It is Sociolinguistic's presentation from Faculty of Humanities at Dian Nuswantoro University. Differences between Sex and Gender, Women's Language, Sexist Language, Indexing Lecturing by Anisa Larasati, M.Hum

1. Influence of Sex and Age
on Language Use:
Sex, Gender, ‘Women’s Language’, Sexist
Language, Indexing
1
Amin Manjaya – C11.2011.01250
Ayu Monita – C11.2010.01185
Lidiana Astuti – C11.2012.01319
Rani A. Pradipta – C11.2010.01114

2. SEX & GENDER
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CLICK ME

3. SEX & GENDER
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Sex has come to refer to categories
distinguished by biological characteristic,
then we used the term gender.
Gender is more appropriate for distinguishing
people on the basis of their socio-cultural
behaviour, including speech. (Holmes – Page
157)

4. GENDER
4
A distinction has sometimes been drawn between
gender exclusive and gender preferential features
in a language.
a.
Gender- Exclusive speech differences: Highly
Structured Communities
b.
Gender-Preferential Speech Features : Social
Dialect Research

5. GENDER
5
a.
Gender- Exclusive speech differences: Highly
Structured Communities

Differences in language used (given by Holmes
2001: 159)

Differences in linguistic features (eg. found in
Jespersen 1922)

6. GENDER
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 Differences in language used
 A community is very hierarchical
Example: In Bengali society,
 A wife being subordinate to her husband
 She’s not permitted to use husband’s name.
 Because of his name was tara, which also means
‘star’. Since she could not call him ‘tara’, his wife
used the term nokkhotro or ‘heavenly body’ to refer
him.

7. GENDER
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 Differences in linguistic features :
 Women and men do not speak in exactly in the
same way as each other in any community.
 Particular linguistic features occur only in the
women’s speech or only in the men’s speech.
 These features are differences between the
vocabulary items used by women and men.

8. GENDER
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b. Gender-Preferential Speech Features :
Social Dialect Research
A preferential feature is one that is distributed
across speakers or groups, but is used more
frequently by some than by others.

9. GENDER
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b. Gender-Preferential Speech Features :
Social Dialect Research
1. Women and men use same speech forms – difference
in quantities or frequencies of use.

The speech forms in Western urban communities
where women’s and men’s social roles is overlap, in
other words women and men do not use completely
different forms.

10. WOMEN
MEN
In English
Use more –ing [iŋ]
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pronunciation.
Swimming
Dancing
Typing
Use more –in’ [in]
pronunciation.
Swimmin’
Dancin’
Typin’
In Sydney
Some women use the
initial sound in the
word ‘thing’ as [f]
Use the initial sound
in the word ‘thing’ as
[f] more than women
Those kind of the examples of the social and the linguistic patterns
are gender-preferential (rather than gender-exclusive) because both
of women and men use particular forms, one gender shows a
greater preference for them than the other.

11. GENDER
11
b. Gender-Preferential Speech Features :
Social Dialect Research
2. Women tend to prefer standard forms, men prefer
vernacular forms. Examples:
1. Women produced more ‘th’ than alternatives [f], [t], [d].
2. In Australia, interviews with people in Sydney revealed genderdifferentiated patterns of [h]-dropping.
Ex : Women pronounce Mrs. Hall with less [h]-dropping than men
while men pronounce Mrs. Hall with more [h] dropping  Mizall.

12. GENDER & Social Class
Percentage [in] pronunciation
12
120
100
91
81
80
97
100
81
68
Women
60
Men
40
27
20
4
3
0
1
2
3
4
5
Social groups or classes
Figure 1. Vernacular [in] by sex and social group in Norwich
Source: Holmes 2007, 161

13. Explanation of Women's Linguistic Behaviour
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Why do Women Use
more Standard Forms
than Men?

14. 1. Social status : status conscious
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 Women use more standard English than men because
they are more aware of the fact that the way they
speak shows their social class background or status.
 The use of more standard speech forms as a way of
claimming such status.

15. 2. Women's role as guardian of society's
values
15
The society tends to expect 'better' behavior from
women than from men.
That’s why women are designated the role of
modelling correct behavior in the community.
However, this explanation is certainly not true
for all because the interaction between mother
and her child are likely to be very relaxed and
informal (vernacular forms occur most often in
everyone’s speech.

16. 3. Subordinate groups must be polite
16
Children and women are subordinate groups. They
use more standard forms than men because they
must avoid offending men, therefore they must
speak carefully and politely.

17. 4. Vernacular forms express
machismo
17
Men prefer vernacular forms because
they carry macho connotations of
masculinity and toughness. Therefore
women might not want to use such
form, and use standard forms that
associated with female values
or femininity.

