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1、Contents摘要. Abstract.1. Introduction.12.The Characteristics of Female Language.22.1 Pronunciation and Intonation .22.2 Vocabulary .42.3 Grammar.62.4 Conversation Topics.83. The Interpretation of the FemaleLanguage Characteristics.103.1 Physiological and Psychological Factors .103.2 Cultural Factors.
2、113.3 Social Factors.123.4 Educational Factors.124. The Developments and Changes of Female Language.154.1 Degradation of Sexual Discrimination in Language. 154.2 Social Effect of Female Language164.3 Changes in Womens Style of Speech.195. The Reasons for the Changes in Female Language.246. Conclusio
3、n.27Bibliography.28Acknowledgements 1Introduction The existence and development of language are intended to meet the needs of communication in society. People in different social groups have their own special languages. In the English-speaking countries, we can discover that female language always s
4、hows some interesting and external features of the language consciously or unconsciously in the course of language communication. With the rise of feminism and the continuous improvement of female social status, a great of changes have taken place in female language. These changes are closely linked
5、 with the development of society. So the research of female language is a subject very worthy to be studied. This paper attempts to discuss the characteristics and some new changes of female language and analyzes the reason of this phenomenon from the social, cultural and educational, etc. aspects.
6、2The Characteristics of Female LanguageFemale language has its own features. The following part will focus on pronunciation, intonation, vocabulary, grammar and topics to make a brief analysis.2.1 Pronunciation and Intonation 2.1.1 Pronunciation Phonological differences between men and women have be
7、en noticed in varieties of languages. Womens pronunciation sounds more accurate than mens. In English-speaking countries, womens pronunciation is closer to Standard English Pronunciation than mens. When we read “-ing”, generally women can pronounce the accurate back nasal consonant /i/. But a consid
8、erable number of men become more accustomed to pronounce front nasal consonant /in/. In Australia, the English with Australian-accented is not usually considered Standard English. After investigation, researchers come to the conclusion that women are far less often than men when they speak the nonst
9、andard English. The reason is that more women pay attention to the accuracy of pronunciation than men, which is an important mark of their identity and culture for women. In the northeast Asian language, Yukaghir, women have /ts/ and /dz/ where men have /tj/ and /dj/. In Bengali men often substitute
10、 /l/ for /n/ but women do not do this. Likewise, in a Siberian language, Chukchi, men, but not women, often drop /n/ and /t/ when they occur between vowels, e.g. female nitvaqenat and male nitvaqeat. 2.1.2 Intonation Generally speaking, womens intonation is higher than mens, which is caused by physi
11、ological factors in fact. Womens vocal cords are longer than men, so their pronunciation frequency is higher. However, people often consider the high pitch is connected with womens cowardice and unsteady emotion. The range of intonation variety is large, which is another distinctive feature. Women a
12、re good at using the various intonations to express their feelings. Lakoff says that women may answer a question with a statement that employs the rising intonation pattern usually associated with a question rather than the falling intonation associated with making a firm statement. And women are us
13、ually inclined to be tactful and gentle and often use low rising intonation at the end of sentences, which seems to show that they lack of confidence and seek the opinions of the others. In contrast, men usually like using high falling intonation at the end of the sentences, so their intonation soun
14、ds resolute and affirmative. For example, when speaking the following sentence, men and women may use different intonations. I wish youd try it.Men: . - .Women: . - . / . Men usually speak ending with a high falling intonation and their tones are strongly firm. However, women will use the low rising
15、 intonation to end their speech and their tone is more moderate than mens. Besides, women used to answer questions with rising intonation to express that their views is not a verdict and they are willing to listen to others views. Such as: Husband: “when will dinner be ready?” Wife: “oh around six o
16、clock?” The wife is the only one to know the answer. But she used an intonation with consulting meaning Will that do?” Of course, we can not get rid of her uncertain possibility.2.2 VocabularySpecial feminine vocabulary in English that man may not, dare not and will not use. Women like talking about
17、 things exaggeratedly, so they like using the exaggerated adjectives and adverbs and other words to emphasize the point.2.2.1 Extravagant Adjectives Women in United States and Britain like using some exaggerated adjectives frequently, like “adorable, divine, gorgeous, charming, and lovely” and so on
18、. But men seldom use these words. “What a divine idea!” Its manifestly out of a females mouth. But men will say “what a terrific idea!”2.2.2 Intensified Adverbs Such as “so, much, quite, terribly”, etc. women use these words more frequently than men. For example, women would say, “It was so interest
19、ing!”, “It was terribly cold!” But men often use “very, really” to intensify their tones. 2.2.3 Accurate Colour Words Women are good at portraying color accurately in comparison with the men. Furthermore, they can use some unusual color vocabulary such as “mauve, magenta, beige, and lavender” and so
20、 on. When facing a light purple skirt, woman cannot help speaking, “Its a beautiful lavender skirt!”2.2.4 Interjection Interjections used by women are more cautious and implicit than men. When using cursing words, women are usually more cautious and implicit. Some filthy words or phrases such as “Go
21、d damn it!”, “Damn”, “Fuck you!”, “Fuck you Charley!”, “Shit” etc. often appear in mens speech. In contrast, women often use “Oh, dear!”, “Oh, God!”, “God bless me!”, “My God!”, “Great God!”, “God” etc. to express their anger or surprise. For instance, men and women have different reactions when the
22、y face the scene of putting peanut butter in a wrong place. Female: “oh dear. Youve put the peanut butter in the refrigerator again. ” Male: “shit, youve put the peanut butter in the refrigerator again.”From these two sentences we can see that men and women also felt unhappy about putting peanut but
23、ter in the refrigerator again, but the expressions they used are different. The men used the rude word “shit”, but the woman used “oh dear” to express her dissatisfaction. This just shows the graceful feature of female language. 2.2.5 Diminutives English women will sometimes say “birdie” instead of
24、bird and “bookie” instead of “book”. Otherwise, they use “dearie, sweetie, auntie” and other words to express affection frequently. But men rarely use these words. 2.3 Grammar So far, there is not a rule that some specific grammar structures belong to women used only. But some analyses of language m
