by Aliver Sheng
Men and women have different social identity so there are different positions of power in society. This position of power is reflected in the discourse to form different gendered languages. A lot of people have these stereotypes: Politeness and talkativeness are female. Analysis and laconicism are male. But they are not accurate. As Fairclough (2001) stated, ideology is closely linked with power, the essence of ideology is rooted in the power relationship behind certain conventions which takes the difference in these rights as a matter of course, a common behavior. And language, as the most common form of social behavior, is closely connected with ideology. People’s classification of male and female language characteristics is always associated with certain social status and gender ideology. You can see how such stereotypes are maintained and challenged in the following part.
Why people think women are more talkative?
Ke and Zhuang (2001) showed the differences in topic preferences between genders. It is pointed out that women tend to look for personal topics while men seek direct information. Direct information filters out overlapping and unnecessary emotional vocabulary so reduce the amount of conversation. On the contrary, chatting is the main way women get information, they use many words to express emotions for support and confirmation when talking personal topics.
Male: issue event > information/message>question>private affairs
Female: private affairs>question>issue event>information/message
The case of gender and amount of talk being linked indirectly rather than directly: the more direct link is with status (Cameron, 2007). Because the dominance of men in society is reflected through the use of self-affirming language strategies such as indicative language. This reflects their interest in gaining and maintaining status. Women’s relative subordination and traditional caregiver roles are expressed through subordinating language strategies such as support and agreement. It reflects their commitment to equality. Additionally, in public places, people with greater power have more right to speak, men generally speak more in this situation, while women are more silent, so the image of women in the eyes of the public should be quieter. Therefore, even if men and women speak the same amount, people still think women are more talkative.
(https://feminaquotes.tumblr.com/post/113252137491/the-talkativeness-of-women-has-been-gauged-in)
Why do people think women language is more polite than men’s?
More rigorous behavior is often accompanied by stronger affiliation. Women are usually in a secondary position relative to men, and because of the higher level of politeness from the bottom up it is considered that women ’s speech are more polite.
The cultivation of men and women ’s roles is by social structures. The behavior of women should reflect the corresponding image of polite and gentle, while the behavior of men should be responsible and strong. These image requirements will affect their language patterns. As Smith and Nancy (1988) stated, Javanese men and women are arranged to speak different languages on different occasions according to their social status. For example, wives are required to use polite language to their husbands and husbands use a less polite form to show their family status and power within family circle. It is worth nothing that husbands describe their wives’ verbal behavior to them as deferential rather than polite in Javanese. Therefore, polite norms can mean humility or respect, but also status and power. Meanwhile, women in Malagasy are not as polite as men because it is a manifestation of their status lower than men. It is what society demands of them. We can see that the code of politeness is not decrypted by gender, but more related to social structure and public power.
In all, when we talk about the language characteristics of men and women, we cannot just talk about the differences between men and women. As shown by a large number of studies, we discuss them with social structure and status because some of the characteristics are the gender language brought by the social and cultural shaping of gender roles stereotypes. The issue of language differences between men and women a matter of power relations. Only when we thoroughly understand the different social attitudes and demands on men and women, as well as the unequal social status, can we know the source of stereotypes. Stereotypes are usually not true portrayals but a simplified classification, and these simplified classifications are closely related to cultural hegemony. Stereotypes can be regarded as a kind of social control which is not rigid, but controlled in a manner agreed by the public.
References:
Deborah Cameron. (Oct, 2007). Do men and women speak the same language? World news. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/01/gender.books.
Norman Fairclough. (Jan 2001). Language and Power. Researchgate. Retrieved from:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/49551220_Language_and_Power#fullTextFileContent.
Smith-Hefner, Nancy J., 1988. Women and politeness: The Javanese example. Language in Society 17: 535-554. Retrieved from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4167976?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
柯建志, 莊淳惠. 線上兩性溝通風格研究－由黛伯拉．泰南的觀點談起. 資訊社會研究(1) 頁 121-146，2001年7月. 检自https://ir.nctu.edu.tw/bitstream[1]/11536/123671/1/200107121146.pdf
Language Culture and Society in Hong Kong (and beyond) 
Hi Aliver,
Thank you for your sharing of gender specific languages and I agree with your idea about how gender stereotypes are formed under the social structure and are accepted without query by the male-dominated society. People take and perform these gender stereotypes as social norms and they seldom question about these requirements on how a man/woman should or should not behave in particular manners. However, with the gender equality developing and the feminist power strengthening, these stereotypes are challenged and the social constraints on gender get released. Women do not need to be polite, gentle and talkative all the time, and men are not required to speak rationally, directly or aggressively.
People can observe and analyze how different genders prefer to use languages in different ways, but requiring or forcing people to speak in particular manners according to their gender is not reasonable.
I like your post and nice job of you!! 😀
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You gave great analysis of how gender stereotypes in people’s mind were made — it depends on different social structures and social status of different gender. It is actually not only about genetic features on men and women but a kind of power relation in society. I agree with you on it. As you said in the end, stereotypes can be regarded as a kind of social control which is not rigid, but controlled in a manner agreed by the public, from my perspective of view, the relationship between social control and people’s acceptance of the control is delicate. We cannot really tell if the public’s acceptance of control is completely from their own willing or it is partly due to the previous control they received. However, as Wood (256) points out, no matter what the real situation is, it is significant for us to be aware of this kind of social control and learn to think independently.
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Hi Aliver:
It is a very interesting analysis, which is also related to mine a little bit. Gender stereotypes are common in our lives, for instance, girls should have long hair while boys should have short hair. As the society is progressing, more and more people have new opinions about gender, such as feminism. As you mentioned, the code of politeness is not decrypted by gender, but more related to social structure and public power. Therefore, I think that when analyzing specific issues, we should not totally focus on gender but the context, status, power and so on.
Amber
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Thank you Aliver for a deep analysis of language and power with reference to gender. Men and women tend to be linked with stereotypical masculinity and femininity. I think the idea that women are regarded as a more talkative one compared with their silence is very interesting. Personally, I think it may mean that people regard or compare different genders with their own criteria of being a certain gender instead of the others. Men and women’s language behaviors are related with their social positions and ideology. You also explained in detail about why people in different genders have different behaviors in family and society, as well as in different relationship.
Personally, I think these behaviors are precise but only a tendency of male and female language behaviors, while people may focus more on individual identity and ideology based on their own imagine or comprehension of belonged gender community.
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