Gender differences in the use of adjectives and

1 . Intro

The probe of male and female treat differences is known as a major subject matter in sociolinguistics. The books on this issue is large, it has been one of the biggest within sociolinguistics in recent outdated ages. A figure of linguists include investigated this kind of field of survey, among them Robin Lakoff ( 1975 ). Jesse Holmes ( 2001 ). Deborah Tanen ( 1990 ). Jennifer Coates ( 1998 ). Susan U. Philips ( 1980 ) and others. 2 . Theoretical history

Robin Lakoff ( 1975 ) is among the first linguists to turn to gender straight the subject of linguistic connection. Lakoff details the characteristics of linguistic connection distinguishing in a number of and could address which will she feels makes women’s address significantly less powerful than men’s ( Philips. 1980 ). These types of characteristics are definitely the undermentioned: 1 . Womans make use of vocabulary factors that work forces do low utilize. Lakoff uses mauve as an illustration. installment payments on your Female talkers use more “empty adjectives. like Godhead. cute. and sweet. a few. Womans make use of inquiry signifiers in environments where job forces would utilize indicative moods. 5. Womans work with more well mannered signifiers. just like “please and “thank you. 5. Womans use more “hedges.  or signifiers that present uncertainness. like good. you understand. I guess. I do think. I question. 6. Feminine talkers usually use the intense “so even more. as in “I’m so starving.  and subsequently Lakoff added other intensives like really and truly since more typical of mature females. several. Womans often utilize “hypercorrect grammar. therefore they were not as likely than operate forces to mention ain’t and drop the terminals of words such as doin’ and goin’ ( Philips. 1980: 532 ).

In another article Lakoff ( 1973 ) states that adult females use color footings just like mauve. ecru. aquamarine. lavender and green. She retains that adjectives such as charming. capturing. Godhead. lovely and sweet are typically used by adult females nevertheless merely seriously seldom simply by work forces. “Lakoff besides pointed out that adult females get their ain language for straining certain effects on them. with such words and looks just like so good. such merriment. beautiful. lovely. appreciated. Godhead. charming. favorite and fantastic ( Wardhaugh. 2002: 318 ).

The surveies mentioned above center point on the gender differences in the application of adjectives. An additional field of research is the application of intensives in men’s and women’s talk about. žIntensifiers happen to be adverbs ( e. g. reasonably. genuinely. so. wholly. improbably. actually. super. existent. etc . ) that increase or increase significance. that they scale the caliber of an adjectival or form word up.: I do believe it is fairly exciting. Also. Janine. the truly popular terpsichorean miss. And this is indeed weird ( Roberts A, Tagliamonte june 2006: 280 ). As intensives change. rather rapidly they offer a good topographic point to identify lingual alteration. They are competent to manner. They reflect the speaker’s wish to be original as well as to heighten the freshness of his or her appears ( Roberts A, Tagliamonte. 2005 )

The impression of intensives was assessed by many scientists, harmonizing to Olsson ( 2000 ). intensives behave as a improving device in linguistic interaction. However. Lakoff ( 1975 ) grouped intensives while portion of fudging where it weakens the feelings of the talker in linguistic communication, these are: rather. rather. so. too much. truly. only. such ( Amir ainsi que. Al. 2012 ).

Number of research workers just like Roberts A, Tagliamonte ( 2005 ). Olsson ( 2000 ). Johnson and Roen ( 1992 ). Kuha ( 2005 ) Herbert ( 1990 ) have investigated intensives depending upon how otherwise they are really used in male and female relationships. One of the surveies in this discipline examined the differences in linguistic communication usage by 5 male and female Malayan young bloggers who have use world wide web logs as a journal to exhibit their daily issues regarding life. The findings demonstrate that there are differences between guy and female writers in the frequences of five linguistic communication characteristics which are intensives. fudging. indicate inquiries. empty adjectives and adverbs. The frequence of happenings of intensives was higher in web records written by females ( n=388 ) than in those written by males ( n=157 ) ( Amir. 2012 ). As for the empty adjectives the overall information showed that female bloggers used all of them more ( n=239 ) than guy bloggers ( n=92 ) ( Amir et. Ing.. 2012 ). Tagliamonte and Roberts ( 2005 ) investigated adjectives. as the most typically intensified signifiers of linguistic communication. The principal they applied was composed of transcripts with the American circumstance comedy Close friends. Overall 900 intensifiable adjectives have been found out of which 22 % was intensified.

