There
are certain causes that make language differ between men and women.
Firstly, these differences are due to the fact that women are isolated
from the low-class people who speak the vulgar language. Thus, their
language tends to be pure and hypercorrect. Women have a less social
interaction than men. On the other side, the roles of men in most
societies are marked by mobility and movement. "The amount of travel and
exposure to a wide range of language varieties affects the percentage
of Creolized speech within the gender groups, but not across them,"
(Nichols qtd in Chambers 141&142). Men are often greater than women
in their breadth which makes their language more likely to be affected
by others' language. Experiments have proved that; "Men from the island
often work with each other on their mainland jobs, while the jobs of
island women tend to be isolated from other island women and from other
members of the larger black speech community," (Nichols qtd in Chambers
142). This again confirms the fact that the interaction assigned to
women is less than that is assigned to men. This leaves the language of
women unaffected be vulgar languages, and makes it more likely to be
standard. Besides, women's language is characterized by 'inherent
adaptability', which makes them more likely to speak a standard language
(Chambers 142).
Sex
differences might express the social hierarchy of a certain society.
That is if women are inferior to men, they could not address them by
their first names, and vice versa. If men are more powerful, their
spread and mobility would be greater than women, and consequently their
language could be affected so long as they are put in an interaction
with other groups. The same thing is not applicable to women. That is if
they are superior to men and are given greater interaction with others,
their language would not be vulgar as in the case of men. This is due
to the 'inherent adaptability' of their language. Thus, men's language
could be easily affected in comparison with the language of women
(Holmes 166).
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