By
a close analysis of women's language, Lakoff has found that there are
certain features that characterize the speech of women and are not found
in the speech of men. The suggested features could be gathered under
'hedging devices' and 'boasting devices'. As the name suggests, the
'hedging devices' are used to show confusion and uncertainty. The
'boasting devices' are used to strengthen the meaning. To exemplify
this, it was a bad day can express certainty by saying it was really a bad day. It can also show uncertainty by saying: it was a kind of a bad day.
Lakoff argued that both kinds show the unconfidence of the females.
They only use the 'boasting devices' to convince their addressee with
their utterance (Holmes 310).
a. Lexical Choice
Lakoff
noticed that there are certain words uttered only by women. These words
may be related to color such as 'mauve' and 'chartreuse'. She says that
women also use adjectives which are out of meaning and power as
'divine' and 'cute'. This is contrasted to the adjectives used by men
such as 'great' and 'terrific'. However, we should pay attention to the
fact that this study is based on introspection and not on introspection
and not on empirical methods (Wolfson 176).
b. Question intonation in statements
That
feature can be categorized under the 'hedging devices'. Lakoff argues
that women show their uncertainty by intonating questions in declarative
sentences. In other words, they make questions and suggestions when
they are asked about something by their addressee (Wolfson 176). For
example, when they are asked about the time when the dinner would be
ready, they are going to say "oh, about eight O'clock?"(Lakoff
qtd in Wolfson 176). In that case, they have changed their answer into a
question because they wanted to escape authority, or that they wanted
only to make it that way.
c. Hedging
In
addition to intonating questions in declarative statements, women would
hedge their speech acts to avoid being direct and to the point. They
often do this by adding certain fillers such as; you know, sort of, you
see. They might also do this by adding a tag question to their
locutionary acts. For example, they might say: the window is open, isn't
it? What they meant by this is to get the window closed by the hearer,
but they tagged their question to avoid a direct request. In that
respect, they use certain modifiers that show uncertainty such as kind
of and you know what I mean. This is because they want to get an
approval from the other participant. However, tag questions may be used
to express anger or threat. For example, if a woman says "so you think
you can get away with that, do you?" she does not mean avoiding being
direct, but rather expressing her anger or threat (Wolfson 177).
d. Emphatic Modifiers and Intonational Emphasis
"[W]omen use the modifiers so, such, and very to emphasize their utterances much more frequently than men do and that they
combine this usage with an intensity of intonation out of proportion
with the topic of the phrase" (Wolfson 177). As said before, they tend
to emphasize their utterances because they feel from their inside that
the addressee is not believing them. Thus, they use such 'boasting
devices' which in reality show their uncertainty. As an exemplification
of this, if you asked a woman about the performance of an actor, she
would say "it was a BRILLIANT performance" (Holmes 310).
e. Hypercorrect grammar and pronunciation
That
is a consistent use of standard verb forms. Women use more prestigious
words than men do in the same situations. This is applicable also to the
pronunciation and meaning. Labov and Trudgill discovered that women of
the 'lower-middle class' are more likely to use words nearer to the
'prestige norm', because women (in the period of these experiments) were
isolated. Hence, they are nearer to hypercorrection (Wolfson 177).
f. Redundancy
The
speech of women is full of redundancy. They tend to repeat what they
have just said. On the other side, men are more likely to omit
'non-essential' utterances more than women. For example:
A: Male:" I'm employed with…. Aah been there over nine months".
B: Female: "My name is Sophia…. I've been employed…"
In
those two examples, it is clear that the male prefers to omit what
would be understood by his hearer. On the contrary, Sophia repeats every
single detail in her utterances. She uses the complete form of "I've
been" (Holmes 319). The funniest thing is that it may be said, as a
result of the existence of this feature in the utterance of women, that
women are more talkative than men. However, recent surveys have proved
that men are more talkative than women.
g. Interactions and Interruptions
Although
it is known that women are more talkative than men, most of the recent
researches show that this is not true (Holmes 320). Men are more likely
to interrupt others while they are speaking with them. Most studies
prove the fact that while interacting with females, males are more
likely to interrupt them:
Wanda: Did you see here that sociologists have just proved that men interrupt
women all the time? They____
Ralph: Who says?
Wanda: … They think it's a dominance trick men aren't even aware of. But ____
Ralph: These people have nothing better to do than eavesdrop on interruptions?
Wanda: -but women make 'retrievals' about one third of the time…they pick up where
they left off after the man___
Ralph: Surely not all men are like that Wanda?
Wanda: … Doesn't that___
Ralph: speaking as… (Holmes 321).
In
that conversation, it is apparent that Ralph is interrupting Wanda all
the time. She cannot even utter a complete sentence without being
interrupted by Ralph. Females are even more interrupted more than men
whether she is doctor, wife, patient, daughter, or student (Holmes 322).
h. Feedback
Women
tend to provide feedbacks (like mmm) to the utterance of the other
participants more than men. Another study shows that females tend to
develop and widen the arguments of the other speakers. It is deduced
that females are more 'cooperative conversationalists' than men. On the
other hand, men tend not to support but to compete with the other
participant's arguments (Holmes 324).
i. Overlap
Gender
differences in a certain language do not reflect the use of completely
different forms between men and women. They only overlap the similar
forms. For instance, while women pronounce the –ing in a word like
catching as [ing], men pronounce it as [in]. In Sydney,
men utter the first sound in (thing) as [f] more than women. Men also
do not pronounce 'h's as in 'ome and 'ouse. Such examples show that
women use a hypercorrect language more than men do. On the contrary, men
tend to use a vulgar language than woman (Holmes 176).
j. Gossips through Women's Language
The
gossip of females has certain linguistic features. It contains
intensifiers that show certainty. It also contains question tags that
require the interference of the other participants. When all the
participants are women, they complete their sayings. In other words, it
expresses the "cooperative and positive nature" of the females talk
(Holmes 327).
4. Gender- Related Directives
Females
are more likely to use more polite forms of directives than men and
boys. A study of how doctors use directives can clarify this. While a
male doctor may tell his patient, 'lie down', a female doctor may
address her patient saying: "maybe you could stay away from …."
Directives delivered to women are also more likely to be in a polite
form, and even less direct than that are delivered to men (Holmes
193&194). An example of this would be:
(a) Tom: Give me that. I need it now.
(b) Seymour: Get off that car.
(c) Grant: Get out of my house.
(d) Maria: You finished with that rolling pin now.
(e) Lisa: My turn now eh?
(f) Meg: It's time for tea so you'll have to go home now (Holmes 193).
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