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Tocharian had a large number of demonstrative pronouns and determiners, whose basic element derives from the Proto-Indo-European genderdifferentiated pronoun *so (masc.), *seh2 (fem.), *tod (nt.) 'this, that'. This article is chiefly concerned with the diachronic evolution of the endings and forms of these demonstratives, paying particular attention to the inflection of the feminine and the subsequent evolution of the category of gender. I argue that the feminine plural paradigm of both Tocharian A and B can be derived directly from Proto-Indo-European, with further analogical adjustments within Tocharian B. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has led to conflicting notions of the representation of L1 and L2 grammatical gender systems in the mental lexicon: under the gender-integrated representation hypothesis the L1 and L2 gender nodes are shared, while these nodes are language-specific in the gender autonomous representation hypothesis. We address this debate, extending this research to L1 and L2 systems mismatched in number of gender values. In this study, Spanish-German bilinguals performed an L2 picture-naming task in which gender congruency (congruent, incongruent and neuter) between L1 and L2 nouns was manipulated. Latencies were shorter for gender-congruent than gender-incongruent nouns, and latencies for the German neuter nouns were also shorter than those for the masculine-feminine incongruent nouns. These gender congruency effects support the gender-integrated representation hypothesis and indicate a unique representation of the gender value not present in the L1 which interferes with the response significantly less than when the incongruency is between gender values present in both languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main argument of this article is that Linguistic Landscape (LL) scholarship has largely ignored - erased even - gender and sexuality, two important axes of power along which public spaces are structured, understood, negotiated and contested. In order to partly redress this academic oversight, this article investigates a small data set of banal sexed signs, mundane semiotic aggregates, which, precisely because of their fleeting and unassuming character, can easily be ignored, but nonetheless '(in)form our understandings and experiences of [gender,] sexuality and subjectivity' (Sullivan 2003: 190). In doing so, the article also argues for the importance of incorporating queer theory into the analytical apparatus of Linguistic Landscape research, because it provides us with a valuable theoretical lens through which to unveil the operations of power in relation to gender and sexuality (and other social categories) in public space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an overview of the young discipline of Queer Linguistics and discusses how it may be fruitfully applied in sociolinguistics as a contribution to critical heteronormativity research. After locating Queer Linguistics historically as a reaction to earlier essentialist approaches in the field of language and sexuality, its theoretical underpinnings are outlined. Queer Linguistics is not to be equalled with a 'gay and lesbian' approach to language. It rather transfers ideas from Queer Theory to linguistic research, building on the integration of work by poststructuralist scholars such as Foucault, Butler and Derrida in order to provide a critical investigation of the discursive formation of heteronormativity. Three potential criticisms against Queer Linguistics as a poststructuralist approach are addressed: its supposedly low relevance, issues of political agency, and its alleged lack of empirical applicability. Finally, methodological suggestions are made as to how sociolinguists may proceed from a Queer Linguistic point of view, focusing on ethnographically oriented studies of local identity negotiation, critical approaches to Discourse Analysis and Contrastive Sociolinguistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central issue in the interaction between language and gender in Morocco is urbanity. The written languages, namely Modern Standard Arabic and French, are the languages of institutions which have always been closely linked to urban areas, the typical loci of knowledge and power. Non-written languages, namely Berber and Moroccan colloquial Arabic, are represented as rural and indigenous because they are unlearned and are associated with rural areas, particularly Berber. Unlike the latter, Modern Standard Arabic and French are powerful because they are elitist, given their relation to education, government, and religion (Modern Standard Arabic). Berber and Moroccan Arabic are considered low or powerless because they lack the above-mentioned qualities and they are unimportant for social promotion. Language representations in Morocco are also important because they interact in significant ways with gender. Whereas Modern Standard Arabic and French are associated with public space, Berber and Moroccan Arabic are linked to private space, which happens to be the typical space of women; given the correlation between women, native tongues, and private space. However, with women's access to free education and to work in postcolonial Morocco, the notion of space changed, resulting in the recent mass feminization of the public sphere and women's access to urban languages, i.e., French and Modern Standard Arabic. As women have become more active in public life and the public sphere in general, they are considerably contributing to linguistic change and diversity and intensely instigating significant social changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article includes two parts: the first part is a review of the work which is being done in Valencia in the field of gender, sex(uality), and language. The land of Valencia (the old Kingdom of Valencia), once an independent