The Relationship of Gender and Language

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An interest in the relationship between gender and language use has sparked a wide array of studies since the 1960s . Researchers then began questioning the assumption that the different genders, as well as the language patterns associated with them, were biologically determined . While a vast part of the general public still adheres to the notion that there is a natural dichotomy between two completely distinct genders—male and female—it is now widely established in academic circles that this is not the case . The reality is far more complex. The term “sex” is now generally used to denote biological categories, as determined by female or male chromosomes and/or genitals . By contrast, “gender” refers to “a routine, methodical, and recurring accomplishment” (West and Zimmerman 1987, p.126), meaning that gender is not something a person “has,” but rather something a person “does”: gender is continually created through the performance of certain gendered acts (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet 2003, p.4). The implication is that gender is not a natural feature that all of us possess since birth, but that it is instead a social construct that needs to be produced and reproduced by people in order to exist . Masculine and feminine identities are in fact historically and culturally constructed concepts; there are social expectations for what a “man” or “woman” is supposed to be like, that are so deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness that they seem natural to us (Butler 1988, pp.523-524). This is not to say that people do not have any agency: an individual might choose to challenge these societal norms or to conform to them. Ultimately, we are still constrained by them in various ways . The cultural division between genders plays an i...

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... do not necessarily know anything about the subject’s ethnic or class background, the level of intimacy between the conversational partners, and other situational and cultural contexts. Because of this, it is next to impossible to figure out which patterns can be attributed to gender, and which ones have to do with other factors. Moreover, language usage is bound to change over time and many studies are very dated in some aspects. Lastly, there are a lot of contradicting data and interpretations of it in sociolinguistic studies around gender. All things considered, the interpretations in this essay can therefore not be regarded as proven facts, as they are mostly oversimplifications based on gender stereotypes. There still needs to be a closer examination of the relationship between gender and language and how it varies with changing times and intersectional factors.

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