女性语言文体特征femalelanguage(英文)

1 Contents ………………...…………………………………...……………Abstract ………………………………………..……….….……….… 1. Introduction………………………………….…...…………….…..1 2.The Characteristics of Female Language……….………….………..2 2.1 Pronunciation and Intonation ………….….……..……...2 2.2 V ocabulary …………………………….……..……..…..4 2.3 Grammar……………………………………………….6 2.4 Conversation Topics………………………….……..……8 3. The Interpretation of the Female Language Characteristics…………………………………...10 3.1 Physiological and Psychological Factors ………....……10 3.2 Cultural Factors………………………………….…....11 3.3 Social Factors……………………….…………..….....12 3.4 Educational Factors……………………………….…..12 4. The Developments and Changes of Female Language………………………………..………...…15 4.1 Degradation of Sexual Discriminationin Language...... 15 4.2 Social Effect of Female Language (16)4.3 Changes in Women's Style of Speech………………..…195. The Reasons for the Changes in Female Language (24)6. Conclusion………………………………………….………………..27 o men. Through )2 Bibliography …………………………………………………………....28 Acknowledgements3 1Introduction The existence and development of language are intended to meet theneeds of communication in society. People in different social groups havetheir own special languages. In the English-speaking countries, we candiscover that female language always shows some interesting andexternal features of the language consciously or unconsciously in thecourse of language communication. With the rise of feminism and the continuous improvement of female social status, a great of changes havetaken place in female language. These changes are closely linked with the development of society. So the research of female language is a subjectvery worthy to be studied. This paper attempts to discuss thecharacteristics and some new changes of female language and analyzesthe reason of this phenomenon from the social, cultural and educational,etc. aspects. 15 4.1 DegradationP4 2The Characteristics of Female Language Female language has its own features. The following part will focuson pronunciation, intonation, vocabulary, grammar and topics to make abrief analysis. 2.1 Pronunciation and Intonation2.1.1 Pronunciation Phonological differences between men and women have been noticed in varieties of languages. Women’s pronunciation sounds moreaccurate than men’s. In English-speaking countries, women’spronunciation is closer to Standard English Pronunciation than men's.When we read ―-ing‖, generally women can pronounce the accurate backnasal consonant /iη/. But a considerable number of men become moreaccustomed to pronounce front nasal consonant /in/. In Australia, theEnglish with Australian-accented is not usually considered StandardEnglish. After investigation, researchers come to the conclusion thatwomen are far less often than men when they speak the nonstandardEnglish. The reason is that more women pay attention to the accuracy of pronunciation than men, which is an important mark of their identity andculture for women. In the northeast Asian language, Yukaghir, women ot of changes and5 have /ts/ and /dz/ where men have /tj/ and /dj/. In Bengali men oftensubstitute /l/ for /n/ but women do not do this. Likewise, in a Siberian language, Chukchi, men, but not women, often drop /n/ and /t/ when theyoccur between vowels, e.g. female nitvaqenat and male nitvaqeat. 2.1.2Intonation Generally speaking, women’s intonation is higher than men’s, which is caused by physiological factors in fact. Women’s vocal cords arelonger than men, so their pronunciation frequency is higher. However,people often consider the high pitch is connected with women'scowardice and unsteady emotion. The range of intonation variety is large,which is another distinctive feature. Women are good at using the various intonations to express their feelings. Lakoff says that women may answera question with a statement that employs the rising intonation patternusually associated with a question rather than the falling intonationassociated with making a firm statement. And women are usually inclinedto be tactful and gentle and often use low rising intonation at the end of sentences, which seems to show that they lack of confidence and seek the opinions of the others. In contrast, men usually like using high fallingintonation at the end of the sentences, so their intonation sounds resoluteand affirmative. For example, when speaking the following sentence, menand women may use different intonations. I wish you’d try it. be further discussed a`6 Men: . - .﹨. Women: . - . / . Men usually speak ending with a high falling intonation and their tonesare strongly firm. However, women will use the low rising intonation toend their speech and their tone is more moderate than men’s. Besides,women used to answer questions with rising intonation to express thattheir views is not a verdict and they are willing to listen to other's views.Such as: Husband: ―when will dinner be ready?