Effects of Societal Gender Roles on Male and Female Language Use and Communication

Abstract

There are countless differences between males and females from the way they look, voice pitch, muscle tone, etc. Some would argue that the variations between men and women are solely due to genetics, but there are distinctions that are not influenced by genetics. One such distinction is the imbalance of language use among males and females. This paper aims to explore the research of multiple linguistic variables specific to men and to women while also revealing how societal expectations influence language differences. The topics to be address are word choice variation, conversational styles, hypercorrect English, tag questions, disclaimers, and the entrapment of gender roles. Also, to determine if the research holds up, I included my own research gathered from a three question survey. The paper concludes with a study that exposes the unfortunate consequences of attempting to break away from gender roles and why they continue to thrive in modern society.

Keywords: linguistics, tag questions, disclaimers, gender roles, expletive, hypercorrect English, conversation style, word choice, miscommunication, and audience