bels: Miss, Mrs., Ms.
male labels: Mr.
implication: more important for woman to show if she’s married
Historical outcomes of male and female pairs
Master : mistress
Slang for (promiscuous) men and women Slang for promiscuous men and women: Slang for promiscuous men and women Men:
cad, cocksucker/(Aus.) cock teaser, gigolo, horndog, hornytoad, John, lech, mack, motherfucker (?), pimp, playboy, player, slut (?), stud, sugardaddy
bimbo, bitch, chick, floozy, harlot, hooker, hussy, prostitute, skank, slag, slut, tart, tramp, trick, trollop, wench, whore/ho…
Total: 220 Sample from the Thesaurus of American Slang Gender-based linguistic differences: Gender-based linguistic differences NB what follows are group-preferential distributions (speakers from two groups both use a set of forms, but one group uses them more often) rather than group-exclusive patterns, in which speakers from one group use a form, while speakers from another group do not. Do the genders actually differ linguistically?: Do the genders actually differ linguistically? Traditional research (almost all by males, in 'male' academic climate) says YES
Labov, Trudgill, Lakoff, Eckert…
Predominant opinion of gender researchers in last 10-20 years (almost all by females, in 'feminist' research climate) says NO
all evidence is anecdotal, focuses on differences rather than similarities, creates artificially monolithic gender categories
From most recent Linguistics Department meeting: 'no scientific evidence for gender-based linguistic differences'
Is there any scientific/legitimate evidence for gender-based linguistic differences?
Yes, as we’ll see especially for non-canonical genders… Glasgow /s/: Glasgow /s/ From Stuart-Smith et al. 2000 again
The scatter plot shows the distribution of two measurements ('mean‘(X)/ 'spread‘(Y)) calculated from the overall energy spectrum of /s/ at the midpoint of the fricative.
The mean value reflects the overall pitch of the fricative, which is expected to be higher for female than male speakers.
Here females are higher than males overall (all males are below 6000Hz), but there are outliers, in particular 5 girls, including all four working-class girls, who cluster within the male range. This demonstrates that the articulation of /s/ is not simply dependent on biological constraints of sex, but can be finely controlled to signal gender and social group membership. Vocabulary 1: Japanese: Vocabulary 1: Japanese men’s women’s
1st person formal watakusi watakusi
plain boku watasi
deprecatory/ ore Ø
2d person formal anata anata
plain kimi anata
deprecatory/ omae Ø
casual kisama Other examples: Lakota, Chukchee… Vocabulary 2: English: Vocabulary 2: English Color terms
Fart, take a dump, drop anchor… Gender-based linguistic differences, part 2: Gender-based linguistic differences, part 2 Traditional variationist differences Change towards std lg led by women: Change towards std lg led by women Spanish dialect of Ucieda has posttonic [u] where Spanish has [o]
Ucieda trabaju : Castilian (= Std) trabajo ‘work’
This vowel has been lowering in Ucieda as an accommodation to the Castilian form.
The height of this vowel distinguishes:
those engaged in agriculture vs industrial sector
those engaged in traditional mountain agriculture vs the more modern dairy farming
Women (most noticeably in agriculture/farming) lead this change.
agricultural life is unattractive to women, who share in the farm work and do the housework too.
For this reason women are quicker than men to leave the farm, and quicker to signal their distance from their current way of life in their speech. Holmquist, Jonathan. 1985. Social correlates of a linguistic variable: A study in a Spanish village. Language in Society 14:191-203. Jocks and Burnouts: Jocks and Burnouts Eckert 1989 study of a suburban high school in Detroit, focusing on two social groups:
jocks: middle class bkgd, establishment, extracurricular activities, school-based social life, intend to leave
burnouts: working class bkgd, local friends, intend to stay, vocational training Eckert, Penelope. 1989. Jocks and b