A Sociolinguistic Study Of Language And Gender In Othello

"Language and gender" is a significant topic in sociolinguistics, and has received wide attentions and heated discussions since the last decades of the twentieth century. It is generally believed that gender belongs to social construction and is biologically based on sex, and refers to social, cultural and biological differences between males and females. It is very important to study gender differences in daily language uses, and many researchers have made attempts in these aspects. Early studies and researches focus on three aspects:first, theories of "language and gender" and the development of the topic; second, applications of related theories in everyday language uses; third, elaboration of gender differences in language uses from feminism point of view. These studies provide references to the development of the topic and help other researches to get achievements. In recent years, many researchers also apply the related theories into literature works. All these provides basis to the proposed research.Shakespeare’s plays receive wide attentions for the excellent plots, elegant words and profound contents. Although there have been many researches and studies of Shakespeare’s plays, most of them are from literature point of view and there are still gaps from linguistic point of view. Othello is one the Shakespeare’s great tragedies, and it is famous for its delicate plot, outstanding characters and unique description of human nature. Furthermore, the lines of the play are wonderful and have gender characteristics. As a result, the proposed research is to make a study of gender differences in the play Othello.The study focuses on three aspects:the amount of talk, wording and sentence patterns. The analysis of the amount of talk is divided into three parts:(1) the amounts of words and sentences;(2) the amount and the distribution of turns;(3) the amount of adjacency pairs and the proportions. The analysis of wording is divided into four parts:adjectives, dirty words and taboos, interjections and address terms. The emphasis of these parts will be on the amounts and the characteristics. The last aspect is the analysis of sentence patterns:questions and imperatives. The proposed research adopts an integrated method of qualitative method and quantitative method. The research clarifies these aspects and elaborates them through data.Through the analysis, the dissertation summarizes gender differences in language uses in the play, and elaborates the factors causing these differences. Generally speaking, there are many factors causing gender differences, such as biological factors, psychological factors, cultural factors, social factors and individual differences. The dissertation makes a brief discussion of biological and psychological factors, and puts emphasis on cultural and social factors.The unique culture in Shakespeare time requires the plays to be special not only in the content but also in the language style. Positive content and decent language form the characteristics. Profound meaning and nature reflecting are the humanistic requirements. In addition, the long-time Male Supremacy tradition and different divisions of labor tradition lead to gender differences to a great extent, which can be reflected in language uses. The paper also discusses and elaborates these factors.The paper finds gender differences in language uses in the play Othello, discusses the factors causing these differences. In addition, the paper provides some suggestions for future studies.