A Study On English And Chinese From The Aspect Of Gender

As one of the major topics in sociolinguistics, the study on gender and language is primarily concerned with the connection between the structures, vocabularies, and ways of using particular languages and social roles of the men and women who speak these languages. This paper takes a multiple perspective approach to demonstrate the existing distinctions in language between two genders.Beginning with the analysis of the relevant terms, this paper presents the general view of the study on language and genders carried out by some linguists. As an initial step, distinctions are made to clarify the meaning of the key terms. The first term is gender. It refers to the sociocultural construction of both sexes. The fact that gender is a term with certain social significance involved triggers off the research of gender and language in a social background. Following this line of discussion in this paper, verbal differences between men and women are illustrated in three ways: vocabulary, conversation and conversational behavior. The first topic of the vocabulary is carried out that masculine words or pronouns such as "he" are usually used universally for both genders. Sex-paired words are semantically equivalent, but they refer to either gender with peculiar connotations. Names are particularly analyzed in order to illustrate the difference. Marked and unmarked words are used to refer to male or female with the same identity and agent nouns are sometimes acceptable for only one gender instead of the other. Besides, word order and semantic degeneration are also discussed in this paper in order to help demonstrate the topic.As for conversation, the discussion begins with phonological difference between male and female. Content and topic as well as the words used in the conversation reveal the characteristics of both genders. Men's styles are different from women's in that the former is considered as a report-talk and the latter rapport-talk. Additionally, some specific scene of language use by male and female is also presented in this paper such as women's language in conversation carried out in the court. Finally, insulting words and taboo languages are used by both genders with different frequency and intentions.The third aspect is concerned with the male's and female's conversational behavior.