For many decades, scholars and academics have considered the ways in which gender affects language and communication. One of the chief questions asked has been: ‘Do men and women use language differently – and if so, why?’ Many theorists, particularly those researching in the later decades of the 20th Century, concluded that there was a strong difference in the way language was used by different genders. In fact, some theorists completely overlooked any similarities in the way men and women communicated; they focused instead on the differences. That seems to have shaped language and gender theories for a long period of time, and some of the conclusions drawn in the 1970s and ‘80s are still accepted in 2018. I feel the time has come to challenge some of those conclusions and assumptions.
One of the most well-known gender theorists is Professor Robin Lackoff who conducted research on the relationship between language and gender in the US in the 1970s. Lackoff asserted that men and women used language in fundamentally contrasting ways. One of her conclusions was that women and men use a different lexicon; she believed they contrast extremely when discussing colours. I conducted an investigation asking a range of people of different genders to describe a range of colours. By using this paint chart investigation, it gives us an insight to whether in day to day life gender affects language. After thorough investigation it is clear that men and women do describe colours differently; with men using one-word answers and women using detailed ones. Whilst it has been almost fifty years since Lackoff made this statement it appears to still be true. This highlights that language is, in fact, affected by gender; it is clear women are more fervent and use more descriptions whereas men do not, showing just how much gender influences their speech. Furthermore, Lackoff also discovered that men curse far more than women. This shows that they are more unaware of what they are saying prior to when actually speaking. They clearly take less time to consider whether what they are saying will offend anyone. Whereas women are more delicate with their language to make sure that what they say is deemed to be ‘correct’. Again, this shows that language is affected by gender as it changes the way we speak.
Another well-known theorist is Pamela Fishman, who also shows that language is affected by gender. She discovered that women use more questions than men in mixed sex conversations. Whilst studying three couples she found that women asked 2.5 times as many questions as men. This shows that not only do word choices differ between genders but also the sentence types. Fishman, however, does not specify what types of questions these are- whether they are tag questions or not. It can be assumed by the power of deduction that some of these questions will be tag questions. This highlights that the woman is more insecure than the man as she feels the constant need to have an answer. In 1978 Fishman also discovered that women initiate more topics in mix sex conversations. She found that 62% of topics were initiated by women and only 38% by men. This infers that women are more likely to talk more than men and are more confident in their speech. It could also suggest that men are not as eager to partake in speech.
However, in Fishman’s 1990's investigation she found that men speak for twice as long as women. This therefore shows that men are confident in their speech too. If men are speaking for twice as long as women are then they might be adding in more tag questions or discourse markers. Arguably, it could be that they believe their own opinions hold more substance over others and so speak for the longest amount of time. From these three of Fishman’s points and investigations we can see that language in fact changes with gender.
Another element to consider is that language also changes depending on the gender that it is directed at. For example, from looking at a range of children’s adverts the language changes depending on whether it is targeted at a boy or a girl. Ones targeted at girls such as Barbie advertisements all have a semantic of beauty and appearance; whilst the ones targeted at boys have a semantic of strength and domination including words such as ‘mighty’ and ‘power’. Both of these contrasting adverts use stereotypes in their language, assuming boys are only interested in action and power whereas girls are focused solely on beauty. This shows that each gender has cliché words and phrases associate with it which may warp their mind into using certain types of language themselves. These stereotypes fuel the societies opinion which is why it is often 'big news' if a boy wears a princess dress or a girl wants to be 'spiderman'. If we change how language is directed at different gender audiences, would this change societies outlook on stereotypes? I think as times are moving forward we are close to finding out the answer to this question.
To conclude this discussion, it is clear that language is affected by gender as from studies we see that both genders use language in a contrasting way. Furthermore, it is clear that there are certain words which are associated with genders causing them to influence how you address boys and girls, or men and women.