Harmonizing to the study three intensives were dominating in Good friends really ( 14. a couple of % ). truly ( 24. 6th % ) and so ( 44. one particular % ). It has been discovered that mature females essentially tend to employ more intensification. Female heroes used and so and really more often than male character types. This could be the result of the fact that adult females use even more “emotional language was confirmed. This can besides explicate by frequent usage of these adjectives encoding feelings or physical real estate or various other qualities e. g.: so covetous. therefore glad. genuinely freaked. genuinely important/small/great etc . ( Roberts A, Tagliamonte 2005 ). Intensifiers will be widely used in regards ( Herbert. 1990 ) and sorry ( Cohen and Olshtain 1981 ). Surveies of regards support the recommendation that could regards tend to be stated with linguistically stronger signifiers than mens. Having analysed over 1 1000 American regards. Hebert ( 1990 ) reported that lone adult females used the stronger via and they used them most frequently to various other adult females. In crafted equal reappraisals. Johnson and Roen ( 1992 ) noted that adult females use much more intensives ( such as truly. really. peculiarly ) than work forces.

The same effects were through Herbert ( 1990 ) who reached the decision adult females become more intense their respect most when composing to other adult females ( Coates. 1988 ). The probe of sex-related address in conseil made by O’Barr and Atkins ( 1980 ) besides confirmed older claims about women’s linguistic communication. They found that women’s treat at the cortège ( North California. outstanding condemnable conseil ) include a high frequence of intensives ( seriously near friend. quiet disorder and frequently with intonation feature ), shrubs ( you understand. kind of like. let’s see etc . ), vacant adjectives ( this actually sort officer ) and also other similar qualities ( O’Barr. Atkins 80: 381 ). A gender differences have been observed in the pick of specific intensives.

Harmonizing to Bradac. Mulac and Thompson’s ( 1995 ) study? “some intensives. such as “really and “so. are more likely to be taken by adult females although work makes have penchant for “very and “real. were very likely to be used by simply men ( Kuha. 2006: 218 ). The conclusions of Kuha’s ( 2006 ) review besides reinforced that intensive so is associated with the address of premature female talkers and these types of consequences were replicated by Bauer and Bauer’s ( 2002 ) on immature New Zealanders ( Kuha. 2005 ). We can see that research on the usage of adjectives and intensives is rather prolonged and it is continue to turning. From your surveies mentioned previously we can besides reason that work forces and adult females have penchant for different adjectives and there are both qualitative differences in the manner they use intensification. several. Research Questions and Hypothesis

The research requests I anticipate to work out through this research are definitely the undermentioned: ( 1 ) Are at that place any kind of differences among men’s and women’s addresses in the manner they use adjectives adjectival use? ( 2 ) Which adjectives are the most frequent 1s in male and female relationships? ( three or more ) Do adult females utilize more intensives than work pushes?

( some ) Are the intensives therefore. truly and also more common for adult females? Based on relevant literary works my hypotheses the following 4:

( one particular ) Womans use much more adjectives than work makes do.

( 2 ) Womans employ more žempty adjectives including cute. Nice. nice. beautiful. good.

( 3 ) Womans tend to utilize a lot more intensives than work forces.

( 5 ) The intensives and so. truly and also are more normal for female address. 4. Datas and Method

The info I analysed was drawn from the American situation funny Friends made by David Crane and Marta Kauffman. The series revolves around a group of friends in Manhattan. This features 6 chief heroes: Rachel Green. Monica Geller. Phoebe Buffay. Ross Geller. Chandler Msn and Joey Tribbiani.

I’ve analysed the transcripts of Season one particular which includes 24 episodes. The transcript of just one portion was 4-5 web pages long and contained about 4. 425 words.

Using quantitative and statistical strategies I tried to happen responds for my research requests. Reading the transcripts of 24 shows I counted the number of adjectives and intensives. used by each character. Following numbering the points stated earlier I in comparison the consequences referred to in the undermentioned subdivision. 3. Research Effects

The entire determine of adjectives in the primary is 615 out that 314 had been used by female and 301 by guy characters. Figure1 shows these kinds of consequences in per centums from which we can see that there are simply little quantitative differences in using adjectives by simply work makes and adult females.

