ess 'people, those who are somewhat nervous and afraid of antagonizing others. Powerless people come from either sex.
1. Observations of the differences between the way males and females speak were long restricted to grammatical features, such as the differences between masculine and feminine morphology in many languages. In earlier usage, the word gender was generally restricted to these grammatical distinctions. They cause problems for speakers of languages ??like English, where grammatical gender is marked mainly in pronouns, when they learn a language like French, where non-sexed items like table (la table) can be grammatically feminine. [Spolsky B., 1998].
The most consistent difference found between men and women within the western world is a tendency for women to speak in a way that is closer to the prestige standard. In colloquial terms, they speak «better» than men. No one is quite sure why this is so, and several explanations have been proposed, which may all be partially right. [Aitchison J., 1992]. For example, women may be pressurized by society to behave in a «ladylike» manner, and «speaking nicely» may be part of this. Or because they are the main child-rearers, they may subconsciously speak in a way which will enable their children to progress socially. Or they may tend to have jobs which rely on communication, rather than on strength. All these factors, and others, appear to be relevant. Of the social causes of gender differentiation in speech style, one of the most critical appears to be level of education. In all studies, it has been shown that the greater the disparities between educational opportunities for boys and girls, the greater the differences between male and female speech.
Historically, these differences sometimes seem to have arisen from customs encouraging marriage outside the community. If there is a regular pattern of men from village A marrying and bringing home to their village women from village B, then it is likely that the speech of women in village A will be marked by many features of the village У dialect. [Spolsky B., 1998]. The preservation of these introduced features depends on the maintenance of social differentiation in occupations, status, and activities.soon pick up the social stereotypes that underlie this discrimination. They learn that women «s talk is associated with the home and domestic activities, while men» s is associated with the outside world and economic activities. These prejudices often remain in place in the face of contrary evidence. Thus, while there is a popular prejudice that women talk more than men, empirical studies of a number of social situations (such as committee meetings and Internet discussion groups) have shown the opposite to be true.
In recent years, particularly among employed women, the differences between men «s and women» s speech appear to be diminishing. Such studies, then, provide further evidence of the importance of language in reflecting social attitudes and social changes.If the pattern of females relying on an abstract language network and of males relying on sensory areas of the brain extends into adulthood - a still unresolved question- it could explain why women often provide more context and abstract representation than men. For men the focus is on sharing information, while women value the interaction process. Men ...
