Differences Between Men And Women Speech

Differences between Men and Women Speech.

Differences between men and women speech have long been a matter of scientific studies among sociolinguists, because it has always been thought that both sexes speak in different ways. But curiously, this subject provokes too many arguments to be approved in only one way. The answers about this issue are controversial, nevertheless the sociolinguists have figured out some key facts about it, including the differences of both men and women language features such as style of conversation, syntax and vocabulary.

Secondly, in terms of sentence structure, sociolinguists have found out a lot of differences here too. Anthony Mulac, in his work Perceptions of women and men based on their linguistic behavior: The Gender Linked Effect (1999) claims that women adhere more closely to the norms of the standard language. Females are generally regarded as representing more formal and correct usage in grammar, spelling, vocabulary, and punctuation. Males, however, are seen to make greater use of dialect. They are perceived to talk more informal without paying more attention to the standard language norms. Women also talk in sentences of average length, often introducing their sentences with an adverbial clause, e.g., “Honestly speaking, there’s not much time left to do it”, while men’s ways of speaking are less grammatical and contain more omissions of implied word in a sentence, e.g., “A good thing, this”. Furthermore, women tend to use more intensifying adverbs such as “very” or “really”, and tag questions, e.g. "It's a nice day, isn't it?", more frequently than men, as well as questions in general, hedges and evasive statements. Men, on the other hand, use more directives, e.g. “Give us some more time, please”.The frequent use of, for example, tag questions or hedges in women’s speech is often interpreted as insecurity, weakness or confirmation seeking, as well as trying to maintain relationships with their conversational partners, while men’s speech features shows them trying more to assert themselves and be less emotional than women.

What is more, the differences concerning the usage of vocabulary are also possible to define but it is probably one of the most difficult issues if talking about the differences between men and women speech.