Communication, Gender and Formality: A Study of Request Forms Used by Undergraduate Students in Ghana

Abstract

The question of sex difference in communication has been a growth industry as scholars have attempted to claim and to counter claim that there are or are not important differences in the ways in which males and females communicate. In this work, an attempt is made to find out if male and female students make requests differently. The study considered the sentence types used by males and females, the levels of formality in request making, the variety of English used, and the politeness of the requests made. Using the Speech Act Theory of Austin and Searle, and the Convergence theory in Gender as a theoretical base, an argument is made that females and males make requests differently. A major finding was that the interrogative was the most commonly used sentence type in making requests especially by females; the males used imperatives more often than the females. In instances where declaratives were used, it was observed that males used simple declarative sentences whereas the females used complex declarative sentences.