Affective Language Used by Men and Women in Dating
Affective Language used by Men and Women in Dating in Hong Kong
(i) Abstract
Studying the language characteristics in different context is an essential field of sociolinguistics. Dating is a special context in which cross-gendered interactions involve. Affective language would be frequently used in this context. Also, the relationship between language and gender has become an important topic in sociolinguistics in the recent years. However, there is limited research investigating the affective language used in dating. In this research, a small scale of conversational analysis is adopted to (a) count the number occurrence and (b) also analyze the features of affective language used by men and women in the conversation when participants are dating. The actual use of affective language will further divide into five sub-groups, which are addressing form, nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. By comparing the figures and the descriptions of the data, the differences in affective language used by different gender would be identified. (ii) Background and Objectives
The differences of people speaking in different social contexts have long been an important field of sociolinguistic studies. Sociolinguists study the relationship between language and society. They are interested in explaining why we speak differently in different social contexts, and they are concerned with identifying the social functions of language and the ways it is used to convey social meaning (Holmes 2000). Moreover, sociolinguists are interested in explaining the underlying reasons for people adopting a certain type of language style in a particular social context (Holmes 2008). On the other hand, context refers to “a broader social situation in which a linguistic item is used” (Richards et al. 1998). In combining the contextual information with the linguistic features, the meaning of a particular of word or phrase can be understood easily. It shows that context plays a crucial role in
(i) Abstract
Studying the language characteristics in different context is an essential field of sociolinguistics. Dating is a special context in which cross-gendered interactions involve. Affective language would be frequently used in this context. Also, the relationship between language and gender has become an important topic in sociolinguistics in the recent years. However, there is limited research investigating the affective language used in dating. In this research, a small scale of conversational analysis is adopted to (a) count the number occurrence and (b) also analyze the features of affective language used by men and women in the conversation when participants are dating. The actual use of affective language will further divide into five sub-groups, which are addressing form, nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. By comparing the figures and the descriptions of the data, the differences in affective language used by different gender would be identified. (ii) Background and Objectives
The differences of people speaking in different social contexts have long been an important field of sociolinguistic studies. Sociolinguists study the relationship between language and society. They are interested in explaining why we speak differently in different social contexts, and they are concerned with identifying the social functions of language and the ways it is used to convey social meaning (Holmes 2000). Moreover, sociolinguists are interested in explaining the underlying reasons for people adopting a certain type of language style in a particular social context (Holmes 2008). On the other hand, context refers to “a broader social situation in which a linguistic item is used” (Richards et al. 1998). In combining the contextual information with the linguistic features, the meaning of a particular of word or phrase can be understood easily. It shows that context plays a crucial role in