25、aterials showed that women often use the following structures: 2.3.1 Tag Question Women prefer to express their views or ideas by using tag questions, because it contains some intense consulting meanings and can avoid too direct and absolute. For instance, when facing an article, husband would say,
26、“This is better!” but wife will say, “This is better, isnt it?” or “This is better, dont you think so?” Tag questions have three functions. First, it can testify the reliability of information. For example, “She is coming, isnt she?” Second, it can weaken the speech stone such as “That was pretty si
27、lly, wasnt it?” or “Open the door for me, could you?” Maybe, the speaker doesnt want to prove something but considers listeners dignity. And women think this way can ease their own tones and requires. Third, neither the first nor the second, they only give a signal to listeners in order to promote c
28、onversations. It is equal to “Its your turn to speak”. For example, “Quiet a nice room to sit in actually, isnt it?” Holmse 1984 made an investigation of using the tag questions. The result showed that the total of men and women using tag questions are roughly equal. However, about the second and th
29、ird expressions, women used them considerably more than men. It suggested that women pay attention to uphold the listeners dignity and their tones are more euphemistic. This embodies “cooperativeness” of communication. 2.3.2 Modulation Modulation is a very polite and courteous sentence structure suc
30、h as “I like, I suppose, well, you know”, etc. women often use such uncertain structure to express their opinions. This suggested that they do not want to impose their views on others person, only a tentative views or suggestions. 2.3.3 Past Tense Women prefer to use past tense when they ask for hel
31、p. They would say, “I was wondering if you could possibly do me a favor.” This because people are accustomed to put the present tense together with the things of expressing present. But using the past tense, sometimes, can confuse the times and express the euphemistic and polite tones. 2.3.4 Embedde
32、d Imperatives When using imperative sentences, men like using more clear and simple imperative sentences to express orders or make decisions. But women prefer to use embedded imperative sentence and other euphemistic sentence structures to request somebody do something. Such as Male: “Bring that her
33、e!” Female: “Could you bring that here?” 2.4 Conversation Topics People always tend to choose the interesting topics they like. Due to different division of work in society, the scope of activities of men and women are different. Generally speaking, when men talk to men, the content categories of th
34、eir topics often focus on politics, sports, automobiles, business, legal matters, taxes, stocks, aggression, competition, teasing and so on. On the other hand, when women talk to women, their topics are about home, families, social life, life-style, life trouble, feelings, books, clothes, food and d
35、rink, cooking, sewing, affiliation with other etc. (Spolsky,2000) The above, the author discusses the characteristics of female language which are different from mens. But different languages mirror different societies, so these characteristics of female language should be related to not only physio
36、logical factor but also the contemporary social and cultural, etc. factors. 3The Interpretation of the Female Language CharacteristicsLanguage is a product of human history, but also a social phenomenon. It is a real reflection of different social cultures, customs, human sense and cultural consciou
37、sness. There are many reasons of forming these characteristics of female language. As follows:3.1 Physiological and Psychological FactorsSome features of female language are related to their physiological characteristics. For example, womens intonation is higher than men and they are easy to underst
38、and the exact form of the language and so on. To obtain the same right as men, women are struggling with the traditional discriminations. A sense of social roles leads to a language consciousness inevitably, so they do their best to use more of the standard and prestigious speech patterns in their o
39、wn community. Comparing men, women are closer to the standard style and refined accent of language and their language must influence their children, so women are the pioneers in the community of using standard style language. Otherwise, the psychological tendency of improving their status makes them
40、 apt to master the standard language. In addition, the language style used by women is more euphemistic, restrained, and hesitant than men. From this point, we can believe that it is not only a reflection of lacking confidence, but also a symbol of feminine politeness and kindness.3.2 Cultural Facto
41、rs From the points of society and culture, girls are taught to be gentle and quiet from children. Womens role identity and their role behavior were formed in the process of socialization. The so-called socialization process is a progress in which everyone should study their cultures around their com
42、munity groups to keep pace with the developing society. Growing up in this culture, girls accept the behavior and the communication styles consciously or unconsciously, which has become a part of their personality characteristics.In western cultural traditions, women are unable to escape the same fa
43、te as oriental woman. In “Bible”, there are some depictions of women. Eve derived from a rib of Adam. There are two purposes of creating Eve for God. The first is to accompany with Adam in case of loneliness; the second is to give birth to the children of Adam. This also suggested that women are the
44、 appendage of men since Genesis. As a tool for giving birth to children, women have to be controlled and be in a subordinate status. Traditional culture suppressed the development of womens self-consciousness. As a result, their capabilities of independence and self-awareness became weaker and weake
45、r. Women must take advantage of the communication network if they want to achieve the purpose of physical and mental needs. So, psychologically speaking, they are sensitive and their independent capabilities are very weak. And in their speech, their languages are very polite, indirect, modest and ve
46、iled.3.3 Social Factors On the one hand, the social position of women has been less secured than mens since class society came into being. Women were often regarded as an appendage of men. For instance, girls are taught to be gentle and cultivated from children. In order not to be looked down upon,
47、women do their best to use very standard language. On the other hand, mens and womens different social roles and fields of activities are the major containing factors in performance. In many countries men are rated socially by their occupation, income and other abilities while womens capacities are underrated or denied. It seems natural that womens duty is to be the wife and mother who supports and nurtures others. In getting along with people and being educated, more and more
