Презентация "Gender in context" – проект, доклад

GENDER IN CONTEXT: MEN'S AND WOMEN'S WRITTEN DISCOURSE

By Meschankina Irina Gymnasium № 10

(ON THE BASIS OF COMMENTS TO BBC NEWS)

Subject Matter

In the paper we examine speech features specific to men and women on lexical and syntactic sublayers of written discourse

Despite the interest of modern linguistics to gender differences the topic is still not well covered. Quite disconnected studies and the lack of materials sometimes do not allow making precise, definite conclusions and often lead to the fact that on one and the same issue there may be conflicting data. Therefore, the existing theories still need to be confirmed and clarified, taking the peculiarities of national mentality into account.

The paper studies peculiarities of male and female speech on the basis of the discourse of the comments to BBC News

Novelty and originality of the material presented.

The research is conducted on the basis of comments to various events in the popular social network Facebook, which has an indisputable advantage - we studied the features of written discourse not within a certain region of the UK, but within the whole country, which helped us to make more accurate test results in clarification of the existing judgments of male and female speech behavior.

Theoretical significance

The identification of the features of speech of men and women complements and refines the results of the research in the field of gender linguistics and discourse in general and breaks some popular stereotypes.

Scientific results and conclusions

Distinctions in communicative strategies

! Howewer, contrary to the popular belief that women's speech is much more emotional than that of men, it was found that emotionality of both genders is almost the same.

Men’s lexical layer

Women’s lexical layer

The syntactic layer

During the research one of popular stereotypes was disproved. ! Actually, contrary to a popular belief men talk more than women. The average size of the male comment is 19.7 words or 87 characters, while female 15, 8 words or 71, 4 characters. (However, men’s sentences are shorter, because men are more categorical in their judgments).

Women tend to use various modal structures and rhetorical questions, expressing indirect motivation: «Instead of using technology on top of technology, why not sit down and have an honest chat with your kids? Where is the trust within the family nowadays? Honestly, what are those parents afraid of? If you don't know what your kids have been up to, it's not an app that is going to solve parenting/family issues. Let's be honest». In the example above, we can trace typical female manner of speaking softly, without giving direct orders and advice, which, however, should not be regarded as submission. You can also note the presence of uncharacteristic of men statements in the form of questions: «You need an app for that? I just call it Parenting »; «Are we not able to leave the EU and still trade fairly? We do with other countries».

Male language much more focused on the status. Often in conversation men unconsciously provoke companions by rhetorical questions and imperative mood. They do not do so because of the natural anger, but in order to bring the interlocutor to a verbal duel and find out who is the best: «Kids Mode? Web Browsers set to Safe? Don't let kids have a Smart Phone (there are other phones available)». Actually, all men conversations somehow revolve around the competition and winning, strengths and weaknesses. Also in men's discourse, the frequent lack of correspondence between punctuation and emotional tension of speech was observed: "Why are none of the major parties willing to do / say anything about tax avoidance."; "French and Italian food always, any time."; "Good job".

All the above-mentioned signs and distinctions were observed by us in the mixed group. However we can't exclude that in the same-sex groups — only male or only female, the commentators would behave differently as their behavior in the mixed and restricted groups may differ.

Practical significance

The results of the research can be used in works on the effectiveness of verbal communication. This research may be of some interest for psychologists and marketers in order for them to be aware of how to communicate with male and female clients, and how to advertise and distribute a variety of goods and services to different audience. Also, this work could be useful for other researchers and provide support to the theoretical framework of the works specializing in gender linguistics.

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