Cross-sex Communication

The study of gender-related differences in language is one of the most important research subjects of sociolinguistics. With the rising of women's liberation movement in America and developing of sociology and psychology, the study of language and gender has attracted much attention of linguists. This thesis analyzes the speech form, distinction and goes deeply into the different gender speech behavior from a perspective of inter-cultural communication. Try hard to gain an entire and fresh insight in a higher level, then grasp the relationship between the use of language and gender differences exactly.The thesis first contrasts the features of men and women's language in semantics and syntactic pattern, and analyzes the various reasons for difference. In addition, it makes comparison and contrast of cross-gender communication, which is influenced by eastern or western cultures and puts emphasis on social culture differences, the major reasons that lead to misunderstanding and failure of cross-culture communication. Furthermore, the dominant national culture is one of the basic points for the research of cross- culture communication. Therefore, Culture difference between east and west represents in the orientations of collectivism and individualism. Besides, influenced by high-context or low-context, each nation has it's own norm of speech behavior. Thus, the double influences of dominate national culture and gender culture help shape the different styles in gender speech communication. Ultimately, the thesis raises a couple of suggestions for effective cross-culture communication and points out that male and femalehave to take proper attitude towards the existence of gender language, and apply communicative norm logically and smoothly with the changing of the context, and finally improve their cross-gender communicative competence and meet their various needs.