A Pragmatic Study Of Gender Differences In Verbal Communication

Male and Female languages refer to those which are usually used by men and women or those which characterize gender differences. It is a widely studied subject and the differences between male and female languages have been recorded in almost all languages at all linguistic levels. Since the early20th century, linguists have made systematic studies on male and female linguistic distinctions and identified similar tendencies:for instance, men tend to make relatively direct speech while women make comparatively indirect speech; men make status-oriented speech while women make friendship-oriented speech.Based on the theories of sociolinguistics and pragmatics, this thesis mainly provides a contrastive analysis of gender differences in conversation of Desperate Housewives from the perspectives of cooperative principles and politeness principles. It aims at investigating how the pragmatic principles are violated or observed in the conversations of the characters in the series, finding out some possible miscommunications in inter-gender communication and providing sensible solutions. The ultimate goal of this analysis is to minimize the misunderstandings in inter-gender communication and achieve effective inter-gender communication.Chapter One is the introduction of this study, which covers the background of the study, the significance of the study as well as the purpose and the organization of the thesis. Chapter Two is the literature review. In this chapter, major studies in this field at both home and abroad are introduced. And then the brief introduction of Desperate Housewives and the theoretical foundation of this thesis are also proposed, that is Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle. Chapter Three is the most important part of this thesis, makes a case analysis of Desperate Housewives based on Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle. It also aims to demonstrate how women and men differ in observing or violating two Principles. Through the detailed analysis, it is found that women and men adopt different conversational strategies, and play different roles in speech interactions. Chapter Four analyzes the reasons for gender differences in verbal communication such as historic、social、and cultural as well as psychological factors. At the same time, it also analyzes the negative effects caused by gender differences in language. In Chapter Five, some strategies of successful inter-gender communication are put forward. The last chapter, Chapter Six is the conclusion. It summarizes some shining points of this thesis. The significance of this study for inter-gender communication is discussed. Some limitations of this thesis are also mentioned. And some suggestions for further study are proposed. It is hoped that people can pay more attention to this phenomenon, to know more about gender differences in language, thus to improve their communicative competence and reduce misunderstanding and conflicts in inter-gender communication.