GENDER Chapter 13

An Introduction to Sociolinguistics
(Ronald Wardhaugh)

Presented By :
Ajeng Hidayatul Maghdalena
Diah Ayu Setianingrum
Jajang Noor Alam
GENDER

SEX
 SEX
The term sex refers to biological characteristics, namely chromosomes, internal
and external sex organs, and the hormonal activities within the body.

Women, for example, have much higher levels of estrogen and progesterone, which
stimulate the body to develop primary and secondary sex characteristics (breasts,
menstruation, etc.). Men, on the other hand, have much higher levels of testosterone than
women, which help their body to develop and maintain male sexual characteristics (deep
voice, body hair, muscle size and strength, etc) alongside sperm production.

By Tim Newman https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/232363.php

Wed 7 February 2018
 Definition
Gender is a social construct involving the whole gamut of genetic, psychological, social, and
cultural differences between males ad females. (Cameron and Kulick, 2003)

Wodak (1997b, p. 13) says that GENDER is not . . . a pool of attributes “possessed” by a person,
but . . . something a person “does.” Elsewhere (1997a, p.4) she adds that ‘what it means to be a
woman or to be a man (also) changes from one genertion to the next and… varies between
different racialized, ethnic, and religious groups, as well as for members of different social classes.
In such a view, gender must be learned anew in each generation.

Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2003, p. 50) The force of gender categories in society makes it
impossible for us to move through our lives in a non-gendered way and impossible not to behave in
a way that brings out gendered behavior in others. Gender is a key component of identity.

Gender refers to society’s expectation about how we should think and act as girls and boys, and
women and men. It is our biological, social, and legal status as women and men.
Sex: one’s biological property, a matter of physiology

Gender: social expectation about how males and females out

to act and their respective rights and duties, learned
behavior

Sex : Gender:
Biological Socio-Cultural construct
Nature made Society made
Cannot be changed easily Difficult, but not impossible to
change
 GENDER DIFFERENCES
Biological Morphology and
vocabulary used
Social roles and
Phonological
Behaviors differences
GENDER DIFFERENCES
Females have two X chromosomes whereas males have an
X and a Y; this is a key genetic difference.

On average, females have more fat and less muscle than

males, are not as strong, and weigh less.

Females also mature rapidly and live longer than males.

However, it can caused by different socialization practice
(Phillips et al., 1987. For example women may live longer
than men because of the different roles they play in society
and different jobs they tend to fill.

The female voice usually has different characteristics from

the male voice, and often females and males exhibit
different ranges of verbal skills.
GENDER DIFFERENCES
Men’s speech usually provides the norm against which women’s
speech is judged.

Women’s speech is trivial, gossip-laden, corrupt, illogical, idle,

euphemistic, or deficient is highly suspect; nor is it necessarily
more precise, cultivated, or stylish – or even less profane than
men’s speech. (De Klerk, 1992, and Hughes, 1992)

Men gossip just as much s women do but men’s gossip is just

different.

Men indulge in a kind of phatic small talk that involves insults,

challenges, and various kind of negative behavior to do exactly
what women do by their use of nurturing, polite, feedback-laden,
cooperative talk.
GENDER DIFFERENCES
In Koasati, an Amerindian language spoken in southwestern
Louisiana, among other gender-linked differences, men often
pronounced an s at the end of verbs but women did not, e.g.,
male lakáws ‘he is lifting it’ and female lakáw.
 MORPHOLOGY AND VOCABULARY

Lakoff (1973), claims that:

• Women use color words like mauve, beige, aquamarine,
lavender, and magenta but most men do not.
• Women maintain The adjectives such as adorable, charming,
divine, lovely, and sweet commonly but only very rarely by
men.
• Women are also said to have their own vocabulary for
emphasizing certain effects on them, words and expressions
such as so good, fun, exquisite, lovely, divine, precious,
adorable, darling, and fantastic.
 GENDER BASED KIND
The english language makes certain distinctions of a gender-based kind, e.g.,

MALE FEMALE
• Actor • Actress
• Waiter • Waitress
• Master • Mistress
• Man • Woman
• Boy • Girl
• Gentleman • Lady
• Bachelor • Spinster
• Widower • Widow
 GENDER SYSTEMS

One particular bit of sexism in languages that has aroused much comment is the gender systems

• The he–she–it are ‘natural’ gender system of English. (He comes – She comes)
• The le–la are ‘grammatical’ gender systems of French. (Ç’est le livre – Ç’est la livre->ini bukunya)
• The der–die–das are ‘grammatical’ gender systems of German. (Das ist ein buch>ini adalah buku
Der ist ein buch-Die ist ein buch>itu adalah buku)

• The ka-ki-hu-ha are ‘natural’ gender system of Arabic. (Ana uhubbika-Ana uhubbiki >Saya suka
kamu - Ana uhibbuhu-Ana uhubbiha > Saya suka dia)
 DIALECTS

