Language and Gender

Abstract

The relationship between gender and language has been studied with main focus on differences between the language of male and female from different angles with different methodologies. The research findings lay different emphasis on the differences, but there are some problems in the researches. This paper will review the previous researches into gender differences, then point out the problems existing in methodology and research findings, and finally propose that researchers should pay more attention to the similarities between the languages of both genders, the similarities play the same important part as well as differences. As a point of departure, Gender and Language defines gender along two key dimensions. First, gender is a key element of social relationships often loosely linked to perceived differences between the genders. Gender relations are encoded in linguistic and symbolic representations, normative concepts, social practices, institutions and social identities. Second, gender is a primary arena for articulating power, intersecting in complex ways with other axes of inequality, like class, race, and. Gender is understood as multi-faceted, always changing, and often contested: the editors welcome discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of competing definitions of gender and of new analytical perspectives.In methodological terms, there is no single approach that could be said to ’hold the field’. As research in this area can be more usefully to be divided into three main areas of study: first, there is a broad and sustained interest in the varieties of speech associated with a particular second, there is a related interested in the social norms and conventions that produce gendered language use associated with a particular gender is sometimes called a and third, there are studies that focus on the contextually specific and locally situated ways in which gender is constructed.