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Research on Gender Differences in Language ---Particularly in DifferentGender VoiceByZhang HaoA Thesis Presented Tothe School of Foreign LanguagesChina West Normal UniversityIn Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement Forthe Degree of Bachelor of ArtsUnder the Supervision of Mr. Leng WenmingMarch 2015OutlineThesis statement:Different gender has different power of voice.West or East, the feminist movement is the product of modern civilization.In the West, particularly in France, the United Kingdom, they led a new round of the feminist movement. So we can better understand the gender difference in language. When women in male society, their statue is gradually changing from accessories to equal with men in society, they paid unimaginable efforts and hard work than male in our society. Also a lot of people have write a lot about gender difference in the past. But I will write the essay in the point of“In the male-dominated society, the female voice is weaker than men.”AbstractChapter One: IntroductionChapter Two:Differences in Cross-gender Communication2.1V ocabulary Differences2.2Gender differences in syntax selection2.3Gender Differences in CommunicationChapter Three: Analysis the causes of gender differences in English language3.1 physiological reasons3.2psychological reasons3.3 Historical Factors3.4 Social FactorsChapter Four: ConclusionReferencesResearch on Gender Differences in Language---Particularly in Different Gender VoiceZhang haoSchool of Foreign Languages, CWNU, Nanchong, China, 637002Abstract：Gender differences exist in any type of system and country.Interaction between language and gender has been one of the over-healed subjects in social linguistics. As a symbol system and social problem, language is the carrier of human thinking and communication, inevitably reflecting each side of social life. Based on the findings from the related fields, this paper aims to give a comprehensive account of gender difference in English language and try to find possible reasons so as to know more about the differences.Keywords: Gender difference, voice, English language, Causes1.IntroductionGender differences have been entered into English language studies. Gender differences in English language mainly refer to the use of a certain male and female sexual characteristics language. In a language,it can be used to distinguish between male and female language.Gender difference, as a sociological issue and an important part of interpersonal communication, has growing attention in recent years. The issue of the relationship between language and gender is developed to be a multi-angled, interdisciplinary subject in linguistics. English has been carved up a number of features, which can reflect the history and social development. As an old language, gender difference has become an important research. Exploring gender difference in language is not only the task of language,but also the necessary community requirement for development. Since the early 1970s, the relationship between language and gender has become one of the main issues in social linguistics. On the basis of numerous former scholars and studies, this paper will discusses gender different in details and propose some personal opinions on the ways of avoiding using the language with gender difference and advocate people to increase female voice.2. Differences in Cross-gender CommunicationSince 1960s, women liberation movement formed in the United States, there exists gender difference issues. The gender difference is becoming one of the linguists study, and they have achieved some success. Until the early 1970s, the research came into a new stage in which people used linguistics to analyze language and gender. With the deep study of cross-culture communication, linguists are not only comparing different culture,but also launching a study of sex differences, which belongs to the category of cross-cultural research. According to different gender people, due to the different characteristics of language, it has a lack of understanding about gender; gender culture often has its own rules;it has carried out the requirements and judgment, this is likely to have some understanding of mistakes. Therefore, providing language and gender will improve people's cross-gender.2.1 Vocabulary DifferencesLexical differences between women and men are a common problem which can be easily ignored in our daily lives. Since the 1970s, many famous scholars,such as Lakoff (1941),P1 Trugill (1943) and S1 Romaine,found differences in terms of gender difference in language,especially vocabulary,which has been studying the gender difference.Based on previous studies,we can see the differences between male and female vocabulary,mainly in the following aspects.2.1.1 The Use of Adverbs, Adjectives and Expletives.Compared with men, women prefer to use some of the more intense language, and have a strong language feature. The high frequency is a symbol about female in English. Women like to use the following expression:”too big, nasty, very, much, surprisingly.”So, we often hear them say:"Foods are so delicious. He was very handsome.He/The star is so excessively cool!" But men would say “Food is good.” ; ”She is beautiful.” ; ” I like this man.”Men often say:” Food is good.” ; ”He is good-looking.” ; ”He is cool. ” So, women can have a more soft and passionate fell. After they communicated with men, they fell very unexpected, they cannot know the way of talk about men. So, in this condition,you can see they cannot actually understand “What are you taking about ?” It is a barrier between men and women. If we just let it alone, we can see a predictability bad news. According to the following discusses, we should increase female voice. It can help us to avoid the bad condition.2.1.2 Selection Forms and Frequency of Popular Words and Slang.Men and women have different vocabulary showed in their mental lexicon. Many linguists survey showed that most slang is spoken from the mouth of men. When you watch a Hollywood movie, you can see a lot of rude lines which usually spoken by men, especially in war film and the City film.Most