Gender Differences In The Use Of Sentence-end Modal Particle

People have paid attention to the phenomenon of gender differences since the ancient times. Language gender differences also gradually become important issues which linguists focus on with the rise of women’s liberation movement and the birth of social linguistics. The using of modal particles is one of the important features of the Chinese language. In Chinese spoken communication, the modal particles play an important role in expressing feelings, suggesting that presupposition, adding and cutting in tones. Modal particle is a kind of typical function words. The study on gender differences of the use of modal particles at the end of sentence is not only helpful for us to study the modal particle itself, but also helpful for the Chinese gender differences research, and enhance our understanding of the language gender differences in common.At present, the domestic study of modal particles in Chinese linguistics research mostly focused on the modal particle itself, and large controversy still existing among the scholars on the grammatical functions of modal particles. Gender differences research over the use of modal particles at the end of the sentence are not very much. In view of that situation, on the basis of previous studies, this paper take several typical modal particles in modern Chinese as the research object, mainly adopt the method of quantitative statistics, taking some interviewees discourse in a television interview as the sample. The selected samples have been divided into young, middle-aged and elderly three ages, then we statistics the use of the modal particles of gender differences, and make the corresponding theoretical explanations for this gender difference.The full text is divided into five parts:The first part is the introduction. Mainly introducing the original purposeof the paper in order to make clear the value and meaning of this article research. Then, respectively, expounding the research status on language and gender, the research status of modal particles, and the research status of gender differences of the modal particles at the end of the sentences. Then, define the modal particles at the end of the sentences that we will research on. Finally, the paper introduced the research methods of this article, the research process and sample sources. At the same time, this part introduced the gender, age, professional of the samples that we have selected.The second part analysis the gender differences of the use of the modal particle at the end of the sentences, from the perspective of the different speech community, the young, the middle-aged and the elderly, the actors as well as politicians. Then we explained the responding reason of that gender differences.The third part respectively analyzed the gender differences of the use of the modal particles "a" ("ya" "wa") "ba" "ne" "ma" "ma" at the end of the sentence. Then we made corresponding explanation for that gender differences.The fourth part made the theoretical interpretation for the cause of that gender difference. We analyzed the reasons for female use more modal particles than male in general respectively in terms of the psychological and social environment. At the same time, the reason for why gender differences of different ages are different and why male use some individual modal particle slightly more than female is analyzed.The fifth part is the summary. This part mainly summarized the main conclusion of this paper, and then pointed out the innovation and the defects of this paper.The main conclusion of this article is:Women use more modal particles at the end of the sentence than men in general. But the gender differences are not the same on different modal particles. Women use more’ya’’ma’than men in general. Modal particle "a" "ba" presents different content in different age groups. Some individual modal particles do not show obvious gender differences. In addition, different members of the society using different modal particles is not only related to gender, but also related to other factors such as age. The innovation of this article is that the selected samples have been divided into different age groups and statistic respectively. At the same time, we define the sample as far as possible in the same professional group and from the same interview program in order to reduce the interference of other factors on the research conclusion. We also separated the variant’ya’’wa’from the modal particle "a ", and reached a conclusion that the variant of the modal particle "a" present different gender differences.