Gender Differences In Inter-Gender Communication-An Empirical Study

The study of gender and language has had a long history diachronically and dates back to the 17th and 18th centuries in which European missionaries and some scholars found some different linguistic forms between men's and women's speech. In the centuries that followed, many scholars and sociolinguists did various kinds of research concerning gender and language by focusing on different orientations. With the development of feminist social movement and the growth of the sociolinguistics in America in the 1960s, the relationship between gender and language has attracted more and more attention from more and more scholars. But it is not until the 1960s and the 1970s when Lakoff's well known study Language and Women's Place discussing the English language as it is used by and about women that the systematic investigation and research on the differences between men's and women's speech came about.Since the mid-70s, sociolinguists have addressed this topic from several different perspectives including studies on phonological and grammatical differences between men and women as well as the studies on the sexism in the English language. The relationship between men, women and language is a major topic in the recent years' sociolinguistic research. Sociolinguists have concentrated on the role that language plays in the location and maintenance of women in a disadvantageous position in society, and investigated gender as an independent variable which is related to linguistic variables, along with social status, style, age and ethnicity.Work in the area of language and gender is increasing and flourishing in many fields recently. It is certainly no longer a topic of minority interest. Early empirical studies focus on gender differences in phonetics, intonation, word and so on with the sentences as the unit of structure. Current studies in this field have shifted the focus from highest single linguistic variables to a broader sense, which is concerned with communicative competence, drawing on approaches from conversational analysis. There is increasing emphasis on inter-disciplinary research. Early work tends to be based more on casual observation or retrospection. Recent sociolinguists, however, tend to carry out a wide variety of methodologies including laboratory experiments, survey questionnaires and the record of real-life conversations for their analysis of gender-differentiated use of the English language.Researches of sociolinguistics have been focused on the questions: Do women and men talk differently, in what way and why? In other words, they are interested in different conversation styles women and men employ in their communication. Through literature review, we can see there is a sharp distinction between women and men's styles of communication.In this dissertation, the author will study inter-gender communication from sociolinguistic perspectives, mainly concentrating on two aspects: one is finding gender differences in social contexts and explaining how social variables affect inter-gender communication, and the other is how speakers through the proper management of their speech achieve the identities in different contexts. The author hopes her effort will develop and enrich the study on gender language, meanwhile help both men and women understand each other better and eliminate misunderstandings.The value and significance of this dissertation is that: through empirical study and case analysis researching gender differences in language use and its influences on inter-gender communication, while finding more useful theories and providing more tactics for men and women's communication. The author believes as both sexes begin to know more about each other's communication styles, conflicts can be avoided and inter-gender communication in future will be more effective and successful.