Differences in Men’s and Women’s Speech May Be Partly Based on Social Factors

‘Differences in men’s and women’s speech may be partly based on social factors’

Many works have been devoted to the differences in communication between people. It has been proved that such factors as the interlocutors’ education, familiarity with the speaker or the status of the relationship influence our utterances. Furthermore, linguists claim that apart from these obvious variables also our biological sex influences the chose of language we use to communicate with each other although not always are we aware of this fact.

In discourse on different ways of communication of males and females, linguists have resigned with the term “sex” replacing it by the “gender” which refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and the attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women. These roles and activities are deeply rooted in the ancient times when women were mainly responsible for protecting the heart and home while men’s role was to hunt and be the leader of the flock. As a result of this, the reason of communication appears to be the main distinction in men’s and women’s speech. While females talk mainly to cooperate, establish the relationship or express their feelings, males’ goal is to obtain the information and affirm their position in the group.

Moreover, these stereotypical thinking of man and woman has been perpetuated since the time immemorial as our biological sex determines our future social roles and imposes on us different ways of upbringing. By playing with dolls, for example, girls are taught to care about others and are prepared for their future roles as mothers. Boys, on the contrary, climb the trees, play football with their mates or participate in the bike races, which develops their needs for rivalry and being a leader. By playing and behaving differently in their childhood boys and girls grow in a kind of different environments and cultures which somehow force them to use different type of language appropriate for each gender. Thus, men have many expressions peculiar to them which women understand but never pronounce themselves. Women, on the other hand, use words and phrases which the men never use. Eventually such distinctions may cause an impression that males and females speak different languages.

To conclude, the differences in men’s and women’s speech are based partly on their social roles and upbringing. It is ascribed in advance which way of behaving and communicating is appropriate for each gender and therefore studying and extending the knowledge about these distinctions is a crucial factor in understanding the problems of communication between men and women.