political entity, is now part of today's constitutional Spain, and its history is a dynamic mixture of religious, cultural, and political traditions. In Valencia two languages and cultures coexist: Spanish (as the dominant language) and Catalan (or Valencian, in a situation of diglossia or asymmetric bilingualism). While both are Romance languages and have important linguistic similarities, Spanish and Catalan differ significantly as to their legal situation, political status, literary tradition, or degree of (in)formality. The second part of the article presents the discussions of a questionnaire on sex-related language (SL), held with two groups of undergraduates at the University of Valencia whose native languages were, respectively, Spanish and Catalan. Students discuss their ideas of what sex(uality) is; the texts or communicative situations in which they use SL; the sex-related words or expressions which they are (un)likely to use; how they are affected by SL (whether they are offended, embarrassed, etc.); their attitudes towards certain SL manifestations (dirty jokes, swearing, insults, or erotic literature); the connection between SL manifestations and gender; and so on. The results reveal, among other things, the overwhelming presence of SL in their (our) daily lives; the undergraduates' willingness to discuss sex-related matters; the virtual non-existence of impoliteness among close friends; the existence of slightly different culture-specific attitudes towards SL; etc. There is also a prominent subtext: sex(uality) is a highly sensitive area in language use and might well serve as a reliable index of concern for the feelings of others and/or a reliable testing ground for how close we judge our friendship/relationship with others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration is a phenomenon which has deeply upset the life of millions of Maghrebians, as a good many of their narratives show. The analysis of the immigrants' trajectories allows us to point out how language can become the means by which continuity, rupture, and building identities are expressed differently by men and women. This analysis also reveals that men's and women's complementary discourses are, at the same time, common and similar because they reflect their belonging to the same cultural background and the same social class. The principal corpus of the analysis is a documentary titled Mmoires d'immigrs. L'hritage maghrbin, produced by Yamina Benguigui in 1997, which is representative of one of these trajectories. Though audiovisual aids help to examine all the phenomena at the semiotic (gesture, posture, dress) and linguistic levels, in this article, we limit ourselves to a linguistic analysis of the complete narratives published by the producer in a book which came with the film. The analysis deals with both the immigrants' discourse and the discourse made about them by researchers and institutions. Its aim is to show the continuity, rupture, and building identities phenomena which characterize each group and to discuss, how, in front of the same event, specific strategies are adopted by men and women. In this way, we have related, on the one hand, gender, social class, and culture and, on the other hand, continuity, rupture, and building identities and the use of anaphora (we/them) and deictics (here/over there) where the referents are, by nature, dependent on the place where they speak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current feminist theories consider femininity and masculinity distinct and inherent properties (Chodorow 1978; Dinnerstein 1976; Gilligan 1982). Likewise, contemporary research into female and male linguistic behavior holds that women's and men's speech practices are "different but equal" (e.g. Tannen 1990). Women are found to be cooperative, employing addressee-oriented speech behavior, and men are found to be dominant, employing speaker-oriented speech behavior (e.g. Maltz and Borker 1982; Cameron 1985; Coates 1986; Tannen 1990; James and Drakich 1993; James and Clarke 1993; West 1995). Findings, however, do not always support this essentialist hypothesis (e.g. James and Drakich 1993; James and Clarke 1993; Uchida 1992; Ariel and Giora 1992a, 1992b). On the assumption that language usage reflects the speaker's point of view, we define femininity as adopting women's viewpoint and masculinity as adopting men's viewpoint. We propose a notion of Self and of other points of view in language. We argue that while men can fully adopt a Self, masculine point of view, being the dominant group, women, as a powerless group, may find it difficult to identify with their group's objectives. Traditional women, are, therefore, expected to adopt the point of view of the Other, projecting a masculine point of view: their language is expected to pattern like men's. Feminist awareness, however, may override social constraints and should, therefore, enable feminists to exhibit a genuine femininity, adopting a Self (feminine) point of view. Our findings indeed show that traditional women and men writers' speech behavior is similar. In contrast, the speech behavior of feminists and traditional female writers is different. These findings cannot be accounted for by an essentialist hypothesis, which predicts that differences should cluster around the gender dichotomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The job interview can be seen as a situation in which gender-specific communicative rules might have a severe social impact. Using four interviews drawn from a larger corpus of actual job interviews recorded in several Dutch companies, this study examines whether the speech patterns of the dominant, male, group prove to be the norm in mixed-gender job interviews. The variables of initiation/response behavior, interruption, and laughter on the part of each participant are analyzed Linguistic features that reflect dominance are examined in all four groups (interviewers and applicants of each sex) and positioned on a scale of conversational styles ranging from most dominant to nondominant. The interaction of gender and status yields a "sociolinguistic hierarchy" in which interviewers rank above applicants, and within each group, males rank above females. This offers support for the argument that a higher-status position does not result as much in a dominant speech style for women as it does for men. Moreover, a lower-status position does not lead as much to a subordinate speech style in men as it does for women. It is argued therefore that not only in everyday conversation, but also in formal speech, differences in sex-specific subcultural communicative rules as well as differences in the communication patterns of different-status persons play an important role in the organization of conversations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern standard Turkish exhibits only a few, peripheral gender distinctions in its structure. Given this paucity of categorical differentiation, and noting that relations between men and women in Turkey are more complex than some stereotypes would allow, it is suggested that the influence of gender upon Turkish language use might be a matter of degrees of difference. For this study, the author examined a transcription of the performance of one episode of a somewhat improvisational Turkish television family drama series. A qualitative analysis of the utterances of the middle-aged husband and wife characters revealed the following differences: the female speaker used terms of address and interjections more frequently than the male speaker, while the male speaker used the emphatic first person singular pronoun and religious expressions more frequently than the female speaker. The sentence-final particle yahu was used only by the male speaker. These initial findings offer a starting point for examining gender differences in real-life Turkish discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a lack of gender-based distinctions in the structure of Igbo, a Kwa (Niger-Congo) language of southeastern Nigeria, sex differences in language use are expected These are reflected in the concept "to talk like a woman," which is characterized by loquacity as well as deference to men, in contrast to men's expected taciturnity punctuated by verbal boldness. This study reports a pilot analysis of discourse in two mixed-gender groups: coworkers in a grocery and professional couples connected as friends and neighbors. While the women in the study did more frequently use cooperative strategies, such as explanations and requests, than the men did (52% & 48% respectively), they also used more confrontational strategies, such as criticism and accusation, than the men (55% and 45%, respectively). However, men exercised firm control over topic maintenance, shift, and interruptions with 62 percent of successful control instances, while all unsuccessful control attempts were initiated by women. The author argues that, although these apparent differences in conversational strategy accord in general with the hierarchical nature of Igbo male--female relationships and the consequent imbalance of power, it may be that both sets of strategies are intended to complementarily contribute toward making conversation cooperative. Further fieldwork will test both this hypothesis and the representativeness of the pilot study results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we test the widely reported finding that women use more standard and fewer nonstandard forms than men in relation to bilingual code-switched data. First we review the principal explanations that have been offered for this pattern within monolingual data sets, concluding that the sex of the speaker is not in itself determinant, but that numerous other factors that tie in with gender roles must be considered We then review a few studies of code-switching where gender differences are apparent and present the results of a small-scale study of gender differences in code-switching in Punjabi and Greek-Cypriot communities in Britain. Although code-switching is generally considered a nonstandard form of speech, there is no consistent pattern of sex differentiation emerging from the bilingual data. This reinforces our contention that further factors, including the role of nonstandard varieties in particular subgroups and types of discourse, need to be considered in preference to blanket explanations based on gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study of female/male beggars who frequent the streets of Thessaloniki investigates the extent to which gender display, in terms of verbal/nonverbal strategies, prevails over the community of practice that female and male panhandlers share or whether the practice erases any traces of gender, rendering them "just beggars." The theoretical framework utilised is that of `face" combined with ethnomethodological conversation analysis. Detailed analysis of more than 40 episodes of panhandling points to a split as regards the verbal/nonverbal aspect of the event, with men being predominantly nonverbal but women combining both kinds of communication. Further, the two genders rely on different verbal, paralinguistic, kinesic, and proxemic behavior to communicate their pleas. No single practice is sufficient to collapse the two genders into one androgynous body, although women and men share a few superordinate strategies and occasionally cross gender boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explore the use of Amsterdam vernacular by women and men and to examine what extent the speech differences coincide with, or are influenced by the unequal functions and positions of women and men in society. A summary is presented on the analysis of the main variables of the sociolinguistic study. This design was used to assess the impact of sex relative to actually having children and the women being employed.