of the rude lines are like those words--”Fuck”; ”Asshole”; ”God dame it.”; ”Fuck you.”; ”Dame you” ; ”Christ” ; ”Fuck off.” and so on.According to the following examples, you can see the rude words are all connect with female.I think it is discrimination. In the UK and the US society, in most cases,vulgar slang, and swearing and coarse language jokes are male discourse patents, women rarely use them. Of course, gender differences in the use of the English word are not limited in these respects. According to the following discusses, you can see --men always use his power statue in society to get a power voice. When they swear someone, they naturally use a way of violate women. But in our lives, women general do not use the same way as men. They can be silence and mum. After they meet those conditions, they are panic and weak. So, based on those conditions, we should increase female voice. It can liberate their thought. Most important, we can live in a harmony society rather subjection of women.2.1.3 Differences Theme ChoiceMen and women favor different topics we can see those following examples in our lives. A survey showed that men and women have different topics in their communication. For example, men usually choose these major political and economic issues, while women will choose general topics related to education and the family. The following is an example given by Tannen (1991): Eve had a benign lump removed from her breast.When she confided to her husband, Mark, that she was distressed because the stitches changed the contour of her breast, he answered, "You can always have plastic surgery." But male language will say like this, ”You look good.” ; ”I`m proud of you.” So, that`s the reason about “Men can hold a long history about there right of voice ”. They care more about political and economic. They hold the key of the society. So ,we should increase female voice, participation in Politics. That can gradually the unfair condition.2.1.4 The use of Adjectives.Women prefer to use empty adjectives such as "cute, charming, divine, lovely" to show their good manner and their care for others.In this case, women are more romantic than men. Women would like to describe the rich and lovely clothes, tempting chocolates, gorgeous gourmet food,etc. While men prefer to use such adjectives as "great, great, cool" these neutral words. From color, we can see women feel better than men.Perhaps it is because women almost are beauty. Women are good at using the exact words to describe different colors. Despite some common colors, women can even distinguish between different expressions of the same color with purple, sky blue, beige, lavender and aquamarine. At this point, male must admit defeat.(Fang,2005,p12)2.2 Gender different in SyntaxBesides word choosing,men also can show “They have different grammar structure with women. ”Women usually use the subjunctive to highlight their respectful euphemism, or use declarative sentences followed by expressed in polite language. For the same thing, men may say:"It is better.", while women usually say: "It is better, isn’t it?" Clearly men and women on this expression is obviously different. In general, women use " Could you " ; "May you,"those well polite sentences, when they speak ,they will also add something,such as" I think, I guess "and so on. They will use such polite sentence to avoid a direct answer,meanwhile they want to express a more moderate tone as well as some of his tentative requirements. Studies have shown that women use 2.5 times than men at frequency talking interrogative. (Ren,2011,p45) The reason why women often use interrogative mainly lies in respecting each other, building a more harmonious atmosphere, while men rarely use interrogative talking, but with the very different purpose.Women are getting more information than men. Women would like to express their negative evaluation, objections,etc. Men usually use imperative sentence more frequently, whose tone is a command,such as "Bring it now!" ; ”Here you are.” ; “Close the door now, Marry.” ; ”Give it to me now”; ”Shut you mouth up now.” and so on.2.2.1Gender differences in Discourse StylesWith the further development of sex differences,people gradually focus on gender differences, it began to broaden the horizons of gender differences. On top of that researchers begin to study differences in metastasis. Researchers basically studythe knowledge of understanding language and gender differences. And they found a relationship, which can be a more comprehensive and accurate way. In the different social interaction and different words background,linguists survey showed that gender differences reflect in selecting a different theme, different volume in speech, different models and strategies (Xu, 1997, p1).In general, women cooperate with each other in their talks,usually they will take turns about speaking, also they guarantee“Everyone has a chance to speak.”, they rarely speak a long time. When they began to speak, they will pay attention to maintain the continuity and they make the talk very smooth. Therefore, they tend to spend more time in the same subject, thus they can change the topic more gradually than men. Women pay more attention to audience reactions and processes. In comparison,men tend to show intense competition during the call, and tend to control subjects and presentations,rather than letting someone else choose, the result is that some people talk a lot more than others. When they start talking, men rarely mentioned before things to others,on the contrary, they only pay attention to their topic, so there will be more unexpected problems, they just thinking.For the audience, it is easily to listen to the result rather than the process. Men have slow response when others express their views, for his mind was still on a theme.More importantly, their response is transient, and in most cases it is vague, rarely positive comments.Men do not want to interrupt when others speak. As a speaker, men will always be interrupted by anyone who has different ideas. They just talk while most women remain silent and listen carefully about everyone’s ideas. Therefore, men remain careless about