GENDER AND AGE

The linguistics forms used by women and men contrast – to different degrees –
in all speech communities. There are other ways too in which the linguistics
behavior of women and men differs. It is claimed women are more linguistically
polite than men, for instance, and that women and men emphasize different
speech function.Women and men from the same speech communities use
different linguistics form. First, a brief comment on the meaning of the meaning
of the terms sex and gender in sociolinguistics. We have used the terms gender
rather than sex because sex has come to categorized distinguished by biological
characteristic, while gender is more appropriate for distinguishing people on
basis of their socio-cultural behavior, including speech. The concept of gender
allows, however, for describing masculine and feminine behavior in terms of
scales or continua rather than absolute categorize.
GENDER – EXCLUSIVE SPEECH DIFFERENCES NON WESTERN
COMMUNITIES
There are communities where the language is shared by women and men, but,
particular linguistics features occurs only in the women’s speech and men’s
speech. These features are usually small differences in pronunciation or word
shape (morphology). In Montana, for instance, there are pronunciation
differences in the Gros Ventre American Indian tribe. Where the women say
[kja’tsa] for‘bread’ and the men say [d a’tsa]. In this community if a person uses
the wrong from their gender, the older members of the community consider
them bisexual. Word-shapes in other languages contrast because women and
men use different affixes.
Sex-preferential speech features-social dialect research
In Western communities where women's and men's social roles overlap, 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 forms. Women tend to use more of the standard forms than men do.
GENDER AND SOCIAL CLASS
The linguistic 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. There are however, some general patterns
which can be identified. In every socialclass men use more vernacular forms
than women.In many speech communities, when women use more of a
linguistic form than men, it is generally the standard form – the overtly
prestigious form – that women favor. When men use a form more often than
women, it is usually a vernacular form, one which is not cited as the ‘correct
‘form. This pattern has been found in Western speech communities all over the
world.
Explanations of women's linguistic behaviour
The social status explanation
Some linguists have suggested that women use more standard 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. Standard 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.
Woman's role as guardian of society's values
A second explanation for the fact that women use more standard forms than
men points to the way society tends to expect better behaviour from women
than from men. Women are designated the role of modelling correct behaviour
in the community.
Subordinate groups must be polite
Children are expected to be polite to adults. Women as a subordinate group, it is
argued, must avoid offending men and so they must speak carefully and politely.
Suggesting that a woman uses standard forms in order to protect her face is not
very different from saying she is claiming more status than she is entitled to.
Vernacular forms express machismo
Men prefer vernacular forms because they carry macho connotations of
masculinity and toughness. Standard forms tend to be associated with female
values and femininity.
Some alternative explanations
How are women categorised?
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. Women's use of more standard forms
would require no explanation at all. They would simply be using appropiate
forms which accurately reflected their social background.
The influence of the interviewer and the context
Women tend to be more cooperative conversationalists than men. It seems very
likely that one factor accounting for women's use of more standard forms in
social dialect interviews is their greater accomodation to the middle-class
speech of their interviewers. Men, on the other hand, tend to be less responsive
to the speech of others, and to their conversational needs. It is worth noting that
although sex generally interacts with other social factors, such as status, class,
the role of the speaker in an interaction, and the formality of the context, there
are cases where the sex of the speaker seems to be the most influential factor
accounting for speech patterns. There are other features of people's speech
which vary at different ages too. Not only pitch, but vocabulary, pronunciation,
and grammar can differentiate age groups. Slang is another area of vocabulary
which reflects a person's age. Current slang is the linguistic prerogative of
young people and generally sounds odd in the mouth of an older person. It
signals membership of a particular group - the young.
Age and social dialect data
Most social dialectologists have found that adolescents use the higher
frequencies of vernacular forms, especially if they are forms which people
clearly recognise or identify as non-standard. On the other hand some
researchers who have interviewed younger children have noted a different
pattern. When people are not particularly aware that forms are vernacular forms,
there is no adolescent peak, but rather a gradual reduction as the child
approaches adulthood. As people get older their speech simply becomes less
dialectical and more standard. Patterns for particular linguistic features may
vary between communities, but there is general agreement that in their middle
years people are most likely to recognise the society's speech norms and use the
fewest vernacular forms.
Age grading and language change
When a linguistic change is spreading through a community, there will usually
be a regular increase or decrease in the use of linguistic form over time.
Younger people will use less of the form and older people more.