The role of sex in language shift has been a central question in many sociolinguistic studies. Discernible differences has been seen in the linguistic behavior of men and women and a number of different views exist on the subject. This article seeks to determine whether women are innovators in the shift to a second language. By conducting a case study of Reindeer Sámi men and women, the methodology is discussed of the measurement and analysis of differences in the language of choice. The differentiation between men and women in this reindeer-herding Sámi community is investigated on how it fits in with arguments that have been presented on differences in linguistic behavior between the sexes.

The discussion about language and sex, specifically women's language and linguistic oppression, has been confused by the imprecise use of the word language. It has taken to mean at least three different things in the debate about women's language and artistic oppression. This article discusses the three different conceptions of language and their relation to language and sex under the following headings: (1)'Shobboleth'; (2) 'The bird cage'; and (3) 'Did your mother served at the palace?'.

"How do we understand and explain the causes of sex difference in language and language use?" This is one of the most difficult but challenging questions at the start of the 1990s. This article is concerned with the meaning of sex differences in language use. Reference is made in particular to recent work on the English tag question. A discussion is given on studies which address an issue of interpretation which is currently a matter for some debate among language and sex researchers.

This article examines the distinction between language use and language structure that would detect any sign of sexism in the gender system in Poland. The Polish gender system is said to be grammatical and various authors differ in the importance they attach to the fact that in the case of animate and especially human, nouns, the Polish gender system is natural, so that roughly speaking masculine nouns refer to males and feminine nouns denote females.

One of the surprising results of a study of the ethnic and language attitudes of bilingual children conducted by the author was that very young boys were shown to be less ethnocentric than girls of the same age. The response of the older children in the sample did not vary according to sex; both males and females exhibited in-group preferences. The outcome of the study, which took place among the Franco-Ontarian population of Welland, Ontario, a town on the Niagara Peninsula, suggests that there are sex differences in the development of children's ethnic and language attitudes. This present research grew out of an attempt to interpret this finding. This in turn, has led to a number of speculations on the sex variable in studies of ethnic and language attitudes. Among the topics discussed are sex differences in the attitudes of both children and adults, the relationship between adults' attitudes and those of children, and the relationship of sex-role identification to attitude formation in children. Although this paper ultimately raises more questions than it answers, it suggests a direction for research to further our understanding of how attitude development in children relates to attitude differences between men and women.

Sex and politeness are common factors investigated in sociolinguistic research. Most research on these aspects has been done on native populations although these factors also appear as foci in current second-language textbooks. An examination of sexual variation in language use, the use of politeness and second-language acquisition will show there has been relatively little experimental evidence to support such common views as, for example, women are more polite than men. This article was designed to test the hypotheses that women use language more deferentially than men, that both men and women would tend to be more deferent to the opposite sex and that non-native speakers of English differ in their use of deference from native speakers. However, the principal hypothesis, that the situation would influence the degree of deference used, was supported. It appears that sex of speaker cannot be considered a relevant variable in the use of deference. Sex of the addressee, however, can. The type of speaker, whether native or non-native speaker of English, was not found to influence the use of deference. So deference or politeness need not be taught as part of a second-language curriculum.

This article attempts to elicit the perceptions of a cross sample of women and men to stereotypic visuals so as to determine the extent to which there would be language differences based on sex, ethnicity and education. Studies in phonology reveal that physiological differences between and within racial and ethnic groups generally are not significant to any degree that can account for observed phonological differences. That other variables are at play in provoking or catalyzing observable differences is not to be denied, but it is important to distinguish between what in fact exists as a difference and what researchers have perceived to be a difference. Significant work acknowledges that most behavioral sex differences are learned, not biological. Preschool socialization in accepted behavior modes and at the junior high level at which girls learn to excel in verbal skills and boys in visual-spatial skills have been suggested as critical points in the learned perceptions of females and males. The extent to which such behavior is learned language rather than learned perception has been fully investigated. Some studies suggest that male/female differences result from different learned patterns of perception as well as behavior.

