A Pragmatic Approach To Gender Differences In Cross-gender Conversations In Pride And Prejudice

The study of gender differences in language is an important topic in the field of sociolinguistics, which has attracted increasing attention from a great many linguists at home and abroad. The differences between male and female language have already been studied in almost all languages at all linguistic levels. However, the application of pragmatic theories to the study of gender differences reflected in the conversations in a novel is a new vision and an efficient way as well.Based on the theories of sociolinguistics and pragmatics, the current thesis adopts the qualitative research method to make a pragmatic analysis of the cross-gender conversations in Pride and Prejudice, a novel by Jane Austen. It intends to demonstrate how females and males differ in observing or violating Grice's Cooperative Principle (CP), Leech's Politeness Principle (PP) and Brown and Levinson's Face Saving Theory (FST) in the cross-gender conversations. The purpose of the author is to help people get a better understanding about gender differences in language use, and promote a harmonious dialogue between men and women.Through detailed analysis of some cross-gender conversational fragments selected from Pride and Prejudice, it is found that women in that novel can observe both the CP and PP well in communication and try their best to keep conversation going by speaking sincerely, relevantly and clearly while providing sufficient information, or using questions, requests and indirect expressions, etc.; sometimes their violation of the Manner maxim and Quality maxim of CP is out of politeness needs, solidarity, and feeling dependence, etc.. In contrast, men tend to be less cooperative and impolite. They frequently violate the CP and PP by speaking too long, too little or giving false or irrelevant information, or using imperatives, interruptions, swears or taboos, etc., which often result in impossibility of smooth conversation, even termination of the communication. The analysis also shows us how men do face threatening acts (FTAs) bald on record and how women try hard to adopt face-saving strategies such as positive politeness, negative politeness, or the FTAs off record to avoid or minimize somebody's face threat in the cross-gender conversations.Based on the author's findings, the thesis then explores the reasons of gender differences in conversations from social and cultural aspects. It is indicated that such differences are mainly caused by different labor division, different social status and power, and different subcultures etc.. What's more, the particular reasons that may lead to the gender difference in the conversations in Pride and Prejudice are discussed. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications of the thesis are illustrated and simultaneously in order to serve better for the further studies of gender-language and appreciation of literary works from the perspective of pragmatics, the limitations of the present study are pointed out with some suggestions provided as well.