This leads to variation of language due to gender.

1. LANGUAGE VARIATION DUE TO GENDER
A Practical Approach
RAUSHAN KUMAR (1301046)
IIIT GUWAHATI
1. Introduction
Differences in the ways that men and women use language have long been of interest
In the study of linguistics.
Do the men and women who speak a particular language use it in different ways? If they do than
one need to answer the questions like
 Why men and women speak language differently and how?
 What type of differences in language use by men and women?
 Are they meant for it?
 Is there any specified category for men and women both?
 Are they trying to make difference between them?
Thus there are so many questions that cross into our mind like these.
There are so many reasons for language change but gender is one of a kind. Every day we
observe people to use different type of language.
It is quite fascinating to find out why and how men and women speak language differently.
I tried to find out why and how language changes due to gender and in this term paper I am
going to discuss some of the aspects of my observation. For my purpose I talked some of my
family members and college friends. I asked these people very simple questions and made my
conclusion according to their answers so that anyone can relate the theory with their practical
life.
2. Gender and Sex:
Before going to depth I just want to clear the differences between sex and gender. Anthony
Giddens (1989: 158) defines “sex” as “biological or anatomical differences between men and
women,” whereas “gender” “concerns the psychological, social and cultural differences between
males and females”.
Sex is to a very large extent biologically determined whereas gender is a social construct. Gender
it is part of the way in which societies are ordered around us (Wardhaugh, 2006:315)

2. 3. Linguistics gender research background:
The investigation of gender-specific language variation started in the 1960 but Early
studies on language and gender usually considered the language or speech behavior of
women in terms of a deficiency model, that is, they considered the speech behavior of
men as stronger, more prestigious, and more desirable.
Labov(1966) was the first to notice the important role of sex/gender as a sociolinguistic
variable with his study on MARTHA'S VINEYARD and his NEW YORK study. In these
studies Labov considered sex as one of the factor. To explain socio-phonological
variation he used the concept of “prestige,” to prove his points
1. Variation: Women use more standard variants than their equivalent men.
2. Hypercorrection: Women hypercorrect their language compare to equivalent men.
Labov did not go much deeper to study about language variation due to gender but
Trudgill (1972) did. He works within a framework similar to that of Labov, but he got a
stronger emphasis on sociological reasons to account for the observed gender-specific
difference in language variation.
Trudgill (1972: 91) states: “The social position of women in our society is less secure
than that of men … It may be … that it is more necessary for women to secure and signal
their social status linguistically.” Furthermore men are judged according to their work,
yet women are assessed according to their appearance, which includes language.
After Trudgill James and Lesley Milroy (1980, 1981) came up with the more specific
explanation of the language variation due to gender. The key idea was to observe men
and women language in their social group. Milroy got a conclusion that .Female
linguistic behaviors are more tolerable compared to men mostly, so that women have
more linguistic freedom than men and women’s style is standard and men’s style is not
standard.
In the second decade of linguistic gender studies, research in linguistics and
communication sciences investigated differences in the speech behavior of men and
women, resulting in a situational ranking of the sexes.(coulmas, 1985)
In the next phase, emphasis was put on research on gender socialization. There is an
extensive literature showing that boys and girls learn different verbal and nonverbal skills
in their mainly same sex children's and peer groups. These skills remain relevant for
adults in many situations.
The differences in subcultures and socialization processes were emphasized yet the
power aspect seems to have been neglected.
Most recently, social constructivist have been taken into account. In this approach,
gender is understood as an indirectly developed identity category, integrated into the
formation of other identity categories.

3. 4. Language Change
So far we have seen that so many linguists have taken this topic as their research interest
and found out some important conclusions. In this section we will see how to relate those
conclusion with the real practice. Mainly in this section we are going to see practical
common analysis of conceptual theories. In this section one can get satisfactory reasons
of language change due to gender.
4.1Due to Biological Difference:
Explanations of the difference in sound frequencies using the difference in men and
women vocal tract. Anyhow stress is the important factor in cultural transformation and
language change.
Few researchers also think that there is a biological cause of the observed language
variation. For example Chambers (1992) thinks that “women have a better ability to learn
languages and will therefore show more variation”.
My Observation
For example I asked to one of my college male friend about mess menu and the same
thing I asked to a female friend. I noticed the difference in style of speaking and
explaining the mess menu. To be very frank I came to a conclusion that women explain
worst thing in such a polite way so that it would not seem that much worst that it was
before.In other way my male friend explained the mess menu in such a way that I cannot
eat the food even I am so much hungry. One of the reason for this difference is because
of their differences in voice(comparative softness in voice)
4.2 Due to Mentality:
Male and female have different personal culture just because they see the world
differently. No doubt they will use their method of explanation differently according to
their assumption and coordinates (position). In general men and women develop a
mentality while they are growing that one has to speak according to their kind. It simply
means that men have to speak differently from women so that they can they belongs to
the two different culture.
The status of men is derived from their occupation. Women who mostly work at home
have to use symbolic systems including language to demonstrate their status (Eckert,
1989).
Milroy (1981) said male peer groups exert strong pressure on their members to use the
vernacular and the most satisfactory reason for this is given by Lippi-Green (1989) he
said that men exert strong pressure on their members to use of the vernacular is due to
their tendency to delimit themselves from women.
My observation
To verify the truth and generality in this two cultural approach I asked again same
question to my IIITG college friends in which some of them are male and some are of
course female. I asked them “If you get two day of holiday and you have no college work
pending then what will you do?”