This article analyzes the phonological variation in the English of Mexican-American adolescents. The phonological variables investigated had variants which could be defined as of Spanish or non-formal Afro-American origin or of middle-class Anglo/Afro-American origin. Females in general showed a higher proportion of the middle-class variants, but in some, also a significantly higher usage of Spanish-influenced variants. In those instances where males and females have one variant in common, the difference in usage of the non-common variants is significant. While many of the variants used more frequently by the females are those used by the surrounding Afro-American/Anglo middle-class, in two cases the variants are probably a result of the pressure of Spanish on the phonological system. Not only do significant differences in female and make usage emerge, correlations with occupational desire may also be noted and with one exception, where those correlations are present they are the variants used significantly more often by females. It cannot be concluded, however, that females have higher levels of occupational aspiration than males. What can be concluded is that, even in a second language, women are using forms used by middle-class native speakers more frequently than are men.

This article examines the orientation of sociolinguistic studies which have looked at sex-related language differences and presents data from a study of Afro-American population in South Carolina. In addition to the general problem of failing to find convincing explanations for the paradoxical behavior of women speakers, most of the studies exhibit three serious methodological problems. The most serious is that of methods used to assign women to particular social classes. Typically, occupation is the measure mostly used as a major index of social class, the family is arbitrarily taken to be the primary social unit. Related to the problem of social stratification is the seriousness with which sex is treated as a variable. Most studies have not taken care to match speakers for age and sex, as well as for social class. A final problem has been the general lack of discussion about community norms for language use. Meanwhile, for the rural Afro-American population in South Carolina, the use of standard-prestige features was innovative behavior. The language variety spoken by Afro-Americans has been variously called Gullah, Geechee or Sea Island Creole. It has developed historically from a pidgin based on both English and West African languages.

This article examines language usage differentials between male and female Mexican-American college students in Austin, Texas and explores some of the variables that might be relevant in explaining differential language retentiveness within the subpopulation. The results of the factor analysis performed show that intergenerational differences are far more potent in determining language usage within the population studies than the sociocultural context of the speech situation or family versus non-family domain distinctions. The sex differentials in usage patterns to described obtain after the effects of father's educational attainment are accounted for. The results indicate that there are more divergences than similarities. Non-differential Spanish/English claiming occurs only with grandparents, within the educational domain and in relation to mass media contact. Both sexes claim mostly Spanish when interacting with their grandparents, which is largely explained by the lack of English proficiency among the first generation interlocutors. Both Spanish and English are claimed with equal frequency in projected usage with one's own family, whereas mostly and only English prevail in the academic and organizational domains and in mass media contact.

This article deals with the research on women's sociology of language in the U.S. It is a puzzling fact about small societies that sex is a highly frequent criterion for role division. In some societies women weave, in others, men. One explanation that has been suggested is that these assignments to ascribed statuses are matters of power, with women routinely being assigned the less-valued statuses. Another explanation is that some roles require long socialization or require strong identification with a group. Role ascription removes the need to recruit and train people explicitly into socially-needed statuses. A major theme in the sociology of language is what makes people talk like each other. If people are separated by space or segregation, divergence takes place. Even communication frequency is inadequate to explain speech similarity. Social cohesion and identification appear to be necessary for speech similarity to arise or be maintained. Speech similarity is a sensitive index of social identification. The language of people who live together but differ in sex is an excellent laboratory for the study of speech diversification. The conjugal relationship is a prime case for the sharing of social relationships.

This article deals with the issue of gender and language. In Japan, women's language was studied by Japanese philologists before the surge of research on the topic began in the 1970s. Women's languages in Japan used to be special languages used by court ladies, nuns and courtesans in their secluded worlds and were studied in these contexts through historical written documents such as diaries. Contemporary Japanese women's language, which has borrowed a large amount of vocabulary from these earlier special languages, continues the image of high culture carried by educated women in traditional worlds. One common feature of all academic work is the use of some sort of theory or theories to look at an issue. This academic inclination is useful in making the issue focused and in producing coherent and integrated results. There is an enormous number of phenomena related to gender and language that have not yet been integrated into the current approaches and still more that have not even been described. One can begin to address issues of language and gender from an international perspective only when one have become more accustomed to viewing such phenomena from perspectives as yet unfamiliar.