18. 5. Women's categories
18
Not all women marry men from the same social
class, however it is perfectly possible for a women to
be more educated then the man she marries, or even
to have a more prestigious job than him.

19. 6. The influence of the interviewer and
the context
19
 Women tend to become more cooperative
conversationalists than men.
Men tend to be less responsive to the speech of
others, and to their conversational needs.

20. INFLUENCE OF AGE
20
1.
AGE- GRADED FEATURES OF SPEECH
2. AGE-SOCIAL DIALECT DATA
3. AGE-GRADING & LANGUAGE CHANGE

21. 1. AGE- GRADED FEATURES OF SPEECH
21
BABIES
TODDLERS
MALE
Different pitch
range
KIDS
ADOLESCENTS
ADULTS
FEMALE
Different
pronunciation
- Differences are relative
Different
vocabulary
Different in using
grammar

22. 1. AGE- GRADED FEATURES OF SPEECH
22
How Queen Elizabeth delivers her
speech
in young age is quite different from she
is now.
Justin Bieber‘s voice from his
childhood until teenager also different

23. 1. AGE- GRADED FEATURES OF SPEECH
23
What the f***
are you doing
today?
SLANG WORDS
SWEAR WORDS
Not much
b**ch
RESTRICT
Reason:
solidarity
TEENAGER
REDUCE
http://www.empowerlingua.com/english-localisation-british-and-american-swear-words/

24. HOW ABOUT THIS?
24
OUT OF DATE SLANG
BRITISH: spiffing, topping, super,
BRITISH: spiffing, topping, super,
groovy, fab
groovy, fab
SESUATU YA
CUCOK DEH
CIYUS
SLANG is so
EPHEMERAL

25. Influence of age on vocabulary
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26. 2. AGE AND SOCIAL DIALECT DATA
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PRESTIGE
Vernacular speech
Age 0
30
40
50
Figure 2. Relationship between use of vernacular forms and age
Holmes 2007, 176
70+

27. 2. AGE AND SOCIAL DIALECT DATA
27
Age
Vernacular
Childhood and
Adolescent
High
Middle age
Reduce
Old age
Increase again
How could it happen? 

28. 3. AGE-GRADING & LANGUAGE CHANGE
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 When a linguistic change is spreading through a
community,there will be a regular increase or
decrease in the use of the linguistic form over time.
Vernacular pronunciation of standart [t] in medial and final position in New Zealand English
Linguistic Form
Age Group
20-30 years (%)
Age group
40+ years (%)
Glottal stop [ʔ]
for final [t]
(e.g. [baʔ] bat )
82
33
Flap for medial [t]
(e.g. [leder] for letter )
35
6
A form on the increase – this will show up in a graph as a low use of the form by
older people and a higher use among younger people.
A form which is disappearing just the opposite will be true.
Younger people will use less of the STANDARD form and older people more.

29. Women’s Language
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In the former, it is explained that social dialect
research focussed on differences between women’s
and men’s speech in the areas of pronunciation and
morphology, and multiple negation (syntactic).
While Robin Lakoff, shifted the focus on
gender differences to syntax, semantics,
and style.

30. Lakoff's linguistic features of women's
speech
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Women’s linguistic features
Examples
1. Lexical hedges or fillers
you know, sort of, well, you see
2. Tag questions
she’s very nice, isn’t she?
3. Rising intonation on declaratives
It’s really goód.
4. ‘Empty’ adjectives
divine, charming, cute
5. Precise colour terms : detail
magenta, aquamarine
6. Intensifiers (just and so)
(emphasizing)
I like him so much
7. ‘Hypercorrect’ grammar
Consistent use of standard verb forms
8. ‘Superpolite’ forms
Indirect request, euphemisms
9. Avoidance of strong swear words
fudge, my goodness
10. Emphatic stress
It was a BRILLIANT performance
Robin Lakoff

31. According to Deborah Tannen
31
Six categories described by D. Tannen. Each of which
pairs a contrasting use of language by males and
females in their communication:
Status v. support
Advice v. understanding
Information v. Relationship
Orders v. Proposals
Conflict v. Compromise
Independence v. intimacy

32. MN
E
Build Status
Advice For A Solution
Message Oriented
W E
OM N
Seek / Offer Support
Seek For Sympathy
Social Facilitation
Direct imperatives
Superpolite Forms
Use confrontation Words
Avoid Conflict In Language
‘I’ , ‘my’ , ‘me’
‘We’, ‘our’, ‘us’
DEBORAH TANNEN
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33. Gender Differences
33
Men
Women
Information
Social facilitation
Competitive
Cooperative
Assertive
More & longer turns
Short openings & closings
Sarcasm, teasing, joking
Strong language
Adversarial
Qualifying, justifying
Fewer & shorter turns
Elaborate openings & closings
Laughter; humorous anecdotes
Hedges, emotional language
Supportive, polite

