Gender Differences in Language and Language Use

Sex-Exclusive versus Sex-Preferential Differences

In the study of women's and men's ways of talking, it is common to distinguish between gender (which is considered a social construct) and sex (a biological fact); this entry will try to be consistent with this distinction. In practice, researchers often blur the two; for example, they generalize about gender differences based on samples that have been selected on the basis of sex differences.

There are very few sex-exclusive differences (i.e., cases where men and women use completely different forms or languages at all times) in language use anywhere in the world. Early European reports from the Caribbean about communities where the sexes spoke different languages reflected misunderstandings of the linguistic variation in those communities. Communities such as the longhouses of the Vaupes, where linguistic exogamy is practiced (marriage partners are chosen on the basis of speaking a different language from their partner's community), are perhaps the best and only well-documented example of sex-exclusive linguistic practices. However, even there, women and men can understand and sometimes speak their partner's primary language; the restrictions are social ones related to appropriateness of use.

The vast majority of gender differences in language use are not sex exclusive; instead, they are sex preferential. That means male and female speakers make more or less use of the same pool of linguistic resources. What is perceived as gender differences reflects our perception about the probability with which a given form is likely to be produced by a female or male speaker and/or social ideologies about whether a particular way of pronouncing a word, the expression of particular interpersonal stances through language, or the use of a particular speech act is normative for men or women. These generalizations speak of typical patterns across a wide range of men and women in a speech community; it is therefore unsurprising that there is intra individual and interindividual variation. Speakers may use phrases or pronunciations that are normatively associated with their sex with different frequencies in different social contexts, and some speakers use linguistic forms and routines considered normative of their gender more often than others do.

Social Meaning of Gender Differences in Language Use

Research on gender and language has moved through several stages: from a focus on gender difference, to a focus on the politics of dominance, to [Page 370]a focus on the social meaning of expressions of both difference and dominance. This reflects an increasing appreciation of the complexities of difference and power as social and interpersonal phenomena. For example, supposedly “men's” and “women's” forms in Japanese can in fact be used by either sex (in other words, so-called women's language is a misnomer). A more economical and comprehensive analysis of these forms is in terms of the social stance the forms express. Because some forms are associated with stances of assertiveness and others with stances of softness, and because Japanese culture normatively associates softness with women and assertiveness with men, the use of the variants tends to be associated with speakers of that sex. However, men can use soft variants if the social context requires it, and women can use assertive variants for a particular social effect. Recent research in the framework of evolutionary psychology is a notable exception to the trend toward understanding social meaning; its focus on difference (even where gender differences are slight) and the deterministic framing of difference as evolutionary necessities have been criticized by sociolinguists. Deborah Cameron argues against accepting evolutionary accounts of differences in women's and men's language because (a) they often presuppose the object of enquiry—for example, that women talk more than men (notwithstanding plenty of evidence to the contrary)—and (b) they selectively frame such generalizations; for example, the proposal that men talk less because prehistoric hunting patterns required silence ignores the fact that hunting large game was probably a (rare) group activity requiring as much social organization as the more common (female and male) activities associated with gathering.

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