Language and Gender

The most obvious function of language is probably to communicate information. However, language also can contribute to at least two other equally important. As stated by Sims (2004), language also can function to establish and maintain social relationships, and to express and create the social identity of the speaker. Sociolinguists, as it is said by Speer (2005:5), view that variations in patterns of language use are not random but are conditioned by social identity variables such as a person’s gender or class, and the situation or context in which they find themselves.

Among those social variables, gender is a term that refers to the way man and woman interact in their daily life. This behavior is constructed by the social values they have. The general usage of the term gender began in the late 1960s and 1970s, This term is used to help the sociolinguists in distinguishing the aspects of life that were more easily attributed or understood to be of social rather than biological origin (Unger and Crawford, as cited in Speer, 2005).

According to Eckert (2003), gender is one of major topics in Sociolinguistics that discusses about the connection between the structures, vocabularies, and ways of using particular languages and the social roles of the men and women who speak these languages. Through language, gender is often tried to be represented.

The discussion about gender linguistics is then developed and has increased into a level in which the sociolinguists found that the relationship between gender identity and language can be constructed through local communities of practice. Most feminists, said in Speer (2005), agreed that there are sex differences in language, both in terms of the way men and women are represented in the language (the form of language) and the way they use language (the function of language).

Understanding gender should be accompanied by understanding sex due to the fact that these two terms are still often being unclearly understood. Eckert (2003) said that sex is a biological categorization based primarily on reproductive potential, whereas gender is the social elaboration of biological sex. Gender is seen as a social construction, as the means by which society jointly accomplishes the differentiation that constitutes the gender order. Gender is also something we cannot avoid; it is part of the way in which societies are ordered around us, with each society doing that ordering differently (Wardhaugh: 2006).

In Sociolinguistics, the variation of speech can happen because of gender.  Unlike the case of sex differences that result the different language style in terms of verbal ability and voice, the existence of gender identity shown through language, as it is said by Eckert (2002:54), is seen as the result of socialization, where people internalize socially and culturally prescribed gender roles, which is also consistent with the ideas about social learning.

In conclusion, language and gender are two dimensions that are correlated each other. Through language, people can show gender as their social identity. The way people use their language in their daily life should be done by considering the social values about men and women’s behavior constructed in the society. 

Further Readings: 

Eckert, Penelope and Ginet, Sally McConnell. 2003. Language and Gender. Cambridge:  Cambridge University.

Sims, Andrea. 2004. Language and Gender. http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/language_gender.html (accessed on March 14, 2012) 

Speer, Susan A. 2005. Gender Talk: Feminism, Discourse and Conversation Analysis. New York: Routledge Inc. 

Wardhaugh, Ronald. 2006. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. London: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.