Do men and women speak a different language?

It has long been said that men are from mars, and women are from Venus, that men and women speak different languages to each other, but is there any truth to this claim?

We possess an amazing ability enabling us to completely change our language when surrounded with different company and when in different social situations. It is rare to find a man using the same lexis when speaking to another man, as when they are speaking to a woman. When we speak or tell a story, we are creating our own world in which the events in our story occur. Men and women actively create different worlds through their stories, when a male is speaking to another male they will often create a male only world; the main focus of the story being to present themselves as winners, strong and independent, they will get what they want and not be pushed around. But when telling a story to a woman the world created will be different, they will try and appear masculine, protective and slightly superior.

Coates did in depth research into gender specific language, a major difference she found between men and women was women were much more likely to try and rank themselves in the middle class rather than the working class through their language unlike men, which shows status consciousness is more pronounced among women than men. It is common when a male is speaking to a female he will present himself as masculine and dominant, whereas women will commonly take on a role of needing looking after and protection through their language, therefore falling into the male female roles of the past without realizing.

Lakoff also did a lot of research into gender specific language. And found that it is much more common to over tell a story, or over explain themselves due to social insecurity.  Often when speaking to women, men will settle into the role of speaking less and the woman will usually dominate the conversation.

There are fundamental differences between male and female language, which thanks to research from the likes of Lakoff and Coates, we are able to understand. For example women are much more likely to use Question Tags than men are. Lakoff describes the tag-question as 'a declarative statement without the assumption that the statement is to be believed by the addressee: one has an out, as with questions. The tag gives the addressee leeway, not forcing him to go along with the views of the speaker.' This way of speaking demonstrates the speaker's insecurities, not able to put out their opinion as a statement, because of the risk of it being questioned. Whereas if men were to give their opinion on something there would be no hedging or tag-questions it would be as they appear to be more secure with their opinions.

So maybe it is true, maybe men are from Mars and women are from Venus and we are in fact speaking completely different languages, most of the research done on gender specific language certainly would suggest that.

 

By Ysabel Cook