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3.2. Gender and age - Coggle Diagram
3.2. Gender and age
3.2.5. Age and social dialect data
In Denmark - difference may be there at the age of four (the role of daycare there): girls use fewer vernacular forms.
Vernacular use in English-speaking countries is fewer for middle-aged speakers, increases for old-aged speakers:
decrease of social pressure
In Britain and in the US - not much gender-related difference in the speech of children
the child gradually acquires standard forms alongside vernacular forms.
the standard forms are likely to be used more often in an interview with a sociolinguist
Adolescents
use particularly high frequencies of vernacular forms which people recognize and identify as non- standard.
Middle-aged
people are most likely to use more standard forms.
Peaks
between 30 and 55 - maximum societal pressure to conform
Level of bilingualism reported by French Canadians at different ages
Young - monolingual in French
Grow older, through school and work they become increasingly
bilingual
Peak between 30 and 50 years old
Retirement- many revert to French
monolingualism
with their family and close friends
The pronunciation of standard [t] in medial and final position may be an age- graded feature.
As people approach middle age, their pronunciation of this sound may become more standard and less vernacular
predict that the percentage of vernacular forms would increase again in old age vernacular forms for people of retirement age would be higher than for the 40– 60
the vernacular pronunciations (medial flap and glottal stop)
gradually displacing standard [t] in the speech of younger people.
predict that scores for those above 60 years of age would show a lower incidence of vernacular forms than those for the 40– 60 age group.
linguistic change - a regular increase or decrease in the use of the linguistic form over time.
For an
innovation
– 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.
For a form which is
disappearing
- Younger people will use less of the form and older people more.
3.2.4. Age- graded features of speech
Male voices generally sound lower in pitch than women’s
Adult voices sound deeper than children’s.
pitch of voices between women and men
culturally relative
Influence in public domains has been a male prerogative
women politicians often have deeper voices than average
women politicians are using male models to gain acceptance
Margaret Thatcher underwent training to lower the pitch of her voice
Social and cultural factors contribute - sounds more masculine to speak with a lower pitched voice
difficult to guess the gender of a five- year- old / identify the gender of a swaddled infant from its wails and coos
develops at puberty
Differences are relative (some women whose natural speaking pitch is deeper than men)
Age- grading- Refers to features of people’s speech which vary at different ages: e.g. pitch, vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar.
Slang
A type of informal, vernacular vocabulary (which is subject to rapid change).
reflects a person’s age.
prerogative of young people
signals membership of the young
Slang is so ephemeral (not last long)
useful clue to guess a person’s age
spread because of online communication and social media.
get picked up by adults -> emerging to replace the terms now used by adults.
3.2.1. Gender and social class
Men use more vernacular forms than women. Group 1 - the highest social group.
In the lowest and the highest social groups, the women’s speech is closer to that of the men in the same group than to that of women in other groups. In these groups, class membership seems to be more important
The linguistic features which differ in the speech of women and men in Western communities = speech of people from different social classes.
Women in group 2 is closer to that of women in group 1 than it is to that of men from their own group.
Women generally use more standard grammatical forms than men
Multiple negation- vernacular form
-----more frequent in men’s speech than in women’s.
-----in every -social group
This pattern is typical for many grammatical features.
The pattern is clear, consistent and widespread and it is evident from a very early age
3.2.2. Explanations for women’s linguistic behavior
3.2.2.1. The social status explanation
Counter argument: working women (having social status) employ more standard forms than women staying home – Stay-home women reinforce the use of vernacular forms used by those they are in social contact.
Where women have few other sources of prestige, language may become especially significant as a social resource for constructing a professional identity.
Hypothesis: women use more standard speech forms than men because they are more status-conscious than men. Standard forms are associated with higher social status -- women want to signal social status when using standard speech.
especially true for women who do not have paid employment - claim higher social status
women interviewed in New York and in Norwich reported that they used more standard forms
3.2.2.2. Woman’s role as guardian of society’s values
Hypothesis: Society expects “better” behavior from women – thus it is expected that women speak the standard variety.
Little boys are generally allowed more freedom than little girls.
Misbehavior from boys is tolerated where girls are more quickly corrected.
rule- breaking by women is frowned on more severely than rule- breaking by men.
Women are designated the role of modelling correct behavior in many communities.
Counter argument: In other context - move away from the standard, for example, mother/child conversation
3.2.2.3. Subordinate groups must be polite
By using more standard speech forms women
are looking after their own need to be valued by the society.
is protecting her face
is also avoiding offence to others
Counter argument: not immediately apparent - polite speech with standard speech
Hypothesis: Women as a subordinate group, it is argued, must avoid offending men – and so they must speak carefully and politely.
3.2.2.4. Vernacular forms express machismo
Hypothesis: men prefer vernacular forms because they carry macho connotations of masculinity and toughness.
Counter argument: If a higher frequency of vernacular form conveys connotations of masculinity (or promiscuity), then why do all speakers from all social classes use more vernacular forms in less formal contexts. Why should forms most typically associated with informal relaxed contexts be identified as “masculine”?
Some alternative explanations
3.2.2.4.1. How are women categorized?
Women are classified by their husband’s social group, miscategorization is one plausible explanation of their speech behavior.
3.2.2.4.2. The influence of the interviewer and the context
In many social dialect studies,
the interviewers are middle- class, well- educated academics.
people tend to accommodate to the speech of the person they are talking to
many women tend to be more cooperative conversationalists than men
Women accommodate the interviewer more than men: they tend to use more standard forms
Men use more vernacular forms when talking to a male interviewer
men in formal contexts seem to be less responsive to the speech of others, and to their conversational needs
the interview context was different for women and men.
Women use more standard forms than men in a formal interview.
their sensitivity to contextual factors - reflect social distance
status- conscious individuals
In societies where women
do not have access to education
and thus have restricted opportunities to acquire the standard variety, they do not use more standard forms than men.
Interpreting their significance - influenced by a researcher’s theoretical framework and beliefs about the relationship between language and social factors. (status dimension, solidarity dimension)
There are cases where the
gender
of the speaker seems to be
the most influential
factor accounting for speech patterns.
there are speech communities where gender is alone influences speech patterns: