Men
and women do not speak exactly the same. This is not due to a
biological difference concerning being male or female. As a start, we
can say that these differences result from their different social
positions. Men are put in interaction with different kinds of people
whether from their own class or from another different class or even
from different speech communities. Thus, they cannot preserve the purity
of their own language. On the other hand, the interaction assigned to
women with different classes or speech communities is less than that of
men. Thus, women are more likely to preserve the purity of their own
language. The first linguist to discuss that issue was Lakoff (1973).
She noticed 6 features (that would be discussed later) that are common
in the utterance of women (Wolfson 176).
1. Sex and Gender
Before
studying how differently men and women use language, it is better to
account for the difference between sex and gender. That distinction
would make the issue closer to the understanding of the reader. On the
one hand, sex is related to biology. It cannot be helped for it is
related to one's own creation. When we differentiate between male and
female, it is sex that is called into question. On the other hand,
gender is related to one's social acquisition. Miller and Swift make it
clear when they say "At the risk of oversimplification, sex … is a
biological given; gender is a social acquisition" (qtd in Chambers 117).
Thus, gender comes as a result of one's own interaction with one's own
surroundings. Now, it is clear that gender differences regarding the use
of language is not a matter of sex or biology. These differences are
mere 'social acquisition' which enhance the proposition that the way men
and women use language is mainly related to their interaction with
other speech communities.
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