their college’s speech, so they tend are inclined to become enemies. Quarrel, shouting, swearing, threats, ridicule, those are significant gender language among these different gender.2.3Gender differences in CommunicationGender differences are not only reflected on those following differences, but also reflect on social communication. Gender differences lead to the difference on communication with everyone in society between men and women. Men and women, one considered as two different and independent social groups. Undoubtedly, there exist differences on communication styles between men and women. Different social groups between men and women exist in behavior, language differences. Despite in the larger community has some differences;small differences exist in other communities. In general, women tend to use more feminine language, euphemisticallyfemale language than direct. The study found that men will always dominate when they talking with female. Unlike male,female is always a subordinate during conversation with male generally. For example,during a call, we will often encounter the following situations:1.Men always take the initiative to interrupt others in conversation, but women are more likely to let others talk when being interrupted; In addition, women participate in discussions, asking questions in different ways.2.During the conversation the male usually give accurate answer, in order to strengthen its role. However, women are often afraid to give their opinions directly; instead, they usually do not impose their ideas on others, they just want to get the support of others. Only having the awareness and being familiar with these differences can we realize we should increase female voice and become equal.2.3.1Gender differences in Voice IntonationIn term of pronunciation, men and women may use different intonation. Biologically, women voice is much higher than men. As human beings, men and women have a big difference in their vocal organ structure, only one-third of adult male lung capacity equal to the female’s lung capacity. Usually female voice is much softer, while male voice is more rugged. Male larynx and vocal obviously larger than women, so they have relatively low frequency at resonance. There are little change in men’s speech , while women have more obvious changes in the speech, in general, men talk more monotonous, they have uniform loudness in talking speech. Biologically speaking,women have a high average voice quality than men. But fundamentally, these features do not make sense discernible change in their role mainly composed of individual words, the language of the sound image with a sex and gender characteristics shape the speaker has to be highlighted,etc. But more importantly, the difference are socially determined, so we must increase female voice. It can balance the society- that is unfair at the first beginning.2.4Difference in Giving OrdersGender differences are not only reflect on biological differences, but also have differences in giving orders.About orders,linguists also analyzed differences between men and women, mainly the differences between male and female bosses. When they are the boss in their field . How do they order their employees? In order not to appear too overbearing, they may show their soft,"Maybe we should." ; ”Maybe we canfinish it.” ; ”Maybe we can find it.” Woman’s talk style,they does not only care about ability, but to make them look confidence, because they want to be approachable.Honest say, although the women bosses have higher the status, they still stick to their harmony living style,not overbearing and too direct.In contrast,male boss orders tend to be more direct,using fewer words. They would say,”You ,give me a cup of coffee now.”; ”You must finish your job this afternoon,or I`ll fire you!” ; ”Why you are so silly,what can you do if you cannot do those easy work.” and so on. According to the following example, you can see the female are very kind and patient to their employees. But more importantly, the differences are social statue determined. According to those examples , you will see we should increase female voice.It can make our society more effectiveness.3. Analysis of Causes of Gender Differences in English LanguageGender differences exit in the language in the following area: such as political language,ideology,social status, role relationships,language attitudes, occupation, education, social interaction,activities, and the nervous system, cultural, psychological and physiological phenomena and other factors.But the survey found that some important factors, like psychological factors, historical factors and social factors also can lead to the English gender differences.3.1 Physiological reasonsTypically, compared with men, Women talk with more standard and fluent language. From linguists view, female have advantage in language. Although in the same conditions, that can make women have a more powerful language than men.This is mainly due to the women having advantages of physiological factors than men. The women have a stronger language acquisition than men which determined the ability about women. Also we can see it from a medical view, women have left hemisphere earlier than men, so their brain is maturing earlier than men. At higher levels of consciousness,the female brain is easier to grasp richer language than men. In addition, lung capacity is also much smaller than the males. Due to the large differences between men and women, they have different vocal organs existing in the physical body. As a result, there are some differences in sound quality. Differences between men and women exist in the mind is also a cause on the application of gender differences in the English language.3.2.1Psychological EffectGender differences are not only reflected on English language differences, but also reflect on psychological differences. Psychologists Studies have shown, before puberty, the girl usually handles every problem.In general, women are emotionally relatively delicate, considerate, polite, gentle,understanding, etc. But females are usually hesitant when something happens, so their performance can be more hesitant than men