Language and gender

MorbidMaiden

MorbidMaiden

I need to do a project with three other classmates on Language and Gender. A 20 minuite prsentation and I'm all in a frazzle about what to do. Any ideas would be welcome! The quirkier the better!

Jay Mandal

Different words for the same thing. A woman might say 'pretty' - but would a man?

I think women use more 'uncertain' language' - lots of 'I thinks/it seems'. (Must investigate why I seem to do this, too.)

Women might be less inclined to swear, but not always!

The "Women are from Venus" things - women are supposed to be less direct. She asks: "Do you feel like a drink?" To which he replies: "No," leaving her disappointed as she felt like one.

Jenny

MM - How about contrasting the way women were represented in the fiction of various decades?

Apologies if I've misunderstood the theme of the presentation!!

Jenny

I did misunderstand, didn't I?!! You didn't mean language about gender, but the way the different genders use language. (I think!)

What about the difference in the way men and women talk to children and animals?

Isabella King

This may be more behavioural than language but I hate the way some women (ladettes) seem determined to copy the worst sort of male behaviour and language then excuse themselves by saying - men do it.

Aegean

MM

Could you go along the lines of presumption?
Satements that presumption may have us assume a statement , phrase, comment etc came from a woman when it was a man and visa versa. May work well in a powerpoint presentation.

All the best
Aegean

Daisy

I don't know if this would be suitable to add to what you are doing:  the difference in the way language and communication develops in males and females from a very young age.  Then the way it goes on to develop - woman having more of a need to communicate more often for social reasons.  Men generally seeing language as a means of getting or giving information. (Generalisations of course).

Aegean

MM

Just another wee thought. Text language , could you use that to define the differance of the genders in language. Most of the time texts I receive from female or male friends differ quite clearly in the word/letter usage.

Just a thought

Aegean

Jenny

MM - Don't forget to let us know what you do for your presentation - and how it was received!

Carol

How men and women use language in the dating/courtship process, then how that changes once they are married/paired up.

Jay Mandal

There's a website - sorry, can't remember name - where you submit something you've written and it says whether it sounds like a male or female.

Aegean

Carol

Good call, I like that one the best.

Island Girl

I was thinking the same thing, Jay, but had to get here to work before I could find it as I'd saved it into favourites on the work computer and not at home.

http://www.hackerfactor.com/GenderGuesser.html#Analyze

Carol

I wouldn't have thought that was as obvious Jay, or as clear cut.
As writers can portray the opposite sex convincingly, they must be able to fool analytical stuff too.

Carol

I just tried this, using a short story where my characters were male. I used a section of one characters speech, over 300 wods, and got informal weak male, and formal weak female, but both European.
So what does that say? The character was European

Aegean

Hi Carol

I think the genre that rates your words under informal would be their most accurate.

I ran a few pieces of my own through it also.
Letters all came out clear enough male, but fiction was mixed bundle, male, weak male, weak female, female etc. No idea what that says about me. I am certainly too old to be bothered with an identity crisis, seems too much hassle.

Interesting site though in it's way. I see it is based on research work done in 2003.

Carol

Thanks Aegean.
It probably does have its uses. But I suspect that writers can manipulate words and gender, otherwise we wouldn't be much use as writers.
In fact the story for a competition the club ran, did fool the judge. We had already spoken some months before when I arranged for him to speak to the club later in the year, and when I next spoke he asked if I'd entered and which had been mine- I'd come third. He was surprised as he was convinced a man had written it.
So the differences in how the genders use language is probably only obvious in some things.

Hickey

Your post made me think of these things:

My boyfriend is of the opinion that to say
"She is a manageress"
is to use a superfluous 'ess'.
It's obvious, says he, that the subject is female, due to the 'She'.  To say
"She is a manager"
is sufficient.

When I was younger I thought the opposite: that 'ess' should be added to everything, just to prove girls are as good as boys.
Then I met 'Allie' who, after the sex-change operation, had a whole different take on things.
Allie didn't like to be called 'he', or 'it' as sometimes happened, and 'she' made Her uncomfortable. Something I don't thing was expected. Allie wanted to be just Allie, I think.

Good luck with your project.

MorbidMaiden

Hi Guys! I've been thinking along the lines of recording a convesation between 6 university students, from different courses, on the subjects of:

A recent news story e.g. Maddeline McCann
The last Harry Potter book
University life and what they hope to get out of it.

I believe my recording five minuites of speech about each topic, I would be able to come up with some very interesting conclusions!! What do others think??

Anyanka

MM, are you going to look for gender-typical use of language in those conversations/interviews?  If so, then six is probably too small a sample to get useful differences.