‖Wife: ―oh …around six o’clock?‖ The wife is the only one to know the answer. But she used an intonationwith consulting meaning — "Will that do?‖ Of course, we can not get ridof her uncertain possibility. 2.2 Vocabulary Special feminine vocabulary in English that man may not, dare notand will not use. Women like talking about things exaggeratedly, so theylike using the exaggerated adjectives and adverbs and other words toemphasize the point. 2.2.1 Extravagant Adjectives Women in United States and Britain like using some exaggeratedadjectives frequently, like ―adorable, divine, gorgeous, charming, and r identity andcul7 lovely‖and so on. But men seldom use these words. ―What a divineidea!‖ It’s manifestly out of a female’s mouth. But men will say ―what aterrific idea!‖2.2.2 Intensified Adverbs Such as―so, much, quite, terribly‖, etc. women use these wordsmore frequently than men. For example, women would say, ―It was so interesting!‖, ―It was terribly cold!‖ But men often use ―very, really‖ tointensify their tones. 2.2.3 Accurate Colour Words Women are good at portraying color accurately in comparison withthe men. Furthermore, they can use some unusual color vocabulary suchas ―mauve, magenta, beige, and lavender‖ and so on. When facing a lightpurple skirt, woman cannot help speaking, ―It’s a beautiful lavenderskirt!‖2.2.4 Interjection Interjections used by women are more cautious and implicit thanmen. When using cursing words, women are usually more cautious andimplicit. Some filthy words or phrases such as ―God damn it!‖, ―Damn‖,―Fuck you!‖, ―Fuck you Charley!‖, ―Shit‖etc. often appear in men’sspeech. In contrast, women often use ―Oh, dear!‖, ―Oh, God!‖, ―Godbless me!‖, ―My God!‖, ―Great God!‖, ―God‖ etc. to express their anger sing high8 or surprise. For instance, men and women have different reactions whenthey face the scene of putting peanut butter in a wrong place. Female: ―oh dear. You’ve put the peanut butter in the refrigerator again. ‖Male: ―shit, you’ve put the peanut butter in the refrigerator again.‖ From these two sentences we can see that men and women also felt unhappy about putting peanut butter in the refrigerator again, but theexpressions they used are different. The men used the rude word ―shit‖,but the woman used ―oh dear‖ to express her dissatisfaction. This justshows the graceful feature of female language.2.2.5 Diminutives English women will sometimes say ―birdie‖ instead of "bird" and―bookie‖ instead of ―book‖. Otherwise, they use ―dearie, sweetie, auntie‖and other words to express affection frequently. But men rarely use thesewords.2.3 Grammar So far, there is not a rule that some specific grammar structures belong to women used only. But some analyses of language materialsshowed that women often use the following structures:2.3.1 Tag Question Women prefer to express their views or ideas by using tag questions,because it contains some intense consulting meanings and can avoid too t the end of the sez9 direct and absolute. For instance, when facing an article, husband wouldsay, ―This is better!‖ but wife will say, ―This is better, isn’t it?‖ or ―Thisis better, don’t you think so?‖ Tag questions have three functions. First, itcan testify the reliability of information. For example, ―She is coming,isn’t she?‖ Second, it can weaken the speech stone such as ―That waspretty silly, wasn’t it?‖ or ―Open the door for me, could you?‖ Maybe, thespeaker doesn’t want to prove something but considers listener’s dignity.And women think this way can ease their own tones and requires. Third,neither the first nor the second, they only give a signal to listeners inorder to promote conversations. It is equal to ―It’s your turn to speak‖.For example, ―Quiet a nice room to sit in actually, isn’t it?‖ Holmse 1984made an investigation of using the tag questions. The result showed thatthe total of men and women using tag questions are roughly equal.However, about the second and third expressions, women used themconsiderably more than men. It suggested that women pay attention touphold the listener’s dignity and their tones are more euphemistic. Thisembodies ―cooperativeness‖ of communication. 2.3.2 Modulation Modulation is a very polite and courteous sentence structure such as―I like, I suppose, well, you know‖, etc. women often use such uncertainstructure to express their opinions. This suggested that they do not want10 to impose their views on others person, only a tentative views orsuggestions. 2.3.3 Past Tense Women prefer to use past tense when they ask for help. They would say, ―I was wondering if you could possibly do me a favor.