Gender and Olds’ Advice in Written Signs: A Pragmatic Study

Abstract

Giving advice refers to an attempt by the speaker to express what the addressee should do in a particular situation or what is good for him/her. It is also a feature of making social relations and communications move smoothly and become stronger. The current study aims to investigate the strategies of the speech act of advice by old females and males for the younger generation in written signs. Comparison is made between old females and males regarding their pragmatic use of advice and the way they are manifested in expressing gender identity differences. The sample of the study consists of (30) written signs of advice divided equally between the two gender groups. Hinkel’s (1997) classification of the strategies for perceiving the speech act of advice is adopted to code the data of the current study. The results show that females’ advice-giving strategies are more varied than males although the two gender groups rely heavily on one basic strategy. Besides, age, as another social variable, appears to have a major role in shaping the strategy used by old people in giving advice and that gender identity is best reflected in lexical choices of emotional words, especially by females.