A Pragmatic Study Of Gender Differences In Daily Conversations

The purpose of this study researches the cause of gender differences in daily conversation from the pragmatic perspective based on the theories of sociolinguistics and pragmatics.It intends to demonstrate how females and males differ in observing or flouting such pragmatic principles:the cooperative principle, the Politeness Principle and the Face Theory in daily conversations and explores the reasons and consequences of gender differences, through collecting and analyzing daily conversational data. In daily conversations, females can make adequate and relevant responses to observe this principle while males cannot make adequate or relevant responses to the other party's speech. They flout this principle. In daily conversations, females like using questions, requests and indirect expressions and seldom use swears or taboo language. So females tend to observe the Politeness Principle. While males use more imperatives, directives, swears or taboo language. So males tend to flout the Politeness Principle. Besides, from the perspective of the Face Theory females and males also differ in employing face strategies. Females tend to employ negative face strategies. They are shy and like using hedges, while males tend to employ positive face strategies. They are optimistic, voluble and like interrupting others. This thesis analyzes the reasons that cause gender differences in daily conversations which can be generalized by different sub-cultures, social power, and psychological factors between females and males. Gender differences have also some negative effects. Firstly, gender differences cause female's disadvantage in work. This is closely related to females'speech styles besides growing and educational factors. For example, females like using hedges which show they are indecisive, have no their own judgment, and gender differences cause miscommunication in cross-gender conversations. From above analyzing, we can get a better understanding of gender differences from the pragmatic perspective. In order to improve negative effects caused by gender differences in daily conversation, to improve cross-gender conversations and to enhance teaching quality of foreign language teaching, this thesis gives some suggestions. As a matter of fact, there are other factors influencing females'and males'language use in conversations, such as different contexts, ages, professions, statuses, which are worth further study in the future.