Gender and Language Usages rom a Socio―cultural Perspective.docVIP

Gender and Language Usages From a Socio―cultural Perspective 　　【Abstract】Females and males use language in a very different way regarding their pronunciations， vocabulary choices， sentence structures and pragmatic meanings. This paper is to list the major differences in gender-related language usages， and then the primary socio-cultural reasons will be presented to analyze these differences. 中国论文网 /1/viewhtm　　【Key words】language usages； females； males； power； social expectations 　　【作者?介】Shan Chen， Changde Vocational Technical College. 　　Males and females are obligatory to make choices in their daily life. These choices may be manifest in the words they opt for to express themselves， the tones and pitches they articulate， the sentence structures they construct and the meanings they intend to convey and actually convey. This paper aims to list some of the divergences among the linguistic items adopted by males and females， and then the primarily related socio-cultural reasons will be explored. 1. Differences in Language Usages 　　One can quickly be picked up among the crowds， not only by their appearances， but also by their styles especially their language styles. When it comes to telling the differences between women and men， this also applies. Various language usages， including pronunciations， vocabulary， sentences and pragmatics， can help to delimit the boundary existing between males and females. 　　1.1 Pronunciations 　　Initially Lavob has shown a stratification of phonological variables according to gender， age， socioeconomic status， and situational context. Statistically， in an early study of children， Fischer （1958） found that boys used a higher frequency of final -in as opposed to -ing than girls. In the 24 children he studied， only 17% of the girls used more -in than -ing， in contrast to 58% of the boys. In Singapore English， Hiang Gupta （1992） found that postvocalic r occurred more frequently in females than in males （cited in Major， 2004）. 　　Quali