acquire
language ability unconsciously (Li and Bu, 2006). However, there are also several studies of first language
acquisition (Douglas, 1964; Morris, 1966) that have shown girls to be better learners than boys. Trudgill (1974)
showed that women used the prestige variants more frequently than men and related this phenomenon to female
social insecurity. Differences between male and female L1 learners appear more in studies conducted in bilingual
settings; and such studies favor female learners in acquiring the languages they are exposed to. In a study of
Punjabi migrant children in England, Agnihotri showed that girls assimilated the prestige variants faster than the
boys; they were also better at resisting the stigmatised variants (1979). Satyanath, too, found that Kannadiga
women in Delhi showed a higher percentage of assimilation of linguistic features associated with Hindi and also
a higher degree of usage than men. He found that younger women assimilated the host society's language and
culture maximally (1982). Unlike Trudgill, who holds social insecurity to be responsible for greater use of prestige
variants, Satyanath attributes it to the sociocultural aspects of the Kannadiga community, which provides women
a greater opportunity of interaction with the host society and this seems to be the underlying reason in female
learners outscoring their counterparts (1974).

Gender/Sex and Second Language Acquisition (SLA)

SLA, which is a sub area of applied linguistics, has become a genuine field of research for the last three decades.
Previously, the research of gender and SLA basically focused on the topics valued in the area of SLA;
nevertheless, with the change of perspectives it started to investigate the teachers and the learners more. In the
previous period, only such studies that were based on positivist or post-positivist assumptions were respected
by many scholars. As Davis and Skilton-Sylvester state real science meant only experimental or
quasiexperimental design, surveys, and post-positivist qualitative studies to such scholars; and assuming only
this hierarchy as the real track to follow neglects the wide range of contributions made through other paradigms
(including gender) and excludes research participants’ diverse experiences, “thereby creating conditions for
inaccurate, inequitable and discriminatory outcomes” (2004: 388).

Ellis (1994) discusses the difference between the terms "sex" and "gender" and supports the two principles
Labov suggested: “In stable sociolinguistic stratification, men use a higher frequency of nonstandard forms than
women and in the majority of linguistic changes, women use a higher frequency of the incoming forms than men
(1991: 206-7).”
Then he turns Labov's generalizations into an hypothesis that follows as "women might be better at L2 learning
than men as they are likely to be more open to new linguistic forms in the L2 input and they will be more likely to
rid themselves of interlanguage forms that deviate from target-language norms"
(Ellis, 1994: 202).

Two studies, Burstall's (1975) research in England on primary school students of French and Boyle's (1987)
research in Hong Kong on university students of English, reveal that female students were more successful than
20 male students in the exams applied. However, Ellis does not reach conclusive results on these findings; he
states that such generalizations might be misleading as Boyle's study also indicated higher achievement of male
students in listening tests and the study by Bacon (1992) of university students of Spanish in the US found no
such significant difference between boys and girls (1994: 204-5).

Apart from achievement, the attitudes towards language learning and motivation are two factors directly related
to gender. According to Gardner and Lambert’s study, female students of L2 French in Canada were more
motivated than the male students and also had more positive attitudes towards the speakers of the target
language (Block, 2002). Similarly, Bacon and Finnemann (1992) found that female university students of Spanish
in the US were more instrumentally motivated than male students.

Conclusion
In conclusion, sex marks the distinction between women and men as a result of their biological, physical and
genetic differences. Gender roles are set by convention and other social, economic, political and cultural forces.
From this perspective, sex is fixed and based in nature; gender is fluid and based in culture. This distinction
constitutes progress compared with ‘biology is destiny’. Furthermore, for many people the sex categories of
female and male are neither fixed nor universal, but vary over time and across cultures. Accordingly, sex, like
gender, is seen as a social and cultural construct. Bearing these in mind, it can be said that the reason behind
this can be the gender roles between male and female students.

Men’s and women’s speech differs because boys and girls are brought up differently and men and women have
different roles in society. The effect of biology on the behaviors and activities of both genders is undeniable.
However; the effect of biology on the language acquisition of females in a different way has not been proved yet.
Based on this, it can be said that language teachers should use, develop or apply different language te aching
materials and techniques for students of different genders. In addition, different learning styles in language
learning and strategies should be taken into consideration for different genders. As it has been stated, because
there is no obvious evidence related to different language acquisition in both sexes, the efficacy of applying
different teaching methodologies for each sex remain as an unanswered question.
A child's sex is a visible, permanent attribute. Cross-cultural research indicates that gender roles are among the
first that individuals learn and that all societies treat males differently from females. Therefore, gender-role or
sex-role behavior is learned behavior. However, the range of roles occupied by males and females across
cultures is broad. What is considered natural behavior for each gender is based more on cultural belief than on
biological necessity. Nevertheless, the extent to which biological differences and gender socialization affect
behavioral patterns and achievement is still a much-debated topic. The consensus of a large body of research
is that no matter what the inherent biological differences, many of the observed differences between males and
females can be clearly linked to differences in early socialization experiences (Feingold, 1992).

According to McConnell (1988), three points should be emphasized. Firstly, gender is not simply a matter of
individual characteristics (e.g. sex) but also involves actions and social relations, ideology and politics. Secondly,
patterns of language production depend more than just the agent’s intrinsic characteristics, her sociolinguistics
identity: they also reflect her assessment of social situations and her choice of strategies for the linguistic
construction of her social relations. Thirdly, meaning interacts with gender because it links the
social/psychological phenomenon of language with the abstract formal notion of a language, an interpreted
linguistic system. In sum, a theory that accommodates the dual psychological and social nature of language and
its relation to languages can help further understanding of gender and language.

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