‖This becausepeople are accustomed to put the present tense together with the things of expressing present. But using the past tense, sometimes, can confuse thetimes and express the euphemistic and polite tones. 2.3.4 Embedded Imperatives When using imperative sentences, men like using more clear andsimple imperative sentences to express orders or make decisions. Butwomen prefer to use embedded imperative sentence and othereuphemistic sentence structures to request somebody do something. SuchasMale: ―Bring that here!‖Female: ―Could you bring that here?‖2.4 Conversation Topics People always tend to choose the interesting topics they like. Dueto different division of work in society, the scope of activities of men andwomen are different. Generally speaking, when men talk to men, thecontent categories of their topics often focus on politics, sports, he listener’s dignit 11 automobiles, business, legal matters, taxes, stocks, aggression,competition, teasing and so on. On the other hand, when women talk towomen, their topics are about home, families, social life, life-style, lifetrouble, feelings, books, clothes, food and drink, cooking, sewing,affiliation with other etc. (Spolsky,2000) The above, the author discusses the characteristics of female languagewhich are different from men’s. But different languages mirror different societies, so these characteristics of female language should be related tonot only physiological factor but also the contemporary social and cultural,etc. factors.ereuphemiY12 3The Interpretation of the Female Language Characteristics Language is a product of human history, but also a socialphenomenon. It is a real reflection of different social cultures, customs,human sense and cultural consciousness. There are many reasons offorming these characteristics of female language. As follows: 3.1Physiological and Psychological Factors Some features of female language are related to their physiologicalcharacteristics. For example, women’s intonation is higher than men andthey are easy to understand the exact form of the language and so on. Toobtain the same right as men, women are struggling with the traditional discriminations. A sense of social roles leads to a language consciousness inevitably, so they do their best to use more of the standard andprestigious speech patterns in their own community. Comparing men,women are closer to the standard style and refined accent of language andtheir language must influence their children, so women are the pioneers inthe community of using standard style language. Otherwise, thepsychological tendency of improving their status makes them apt tomaster the standard language. In addition, the language style used bywomen is more euphemistic, restrained, and hesitant than men. From this13 point, we can believe that it is not only a reflection of lacking confidence,but also a symbol of feminine politeness and kindness.3.2 Cultural Factors From the points of society and culture, girls are taught to be gentleand quiet from children. Women’s role identity and their role behaviorwere formed in the process of socialization. The so-called socializationprocess is a progress in which everyone should study their culturesaround their community groups to keep pace with the developing society. Growing up in this culture, girls accept the behavior and thecommunication styles consciously or unconsciously, which has become apart of their personality characteristics. In western cultural traditions, women areunable to escape the samefate as oriental woman. In ―Bible‖, there are some depictions of women.Eve derived from a rib of Adam. There are two purposes of creating Evefor God. The first is to accompany with Adam in case of loneliness; thesecond is to give birth to the children of Adam. This also suggested thatwomen are the appendage of men since Genesis. As a tool for giving birthto children, women have to be controlled and be in a subordinate status. Traditional culture suppressed the development of women'sself-consciousness. As a result, their capabilities of independence andself-awareness became weaker and weaker. Women must take advantage ertain structure to ex14 of the communication network if they want to achieve the purpose ofphysical and mental needs. So, psychologically speaking, they aresensitive and their independent capabilities are very weak. And in theirspeech, their languages are very polite, indirect, modest and veiled.3.3 Social Factors On the one hand, the social position of women has been less securedthan men’s since class society came into being. Women were oftenregarded as an appendage of men. For instance, girls are taught to begentle and cultivated from children. In order