articles related to Language and Gender

Introduction

In this assignment, I had chosen five articles, 3 of them are from journal resources, and the rest two of them are from Internet resources. The articles are related to Language and Gender which I chose because I find the topic to be very interesting and easier to understand. There are a lot of researches made on that topic and it is easy to get them. The articles are:

1. Hedges in Japanese conversation: The influence of age, sex, and formality

Shizuka Lauwereyns, University of Maryland.

2. Aging and Gendering

Richard Cameron, University of Illinois

3. Language, Gender, and Sexuality: Current issues and New Directions

Deborah Cameron, University of Oxford.

4. Gender, Violence-oriented passage content, and second language reading comprehension

Cindy Brantmeier, Washington University

5. Examining the effects of gender and Second Language Proficiency on Hispanic Writers’ persuasive discourse.

Andrea B. Bermudez

Doris L. Praterdh

University of Houston Clear-Lake

As we know, female and male speakers share similarities and differences to be observed and revealed for the benefits of the language learners. We can say gender as “something not always apparent, but always present” (Sunderland, 2000, p. 203). In order to make learning second language effective to both male and female equally, the similarities and differences need to be discovered to serve the purpose. In this review, I will relate this article with the Language and Gender topic; Gender and Age and Gender, politeness and stereotypes. I will also relate the articles with Malaysian’s context to see whether the ideas and findings are applicable in Malaysia or not.

Hedges in Japanese conversation: The influence of age, sex, and formality

By Shizuka Lauwereyns, University of Maryland.

In this article, the main issue is the hedges in Japanese conversation that is divided into three social variables which are age, sex and formality. Since the topic is about Language and Gender, the issue covered is only about sex. In this article, the hypothesis is “hedges are used more often by women than by man”. Hedge is used to describe a noncommittal or ambiguous statement (Gove, 1993; Sukhanov, 1992) or defined as vague expressions of uncertainty, possibility, tentativeness and approximation. According to Robin Lakoff, an American linguist, she suggested that women use hedging devices to express uncertainty, and they signal lack of confidence of the speakers. This lack of confidence feeling occurs maybe because of the subordinate feeling from men’s presence. In Japanese conservation, men tend to dominate indirectly as the women will converse softly and have hedges in their speeches thus indirectly highlighted the men’s speech. Women in Japan tried to maintain their position by talking softly and give ways for men’s speech.

It was recorded that the Japanese young women’s speech has been through slight changes with time. Previously, Japanese women’s speech was characterized as polite, gentle, soft-spoken, nonassertive, and empathetic compared to men’s speech (Ide, 1982, Smith, 1992b). Nowadays, the speech has become ‘less feminine’ (Okamoto, 1995; Phillips, 1997). However, no matter how the speech changes, the differences between the women and men speech may still be preserved, such as the degree of vagueness, nonassertiveness, and softness. The distinctions between women and men’s speech are more a matter of degree of formality or politeness rather than just a difference of gender. While men’s speech are usually in casual contexts, women’s language can be used by everyone in public contexts (Holmes, 2008). This makes women’s style of speaking can be used in any occasions.

The finding of the research shows that women tend to elaborate their speech by expanding and adding their utterances by giving more examples than the men do or avoiding to give a definite answer by listing or implying other possibilities. “Women’s tongues are like lambs’ tails; they are never still”(Holmes). As we know, women are been categorized as the more talkative sex compared to men, as women like to stay in interaction even though the conversation is without any purpose. Cameron (1998), “the wives took over their husband’s conversation to make sure that the conversation goes on without any awkwardness and they have no problem doing it”. Through this we can see that women talk not only for themselves but also to suit the purpose of their spouses’ talking. In this article, women indicated in both implicit and explicit ways that they feel responsible for communication in the second language. Second language teachers can benefit from this statement as female second language learners might be a big help to male students to practice their second language. Cameron (1998), “whenever their husbands had difficulty expressing themselves in English, Sylvia and Vera jumped in providing a translation”. This adds up to the nature of women, they likes to gossip and talk. (Holmes, 2008) women tend to avoid criticizing people directly because this would cause discomfort. This is because women tend to give priority in affirming solidarity and maintain social relationship.

In Malaysian context, women also have hedges but so do men, and the speeches are not distinctly different between both speakers. Both gender uses hedges to make up for the hesitation and pauses in their speech, so that silence in between the lines can be filled. The issue has not been specifically covered but there are some researches that has done the research and put the issues as one the questions. However, the hedges are not a matter of showing respect as subordinate but rather as fillers in speech.

Aging and Gendering

Richard Cameron, University of Illinois

This article discussed on gender-differences topic which had caused varying degree of practicing gender separation. It is likely that when age-separation occurred, that gender-separation also occurred. “Sex differences in variation emerge even in communities where the sexes are not systematically separated the way socioeconomic or racial groups are”(Eckert & McConnel Ginet; 1992). Patterns of psychological and physical distances cannot be said to apply to men and women in the same way because both gender still interact between another at home, at school, and in other public setting but the segregation continue to occur. Even in the very early age as 3 or 4 years old can already segregate the gender differently to varying degrees. The reason why and how this preference happen is still in research and it is a debatable motive to be talked about. Some people pointed that this happen might be because of physical, psychological and biological motives. The similarities between two same men might cause similar characteristics yet the differences are significant to the research. The separation is mixed with gender intimacy. These differences are one of the reasons why men and women talk differently even though they are talking to one another and have been talking to one another for a long time.