Figure1: Gender differences in the usage of adjectives

It was besides interesting to analyze which adjectives were most often used in guy and female connection.

Figure two: Most frequent adjectives in can certainly address

In the Figure a couple of we can see that one of the most often used adjectives ( in falling purchase ) among adult females characters had been great ( n=36 ). good ( n=19 ). nice and small ( n=18 ). Being a consequences display Lakoff’s declare that adult females use more žempty adjectives ( see p. 5 ) seems to be supported because good and nice are identified as žempty adjectives. Other žempty adjectives were besides present in female’s address just like Sweet ( n=9 ) and cute ( n=14 ). but their happenings had been non really at high level. Womans applied adjectives denoting colorss actually seldom. merely two colour material footings have been found in Rachel’s talk about: blonde and blue. Woman characters usually utilize standard signifiers of linguistic interaction. which is justified by the reality merely nonstandard word finds in the data viz.. really relationshippy. While Rot ( 1988 ) states it the endsilbe -e ( Y ) is adjective postfix which in turn creates slang an adjectives typically used by American people ( p. 65 ). The list of adjectives employed by female character types is illustrated in Appendix 1 .

Figure 3: Most frequent adjectives in men’s addresses

As we is able to see in Figure 3 the adjectives huge ( n=25 ). superb ( n=24 ) and small ( n=21 ) had the best happening in the address of male heroes. These implications besides display that they used no “empty adjectives ( see g. 4 ). Adjectives denoting colorss ( e. g. ruddy and burgudny ) but these had a really low occurring. From the Figure 3 we can besides purpose that work forces preferred adjectives external belongingss ( electronic. g. huge ) but examples for further emotional adjectives ( electronic. g. great. small ) were besides present. Record of adjectives used by guy characters is provided in Appendix installment payments on your

In the 2nd stage of my research I looked at the usage of intensives in the talk about of man and female heroes. Overall one hundred forty five intensified adjectives have been discovered of which operate forces utilized 45. although adult females 100. The general rate of intensification was 23. six %.

Number 4: Male or female differences in the general rate of intensives

Based upon the consequences stated earlier we can explanation that speculation ( several ) that adult females tend to utilize significantly more intensives than work forces is usually confirmed. Men characters applied intensives significantly fewer situations than female characters did.

10 types of intensives were throughout the infos which displayed in Figure5 based on their very own distribution in the address of forces and adult females.

Figure five: Intensifiers used by male and female characters

As Figure five points out. three intensives were dominant in the address of both sexes. viz. so. truly and also. The consequences plainly illustrate that female heroes by and large applied more intensives than job forces. The intensives and so and genuinely had the best frequence between adult females. Other intensives like actually. pretty and excessively had been less recurrent signifiers within female relationships. Therefore. we are able to reason that the hypothesis that intensifiers thus. truly and really are more standard for female address appears to be partially tested. It is besides clear by Figure your five that a few intensives ( e. g. dreadfully and wholly ) occurred only in ladies address.

Regarding men’s conversation Figure five clearly shows that three intensives were dominant in their addresses. viz. and so. really and reasonably. The intensives truly and excessively a new lower level of frequence. Just intensives existent and absolutely had been favoured basically by man talkers. Anadiplosis of intensives was besides present in my own informations and was used by simply both sexes. as illustrated by pictures 1-2. Model 1: Chandler: Yes. I know. as it occurs my place is really really near to the parade path. Example 2: Chandler: Finally. I figure I’d better answer it. and it turns out is actually my female parent. which can be very-very eldritch. because- she neer telephone calls me! Intensifications incorporating negation have besides been present in the informations such as: really no easy. truly low happy. however they merely took place in the address of Monica. Example four: Monica: Now I’m thinking that he bought her the large water pipe organ. and she’s truly non content about it.

Illustrations 5: Monica: Okay. It’s-it’s about Alan. There’s a thing that you should cognize. I mean. there’s truly not any easy way to state this kind of.. uh.. We have decided to disrupt up with Alan. 4. Decision

Based on my research implications. I can declare that adult females use even more adjectives than work causes do. even though the qualitative distinctions are not important. My own consequences besides seem to back up Lakoff’s claim as that adult females use even more žempty adjectives. because great and good were among the list of three most frequent adjectives used by the female heroes. In contrast. there was no pictures for žempty adjectives in the interactions of male character types.