not to be looked down upon,women do their best to use very standard language. On the other hand,men’s and women’s different social roles and fields of activities are themajor containing factors in performance. In many countries men are ratedsocially by their occupation, income and other abilities while women’s capacities are underrated or denied. It seems natural that women’s duty isto be the wife and mother who supports and nurtures others. In gettingalong with people and being educated, more and more women are awareof their importance and strive to make their own language approximate to standard language.Traditional culture su15 3.4 Educational FactorsEducational factor is also an important reason of forming these characteristics. The following will focus on composition of membershipin educational field, way of education and educated level and majors tomake a brief analysis. 3.4.1 Composition of Membership in Educational Field Some linguists believed the differences of language between menand women derived from the influence of more and more female teachersin schools. Whatever in kindergartens, primary schools and secondaryschools, female teachers has an absolute advantage. Therefore, female teachers’ words and deeds will have a direct impact on the public. Female students will take teachers as their models and inherit the characteristicsof the language, whether intentionally or not.3.4.2 Way of Education Boys contact with guns, automobiles, and other toys symbolizingstrength and power from children. But girls were related to some dollsand other toys symbolizing gentle and kind features. From shooting game,boys were implied to be a brave and strong man. It is his role in society;girls in the game were implied to receive the traditional female role. Thus,these deep-rooted concepts influence women and their languagegeneration by generation. 3.4.3 Educated Level and Majors now‖, etc. women oftenW16 Educated level is an important influence of the different languagebetween men and women. For example, in the traditional Jewishcommunity of United States, men accept longer Jewish education thanwomen. So their Jewish and Hebrew languages are superior to women.But women were asked to accept some secular education. (张爱玲,1995)In Arab countries, the different languages between men and women aredue to the differences of accepting education. In our previous traditional education, the phenomenon of son preference is particularly serious. Sothe different language between men and women is also obvious.Wherever in the world, men learning science are more than womenobviously. This is also a reason of differences in language between menand women. Otherwise, there are many other explanations need us to discover. With the rise of the feminist movement and the continuous improvementof women’s social status, the characteristics of female language will alsohave a great of changes.ing game,boys w17 4The Changes and Developments of Female Language With the changes of times and the rapid development of modernsociety, some tremendous changes have taken place in every aspect ofwomen such as social status, outlook on life and values, etc. Of course,their language should change also. Now, the author will analyzes somechanges and developments briefly from women’s speech style,degradation of sexual discrimination and social effects of femalelanguage and so on. 4.1 Degradation of Sexual Discrimination With the advanc ement of women’s status and the rise of women'sliberation movement, the vocabulary and grammar of English haveemerged.4.1.1 The Word ―man‖ Women want to change people's minds about the role of women insociety by change language such as, the concentration of the word ―men‖.Now, ―humankind‖ is instead of ―man‖ and ―mankind‖ gradually. What’s more, there is a rule in British law: in the advertisement of recruitingworkers, people are not allowed to speak ―salesman‖ or ―draftsman‖. Thesame as ―guard‖ is instead of ―watchman‖ and ―firefighter‖ is instead of18 ―fireman‖. In addition, there are many similar words, such as―chairperson, spokesperson, businessperson‖, etc. 4.1.2 The Disappearance of Some Negative Suffix Negative suffix is often regarded as a discrimination against women. This is a discourtesy calling black women Negress or calling Jewish women Jewess. Female writers like to be called ―author‖ or ―poet‖ andnow ―authoress, poetess‖ tend to disappear gradually. The word ―actress‖which has been used for a long times is replaced by ―actor‖ some times.E.g. ―She is an actor.‖ Of course, it’s difficult to abandon the negativesuffix—―-ess‖, but we need work hard. 4.1.3 Grammar The contemporary feminist movement has affected grammar. At thepast time, the person pronoun ―he, him, his‖ may be used to refer to menand women. So people can say ―Everyone must do his best.