34. GENDER : INTERACTION
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Holmes identifies the distinction of women’s and
men’s interaction. Both of them are:
1. Interrupting Behaviour
2. Conversational Feedback

35. Interruptions
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A conversational interaction between a man and a woman:
Woman: How’s your paper coming?
Man: Alright I guess. I haven’t done much in the past two weeks
Woman: yeah. Know how that can
Man:
Hey ya’ got an extra cigarette?
Woman: Oh uh sure (hands him the pack)
like my paMan:
How ‘bout a match
Woman: ‘Ere ya go uh like my paMan:
Thanks
Woman: Sure. I was gonna tell you myMan:
Hey I’d really like ta’ talk but I
gotta go – see ya
Woman: Yeah

36. Feedback
36
Mary: I worked in that hotel for – ah 11 years and I found the patrons
were really really you know good.
Jill: Mm.
Mary: You had the odd one or two ruffian’d come in and cause a fight but
they soon dealt with.
Jill: Right, really just takes one eh? To start trouble.
Mary: yeah, and and it was mostly the younger ones.
Jill: Mm.
Mary: that would start you know.
Jill: Yeah.
Mary: The younger – younger ones couldn’t handle their booze.
Jill: Mm.

37. Gossip
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Gossip describes the kind of relaxed in-group talk
that goes on between people in informal contexts. In
Western society, gossip is defined as ‘idle talk’ and
considered particularly characteristic
of women’s interaction.”

38. Gossip
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
For example, apparently men ‘gossip’ just
as much as women do (see Pilkington, 1998);
men’s gossip is just different.
Men indulge in a kind of phatic small talk that involves
insults,challenges, and various kinds of negative
behavior to do exactly what women do by their use of
nurturing, polite, feedback-laden, cooperative talk. Or
talking about same hobby.

In doing this, they achieve the kind of
solidarity they prize. It is the norms of behavior
that are different.

39. According to Deborah Cameron
Language and Sexuality
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Language and sexuality is defined
as ‘…inquiry into the role played by
language in producing and organizing
sex as a meaningful domain of human
experience’.
Example: Single Father speaks to his
daughter.
After his wife died, he played a role as
a father and also a mother to his
daughter. 

40. Sexist Language
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 Sexist language is language that expresses bias in
favor of one sex and thus treats the other sex in a
discriminatory manner. In most cases, the bias is in
favor of men and against women.
 Sexist attitudes stereotype a person according to
gender rather than judging on individual merits.
Example: Mrs, Ms, Miss, Mr.

41. Sexist Language
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 By relegating women to a dependent, subordinate
position, sexist language prevents the portrayal of
women and men as different but equal human
beings.

42. Sexist Language
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Sexism in language is also showed in that the noun
of feminine gender can only be obtained by adding a
certain bound morpheme to the noun. Example:
MALE FEMALE MALE
FEMALE
Man
woman
manager manageress
Prince
princess
god
goddess
author
authoress mayor
mayoress

43. Sexist Language
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44. Sexist Language
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Rosalie Maggio says ：
“It is also necessary to acknowledge that there can be no
solution to the problem of sexism in society on the level of
language alone .Using the word ‘secretary’ inclusively , for
example, does not change the fact that only 1.6%of American
secretaries are men .Using director instead of directress does
not mean a woman will necessarily enjoy the same
opportunities today a man might .”(Maggio,1989).

45. Indexing : Direct and Indirect
Indexing
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Indexing is a relationship of identification. The
distinction between direct and indirect indexing was
introduced by Elinor Ochs.
Index can be used to refer to a more socially situated
analysis of variables. One of the main points in
talking about indexing is that it ‘puts gender in its
place, indicating that it enters into complex
constitutive relations with other categories of social
meaning’ (Ochs 1992: 343).

46. Direct Indexing
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A linguistic feature directly indexes something with
social meaning if the social information is a
conventional implicature (e.g., speaker gender is
directly indexed by some forms of some adjectives in
French, je suis [pr:e] : “I” (male speaker); je suis
[pret] (female speaker).

47. Indirect Indexing
47
However, most variables associated with, e.g.,
male vs female speakers only indirectly index
gender.
Their distribution is sex-preferential, not sexexclusive. They are generally associated with several
other social meanings, e.g., casualness and
vernacularity with masculinity.
Because these other factors help to constitute
what it means to be ‘male’ the index between
vernacular variants and male speakers/masculinity
is indirect.

48. Indirect Indexing
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Japanese language
Pronoun: First person Men’s speech
(‘I’)
Women’s speech
Formal
watakushi
watashi
watakushi
atakushi
Casual/plain
boku
ore
watashi
atashi

49. 49

50. The End
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