Gossip: Notes on women's oral culture

Abstract

Little is known about language use in all-female groups. In this paper an approach to the study of women's oral culture is proposed, based on the researcher's own participation in a female speech community and her knowledge of its norms. Women's gossip is an aspect of female language use, distinguished from more general concepts of women's speech style and of gossip. Gossip is described here in terms of its sociolinguistic features, with an emphasis on its functions which form the basis for the division of gossip into four categories: house-talk, scandal, bitching and chatting.