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Women's Language
Are there expressions, phrases, utterances, or speaking patterns in American English that are still used primarily by women?
In some cultures, "Women's language" was sufficiently different that males listening casually can not understand it. Today, we have that less although some languages such as Japanese have grammatical endings that only women use. I would imagine that remnants of this might exist in our culture even though women rarely create their own full fledged dialects any more.
We have a number of scholars of language and society amongst our ranks, so I chose to ask this here, rather than on FB. I think on FB my intentions might be miss-understood.
In some cultures, "Women's language" was sufficiently different that males listening casually can not understand it. Today, we have that less although some languages such as Japanese have grammatical endings that only women use. I would imagine that remnants of this might exist in our culture even though women rarely create their own full fledged dialects any more.
We have a number of scholars of language and society amongst our ranks, so I chose to ask this here, rather than on FB. I think on FB my intentions might be miss-understood.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by YoYoWannaBe on -
I thought I was editing, but apparently I was replying to my own comment
Are there expressions, phrases, utterances, or speaking patterns in American English that are still used primarily by women?
In some cultures, "Women's language" was sufficiently different that males listening casually can not understand it. Today, we have that less although some languages such as Japanese have grammatical endings that only women use. I would imagine that remnants of this might exist in our culture even though women rarely create their own full fledged dialects any more.
We have a number of scholars of language and society amongst our ranks, so I chose to ask this here, rather than on FB. I think on FB my intentions might be miss<sic>-understood.
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Permalink Reply by mcglory13 on -
It's a good question. I think you will find patterns of speech that are considered feminine. For example that annoying habit teen girls have of making everything sound like a question? That's something they're socialized to do. It's considered less threatening and less assertive. Women are also socialized to apologize for their opinions before they state them: "I could be totally wrong, but maybe we could try to do this?" They are also socialized to use agreeable words more often.
Up until dictionaries became widely available there were more variations in spelling and punctuation. The dash, for example, was much more highly favored by women than men. But the dash became considered ungrammatical (probably by virtue of the fact it was used more by women) and so fell out of favor.
The thing in our society is that English favors men and is a very male centric language. With second wave feminism what rose up was liberal feminism, that if women acted more like men (including language usage) they would be more likely to succeed in culture. Some efforts were made towards cultural feminism with language (womyn and the like) but that mostly got ridiculed.
The only thing I can think if is maybe that abbreviation speak that women use online on message boards. The whole "ds" and "dd" and "dh" and all of that stuff. I would guess that is strictly a female way of writing.
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Permalink Reply by bethany on -
McG--what the heck is "ds" "dd" and "dh". I've seen it before and like many internet acronyms, never asked!
mcglory13 said:It's a good question. I think you will find patterns of speech that are considered feminine. For example that annoying habit teen girls have of making everything sound like a question? That's something they're socialized to do. It's considered less threatening and less assertive. Women are also socialized to apologize for their opinions before they state them: "I could be totally wrong, but maybe we could try to do this?" They are also socialized to use agreeable words more often.
Up until dictionaries became widely available there were more variations in spelling and punctuation. The dash, for example, was much more highly favored by women than men. But the dash became considered ungrammatical (probably by virtue of the fact it was used more by women) and so fell out of favor.
The thing in our society is that English favors men and is a very male centric language. With second wave feminism what rose up was liberal feminism, that if women acted more like men (including language usage) they would be more likely to succeed in culture. Some efforts were made towards cultural feminism with language (womyn and the like) but that mostly got ridiculed.
The only thing I can think if is maybe that abbreviation speak that women use online on message boards. The whole "ds" and "dd" and "dh" and all of that stuff. I would guess that is strictly a female way of writing.I
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Permalink Reply by Mommy Monster on -
Bethany, it's "dear son", "dear daughter" and "dear husband".
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Permalink Reply by kommishoner on -
Huh. I'd wondered the same thing. But why the "dear"? I don't normally refer to them that way. Why would I do that on the internet?
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Permalink Reply by mcglory13 on
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Actually, I thought it was "devoted" or something. My guess is it is a performance of how much you love and are loved.
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Permalink Reply by Joe Mama on -
Like McG, I think there are patterns of speech that I think are "feminine". I've noticed women tend to paraphrase the the perspective of the person they are talking/arguing with before giving their perspective. They also tend to acknowledge some aspect of the other person's argument (no matter how small). It is vaguely rude to just disagree or contradict someone, no matter how ridiculous the other's position. I think that can be interpretted as weak or wishy-washy by more direct-speaking (usually male) listeners.
Have you read Deborah Tannen's work (Genderlect, rapport vs report)? She has done a lot of research in this area.
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Permalink Reply by DLBK on -
I've also noticed feminine patterns of speech, as McG and JM said. Sometimes I like them (when I notice how much kinder the women can sound that way) and other times I hate them (when the women being kind aren't taken seriously).
I'm aware that I use these patterns a lot.
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Permalink Reply by YoYoWannaBe on
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I took several classes at Wellesley as a co-op that weren't available at MIT. I remember the posters for 'Womyn" and "Wimmin's" gatherings quite a bit. Most of the students there basically viewed it as a code word for "Lesbian", and more or less stayed away.
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Permalink Reply by YoYoWannaBe on
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Mommy Monster said:Bethany, it's "dear son", "dear daughter" and "dear husband".
Interesting that it is used lower case.
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Permalink Reply by YoYoWannaBe on
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mcglory13 said:It's a good question. I think you will find patterns of speech that are considered feminine. For example that annoying habit teen girls have of making everything sound like a question? That's something they're socialized to do. It's considered less threatening and less assertive. Women are also socialized to apologize for their opinions before they state them: "I could be totally wrong, but maybe we could try to do this?" They are also socialized to use agreeable words more often.
Up until dictionaries became widely available there were more variations in spelling and punctuation. The dash, for example, was much more highly favored by women than men. But the dash became considered ungrammatical (probably by virtue of the fact it was used more by women) and so fell out of favor.
The thing in our society is that English favors men and is a very male centric language. With second wave feminism what rose up was liberal feminism, that if women acted more like men (including language usage) they would be more likely to succeed in culture. Some efforts were made towards cultural feminism with language (womyn and the like) but that mostly got ridiculed.
The only thing I can think if is maybe that abbreviation speak that women use online on message boards. The whole "ds" and "dd" and "dh" and all of that stuff. I would guess that is strictly a female way of writing.
Now that I think about it, I have a whole bunch of Deborah Tannen books that address precisely these issues! The practical matter of this is teaching English as a foreign language. How do you advise people to express preferences? Do you say "women usually..." or teach one version of English to every body. I'm not an English teacher, but I do think often about how we should acquire foreign languages.
Tannen points out that in Japanese business culture, men of superior rank sometimes use feminine forms of speech when giving a directive. This is to soften the impact of the difference in rank.
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Permalink Reply by YoYoWannaBe on
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Very interesting perspective. Do you think there are languages that are less male centric? More? What makes a language male-centric - the variety of ways in which people can give orders? The number of words for penis?
In French, we have the amusing observation that vagina takes the male gender as it does for other body organs. Breast also takes the male gender. (but the slang terms for these take the feminine gender.) Can this issue be approached syntactically (doubtful). ?
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