On the ground of my own informations we could reason there are gender differences in the usage of intensives. Comparing the figure of intensives utilized by work makes ( n=45 ) and adult females ( n=100 ) the hypothesis which the latter tend to utilize much more intensives than work makes do appears to be confirmed. The intensives thus and really were employed often between adult females. The speculation that intensives like and so. truly and also are more common for girl address seems to be true inside the instance of so and truly. nevertheless non intended for really.

Total it can be claimed that there are equally qualitative and quantitative variations in the usage of adjectives and intensives in the address of the male and female heroes I analysed.

Mentions

1 . Amir. Z.. Anidin. They would.. Saadiyah. G.. Kemboja. My spouse and i.. ( 2012 ). Sexuality Differences In The Language Use Of Malaysian Teen Blog writers. Journal of Language Research Volume 12. pp. 106-124. 2 . Bauer. L.. A, Bauer. Watts. ( 2002 ). Adjectival supporters in the English of immature New Zealanders. Log of English Linguistics. 30 ( three or more ). pp. 244-257. three or more. Bradac. L.. Mulac. A..

A, Thompson. T. ( 95 ). In a number of and ladies usage of intensives and shrubs in problem-solving interaction: Gustar and molecular analyses. Exploration on Terminology and Sociable Interaction. 28. pp. 93-116. 4. Coates. J. ( 1998 ). Language and Gender: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell. a few. Cohen. A. D. and Olshtain. At the. ( 81 ). Designing a step of sociocultural expertise: The illustration of apology. Language Learning 23. 113-134. 6th. Herbert. 3rd there’s r. K. ( 1990 ). Sex-based Variations in Complimnet Behaviour. Language in Society. pp. 201-224. several. Holmes M. ( 1988 ). Enhancing ” A good Strategy ( 100-118 ). In: Coates. J. ( 1998 ). Language and Gender: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell. almost 8. Holmes. T. ( 2001 ). An debut to Sociolinguistics. second Edition. Harlean carpenter: Longman. 9. Manley. D. M. and Roen. D. H. ( 1992 ). Enhancing and involvment in peer reappraisals: male or female fluctuation. Vocabulary in Culture. pp. 27-57. 10. Kuha. M. ( 2005 ). Investigating the Spread of “so since an Ajouter: Social and Structural Factors. Ball Point out University. Arizona Linguistic Online community 48. pp. 217-226. 10. Lakoff. Ur. ( 1973 ). Dialect and Women’s Place. Vocabulary in Contemporary society. Vol. 2 . pp. 45-80. 12. Laikoff. R. ( 1975 ). Language and Woman’s Place. New York: Harper A, Line. 13. O’Barr. W. and Atkins. N. K. ( 1980 ). ‘Women’s language’ or ‘powerless language’? In: Coates. L. ( 1998 ). Vocabulary and Gender: A Target audience. Oxford: Blackwell. 14. Olsson. L. ( 2000 ). A review of gender-related differences in introductory letters. Unpublished Master’s Thesis. Lulea Tekniska Universitet. ( Online ) Retrieved 21October 2011. coming from hypertext copy protocol: //epubl. luth. se/1402-1773/2000/62/LTU-CUPP-0062-SE. pdf 15. Sandor. Ur. ( 1991 ). nonstandard English ( Lexis ). Budapest: Tankonyvkiado. 16. Susan U. G. ( 80 ). Sexual activity Differences and Language. Examined work: Annual Review of Anthropology. Vol. being unfaithful. pp. 523-544. 17. Tagliamonte. S. and Roberts. C. ( june 2006 ). Therefore Eldritch, So Cool, Thus Advanced: The utilization of Intensifiers inside the Television Series Close friends. America Dialect Society Twelve-monthly Meeting. Boston. pp. 280-300. 18. Tannen. D. ( 1990 ). You Just Don’t Understand. Women and Men in Conversation. New-York: William Morrow. 19. Wardhaugh. R. ( 2002 ). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.

. Olsson ( 2000 ) considers lovely. nice. gorgeous. wonderful. acquiring. Sweet. wonderful. cute. Godhead. fantastic. wonderful. brilliant.

amazing. atrocious. good and antic as pictures of vacant adjectives ( Amir. ain. Al. 2012: 117 ).

Tweet