4. Most of the male friends used offensive words to me and said this is not possible but
when I forced to say something than most of male friends said that they will enjoy a lot
by playing games, watching various TV series( like “Game Of Thrones” , “The Big Bang
Theory”) and breaking sleeping records. On the other side female friends became happy
when I asked the same question and they replied that they will first of clean the rooms
and cloths, talk to parents more than they usually do, read a novel of SIDNEY
SHELDON. Some answers were common in both that to visit a hill station near to
Guwahati.
After my this observation I came to the following points:
1. Male talk differently with male and female friends.
2. Female talk differently with male and female friends.
3. Male talk more in their favorable topic (like playing LAN gaming).
4. Female think much before talking to any of the topic.
5. Male don’t think so much about the perception made by questioner but female think
about this very much. They (female) tell only those things so that the questioner
cannot make any negative attitude about them. As
6. Male and female both used different set of vocabulary for example men use more
Slang in compare with women (In my observation). Because women think that if they
use slangs then they will make a negative picture of their view.
Finally I can say that men and women think differently because of their mentality to
show their ability and gender.
4.3 Due to occupation
Nichols (1983) said that “the different occupations of men and women lead to a different
exposure to other language varieties. Female’s jobs are often further away from their own
community and entail more contact with other people than do those of men, who share
their workplace with members of the same speech community (factories). This leads to
the higher language proficiency of women, better control of more registers and styles,
and an orientation to supra-regional language norms”
My observation
To verify language due to occupation of male and female I again did a social experiment.
I asked same question to my sister (housewife) and an IIITG college girl. The question
was: “ what if I give you 100 bucks now with the condition that you have to spent all
with in an hour?” As expected I noticed vary different answers from both of them.
One of them said that she will buy a dish wash soap, a surf excel , a headache balm, and a
dairy milk.
Where other one said that she will simply recharge her mobile to activate internet pack
for making English term paper.
You can simply make a clear conclusion that which answer is made by which one. Yes
first answer was of housewife and other one is of IIITG girl.
Thus we can simply see that occupation make a vast difference in using language. As in
one side the house wife used the household words (surf, soap) and college girl used some
technical words.

5. Ok, here I made the conclusion to compare women of different occupation. In the similar
way I asked the same question to my brother (bank employee) and as expected he
answers differently.
4.4 Due to dominance:
Deuchar (1990) said that Female usage of the standard language is intended as a means of
improving their own inferior position in a patriarchal society The weaker a woman's
position, the more she is forced to be polite.
My observation
To examine the difference due to dominance in language use by men and women I
observed My mother and father. My mother is a housewife and father is working man.
I called them and asked for 1000 rupees.
Father said “why do you need money every time? What will you do? If you need
anything than tell me”. On the other side mother replied “ beta if you need money then
don’t worry I will ask your father.”
With this example we can clearly see that if the women is depending on men then she use
language according to that where if the men is not depending on women then he don’t
care about anything and answer according to his own view.
Due to native language:
When we were child we don’t care how and what we speak. But after growing up people
expect from us to maintain some standard of language speaking with different
circumstances. What language we speak that reflects our world around us. As my native
langusge is Khari Boli Hindi and I will explain my point by taking two sentences in my
native language and the same in English.
Girl : mai ja rahi hu. (I am going.)
Boy: mai ja rha hu. (I am going.)
One can clearly see the difference in both the line. Yes, in English there is no difference
in language due to gender but in Hindi there is a difference. I mean to say by reading or
listing these sentences one can easily identify the gender of speaker.
In Sanskrit also there is no difference due to gender like in English. And Hindi has been
expected to come from Sanskrit. So this leads to the major question that from where
people of Hindi speaker adopted this gender identifying mode of language. Nevertheless
The reason for this change would be mentality of Hindi speaker that they want to
differentiate male from female. In other way it reflects that if you are speaker of this type
of language than you are habituated to make difference in male and female language. If
you have this type of habit then no maters which language you learn and speak you will
defiantly make change in your current language according to your habit.
I mean to say if we learn from childhood to make difference in male and female then in
every language we will try to maintain the gap of male and female in terms of language.

6. 5. Final Conclusion
My analyses demonstrate small but systematic differences in the way that men and
women use language, both in terms of what they say and how they choose to say it. As I
have explained the early views in my beginning of the term paper that Lobov and
Trudgill had examined about language variation due to gender and after that so many
other Linguists came and examined the same thing in different manner but with different
observation. In my view how we see the world that is important only. And from where
we learn how to see the world? Yes definitely from our parents, society, education,
scientists and so on.
From childhood people make us learn to make difference in man and women with their
different theories and perceptions. Due to biological differences we not only identify the
difference between men and women, so we also commit to behave according to that.
We develop a different mentality about gender and we speak in society according to it.
As I have observed with my college friends we speak whatever we think and our
occupation plays an important role in our thinking. For an example a student and teacher
will think differently. So they will talk differently. Thus according to occupation of men
and women they have different ideas in mind and so they talk differently. We have also
observed that due to power and dominance of men and women language also varies. The
main idea is to observe psychology in men and women mind related to language. I mainly
discussed points that change psychology in human brain related to their language.
I have made my conclusions.
6. Bibliography
" The Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Coulmas, Florian
(http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/tocnode)
Holmes (1995), women, men and politeness. London: Longman.
Gender Differences in Language Use:An Analysis of 14,000 Text Samples
Matthew L. Newman ,Carla J. Groom, Lori D. Handelman Oxford University Press New York
Communicating Gender (Lawrence Erlbaum, 1999).
Wardhaugh, R. (2006), “An introduction to sociolinguistics”.
Lakoff, R.(2004), “Language and Woman’s Place” , Oxford University press.