‖ But now wecan say, ―Everyone must do one’s best.‖ too and even ―Everyone must dotheir best.‖ though it doesn’t meet the standard of syntax.4.2 Social Effect of Female Language In recent years, it's amazing that more and more people have donethe research of the female language. Many scholars studying the language consider that the feature of female language is the symbol, which denotesthat women are lack of social rights. However, there are some other women oftenW 19 surveys concerning communication are contrary to the right's opinion.This is testified through making observations on the effect of femalelanguage and its social adaptability. It has once made a study showed that compared to men, who areusing their dominating language, women using the female language areable to better take on the assignment of persuading others. Someresearchers chosen a number of students, divided into groups of two. Thefirst group is a girl versus three boys who have different views, and theother group is one boy versus three girls also holding different minds. By observing and studying, it’s found that during debating, the first group iseasier to reverse their views than the second one. Girls attributed theirsuccess to take the attitude of accepting and understanding when theytried to persuade boys who were in defensive state. And when girlsdiscussed in a group, they paid attention to listen and put questions,which can form an atmosphere of friendly consulting. At the same time,girls were good at listening and accepting other’s views. In the field ofcommunication, participants who are more capable ininterpersonal communication all have their own specific some skills, suchas:a. Sending information through contact by eyes, realization and definitehints of body language and other ways can show your interest andreply when you are listening to other person. of times and the rapid d20 b. Positive insight is a good method to judge others' communication hints. c. Self-exchange, personal sharing, understanding and acceptance of otherpeople's feeling are effectual ways to success. d. You should avoid snap judgment or negative evaluations. e. Putting forward your views explicitly can prevent other person from making various possible explanations on your opinions. Comparing the characteristics of the female language with theconcepts and techniques of successful social intercourse, we will findfemale language had oceans of unique features of establishing excellent relationship. When inspecting some important communication field insocial life, we will find unexpectedly that the female language is used fora long time not by women but by men, such as in labor negotiations,diplomatic and legislative activities even in campus and so on.Researchers also found that using female language ingeniously is aneffective avenue of gaining success in communication. Even in dealingwith ethnic, national and inter-regional issues, approach often taken bythe government is through regulation and compromise to seek a solutionof these problems. This language problem-solving mode is very close tothe female language communication mode. Some said,―Women are diplomats by nature.‖ From this we can seewomen’s ability of providing a comfortable environment for conversation.They are good at promoting a harmonious speaking situation. In recent the differences of accep21 years, in the fields of public relations and foreign affairs, the femalelanguage's skills have been widely and rapidly popularized.4.3 Changes in Style of Speech Women will take into account their identities, social status and theirspeech patterns being gifted by society unconsciously when usinglanguage. Gradually, they formed their own speech style. But with therapid advance of society, women’s speech styles have a lot of changes.The following, the author will take the Chinese women for examples todiscuss some changes of women’s speech style. 4.3.1 Amount of Speech The application of language is related to the occasion ofconversation, which influences the amounts and forms of language. In theoccasion of informal communication, the most contents of female speechare chat or gossip, in order to keep social relationship. Besides, theamounts of their speech are more than men’s and the form is casual orarbitrary such as discussion and argument, etc. On the contrary, in theformal occasion, the amounts of women’s speech are fewer than usual. Atthis time, they usually use standard language and their speech style isshort and brief. What’s more, they very pay attention to their speech anddignity but in the informal occasion they don’t. 4.3.2 Topics and Speech Style n seewomen’s ability。