sometime. When they are speaking with a rising tone interrogative sentences, they can have a lot questions. To express their psychological uncertainty. In addition, the use of the sentence with rising tone is also a hint,indicating that the speaker's own views are hesitant,hoping to get recognition from others. Male characters are more feisty, treat things more simply,so men usually like to control conversion when they discuss a topic, they do not like to be interrupted when he speaks himself.3.2.2 Differences in Psychological ExpectationsAccording to the previous examples, we can see psychological can reflected differences on gender differences. So, we learn psychological expectations now. Men are good at struggling all his power to control others,including women.Women realize that they are the weak force. Men usually automatically fight right in the conversation, and the men often seek the opportunity to get to talk with women. When they are talking to other women, they talk with the elegant and polite language. On the other hand,women are more emotional than men,and they can easily be induced. Therefore, in everyday life, women will use iambic strong pitch to express inner feelings. Therefore, men rarely use cadences. It can be seen, the psychological difference between men and women is an important factor leading to differences in language use. We can see that women have a congenital weak, so we should improve their voice in our society to equality the differences in psychological expectations.3.3 Historical FactorsGender differences are not only reflected on psychological differences, but also reflected on historical factors. Each language reflects its true social ideology. In the process of development of world history,the patriarchal society occupies the supreme authority, which led to gender differences in language, so they divide into womenlanguage and men language,even now they cannot be discriminated against. For example, in English-speaking countries. In Feudal society, in fact,it occurred to the long male-dominated society. Men dominate the history of the entire English-speaking countries. They firmly grasp the discourse, which leads to discrimination on the ideology of English culture for women. The development of all aspects of language development is even more difficult to escape the catastrophe. A series of feudal ideology has deeply influenced the development of women language, making them vulnerable groups of society, forcing them to use the language of men. Women language is completely different "weak language." In fact, this happens in every country. Generally, there are profound reasons for gender differences in English history. We have experienced many times about patriarchal society, why not change it a little?3.4 Social FactorsGender differences are not only reflected on historical differences, but also reflected on social factors. Many linguists believe that, in society,the gender differences in language reflects both men and women, it will play a different role. Many studies on the prototype of gender have shown that men are considered more self-centered, competitive and aggressive, while women are more sentimental,grateful,enthusiastic and helpful (Wang, 1999). Therefore, people's behavior should not be contrary to the social community property entrusted to us.Before they were born, different social roles and their behavior has been set separately.As we all know,in most societies,boys are more valuable than girls. Most parents want their first child or only child is a boy, not a girl, because his son will be seen as a symbol of the heir. When a child is born, a boy was educated to behave like man while a girl was educated to behave like woman.(Smith, P. M.1985.) Meanwhile, the standard difference "potential reputation" of men and women, also help to understand the language differences between men and women. Noble people follow the standard form, and takes the form of non-standard to get the "potential prestige", which is in the pursuit of masculinity. Women are pursued by the standard form in order to obtain a higher social status.4.ConclusionHumans have different sex,and language is a tool of human communication.Unavoidably gender differences in society exist in everywhere, so dues English significant differences have existed. In the English pronunciation and intonation, grammar,vocabulary and communication styles and themes. The impact of these on men and women are evident,it is not only in the English language applications but also showed big difference, if we have some knowledge and understanding so that we can effectively avoid misunderstanding and thus effectively promote cross-cultural. In the present background patriarchal society, we should increase the voice of women. According to the following discusses, you can see --men always use his power statue in society to get a power voice. When they swear someone, they naturally use a way of violate women.But in our lives, women general do not use the same way as men. They can be silence and mum. After they meet those condition, they are panic and weak. So, based on those condition,we should increase female voice. It can liberate their thought. Most important, we can live in a harmony society rather subjection of women. So, if we can increase female voice in our society. We can get a more harmony atmosphere in our lives.It is accord with our government’s policy as well.ReferencesLakoff, R. (1941) Language and Women Place [M]. Language Society. New York: Harper & Row,19731Maltz, D. N. & R. A. Broker . Cultural Approach to Male and Female communication [M]. In Gumperz, 19821Smith, P. M. Language, the Sexes and Society [M]. New York: Basil Blackwell, 19851Romaine, S. Language in Society: An Introduction to Socio2linguistics [M]. Oxford University Press, 1994Trudgill, Peter.(1943) The Social differentiation of English in Norwich [M].Cambridge University Press, 1974.方怡. 论言语行为中的性别差异[ J ] . 合肥工业大学学报(社会科学版) , 2005(10) : 89 - 911任蕊.从语言性别歧视看英语中性别平等的非现实性[J].沈阳农业大学学报:社会科学版,2011,15(1):79-80.徐力生. 话语风格上的性别差异研究[ J ]. 外国语, 1997(1) : 43 - 461王改燕. 男女语言行为差异初探[ J ]. 外语教学, 1999(1) : 71 –721薛雁. 谈英语语言中的性别差异及其根源[ J ]. 兰州商学院学报, 2003 (5) : 104 - 1061。