Approaching gender identity as a construction, rather than a fixed category, can be beneficial in compensating the inequality of gender specialties in human. If a policewoman wants to look masculine and macho in front of male suspect, she will need a little bit of quality of a male masculine concept which will contribute to abidance of the suspect. If a male teacher wants to get to know the young female students of his class, he will need to adapt a little bit of skill of a female teacher; soft and elaborated. This research will help in teaching students according to their gender, however not explicitly because if not the students will perceive the teacher as gender bias while the actual purpose is to cater to student’s need and category correctly.

Language, Gender and Sexuality:

Current Issues and New Directions

Deborah Cameron

Gender and Sexuality has undergone significant change in the past 10-15 years. The feminist social constructionism has existed even before 1990’s. They had gave few terms associated with the change of the view of society towards the gender. Gender is said to be distinguished from sex in which it develops and not just determined at the time a person was born. The identity that we have from our gender is produced on-goingly. Robin Lakoff (1975) has characterized ‘women’s language’ to stress on subordinate status of women which describes powerlessness, insecurity, and triviality. The term was brought to emphasize the effects of gender inequality which are male dominance and female subordination. In Holmes (2008), she had given an explanation of women’s linguistic behavior. Society has always expected better from women. They are expected to play their role as the subordinate in which they have to listen and obey which brings their language to be polite as they are considered as subordinate. This subordinate feeling may come from maternity instinct where woman are expected to talk motherly to their children whereas, male dominance is associated with machismo or masculinity to express their dominance to the others. Of course this dominance is not as obvious as it used to be because women nowadays demand to be treated equally.

In school, gender assessment by friends play a big role in gender development. The more positively assessed students are therefore tend to be boys whose performance combines a measure of personal authority with a degree of interpersonal sensitivity. Students who display extremes of either masculine dominance or feminine difference are less approved by their friends. This is where certain kind of students get to have the limelight of attention from their friends and their style of speech will affect their friends’ speech as well.

In Malaysia, students will always have new terms of slang which only their group of age will use and the usage of the slang is considered as well gender mix and good solidarity between their groups.

Gender, Violence-Oriented Passage content and Second Language Reading Comprehension

Cindy Bratmeier

Interaction may not just about talking and having communication, in reading there are also many processes that can also be considered as interactive process. The processes are less obvious but still exist such as agree and disagree the text, approve and disapprove the text, and interact with the mind of the writer of the text. Readers can comprehend the text read using their schemata and gender’s knowledge and experience of the text is different between one another. Gender as variable in second language study also affects the vocabulary and word structure of a reader.

In studies, it was proven that male scored significantly higher on multiple choice comprehension questions for essays about laser thermometers, volcanoes, cars, and foot ball players while female scored higher on topic such as midwives, a sad story and a housewife’s dilemma. Specifically, female scored higher on comprehension than the male groups regardless of strategic training and comprehension assessment task with only one exception, male with top down strategies did better than female on multiple choice questions but on questions that requires recall. Here we can already see that an essay topic can influence second language readers based on their gender.

In Malaysia, the test designers should also consider the gender of the reader because the text given would influence the understanding of the reader, and favors those who can associate with the text. If the text favors either male or female, the results would likely to be bias between the genders and thus only one gender can score better. Orrelana (1995) claimed that students identify with the characters in their reading and they recreate themselves in their writing. In Gender, politeness and stereotypes, male are associated with mock to insults and abuses while female are associated with compliment and agreeing comment. This finding implies on their comprehension understanding because the text will more likely to favor either one of the gender if the text is about either one of the topic. In order to avoid that, the second language test designer must consider the reader’s understanding because the schemata of the readers play a big role in order for them to understand.

Examining the effects of Gender and Second Language Proficiency on Hispanic Writers’ Persuasive Discourse

Andrea B. Bermudez

Doris l. Prater

The finding of the study shows that essays written by female students show a greater degree of elaboration and clearer attempt to express the writer’s point of view than those written by male students. Rationally, the speech behavior of the students reflects the value systems of their own speech community and as a result their way of writing their opinion on papers in examinations. They must comprehend their own text using their own schemata because that is the only way for them to acquire second language. Gender techniques in persuading are built from childhood and different from one another according from who and where they get the knowledge.

Since lack of experience with persuasive discourse has been identified as a possible reason for the low writing performance of students, more help should be given to cater to this need. This issue actually does not have much relation with sociolinguistics as sociolinguistics only involves in speech of the speaker.

Nonetheless, the issue can help in Malaysian context where the test marker should consider the students’ orientation with text and their ability to construct their own understanding on papers. Female students have advantage as they are the gender who able to write more clearly compared to the male students but consideration should be taken to evaluate both genders equally and fairly. To make a generalization impact on a question, what the test designers should establish is relevant things in common between male and female rather than simply take off either one of them.

Conclusion

As a conclusion, gender style of speech is different between one another and it is indirectly affect the writing and reading comprehension of the speaker. Society does affect gender development and thus also affect the students’ way of speaking, reading and writing.