An Australian aboriginal language, Vanyuwa, spoken by approximately 90 to 150

people, has gender-differentiated dialects. The dialects use the same word stems
but there are different class-marking prefixes on nouns, verbs, and pronouns.
According to Bradley (1998), men use one dialect among themselves and women
use the other. Men also use men’s dialect to speak to women and women use
women’s dialect to speak to men. Children are brought up in women’s dialect
with boys required to shift – not always done easily – to men’s dialect as they are
initiated into manhood.
 INTONATION PATTERNS

• Intonation patterns of men and women vary somewhat, women using certain patterns
associated with surprise and politeness more often than men. (Brend, 1975)

• Women may answer a question with a statement that employs the rising intonation
pattern usually associated with a question rather than the falling intonation pattern
associated with making a firm statement. (Lakoff, 1973). Women do this because they
are less sure about themselves and their opinios than are men.

• There are often different politeness requirements made of men and women.
 SOCIOLINGUISTIC UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES

Holmes (1998) does offer some testable claims. There are 5 of these:

• Women and men develop different patterns of language use.

• Women tend to Focus on the affective functions of an interaction more often than
men do.
• Women tend to use linguistic devices that stress solidarity more often than men do.
• Women tend to interact in ways which maintain and increase soidarity, while men
tend to interact in ways which will maintain and increase their power and status.
• Women are stylistically more flexible than men.
 MALE AND FEMALE DICTIONARY
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• “Leave me alone” • “Leave me alone”

> Get out of my fucking face
> Please don’t go

• “I’m okay” • “I’m okay”

> There’s seriously not a damn thing wrong
> Hold me tight. I need a shoulder to cry on
with me.
• “Are you tired?”
• “Are you tired?”
>Please don’t go to sleep yet, I love talking
> Genuinely curious as to whether or not you
to you
are sleepy
 POSSIBLE EXPLANATION
Kramer (1974)
There are some interesting findings of the differences how men and
women spoke in a set of cartoon:
• Men spoke twice as much as women.
• Men and women spoke different topic.
• Women spoke less forcefully than men.
• Men swore much more than women.
• Men more blunt and to the point in their speaking.

Mills (2003)
• Women are more polite than men.
• The men spoke more aggressively and competitively
• and the women reduced their amount of talk about home and family.
James and Drakich (1993)
• Women are expected to use and do use talk to a greater extent than
men to serve the function of establishing and maintaining personal
relationship.

Zimmerman and west, (1975)

• cross-gender conversation men frequently interrupt women but
women much less frequently interrupt men.
and James and Clarke (1993)
• Looked at fifty-four studies that addressed the claim that men are
much more likely than women ‘to use interruption as a means of
dominating and controlling interaction’.
• In cross-gender conversation women ask more question than men,
encourage others to speak, use more back-channeling signals like
mhmm to encourage others to continue speaking, use more instances
of you and we, and do not protest as much as men when they are
interrupted.

• Men interrupt more, challenge, dispute, and ignore more, try to

control what topics are discussed , and are inclined to make
categorical.
According to Wardaugh (2006)
When we observe gender differences in language behavior, there is one
explanation that is languages can be sexist, such as:
• Men and women are biologicallly different and that this difference has
serious consequences for gender. Women are somehow predisposed
psychologically to be involved with one another and to be mutually
supportive and non-competitive. On the other hand, men are innately
predisposed to independence.
• Social organization is best perceived as some kind of hierarchical set of
power relationship.
• Men and women are social beings who have learned to act in certain
ways.
Maltz and Borker (1982)
In North America at least, men and women come from different
sociolinguistic sub-cultures. They have learned to do different things
with language, particularly in conversation and when two genders
try to communicate with each other, the result may be
miscommunication.

The mhmm a woman uses quite frequently means only “I’m

listening,’ whereas the mhmm a man uses, but much less frequently,
tends to mean ‘I’m agreeing.’

Consequently, men often believe that ‘women are always agreeing

with the man then conclude that it’s impossible to tell what a woman
really thinks,’ whereas ‘woman … get upset with men who never
seem to be listening.’ (p.202)
Gender identity itself seemed to be an influential explanatory
factor accounting for different speech patterns which were
observed. Penny Eckert’s research with adolescents in
playgrounds in Detroit suggests that, while social group is a
fundamental dimension, the symbolic value of speech is often
more important for the girls than the boys. In these communities,
specific linguistic forms may signal membership of the group
‘male’ or ‘female’ in particular, as well as indicating the different
social aspirations of different groups.
 CONCLUSION
Gender and sex are different.
Men and women speech differ because boys and girls are brought up differently and
men and women often fill different roles in society. Boys are brought up to behave
like men in those societies and girls to behave like women, the differences are also
perpetuated.
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