跨文化交际

A Contrastive Analysis
Between Male and Female Language
Abstract: Language differences are related to many social factors, such as class, sex, age, race, occupation, education, etc. There are many differences between male and female language, such as phonetic, intonation, words, and codes of language and so on. For example, women are said to be more status-conscious and they tend to use more standard forms than male speakers with the same general social background. There is a clear case of linguistic sex-differentiation in Japanese, while, in English, the situation is less clear. Generally speaking, the differences between male and female language are determinate and worthy of study.
Key Words: male; female; language; difference
Introduction
Language differences are related to many social factors, such as class, sex, age, race, occupation, education, etc. people of different classes, different sexes, different ages, different races, doing different jobs, or receiving different education, tend to speak differently –use different words, different sentence structures, and even different grammatical rules. Generally speaking, the upper class people, or people with higher social statues, or people who received higher education tend to use Standard English and speak more formally than lower class people or people with little education, or people of lower social statues. Professors, doctors, lawyers, etc. tend to speak Standard English, while workers, soldiers, miners, etc, tend to use sub- or non-standard English, even slang or jargon sometimes
Phonetic differences are the most obvious measures of sexual identity; but languages provide many instances of males and females learning different styles of speech. Women are said to be more status-conscious and they tend to use more standard forms than male speakers with the same general social background. Women‟s dialect is said to be notable for the high proportion of intensifiers, euphemisms, and diminutives. Men seem to be more favorably disposed to non-standard, often socially stigmatized, variants, because such variants are usually associated with values of masculinity and toughness.
In the following part, I will mainly concentrate on female English and the differences between male and female language in Japanese and English.
1. Women’s language in English
With respect to use of language, women‟s identities are often submerged because they are denied the means of expressing themselves strongly, while encouraged to use expressions that suggest triviality, and to use forms that express uncertainty concerning what they are talking about.
The idea that women “gossip”while men “talk shop” and that men are “firm”while women are “bossy” may be criticized as sexual discrimination, but is somewhat accepted by many, including some women themselves. There is a widespread belief that women talk more than men, yet research findings consistently contradict this. Men have been shown to talk more than women in settings as diverse as staff meetings, television panel discussions and spontaneous husband-and-wife conversations.
Scholars (such as Myra and David Sadlker, 1985, psychology today, cited by 黄源深) found from their researches that
1）Men speak more often and frequently interrupt women;
2）Listeners recall more from male speakers than from female speakers, even when both use a similar speaking style and cover identical content;
3）Women participate less actively in conversation. They do more smiling and gazing, and they are more often the passive bystanders in professional and social conversations among peers;
4）Women often transform declarative statements into tentative comments. This is accomplished by using qualifiers (“Kind of”or “I guess”) and by adding tag questions (“This is a good movie, isn‟t it?”).
Other researches found that women are more ready to let other speakers into the conversation or to allow another speaker to dominate the discussion.
Women tend to use more standard forms of English.
At an early age, girls tend to have one or two girlfriends with whom they play regularly. They are more likely to discuss feelings and the impact of events upon themselves.
Women use language to create and maintain social cohesiveness and their activities are generally co-operative and non-competitive.
Women send out and look for signs of agreement and link what they say to the speech of others. They are careful to respect each other‟s turns in speaking and tend to apologies for talking too much.
Some vocabulary items are gender dependent. A word like “gorgeous”, for example is three times as likely to be used by a female speaker as by a male (men use
it only to talk about women, not, for example, about clothes, furniture, or food), while the expression “ever so nice” is used most typically by women over 45, and hardly ever by men of any age.
The following features have been identified as “women‟s language”:
1)Using hedges, e.g. “sort of”; “kind of”, “I guess”, “I suppose”, etc.;
2)Using polite, elegant forms, e.g. “Would you please…”, “I‟d really appreciate
it if…”;
3)Using tag questions;
4)Using empty adjectives, e.g. nice, charming, sweet, lovely, adorable, fantastic,
wonderful, etc.;
5)Strict with correct grammar and pronunciation;
6)Using direct quotations, e.g. “Hannah said that he said…”;
7)Using special vocabulary, e.g. specialized color terms like “navy blue”, “dove
grey”;
8)Using question intonation in declarative contexts;
9)Using rising tone more often;
10)Very careful about syntax;
11)Using more euphemistic expressions, e.g. “powder my nose”( go to the toilet),
“The boy is a bit slow for his age.” (He is stupid.) ;
12)Using more indicators, e.g. “like that picture over there”, “It‟s that big.”;
13)Using more trivial details to describe things.
2. Japanese male and female speech
A clear case of linguistic sex-differentiation is Japanese, where well-defined styles of speech have been known since the early 11th century. Books on feminine etiquette fostered the use of special vocabulary and grammar, alongside norms of gentle and submissive behavior. This traditional view is undergoing considerable change today; but clearly defined sexual roles still predominate, and distinct linguistic forms are widely encountered.
Japanese female speech is a style over which women have conscious control. It is used when women wish to emphasize their femininity; on other occasions, they adopt a sexually neutral style. Thus a woman may use feminine style in talking to her friends about her children but use neutral style when talking to business colleagues. It is also possible for women to use the masculine speech style if they wish to express themselves in an assertive way – and this is often done these days by many who are concerned to promote notions of sexual equality. A particular example is the
increasing use of boku(…I‟) among schoolgirls – traditionally used only by males.
There are also frequency differences in the use of forms. Both males and females use the formal and honorific varieties of speech, but females use them much more commonly and in a wider range of situations. For example, a man might use a certain honorific form only in talking to a superior, whereas a woman might use it for a social equal as well. The polite forms of nouns, verbs, and adjectives are also used more frequently by women.
There have been fewer studies of male speech style, reflecting a tradition that sees female as the …special‟ variety; and a separate label for the male style is not often used. But the style can be clearly defined, and is heard in contexts where traditional notions of masculinity are to be found. By no means all male language is distinctive, however: as in the case of women, sex-neutral speech will often be used, and on occasion there may be the use of feminine features, as signals of gentleness or consideration.
3. English male and female speech
In English, the situation is less clear. There are no grammatical forms, lexical items, or patterns of pronunciation that are used exclusively by one sex, but there are several differences in frequency. For example, among the words and phrases that women are supposed to use more often are such emotive adjectives as super and lovely, exclamations such as Goodness me and Oh dear, and intensifiers such as so or such. This use of intensifiers has been noted in several languages, including German, French, and Russian.
More important are the strategies adopted by the two sexes in cross-sex conversation. Women have been found to ask more questions, make more use of positive and encouraging …noises‟ (such as mhm), use a wider intonational range and a more marked rhythmical stress, and make greater use of the pronouns you and we. By contrast, men are much more likely to interrupt (more than three times as much, in some studies), to dispute what has been said, to ignore or respond poorly to what has been said, to introduce more new topics into conversation, and to make more declarations of fact or opinion.
Most interpretations of these differences refer to the contrasting social roles of the sexes in modern society. Men are seen to reflect in their conversational dominance the power they have traditionally received from society; women, likewise, exercise the supporting role that they have been taught to adopt –in this case, helping the conversation along and providing men with opportunities to express this dominance.
The situation is undoubtedly more complex than this, as neither sex is linguistically homogeneous, and considerable variation exists when real contexts of use are studied. The risk, as some commentators have pointed out, is that in the process of criticizing old sexual stereotypes, researchers are in danger of creating new ones.
Conclusion
Overall, there are many differences between male and female language, such as phonetic, intonation, words, and codes of language and so on. To some extent, there exists a kind of phenomenon of sexistlanguage, which is mainly reflected at three levels: 1) The standardization of language based on male. 2) The noun of female tends to derogatory sence. 3) the noun of male predominates in wortstellung. So women‟s language is still discriminated in some aspects.
However, language is increasingly changing and developing. Language differences in sex are still researched, it is not only a task of linguistics but also a tendency of developing the society. In a word, the differences between male and female language are determinate and worthy of study.
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